II. Scotus’ own Opinion

486. To the question [n.401] I reply that actual intellection is something in us not perpetual but possessing being after non-being, as we experience. For this it is necessary to posit some active cause, and a cause somehow in us, otherwise it would not be in our power to understand when we want, which is against the Philosopher, On the Soul 2.5.417b24.

487. And it appears here that the soul and an object present must come together, and that in an intelligible species, as was said in the preceding question [n.370], because it is in another way not present as actually intelligible, speaking of the sensible and material object.

488. I say then that the object of this intellection is not the total active cause, either in itself or in its species, as appears from the first reason against the second opiniona[n.429], and also because then the image in the mind as it is the mind could not be preserved, because nothing of the mind itself would have the idea of parent.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] Here first reason has replaced an original reasons; and second opinion has replaced fifth and sixth opinion. The fifth and sixth opinions have the same conclusion as the second [n.460].

489. Nor is the total cause of intellection the intellective soul, or anything of it formally - on account of the reason given about the four causesa against the first opinion [n.414], which reason explains the reason of the Philosopher in On the Soul [n.486], that was touched on when arguing for the main point in the first partb [n.401].

For this are added other probabilities as well.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] Here reason given about the four causes replaces an original reasons given.

b.b [Noted added by Scotus] Response: the senses are first, not presupposing anything prior to their being perfected [n.401].

490. First,a because then the act would not be a likeness of the object; second, because then the act would not be distinguished essentially on account of the distinction of the object, because an essential distinction does not come from what is not a cause.

a.a Text canceled by Scotus: Here First replaces an original and also.

491. Third, because neither would the intellection of a more perfect intelligible be simply more perfect (on the supposition of equal effort on the part of the intellect on this side and that), which is not true; because when a total cause operating more efficaciously is posited, a more perfect action follows; and also, if the soul were total cause, whenever it were to act on its own part more perfectly and with greater effort, it would produce a more perfect intellection, and so an intellection of God would not be more perfect than an intellection of a fly, which is against the Philosopher in Ethics 10.8.1178b7-32, who locates happiness in contemplation of the most perfect object.

492. It seems also, fourth, that then there would be an infinite activity in the intellect, insofar as the intellect is active with respect to all intellections. Because for one intellection is required some perfection in the cause of the intellection, and for another intellection of another idea is required as much perfection, or greater, because containing virtually two perfections of its proper causes, in this case and that. Therefore, what has this and that intellection will be more perfect than what has that one alone, and so what as total cause [of all intellections] has infinite such intellections is infinite in perfection.a

a.a [Note added by Scotus] The like can be argued about partial causality with respect to infinites; look in the Parisian Collations [collation 2].

493. Likewise, fifth, it would not be apparent how any total science might be contained virtually in the object if the intellective soul alone would have causality with respect to the act and the habit.a Of these five probabilities [nn.490-493], the third and fourth [nn.491-492] can be considered.

a.a [Note added by Scotus] For the activity of the intellect, at least its partial activity, note the first three arguments. Otherwise, how an image is in the mind [n.488]; the intellect is cheaper than the other cause [n.488, 429]; attention would not help [nn.467, 470]; how there is reflection, how relations of reason, how discursive reasoning [n.464]. That [the intellect] is not the total active cause [of intellection]; the argument from On the Soul 2 [nn.489, 401], and also there the remark of On the Soul 2 [n.402], ‘sounding and hearing are the same act’; the more perfect belongs to the more perfect [n.491]; infinity [n.492].
     Among these six: three of them prove that not the object only is cause [nn.486, 488], another three prove that not the soul alone is cause [nn.489, 491-492]. Two are considered especially: namely for the first part, that an equivocal cause is nobler than the effect; for the other side, about the four causes. Put on the scales, the first seems weaker than the second; also the two that are collateral to the first, which are taken from Augustine about the image and about attention (which attention he speaks about On the Trinity 11 ch.2 n.5, and elsewhere he joins the parent with the offspring), these collaterals, I say, seem weaker than those collateral to the second, namely about the difference of perfection of acts [ n.491], and about the infinity of activity in the intellective power [n.492]; therefore the second is a more certain conclusion.

494. From these points [nn.486-493] the question is solved as follows: so if neither the soul by itself nor the object by itself is the total cause of actual intellection (and they alone seem required for intellection), it follows that these two are one integral cause with respect to generated knowledge. And this is the opinion of Augustine, On the Trinity, 9.12 n.18, as cited when arguing against the first opinion, “It must be clearly held” [n.413].

495. But as to how this is to be understood, I draw a distinction about when several causes come together for the same effect.

496. For some causes come together on an equality, as when two people are pulling one and the same body. Some are not on an equality but possess an essential order, and this in two ways. Either thus, that a superior move an inferior such that the inferior does not act save because moved by the superior, and sometimes such inferior cause has from the superior the virtue or form by which it moves, sometimes it does not but has the form from something else, and from the superior cause only actual motion to produce the effect. On the other hand, sometimes the superior does not move the inferior, nor give it the power by which it moves, but the superior has of itself a more perfect power of acting and the inferior a more imperfect power of acting.

