4. To the Reasons from the Authorities

371. This also which I have proved above [nn.352-370] seems to be the express intention of Aristotle in On the Soul [3.8.431b21-23] where, maintaining that the soul is “in some way everything,” he expounds himself by as it were proving that the soul is “sensible things through the senses and knowable things through science.”

372. Others expound this statement of the Philosopher by saying that Aristotle is not speaking uniformly in this case and that, because about the senses he means it as to impressed species and about the intellect as to the habit of science.

373. This exposition [n.372] does not seem to be to the intention of the Philosopher because, just as the ancients posited the soul to be everything really in order that it might know everything, so does the Philosopher posit that it is everything not really, but by a certain likeness [n.121]. Now if it were sensibles through the senses because of the impressed [sensible] species or likenesses, and were intelligibles through the intellect, then either this would be because of the science that is in the intellect, and in this way the soul would not be knowables by a likeness, for science in itself (setting aside the species representing the object) is not a likeness of the intelligible; or it would be because of something else representing the intelligible object, and then the intellect would not be intelligibles by the intelligible species but the soul would be through phantasms; for nothing would be there representing the intelligible save the phantasm alone, according to this sort of position.

374. Again Aristotle in Physics [8.4.255a33-5b5], and in com.30 according to the Commentator, posits that by acquired science the intellect is reduced from essential potency to accidental potency. I ask what does he understand by ‘science’? Not a habit following the act, because when the intellect performed the act it was not in essential potency. Therefore, a form following the act; therefore, an intelligible species. Proof: both because a phantasm does not reduce the intellect to accidental potency, and because then all science that is said to be a habit of the quiddity of the first object [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 9 q.4; Scotus, Ord. Prol. n.145] would be in a phantasm; therefore every habit about the same thing would be there, because according to the Philosopher [Posterior Analytics, 2.3.90b20-21] intellect and science are the same habit.

375. More expressly to this effect is the intention of Augustine. I prove this as follows: for nothing has a nature sufficient to generate actual knowledge unless it have an object naturally prior to the act, an object that is present to it in itself or in something that represents it. But, if one denies intelligible species, the whole intellective part does not have an object present to it before the act of understanding; and so nothing in the intellective part will be sufficiently a memory with respect to such intellection. Augustine denies this in On the Trinity 12.4 n.4 and 15.10 n.17

376. If you reply that the memory is in the intellective part properly taken, by the fact the intellect has come to be in first act of understanding, and thus is it active with respect to second act of understanding, such that, possessing a confused first knowledge. it is active in respect of a second distinct knowledge - this is against him [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.58 q.2, a.59 q.2; also Scotus, Ord. I d.2 nn.273-280] who thinks this opinion and against Augustine. Against him who thinks this because he posits [Henry, Quodlibet 5 q.25; cf. infra n.450] that the universal as it is in the phantasm is there as if in the memory; but as moving to an act of understanding it is present there as if in the intelligence.     Therefore , by that opinion, to be sure, no act of understanding is an act of memory but of the intelligence [cf. Scotus, Ord. I d.2 nn.290-291]. This appears from Augustine On the Trinity 15 ch.21 n.40, “those who attribute to intelligence everything that is thought etc     .”

377. This point is likewise proved by reason, because then: Either the act by which the memory is in first act will be the same as the act of intelligence, and then the same thing will be the idea of generating itself. Or it will be different from it, and then it will either be simultaneous with the act of intelligence (and then two acts are simultaneous), or it will not be simultaneous, and then memory will formally generate when it will not exist. For memory formally exists by that which, for you [n.376; cf. Scotus, Ord. I d.2 n.299], does not exist when the second act is generated.

