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I. Six Opinions of Others are Expounded and Rejected
A. About the First Opinion
1. Exposition of the Opinion
407. In this question there is an opinion [Peter Olivi, Sent. II q.58] which attributes to the soul all activity in respect of intellection, and it is imputed to Augustine, who says in Literal Commentary On Genesis 12.16 n.32-33, “Because the image of the body is in the spirit, which is more outstanding than the body, therefore is the image of the body more outstanding in the spirit than the body itself is in its own substance;” and there follows [ch.29], “Nor should one think that the body does something in the spirit, as if the spirit be subject, like matter, to the action of the body. For the thing that acts is in every way more outstanding than the thing about which it acts, and in no way is the body more outstanding than the spirit; rather the spirit is more outstanding than the body. So although the image begins to be in the spirit, yet it is not the body that makes that same image in the spirit, but the spirit makes it in itself with marvelous quickness;” and there follows, “for the image, as soon as it is seen by the eyes, is formed in the spirit of the seer without alteration.”
408. Again, On the Trinity 10.5 n.7, “The soul turns over and seizes images of bodies made in itself and by itself; for it gives them, in forming them, something of its own substance; and it keeps in itself something free, whereby it may judge of such species; and this is the mind, that is, rational intelligence, which is preserved so that it may judge; for the parts of the soul that are informed with likenesses of the body we feel we have in common even with the beasts.” Therefore, the soul itself forms in itself images of things known, as this cited authority says even more expressly.
409. Argument on behalf of this opinion is made with reasons as follows: An effect does not exceed its cause in perfection; “every living thing is better than a nonliving thing,” according to Augustine City of God [9.6, 11.16, 7.3 n.1]; therefore a living operation can only come from a living or live principle of action. These operations of thinking are living operations; therefore, they are from the soul itself as from the reason for acting.
410. Again the more perfect a form is the more actual and consequently the more active it is, because to be active belongs to something insofar as it is in act; but the intellective soul is, among all forms, the most actual; therefore it is most active; therefore it has the power by itself alone for its own operation, since more imperfect forms have power for this, as is plain of the forms of the elements and of certain mixed bodies.48
411. Again, third, the Philosopher in Ethics 1 [1.1.1094a3-6] and Metaphysics 9[9.8.1050a21-b1] and Physics 3 [3.3.202a22-24], distinguishes between acting and making, and he maintains that action properly speaking abides in the agent, as he illustrates about speculation there [Metaphysics 9]. Intellection, 
therefore , is properly an operation that abides in the agent; but it abides in the intellective part, therefore it will come from that part as from its agent.
412. Fourth, and it is the same, because action properly speaking, and as it is distinguished from making, denominates the agent; but ‘to understand’ denominates man as to his intellective part, therefore etc 
. [sc. therefore man’s intellective part or intellect is the agent of the action of understanding].
2. Rejection of the Opinion
413. Against this opinion:
That it is not the opinion of Augustine appears from the last chapter of On the Trinity 9.12 n.18 (or chapter 30 of the smaller version): “It must be clearly held that everything we know co-generates in us knowledge of itself; for knowledge is born of both, namely of the knower and the known etc .”a
Again, ibid. 11.2 n.3, “Vision is generated from the seeable and the seer etc .”
Again, ibid. 15.10 n.9 (as was said before [n.393]), “The knowledge formed by the thing that we know is a word.” Therefore , he intends to attribute some causality to the object.
a.a [Interpolated text]. [Augustine cont.] “Therefore, when the mind knows itself it is the sole parent of its own knowledge, for it is both known and knower. And it was knowable to itself even before it knew itself, but knowledge of itself was not in it when it did not know itself.”
414. There is an argument by reason in favor of this, becausea when two causes prior to the thing itself, namely the efficient cause and the matter, are perfect in themselves and proximate and not impeded, the effect follows or can follow. Therefore if the soul is the active total cause of generated knowledge, and if it is the disposed matter, or receptive subject, with respect to the same knowledge, and if it is always actually present to itself, then, since it is a natural cause, there will always be in it every actual intellection of which it is itself the cause - of which, moreover, it is by itself the cause; or at least there will be an intellection that it most strongly has the power for.b
a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] there are only four kinds of per se causes, as appears in Physics 2.3.194b23-5a3 and Metaphysics 5.2 1013a24-b4. So, when they exist perfect in themselves and are not impeded and are sufficiently close by, the effect comes from them if they are natural causes, or it will be possible for it to come from them if any of the causes is a freely acting cause. And because a form in some way has being through being produced, and the end follows the production in being of the thing (or if it precedes, this is insofar as it moves the efficient cause to act), therefore the major follows [sc. about the soul as active total cause, n.414].
b.b [Text canceled by Scotus] For the imperfection of a second cause in itself cannot be posited if the hypothesis is retained [sc. that the soul is active total cause], nor can non-proximity be posited, nor can impediment, because nothing would seem to be an impediment. And to take flight to a cause ‘sine qua non’ and to say that it is required for this, that knowledge be generated, this is to say that all per se causes are not sufficient causes, but that something else is required on which the thing to be caused essentially depends. So there will not only be four kinds of causes but more, or something will essentially depend on something that is not the cause of it. [Text interpolated in this canceled text] Again, all causes besides the said four are accidental to the thing; therefore, the thing does not simply depend on them, either in being or in becoming. The antecedent is expressly stated by the Commentator Physics 2 com.30-31; again, he proves that of anything whatever there are only four causes, or some of the four, in Physics 2 com. 67-70 through a sufficiency of demonstration.
