Appendix. Distinction 3 from the Commentary on the Sentences by Antonius Andreas

[Contents]

Question One: Whether God can be naturally known by the intellect of the wayfarer

Question Two: Whether God is the first thing naturally known by the wayfarer

Response to Questions One and Two

To Question One

To Question Two

Question Three: Whether God is the sufficient object of our intellect

Question Four: Whether some sound and certain truth can be known by the intellect of the wayfarer without special illumination from the uncreated light

Question Five: Whether a trace or footprint of the Trinity is found in all creatures

Question Six: Whether in intellectual nature taken properly there is memory properly, that is, an intellect possessing an intelligible species naturally prior to the act of understanding

Question Seven: Whether the intellective part of the soul taken properly, or some part of it, is the whole cause, or the whole principle of generating, which generates actual knowledge

Question Eight: Whether the more principal cause of generated knowledge is the object in itself or present in the species, or the intellective part of the soul

Question Nine: Whether the image of the Trinity exists in the mind distinctly

Third Distinction

Question One. Whether God can be naturally known by the intellect of the wayfarer

Bonaventure, Sent. 1 d.3 q.1 a.1
Alexander of Hales, Summa p.1 q.2 sect.1 a.1
Scotus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.1
Thomas, ST Ia q.12 a.12
Richard of St. Victor, Sent. 1 d.3 q.1 a.1
Durandus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.1
Francis of Meyronne, Sent. 1 d.3 q.1
John Bacconitanus, Sent.1 d.3 q.1

1. About the third distinction I ask first whether God can be known naturally by the intellect of the wayfarer.

2. That he is not. From Aristotle as follows. On the Soul 3: We understand nothing without phantasms, for just as sensibles are to the senses so intelligibles are to the intellect; but God is not a phantasm because he is not sensible; therefore etc.

3. Again, Metaphysics 2: Our intellect is related to what is most manifest in nature as the eye of the owl to the sun; but there is impossibility here; therefore etc.

4. Again, Physics 1: The infinite qua infinite is unknowable; but God qua God is infinite; therefore etc.

5. Again, Gregory on Ezekiel: However much my mind has advanced in contemplation of God, I have reached not to what he is but to what is beneath him, etc.

6. On the contrary. Metaphysics 6: Science or theology is about God; but the science of metaphysics is naturally attainable; therefore.

Question Two. Whether God is the first thing naturally known by the wayfarer

Scotus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.2
Francis of Meyronne, Sent. 1 d.3 q.2
John Bacconitanus, Sent.1 d.3 q.1

1. The question next asked along with the first is whether God is the first thing naturally known by the wayfarer.

2. That he is, from Metaphysics 2: As things are to existence so are they to being known; but God is the first being; therefore he is the first known.

3. On the contrary: All natural knowledge arises from the senses, Metaphysics 1, Posterior Analytics 2; but God is furthest removed from the senses; therefore he is not naturally first known.

Response to Questions One and Two

To Question One

1. The first question is not asking about whether God exists, because this question was discussed above [d.2 qq.1-2]. Rather it is asking whether the intellect of the wayfarer can have some simple concept in which God is in some way known as to what he is.

2. To this question some say (Thomas, Summa Ia q.12 a.12) that God is known by the wayfarer only negatively. But this does not hold, because negations are known only through affirmations, Metaphysics 4, De Interpretatione 2. For the reason that something is removed from something is because something else, with which the thing removed was incompossible, is affirmatively attributed to it. So we remove composition from God because we attribute simplicity to him.

3. An alternative answer is that God is not known in himself by the wayfarer but in creatures, wherein he shines forth. But this too does not hold. For let purely a creature be known: and then God is not known, or God himself, who is in the creature, is known, and then he is known in himself through creatures.

4. Or in this way: God is known by discursive reason; if there is this discursive reasoning, then, either it is discursive to God, and so the conclusion is obtained; or it is discursive to the creature, and so the beginning and end of the reasoning is the same and consequently nothing is known - or God is at least thus known in the creature.

5. Another way is to say that God is known by creatures not per se but as it were per accidens, because he is not conceived in the proper idea of deity but in some attributal idea, which is a quasi accidental according to Damascene bk.1, where he says that attributes do not state the nature of God but something about the nature; and in knowing that God is wise and the like, creatures known him as it were per accidens, because through some quasi accidental idea.

6. On the contrary. When creatures know that God is wise, they know that wisdom is in him, in a quasi second mode of statement per se [sc. a statement when the subject enters into the definition of the predicate]; and so they know the underlying quiddity to which they adequately attribute in the second mode the quasi accidental perfection.

7. Accordingly I state five articles in solution of this first question [q.1]. First I say that the wayfarer can naturally have of God some quidditative concept in which God himself will be known in some way, albeit imperfectly. For the wayfarer can naturally know that God is wise; therefore he attributes wisdom to the divine nature; therefore he in some way knows the divine nature quidditatively.