378. If you also say [Henry, Quodlibet 5 q.25] that memory exists through the habit of science, this does not stand along with the opinion, because it says that by the habit the object is only present in a phantasm, and so someone who has the habit must have recourse to a phantasm in order actually to understand. Therefore, the object is not present precisely through a habit but through a phantasm, which is not in the intellective part. And this will be plainer in the response to the authorities of Augustine [nn.345, 393397], where he posits science to be in the memory and not a species impressed on the intellect, as is argued [by Henry, n.345] from his words.a

a.a [Several interpolated texts] But note first that he (Scotus) speaks differently in the Parisian Reportationes [Rep. IA d.3 nn.108-114] in the body of the question. For he speaks as follows:
     To the question then I say that it is necessary to posit in the intellect, as it has the idea of memory, an intelligible species representing the universal prior to an act of understanding naturally. And the necessity for this is double: one from the condition per se of the object, which is ‘universality’, and which, as the per se idea of the object, always precedes the act, which act would not be unless a species were impressed on the intellect; the other is the condition and dignity of the superior power, so that it not be cheapened [cf. n.370] (but how it would be cheapened is stated in the present question; cf. supra nn.368-369).
     As to evidence, then, for the question, one needs to know that memory, or the intellect under the idea of memory, can be taken in three ways. In one way as it is preservative of past species as they are past [supra n.331], and in this way does the Philosopher speak in On Memory [1.449b24-25, 451a14-17]. In another way as it is preservative of species representing objects in themselves, whether really or not; and in this way are we speaking here [cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.84: ‘whether memory has distinct intelligible species’; cf. supra n.333;] and I say that it does [sc. have distinct intelligible species], both because of universality and because of the dignity of the power. In a third way as memory has a principle of eliciting some actual knowledge (which however does not remain without a second act, in the way Avicenna [On the Soul p.3 ch.6; cf. supra n.331] posited a species in our intellect; and this will be spoken of in the next question [Rep. IA d.3 n.126; cf. infra n.401]). The things I proved above [Rep. IA d.3 nn.95-107; supra nn.352-369] seem to be the Philosopher’s intention in On the Soul 3, where he says that the soul is in some way all intelligibles through the intellect, as it is all sensibles through the senses [cf. supra n.371] - which cannot be meant ‘through a habit’, for a habit is not a likeness representative of an object, because a habit follows an act.
     And there is a confirmation of this, because the habit of science - through which the intellect is reduced from essential potency to accidental potency in respect of the acts of which the Philosopher speaks in On the Soul 2 and Physics 8 [cf. infra n.396] - necessarily precedes the act of understanding. Now the science that is a habit follows an act, because it is generated from acts; hence this science, which reduces the intellect from essential potency to accidental potency, is a species that is truly a habit, because it is of a nature to be rooted and fixed in the intellect. But yet not every habit is a species, because a habit actually rooted and fixed is not the species that precedes an act and that is of a nature to be rooted and fixed, because this is fixed afterwards by an act [cf. supra n.374, infra. n.396].
     Again, according to them [Henry of Ghent], it does not seem that any habit is to be posited in our intellect but only in the imaginative power [supra n.378], because with whatever mode of being the object in a power accords, with that same mode of being does everything virtually contained in the object accord. Therefore, if a universal object is, through its representative, not in the intellect but in the imaginative power, everything that must and can be explained about that power will be in the same imaginative power. And so there will only be an imaginative power (especially if phantasms combine in ordered fashion), which explains all the truths knowable about the object. And every science will be in imagination and will be a perfection of it, and will not be a perfection of the intellect (against the Philosopher). And so, since the species in imagination virtually contains the act of the intellect, therefore will the act be in imagination [cf. infra n.397].
     Again, Augustine in On the Trinity 12 and 15 [supra n.375] is investigating the Trinity, where he says that it is impossible to take from our soul or in our mind an image of the Trinity save by the fact that something is in the memory which something else is expressed from. I then argue as follows: if in the mind there is something that is parent of a word, it is necessary that this be through something intrinsic to or existing in memory. But there is no parent of a word save the memory possessing within itself an object present to the mind; otherwise it will not be a parent. Therefore, since the object is not quidditatively or really in memory, and since it is not a phantasm, the memory will necessarily through the intelligible species be a parent.