415. By this are disproved the diverse ways that those, who posit this opinion [n.407], have of maintaining it. For if there be posited an object necessary in idea of sine qua non cause, or in idea of term or of stimulant [e.g. Olivi, ibid. q.58, 72] - if there not be given it some per se causality (since the soul is always perfect in itself and proximate to what it acts on) and if any new impediment not be removed - how will be preserved the fact that it [the object] is necessarily required save by positing five kinds of causes?
416. Specifically, too, the point about ‘stimulating’ does not seem valid. For I ask what it is ‘to stimulate’? If it is to cause something in the intellective power, then the object causes something before the intellective power of itself acts. Therefore, the intellective power is not the total active first cause in respect of anything caused in it, but the object is as well. If ‘to stimulate’ not be to cause something in the intellective power, then the intellective power is not differently disposed in itself after the stimulation than it was before, and so it is not more stimulated now than it was before.
417. This argument [n.414] would, however, work in like manner, as it seems, against action of the will. Hence response can be given that when forms have an essential order as they are received, either in the same nature or in the same power (and this whether by the same agent or by another), and given also that neither be the reason for receiving the other - never can the second be induced by the agent in the receptive subject of it unless the first has been induced already. An example about volition and delight: when positing that these are diverse really, never is the second received unless the first is received already; since however the second has a natural active cause [sc. the object] present to it before there is volition, in these sorts of ordered things is the major premise [n.414 init.] denied. The like holds of the intelligible species in relation to intellection, when positing the intelligible species not to be cause or receptive subject of intellection; the like holds of light in the medium [nn.471-473], if it does not act on or receive the species of color.
418. Note: it is said in another way [Olivi, ibid. qq.72, 58, 57, 23] that whenever the receiving of some form in its potential subject pre-requires of necessity the receiving of another form in its receptive subject, the major,a that ‘a perfect agent proximate to its passive subject and not impeded is able to act’ [n.414], is false, understanding this of proximate power - and this whether the recipient of the prior form is the same power as the recipient of the later form (example: volition and delight in the will), or is the same nature (example: intellection and volition in the soul, when positing the will to be totally active with respect to willing), or both forms are received in the same supposit, not in a single nature or power (example: about phantasm and intellection, if an intelligible species be denied and the total action be given to the intellect), or the prior and later form are received in different supposits (example: light from the sun in air and in water).
a.a Above the word ‘major’ the sign a was placed by Scotus. See n.421.
419. There is not here preserved the proposition [n.418] that the prior form is active with respect to the later one, or is the reason for receiving it, as with light in the medium in respect of the species of color. For if this [example of light] be instanced in such cases [sc. the four listed in n.418], the instance is of no value, because the proximate active or passive principle would in such cases be lacking. In the four instances already set down [n.418] neither condition [sc. lack of active and of passive principle] is met, for neither is volition the active cause of delight but the object is, nor is it the receptive subject, but the will is. So in the other instances [n.418],46 according to those opinions.
420. Nor should it be said that the major [n.418] is true unless two effects are necessarily producible in an ordered way by the same agent; because this is also not true if there is necessarily an order between forms that can be introduced by different agents, as is plain in the instances set down [n.418].
421. Universally, then, any form that, in order to be received in its passive subject, requires another form to be first received in any subject and by any agent, never is the active principle of the second form in accidental potency for acting on the receptive subject of the second form, unless the prior form has already been induced. Therefore the later [second] form depends, as to its coming to be, essentially on something different from the per se causes of it in its own coming to be, which per se causes are agent and matter.a This conclusion [sc. the previous sentence] can be conceded, because ‘first essentially’ does not belong only to the cause (the fact is plain in the treatise [by Scotus himself], On the First Principle ch. 1 nn.2-4), yet itb is not with probability denied unless the priority of the other form be shown - either as it is active with respect to the second form, or as it is the reason for the receiving, or as it is the effect of a cause nearer to a common cause, or to a cause that necessarily causes first.
a.a [Note by Scotus] It can be said that the later form does not, in the instant in which it is causable, depend on others. It is not causable save naturally after the other cause that is pre-required for it.
b.b Above ‘it’ the sign a was put by Scotus. See n.418.
B. About the Second Opinion
1. Exposition of the opinion
422. There is another opinion that is to the opposite extreme entirely. As is gathered from diverse places in him who thinks this way [Godfrey of Fontaines, Quodlibet 8 q.2, 1 q.7, 14 q.5, 6 q.7], it says that the intellective soul, as it is intellective, has nothing of activity in respect of intellection.
For it does not have the possible intellect’s sort of acting (whether informed with an intelligible species, which they deny [nn.346-347], or bare), because, according to them, the same thing cannot act on itself. They prove this because, since the agent in act is of the sort the patient is in potency (from Physics 3.2.202a8-12, On Generation 1.5.321b35-2a8), it then follows that the same thing would be in potency and act, which seems, first, to be opposite to the first principle of metaphysics known through the idea of act and potency; then also the same thing would be efficient cause and matter, which seems against the Philosopher (Physics 2.7.198a22-27), that matter and efficient cause do not coincide; then again the same thing would be referred to itself by a real relation, which seems impossible (Metaphysics 5.15.1021a26-b3), because of the opposition of such relations; then, finally, anything at all would be posited as acting on itself and moving itself (as that the air would illuminate itself in the presence of the sun and not the sun, and that wood would heat itself in the presence of fire and not the fire). For there would be no source whence anything might be proved that would be thus causative of anything new at all existing in it, notwithstanding the fact that nothing would be naturally causative of anything new in existence.
