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.”