An example of the first member of this division: from the motive power that is in the hand and in a stick and a ball. An example of the second: if the mother is posited to have active virtue in the generation of offspring, she and the active power of the father come together as two partial causes, ordered causes indeed, because one is more perfect than the other; but the inferior does not receive its causality from the more perfect cause, nor is the total causality eminently in the more perfect cause, but the more imperfect cause adds something insofar as the effect can be more perfect from a more perfect and more imperfect cause than from a more perfect cause alone.

497. To the point at issue. An intelligible object (present in itself or in an intelligible species) and the intellective part do not come together for intellection as causes on an equality, for then one would have an imperfect sort of causality and the other would be the supplement for it. And if one were perfect, it could have in itself singly the total causality of both, just as, if the motive power of one were perfect, it would supply the virtue of the other; and then the species would be as it were a certain degree of intellective-ness, supplying the degree of intellective-ness lacking to the intellect; and then, if the intellect were to become to such a degree more perfect, it could have an act of understanding without a species and without an object, which is false.

498. Therefore, these two come together as having an essential order. Not however in the first way [n.496], because neither does the intellect give to the object or the species the idea of their own causality (for the object is not of a nature, in itself or in its species, to cause intellection through something that it receives from the intellect but from its own nature), nor does the intellect receive its causality from the object or from the species of the object, as was proved in the first argument against the seconda opinion [nn.429, 488]. They are, therefore, causes essentially ordered, and in the last way [n.496], namely because one is simply more perfect than the other, such that each is perfect in its own causality not depending on the other.

a.a ‘against the fifth and sixth opinion’ in the original text before the later revision [nn.463-467].

499. If argument is made against this [n.498], that in such essentially ordered causes neither of them is the perfection of the other, therefore the intelligible species will not be the form of the intellect itself.

Similarly, to the same point, if the species is the perfection of the intellect and the whole is the reason for acting, then a single operation (namely intellection) will not have a single formal idea of acting; and, likewise, from a being per accidens (of which sort is this whole of intellect possessing a species) there will be one per se operation, which is unacceptable, for what is not a being per se one is not the formal idea of acting.

Response:

500. To the first [of these, n.499]: it is accidental to a species (insofar as it is a partial cause with respect to the act of understanding concurring with the intellect as the other partial cause) that it perfect the intellect; because although it does perfect it, yet it does not give it any activity pertaining to the causality of the intellect.

An example: the motive power in the hand can use a knife, insofar as the knife is sharp, for dividing up some body. If this sharpness were in the hand as in a subject, the hand could use it for the same operation and yet it would be an accident in the hand (insofar as there is motive power in the hand) that there was sharpness in it, and conversely, because sharpness would give no perfection to the hand pertaining to the hand’s motive power. The point is plain, because the [hand’s] motive power is equally perfect without such sharpness and, when the sharpness is in something else joined to the hand (as a knife), the hand uses the sharpness in the same way as it would if it were in the hand.

So is it in the matter at issue. If the species could exist within the intellect without inhering in it after the manner of a form - if it existed within it in that way or could be sufficiently conjoined with the intellect - these two partial causes, intellect and species, conjoined with each other, would be capable of the same operation that they are now capable of when the species informs the intellect. This is also apparent when positinga some intelligible object without a species. For the object is a partial cause and does not inform the intellect, which is the other partial cause; but these two causes, when proximate to each other without the informing of one by the other, cause, by their proximity alone, one common effect.

a.a [Note added by Scotus] ‘positing’; note that it is not necessary that the object, or what supplies the place of the object, will necessarily be a principle of action immanent in that in which the object, or what supplies it, is present.

501. If this second case is posited, not without cause is it perhaps impossible for an accidenta that is the principle of something immanent and not transitive to be sufficiently joined to a passive subject, unless it be in it subjectively - which is why it is called an accident.b Surely the divine essence in the intellect of the blessed is a principle of intuition, which is not immanent in the essence, nor in anything of which it is a form? Likewise, charity in the fatherland is a principle of its own intuition, and yet it is not in the intellect intuiting it. Therefore is intellection an immanent action, taking ‘action’ for ‘operation’.

a.a Above ‘accident’ Scotus placed the symbol a

b.b Above ‘accident’ Scotus placed the symbol a

502. On the contrary: there is not thus one action immanent and another transient. I reply, then, and say that there is a division of the term into the things signified. In one way is act in the genus of action immanent in the other cause, namely in the intellect, and with respect to it is it immanent, but not so with respect to the one that is left, namely the object.

503. From the same argument [n.500] is plain the answer to the second objection [n.499], that in any single order of cause it is necessary to posit one per se cause with respect to one effect, and one idea of per se causing (thus the intellect in its order of causality is one, and has one formal idea of causing; and the species or object in its order of causing is one special cause, and has one idea of causing). But it is not necessary that a total cause, as it embraces all the partial causes, have one idea of causing save in unity of order. Because if with a unity of order there come together a unity per accidens, this is accidental; but a unity of order is per se. An example: the sun in its order of causing has one idea of causing with respect to offspring, and a father in his order of causing is one cause of one idea; but the total cause that embraces sun and father does not have any single formal idea of causing (just as it is not one cause) save by unity of order. And if it happen that causes thus ordered have, besides unity of order, a unity per accidens (insofar namely as one is accident to the other), this does not belong to them per se insofar as they are ordered causes.