From these proofs they say that agent and patient are distinct in subject. And there is added, for confirmation, that whatever difficulties may arise in any matter, not on their account must these metaphysical principles be denied, for then all investigation of truth through such principles would be taken away. For a reason for denying them in one matter is a reason for denying them in another.
423. On the same ground they say that the agent intellect cannot effectively cause anything in the possible intellect, because it is not distinguished in subject from it but, by as it were perfecting it formally with its own light, it causes this sort of illumining - just as [Godfrey, ibid. 6 q.15] “when some luminous body is produced (in which are these two perfections, namely transparency and light itself), it is said that this sort of light makes a transparent body luminous, not by changing it from a potency preceding the act toward such act, but the whole together is, according to idea of efficient cause, made by an extrinsic agent” producing such body in such existence. But for this reason is light said to make the body luminous, that it is formally a perfecter of that body. So is it in the issue at hand. The agent intellect, in idea of efficient cause, does nothing to the possible intellect, but “he who created the soul by way of efficient cause, has himself caused this illumination in it, creating or producing these powers at the same time in the same substance.”
424. Similarly they posit that the agent intellect has no operation with respect to intellection save insofar as it has action about the intelligible object, namely insofar as it acts for this, so that it possess the idea of mover and of object in the act. Therefore, as to intellection, the agent intellect will, for these two reasons, have no activity immediately.
425. What then will effectively cause intellection?
They reply that the same real object effects intellection and volition, and this insofar as it shines forth in the phantasm - the agent intellect having been illumined, not effectively but by concurring formally, as it were, in regard to the intelligible.
426. And as to how it may be possible for a phantasm to move the possible intellect, although however the imaginative power and the possible intellect are in the same substance of the soul (and the phantasm is not distinguished in subject from the possible intellect) - they say [Godfrey of Fontaines, Quodlibet 6 q.7] that the soul can be considered in two ways, either in essence or in powers. In the first way, it is whole in each part and is not a principle of any second operation. In the second way, some power determines for itself some part of the body, as an organic power, some power does not, as the intellective power, because “it under the idea of such a power” is not “in this part of the body nor in that, for it is in no part,” because it is “per se neither in the whole nor in any part, just as neither are the operations that are exercised through it. Just as, therefore, a power that would be in a different part of the body than is the phantasm could be changed by what is in imagination, so a power that is determinate to a part in which there is a phantasm but that is outside it (in this way, that it is no more there than in a foot) will be able to be changed by what is in imagination. So is it in the issue at hand [n.425], because the powers [of intellect and will] are not tied to and immersed in matter as the other powers are.”
2. Rejection of the Opinion
427. Against this opinion.
According to it, the agent intellect causes nothing that may be formally in a phantasm, but all that happens is that, through some spiritual contact of this sort of light with the phantasm, there is removal of an obstacle, and when this removal has been carried out by virtue of the agent intellect, the informing of the possible intellect takes place [cf. supra n.361, Godfrey, ibid. 5 q.10].
428. From this it follows that nothing in the intellective part (and this as the intellective part embraces the agent and possible intellects) will have in any way the idea of something active, whether as agent or as idea of acting, with respect to any intellection at all or with respect to the object of intellection, and thus only a phantasm is disposed to intellection as effective of it. Or if there is another effectivity there, by which an irradiating or illumining of phantasms may take place, that effectivity will be precisely form God himself, who has created such light in the possible intellect. Other than God, therefore, nothing is actively disposed in regard to any intellection at all save only a phantasm.
429. This seems unacceptable, because it very much cheapens the nature of the soul. For a phantasm does not seem able to cause any perfection in the intellect that surpasses the nobility of a phantasm, because an effect does not exceed its cause but falls short of it, especially an equivocal effect. Therefore, as this opinion’s position goes, nothing is caused in the intellect precisely by a phantasm, for every intellection is either more perfect than a phantasm or in man there will be no intellection.a
a.a [Text canceled by Scotus; replaced by the passage from n.428, last sentence, to the end of n.429. See also the canceled text to n.443, which is effectively the same as n.429 here] Either then God will operate immediately for any intellection, or only the phantasm will be the cause of all actions of the intellective part, both intellections and volitions.
430. Again, second, from this position it follows that an angel (in whom such distinction in subject cannot be posited), could have no new intellection, however much an angel have many objects habitually present to him. Indeed, an angel can have no intellection effectively save from God, because if the opposite is posited the intellect will be moved by itself, or agent and patient will not be distinct in subject.b
b.b [Note by Scotus] Along with the second argument against Godfrey [n.430], it seems to be against him how an animal has a phantasm without exterior sensation. For what moves the organ there to act? Nothing seems distinct there in subject, unless he posit a sense memory in an organ different from a phantasma or imagination, and that it moves imagination to imagining.
431. He seems himself to concede this, because he posits that the claim ‘an angel can have a new intellection’ is merely a matter of belief.
432. But this is not a way out. For no matter of belief is repugnant to a conclusion following from true principles. And from this principle, ‘agent and patient are necessarily distinct in subject’, it necessarily follows that an angel cannot have, from himself, any intellection actively. Therefore, if the opposite of this conclusion is a matter of belief, the principle from which the conclusion follows will be false. This is plainer about ‘willing’, for it is clear that an angel did not have his first ‘willing of bad’ from God; so the agent there was not distinct in subject from the thing acted on.
433. Third, it follows that one should not posit any habit in the intellect because, according to this opinion, it is required, and suffices, for ordered understanding that phantasms occur in an ordered way and that, as occurring, they move the intellect in an ordered way. But that they occur in an ordered way cannot come about through a habit in the intellect, because nothing in the thing acted on gives ordered moving to the mover. Or at any rate they can occur in an ordered way through a habit in imagination without any habit in the intellect; therefore etc .
434. There is a confirmation, because, according to them, for this reason is a habit in the will denied, because the will moves easily in conformity with the intellect. Therefore by similarity, since the intellect is moved, according to them, by phantasms in the way the phantasms occur, a habit in imagination will suffice for them to move in an ordered way. These three [nn.428-433] I consider [to be objections against these thinkers].
435. But other arguments are also made against them. First as follows:a if a phantasm causes every intellection effectively, and if a natural cause does nothing save according to the nature by which it is in act, a phantasm will never cause any action in the intellect save one that is conform to the phantasm; and so it will never cause a false composition repugnant to the ideas of the extreme terms which the phantasms are of in the imaginative power. Or if in some way it is possible, as they reply [Godfrey, Quodlibet 10 q.12, 5 q.12], that through one known opposite can its opposite be known, this is only because through one true composition can the intellect know that the opposite is false. But will the phantasm never cause as true a false intellection, or conversely? And if you say it is because a phantasm represents objects falsely that it causes a false intellection in the intellect - the follows that the same phantasm can never cause an opposite assent, and so the intellect will not be able to apprehend the same complex as now true, now false.
a.a [Text canceled by Scotus; replaced by the passage from n.432, opening sentence, to “First as follows” here in n.435]. This response does not seem to be that of a Christian but of a purely pagan philosopher, since an angel knows many new things and is blessed in this operation of his. Thirds
436. Again, second, intellection according to the Philosopher is an immanent act [Metaphysics 9.8.1050a14-b1].
437. They reply [Godfrey, Quodlibet 9 q.19] that ‘to understand’, in the grammatical way of signifying, signifies action, and ‘to be understood’ signifies passion; yet in reality ‘to understand’ is a passion and ‘what is understood’ is the agent. But what may ‘to understand’ have of the idea of action? They say [ibid.] that ‘to understand’ does not signify anything as it has being, in itself and absolutely, in the subject, but as it tends to something else as to an object, or as to a term; “and because it is a mark of action to proceed from the agent and to tend to the thing acted on, therefore such perfections” -which are in reality passions, that is, passions abiding by way of action in that which is denominated from them - “are said to be immanent actions.”
438. To the contrary. The philosopher, when distinguishing action from making, Ethics 1.1.1094a3-6, 6.4.1140a1-6, Metaphysics 9.8.1050a21-b1, assigns diverse principles and properties to action and making, which would not be necessary if his meaning were that what he assigns to be an action were a passion; for then it would not be necessary to assign it its own active principle. For it would not be necessary for prudence to be active, in the way art is a habit of making, if action were nothing but a certain form received in something else (as in that which is called an agent).
439. Again, third, a habit is not posited precisely for undergoing something, and above all in the case of a passive thing that is supremely disposed to form. For what is in itself supremely disposed to receive has no need to be rendered prompt to receive. But the intellect is supremely disposed for any intellection whatever, because it has nothing contrary. Therefore , it would not be necessary to posit any habit in the intellect if it were precisely passive with respect to intellection. Proof of the first proposition [sc. supra n.439, “a habit is not posited precisely for undergoing something”], because a habit is ‘what we use when we want’, and a habit “perfects the haver and renders his work good etc .,” Ethics 2.4.1105b25-26, 1106a15-17.
440. Again, fourth, how would the intellect engage in discursive reasoning, by syllogizing and arguing, if a phantasm cause every intellection? For it does not seem intelligible how phantasms are, by their occurrence, cause of all discourse.
441. Again, fifth, how will logical intentions, or relations of reason, be caused? For, if a phantasm causes every intellection, any intention caused by it will be real, because that is called a real intention which is immediately caused by the thing, or by a species representing the thing in itself. Therefore, no intellection will cause logical intentions or relations of reason, because the intellect will be able, by no act of itself, to compare one object with another, which comparing is what causes a relation of reason, or a second intention, in an object.
442. There is a confirmation, because when the intellect compares a to b according to the sort of relation that there is, from the nature of the thing, between them, it does not cause a relation of reason, as it does for example when it compares them as different or as contrary, or as whole and part, or the like. Therefore, by the comparing alone is a relation of reason caused, which, neither in its being nor in its being known, is consequent to the extremes from the nature of the extremes. Therefore, the extremes are not the cause of the act of comparing.
443. Again, sixth, how does the intellect reflect on its own act,a and how will this be in the capacity of the reflecting power? For if the phantasm causing some intellection naturally has to cause a reflection on that intellection, for the same reason it naturally has to cause a reflection on the reflection, and so on ad infinitum, as Augustine says On the Trinity 15.12 n.21 [cf. n.227]. But if it does not have to cause a reflection but only an absolute act, and if afterwards another phantasm occurs, no reason seems capable of being assigned as to how there could be any reflection on any act.b
a.a [Note added by Scotus] The act is the object of a second act, so it moves the intellect toward it and it is in it, therefore etc . #8 [the argument in n.443 was the eighth in the primitive text].
b.b [Text canceled by Scotus] Again, how does it not cheapen the soul, because every natural action (which is a natural perfection of so perfect a being) is thus effectively caused by a phantasm? For a phantasm seems able to cause no perfection in the intellect that exceeds the nobility of the intellect, because an equivocal effect cannot exceed an equivocal cause but falls short of it. Therefore, nothing precisely caused by a phantasm, as by a total active cause (as that position about intellection posits), can be more perfect than a phantasm, but is more imperfect than it; and so no perfection will be a greater perfection in man than the very phantasm, which is absurd. [This text seems canceled here only because it has been transposed, more or less, to n.429].
444. Of these last six reasons, the first [n.435] is not compelling against them [Godfrey et al.], because it asks about a difficulty common to every opinion. For whether a phantasm is posited to be an active cause of intellection or the intelligible is species or the intellect, one can always ask of them equally (since each of them is a principle of acting naturally, not freely) how opposites in the intellect can be caused, as for example now a true opinion or knowledge about something, and now a false opinion or error about the same.
445. The second reason [nn.436, 438] is not compelling, for prudence is posited to be an active principle because of another act, which is ‘action’, to which its own act is extended as rule is to thing ruled - just as the proper act of an art is extended to a different act, which is ‘making’, although however neither of the habits is a properly active principle in respect of its act.
446. Hereby [n.445] to the third reason [n.439], that a habit inclines the subject acted on the way a prior form inclines to a fitting posterior one, as is said elsewhere about habit [Scotus, Ord. I d.17 p.1 qq.1-3]. For although a passive subject, through removal of the opposite, is of itself supremely disposed, yet not by addition of something fitting. The remark from Ethics 2 [n.439], that [a habit] renders the work good etc., must be understood to mean that it does so not by effecting but by inclining [Scotus, ibid.].
447. The fourth [n.440] coincides with the one considered third [nn.433-434], namely how a habit disposes for phantasms to occur in discursive reasoning in an ordered way, unless the habit is placed in the imaginative power, not in the intellect - which perhaps he would concede.
448. The sixth [n.443] only asks how it is in our power which intellection we have through another, and what the act is known by on which we reflect. The first, to be sure, is because of the will, and the second indeed through the footprint left behind from the act; or otherwise it is through a phantasm, which first displays the object but which, second, is caused by the object. Yet it is not necessary that it in act cause intellection of intellection, except when the will gives command. So it is possible, after the footprint has been left, for a reflex act to be had by being elicited through it, with the will commanding [this intellection]; and it is possible for it not to be had, with the will commanding another intellection.
449. The fifth [nn.441-442] seems it needs pondering if ‘no comparison is a relation of reason that the extremes are of a nature to cause in the intellect’. For if this proposition is true, then although intellections of the simple things that are compared may be caused by the extremes, yet not the comparison that is in the comparing act by which a relation of reason is caused in the extreme term. It could be said that some relation follows the extremes in the thing, and that, when the extremes are known, it follows in knowledge - as in the case of contrariety and the like. And this relation is real. The other relation does not follow the extremes in the thing, and not necessarily in the intellect either. Yet the extremes themselves can cause the act of comparison by eliciting it, when the will gives command. And when the act of comparing has been caused according to the sort of respect that does not follow the extremes in the thing, a relation of reason is caused.
C. About the Third and Fourth Opinion
1. Exposition of the Opinions
450. [Third opinion] The third opinion [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 5.25] posits that the intelligible [object], as present simply to the intellect (not through an intelligible species [n.340], but through a phantasm as it is illumined by the agent intellect), is thus simply present to the possible intellect as in memory. And, as it moves to an act of understanding, it is there as in the intelligence, whose knowledge has its term in the object itself. And as concerns these two the intellect is passive, namely both as it is memory having an object simply present to it, and as it is intelligence moved by the object thus present to the first act of understanding. But the intellect, when brought to be in first act, can by natural insight dig down and run through any ‘what it is’, by conjoining and dividing the appropriate differences with the thing divided, and by thus investigating, as regard simple understanding, the ‘what it is’ and, as regard complex understanding, the ‘because of what’ as regard a knowable conclusion. And in this discursive reasoning the intellect, insofar as it thus reasons, is active; insofar, however, as it conceives, it is passive.
451. [Fourth opinion] This same doctor as to this position (about passiveness with respect to the first simple and confused knowledge, and about activity with respect to investigated distinct knowledge) seems to retract it and to correct it in another place where, asking about the active principle of vital actions (namely actions of sensation and intellection), posits that that principle is something in the animate thing itself and not an object outside it. And in the way he posits in the senses that the species impressed on the organ inclines only, and, by inclining, excites the power and, as it were, calls it forth to its operation, so does [he posit that] the phantasm in the imaginative power inclines the intellect so that the inclined intellect is in ultimate disposition to elicit intellection as its own proper operation - And on behalf of this position he there introduces a reason for these actions, that they are to be vital actions and that no action transcends the perfection of the agent. And he introduces another reason about the action that remains in the agent, and these are actions proper and denominate the agent properly, the way ‘to shine’, but not ‘to illumine’, is related to the ‘shining’ thing. With this agrees the reason of Augustine [On Music 6.5 n.9], that the soul forms in itself images of things known.
These three reasons were introduced before, for the first opinion [nn.409, 412, 408].
2. Rejection of the Opinions
452. Neither of these opinions, neither the one retracted nor the one retracting it, seems to be true. Not the retracted one [n.450], because the intellect, when brought to be in act according to the first confused knowledge, is active with respect to second intellection either by virtue of itself, or by virtue of the first confused knowledge itself. If by virtue of itself, it does not seem reasonable that some cause could be active with respect to a more perfect cause in some species and could in no way be active with respect to a more imperfect cause of the same idea; now the confused and distinct intellection of white seem to be intellections of the same idea, because intellections of the same object; therefore it seems unacceptable that the intellect could of itself be causative with respect to the second intellection, which is the more perfect, and not with respect to the first. And if you say that in respect of the second act it is active by virtue of the first act, on the contrary: an imperfect act cannot be the formal idea of causing a more perfect act, because then, if an effect could surpass in perfection its total cause, there would be no way in which it could be proved that God is the most perfect being; but distinct knowledge is nobler than confused knowledge; therefore the confused knowledge is not the formal reason for eliciting or causing the distinct knowledge.
453. The retracting opinion too [n.451] does not seem to be true, because I ask what is understood by ‘inclination’? Either that there is some form in the intellect by which it is inclined, or that nothing is in the intellect. If nothing, the intellect is not more inclined now than it was before. If some form, either an act of understanding - and then the opposite of their opinion, because the object will cause the act - or something prior to the act of understanding, as a species, which they deny [n.340].
454. Response: it is not a habit nor an act nor a species but some fourth thing. -On the contrary. Although this would seem at once to be unacceptable, yet it is argued as follows: Let that fourth thing be a; either without it there is in the intellect the total active virtue with respect to intellection, or there is not. If there is, then without it the intellect is capable of this intellection, and so of any required determination (because a ‘this’ as ‘this’ is most determinate), and so it will be necessary because of nothing. If there is not, then a gives active virtue, whether total or partial, to the intellect itself, and so such action will not be from the intellect, or from within, as from a total active principle.
455. Again, in ordered causes an inferior does not include a superior but conversely;a and with respect to intellection the intellective part is a cause superior to the species of any object, as will be plain in the following question [nn.559-562]; therefore the object does not incline the intellect.
a.a [Note added by Scotus] But this is false; rather each inclines each. An example: a habit inclines a power [cf. n.446].
D. About the Fifth and Sixth Opinion
1. Exposition of the Opinions
456. [Fifth opinion] The fifth opinion [Giles of Rome, Quodlibet 1 q.3, 3 qq.13-14, 5 q.9; On Angelic Knowledge qq.1, 4-5; Thomas of Sutton, Quaestiones Ordinariae qq.2-3] posits that the species of the object in the intellect, or the object itself present in itself, is what generates, or is the formal idea of generating, actual knowledge in the intellect, and the intellect itself is only disposed as material there, informed by the species or possessing the object that supplies the place of the species.
457. The argument for this is as follows: Averroes On the Soul 3 com.5, the intellect is disposed to universal forms as first matter is to individual forms; and elsewhere [in com.5] the soul is lowest in the genus of intelligibles, as matter is in the genus of beings; and On the Soul 2.5.417a2-28, and Physics 8.4.255a30-255b31, the intellect before habit is in essential potency as matter is before form; and On the Soul 3.4.429a24, the soul is nothing of the things that are before understanding. From all these it is concluded that the power of the intellect with respect to the intelligible is purely potential; but what is purely potential cannot be the active principle of any act unless informed by some form; and then the form will be the formal principle.
458. Argument is also made that the very form that is the principle of acting is the likeness, because just as making is formally through the form by which the maker is assimilated to the thing made, so action seems to be through the form by which the agent is assimilated to the object - so similitude will be the formal reason for acting.
459. For this is also added that an indeterminate agent cannot perform a determinate action, or an action about a determinate object, unless it be determined; the intellect of itself is indeterminate as to every intelligible and every intellection; therefore, in order for it to understand, some determination is required; that determination is only through some species; therefore the intelligible species is the determinative principle.
460. [Sixth opinion] The sixth opinion, which returns to the same as to the conclusion of this question, is that actual knowledge itself, generated whether in the senses or in the intellect, is the species; and then, just as the formal idea of generating an actual species that is called actual knowledge is the idea of the object or the species of the object in memory, so it follows, as concerns the issue at hand, that the formal idea of generating actual knowledge is the object itself or some species in virtue of the object; and this such that when the object is in itself present, a species is generated from it, which is intellection; but when it is not present in itself but through a species in memory, then by this species or by virtue of this species another species is generated, which will be intellection.
461. In favor of this opinion, insofar as it says that the intelligible species is actual knowledge, is adduced Augustine On the Trinity 11.2 n.3, where he maintains that “the informing which is called vision is generated by the body alone that sees;” but what is generated by the body alone is the species; therefore, the species is vision, according to Augustine.
462. This is proved, second, through the Philosopher On the Soul 3.2.425b25-28, who maintains that sounding and hearing are the same, because the act of the active and the passive thing is the same, Physics 3.3.202a13-21; but sounding in act causes a species of sound in the ear; therefore this caused species is the same as hearing, and so the sensible species and the sounding are the same.
2. Rejection of the Opinions
463. The conclusion of these last two opinions is disproved by certain arguments made against the second opinion [nn.422, 427-443]. For an equivocal effect cannot exceed an equivocal cause in perfection, but necessarily falls short of it; intellection would be an equivocal effect of the intelligible species if it were caused by it alone; and so it would be simply more imperfect than the intelligible species, which is not true [n.429].
464. This reason [n.463], which was the first against the second opinion [n.429], is less evident against these opinions [the fifth and sixth], because the intelligible species is nobler than the phantasm. The second and third reason against the second opinion [nn.430-434] are not against these opinions [the fifth and sixth]. Six other reasons, which I did not consider against the second opinion [nn.435-443], can be made here. For first,a a habit does not seem necessary, as was argued there [n.439]. Likewise, second, how would discursive reasoning happen [n.440]? Third, how reflection [n.443]? Fourth, how would relations of reason or logical intentions be caused [nn.441-442]? Fifth, how would a false proposition arise that would be assented to as true if the intelligible species alone, generated by the phantasm, were the formal reason for all intellection [n.435]? Sixth, how will an action be immanent [nn.436, 438]?
a.a [Text canceled by Scotus, in place of “This reason.. .For first”] Likewise ..
465. Three middle terms against these opinions [fifth and sixth] are added, which are also not much to be considered. The first is this:a the species would then be rather the intellective potency than the intellect, and so it would, when separated, have the same act, just as heat, when separated, would make things hot.
a.a [Text canceled by Scotus, in place of “Sixth [n.464].is this”] Likewise.
466. Likewise then, ‘to understand’ does not seem to be the proper perfection of the intellect, because nothing seems to be essentially ordered to that operation to which, or to the principle of which, it is disposed in a potentiality for contradiction, as to an accident per accidens - just as ‘to heat something’ does not seem the proper perfection of wood from the fact that wood is disposed to heat something as to an accident per accidens [sc. when it happens to be on fire]. But the intellect would, according to the opinion [sc. the fifth and sixth], be so disposed to the intelligible species that would be the principle of intellection; therefore etc .
467. Likewise, third: both in the senses and in the intellect (positing the same thing doing the representing), greater attention makes for a more perfect act. For the same thing with the same intelligible species or phantasm understands more perfectly that to the understanding of which it gives more effort, and understands it less perfectly when giving less effort. So too in the case of the senses, when the same object is present and in the same light, a thing is more perfectly seen because of greater attention in the seeing. This is plain too from the fact that sometimes sight is, because of greater attention, the more damaged; indeed, ceteris paribus, a more concentrated eye could be greatly affected by the seeing of something which another eye would be less affected by, as is plain from experience. It is plain also from Augustine On the Trinity 11.2 n.4, that in someone attentive the species long after the seeing remain which do not remain in the eye of someone not attentive in that sense.
468. It can be said [to the argument, n.465] that the intellective power is that by which we understand, and we understand by it insofar as it has intellection formally. The species is not of a nature to have it, nor is it the reason for having it. As to what is added, that ‘[the species] would, when separated, have the same act’ [n.465], if the ‘have’ is understood as to the subject, it is plain the argument is not valid; if it is understood as to the effect, my reply is that [the species] does not have the passive object on which to act, especially if it is not of a nature to be the principle of acting on something else, because not the principle of making, but only of an action immanent in the same subject as itself.
469. To the second [n.466] it can be said that the major ‘nothing seems to be essentially ordered etc .’ is false in the case of things that cannot attain, of themselves, the end to which they are ordered, but only by the action of something extrinsic, which gives some accident to them by which they may act and attain their end - and so it is of the intellect.
470. To the third [n.467]: that attention belongs the will by which, through vehement application of oneself to some object, a lower cognitive power is affected by the object more vehemently; and therefore it knows more perfectly, though it does not act for that act.
3. Rejection of the Sixth Opinion Specifically
471. But against the second of these opinions [n.460] (which is sixth overall47) there is argument specifically that it is false, both in the case of the senses and in that of the intellect. In the case of the senses because, if the species which is vison is a species of the same idea as the one in the medium, then the one in the medium will formally be vision; therefore the medium, in possessing it formally, will be seeing formally. But if, besides the species in sight that is posited to be vision, there is a species of a different idea from it and another species of the same idea as the species in vision, the conclusion is gained. For although that which is vision is called a species, yet there is something else prior to it in the eye, and of a different idea; and it is the species, as it is commonly called, and so the species properly speaking will differ from vision.
472. If you say [Giles of Rome, On the Knowledge of Angels q.1] that the species in the medium differs from the species in the eye because of diversity of receivers - this is nothing because, just as whiteness is of the same idea in a horse and in a stone (and therefore each is white according to the same idea of whiteness), so if that which is called the species is of the same idea in the eye and in the medium, then if it of itself is vision formally, vision formally will be in each; and whatever vision formally is in, that is formally seeing.
473. The principal thing proposed [sc. n.471, that the sixth opinion, that species and vision are the same, is false] is also plain, because in a blind eye that yet remains as physically constituted48 as it was before a species is caused; likewise in the eye of someone sleeping, otherwise he would not be woken up by the presence of some surpassing visible thing (nor otherwise too would he be woken up by a surpassing sound if it were not first present in the ear), yet in these cases there is no vision. So too in a well-disposed eye there is received some species of the same idea as that which is in the medium, from the fact that the organ itself is of a similar disposition as the medium, on account of the transparency of each (from On the Soul 2.6.418b26-419a1); and it will not be vision formallya but prior to vision.
a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] because if in any way it is, it will be different.
474. And that this is false in the case of the intellect [sc. as it has just been shown to be false in the case of the senses, n.473] is plain by putting together some of the things said by those who think thus. For they posit that there is no species different from the divine essence in blessed vision, and that beatitude consists essentially in the vision alone; add this statement, that vision is the species formally, and it follows that our beatitude will be the divine essence formally.b Therefore if this conclusion is unacceptable, let them either deny the premise that vision is the species, or posit that the divine essence has a species other than itself or that beatitude is essentially in something other than in the act of vision.
b.b [Interpolated text] Proof: beatitude formally is vision according to them, and vision formally is the species according to them; therefore, the species is the divine essence formally.
475. A response [sc. on the part of those who hold the sixth opinion]: where there is an intelligible species different from the object, it is intellection; but where there is not a species different from the object, there intellection is not the object; in beatitude, therefore, they would deny that the species is different from the object and the act, but that it is different from the object [sc. by itself, without the act] is not denied
476. On the contrary: no object’s intelligible species is different from it save only intellection, according to them [n.460]; therefore, any object whose intellection is different from it has an intelligible species; therefore a species in the vision of God must be admitted, as in the intellection of any other object.
477. A note about the relation of a science to an object.
Note that insofar as the object moves the intellect, or more properly insofar as it is causative of intellection, there is a relation of intellection to it pertaining to the second mode of relatives [cf. nn.287-288], as of son to father or generated heat to generating heat; the relation too of the intellect as movable to the object as mover pertains to the second mode, as does the relation of the heatable to what is heater of it.
478. But besides these relations of the second mode, there is another relation of intellection to the object, as the relation of that which is termed to that which terms it. For intellection is not only from the object as from efficient cause, total or partial, but it is to it as to what terms it, or as that which it is about.
479. The difference between these relations is plain [nn.477-478], because each is without the other. The first is without the second in the case of generated heat; the second without the first in the intellection of a stone, if it came to be in me immediately from God. The first is not an identical relation, because the same absolute could come to be from a different cause; the second seems to be an identical relation, because no act that is of a nature to arise about an object could be the same and not have its term in the same object. The second is not related to a cause as cause because, when all causes have been posited, there is required in such an act something besides this as the term of it. The fact is plain also by way of division: the term is not a form nor an efficient cause, as is plain; it is not an end, because the object, as it is what first the act is about, is not the loved thing for which the act is elicited; nor is it matter, for it is ‘about’ the object without being ‘in’ and ‘from’ it [cf. Scotus, Ord. Prol. n.188]. The second relation can be posited to be of the third mode of relatives [n.296], not because it is the relation of the thing measured, but because it is like it, for it is not mutual. For universally an act requires that which it is about, not conversely; nor does only the relation of a thing measured belong to the third mode, but every similar relation, namely one that is not mutual; of this sort is the relation of the thing termed (in the way said) to the term of it. However, there also comes in here, between the same absolutes, the relation of measured to measurer; but it can be posited as different from this relation of thing termed.
480. Against the third [“the second is not related to a cause as cause...”] and fourth points [“an act requires that which it is about, not conversely.”]: how is a relation that is not relative to a cause identical with anything unless it depend essentially on a noncause, and so the four causes would not suffice for the being of a thing? Again, it [the object an act is about] is able not to be when the act exists; how then is the relation an identical one?
481. These two questions [n.480] seem to prove that the intellect is an absolute form like whiteness. For it is plain that intellection is causable immediately by God; therefore, it does not depend essentially on it [the object] alone. Also when an object causes, it does not depend by way of identity, because the same intellection could be caused from elsewhere (frequently too it is from a non-being).
482. And if you say it is a being in a species [sc. and not an absolute thing], the argument will be about the species, that is an absolute form (or there is a regress to infinity), and it is not the object that is the term, but that is of which it is the species. How then is the Philosopher to be understood in Physics 8.6.246a28-b27, and how the other things said about habits [sc. that they are not absolutes but relations, Categories 7.6a36-b6, 7b.23-33]? How then is the relation an identical one, since it is able not to be when the act exists, or how is it real, since there is no term [cf. Ord. I d.17 n.7]?
483. Again the difference between these relations is posited [nn.477-479] to be that the intellect is, when understanding, sometimes termed to something by which it is not moved, as the divine intellect in relation to a creature or to intrinsic relations or to attributesa, since however only the essence moves to intellection, otherwise what would be the first object of it [the divine intellect]?
a.a [Note added by Scotus] false, save [when terminating] secondarily.
484. On the contrary: then the intellection of God would have a real relation to a creature or to another object; again, second, why is ‘one’ mover rather than ‘one’ term required for unity of act?
485. To the first of these two [n.484]: why cannot a relation of the third mode be only one of reason, just as is also that of the second, by which the divine essence is said to move the understanding of it, and conversely - and thus there would be no difference in Aristotle’s modes [of relations] as regard real being and being of reason, but as regard mutual and non-mutual? And if mutual, as regard quantity and quality, the substantial or accidental, in first act or second, such that any mode could be sometimes real, sometimes of reason?49