8. I say second that the wayfarer cannot naturally have a concept of this divine essence as it is this essence, the reason for which is that the essence is in this way not a natural object of our intellect, only of the divine intellect; but of other intellects the essence is in this way the moving and beatific object.

9. I say third that the wayfarer can attain knowledge of many concepts proper to God, of which sort are all concepts in their supreme degree, as when he conceives God to be supremely wise, supremely good, and other things of this sort. However, the more perfect among these concepts is the concept of infinity, for infinity is not as it were an attribute but a degree intrinsic to the divine essence, just as intense whiteness is not something quasi accidentally added to whiteness but is an intrinsic degree of it, etc. Note that ‘supreme’ taken in relation to another states a respect but taken absolutely it states, for me, something purely simple; and in this way is the infinite made more explicit.

10. I say fourth that all the naturally possible knowledge that can be had by a wayfarer is because of the hopes creatures have and is as it were by way of argument; and it proceeds in this way: I possess the species of wisdom and the species of act and the species of a supreme stone; I then put these three species together and form one concept, which is supreme actual wisdom; and I then argue that such is the wisdom of God and so on as to other attributes; and this can be done by an argument a minori. For the imaginative faculty does this when it imagines a golden mountain, by putting together at the same time the species of gold and the species of mountain. Hereby is it plain that the natural knowledge that can be had of God is not knowledge of this essence under its proper idea of essence; etc.

11. I say fifth that, because the knowledge that can naturally be had of God comes through species of creatures, it must necessarily be the case that a concept common to God and creatures is univocal. And I mean by a univocal concept a concept that is single with as much oneness as suffices for the extremes of contradiction and for a middle term, without fallacy of equivocation, in a syllogism.

12. Now I prove this in three ways. First as follows: Knowledge is not natural unless it is naturally caused; knowledge is not naturally caused unless it is caused by what naturally moves the possible intellect; the possible intellect is not naturally moved save by an object that is translucent in a phantasm along with the agent intellect; but every such object is something sensible; therefore God cannot be naturally known save through species of sensible things; but a sensible species cannot lead to knowledge of God and of spiritual things save in the way stated; but a sensible species, as of a stone, causes knowledge of the stone and of all its higher genera, as body, substance, and being; and it causes the concept of being, which is got through the species of the stone, by attributing concepts to being, or by putting being together with other concepts, as was said in the fourth article [n.10]. For I say that God is like this, and so I have of God a concept of being; but this could not be done unless, as is plain, the concept of being were univocal to God and stone, for otherwise I could not attribute to God the concept of being that the species of stone causes in me; etc.

13. Secondly thus: The intellect, when conceiving created wisdom, conceives it as it states imperfection; and then, by removing the imperfection (namely limitation and the like) and preserving the formal idea of wisdom, the intellect attributes it to God; but this could not be done unless the concept of wisdom were univocal to created and uncreated wisdom; instead the whole of it would have to be taken away, and so nothing we received from creatures could we attribute to God.

14. Thirdly thus: The concept that the philosophers had of God, or of the first principle, which concept was being, was a created concept; but such a concept did not give certainty as to whether being was created or uncreated; therefore the concept of being was neutral as to both such concepts; and consequently it was univocal to them.

To the Arguments

15. To the arguments. To the first [q.1 n.2] the answer is plain from what was said in the fourth and fifth articles [nn.10, 11 supra].

16. To the second [q.1 n.3] I say that, according to the Commentator [Averroes, Metaphysics 2 com.1], there is no impossibility but a difficulty, the reason for which is that nature would have uselessly made separate substances if they could not be understood by any intellect. But this does not hold, because being understood by us is not the goal of separate substances. Hence, if they are not understood by us, they would not for this reason have been made uselessly; etc.

17. Further, that they cannot be understood by us does not entail that they cannot be understood by themselves.

18. One must therefore say that the eye of an owl only has intuitive vision, as is plain, and I then say that, just as it is impossible for the eye of an owl to see the sun, so it is impossible for God to be intuitively seen by the wayfarer naturally.

19. It can also be said in another way that the eye of an owl does see the sun at twilight, and just as its eye then sees the sun imperfectly so do we understood separate substances imperfectly.

20. To the third [n.4] I say that Aristotle is speaking there of an infinite in possibility, and such a thing, as far as it is infinite, is unknown; but God is an infinite in act; therefore etc.

21. To Gregory [n.5] I say that however much the mind of the wayfarer may advance in contemplation of God, yet it will not be able to reach distinct knowledge, but it can well reach some natural knowledge of God - not however of his essence as it is this essence, but to a knowledge of God, or of his essence, under the idea of being. This sort of knowledge is called inferior, however, because it is not a perfect and distinct knowledge as of the essence as it is this essence; wherefore etc.

To Question Two

22. Now in answer to the second question I say that there is a triple order to intelligible things: the first order is that of origin or generation; the next is the order of perfection; the third is the order of adequacy or of causality in the precise sense.

23. Of the first two priorities the Philosopher speaks in Metaphysics 9.15; of the third he speaks in Posterior Analytics 1.11, about the definition of the universal, because it states precision and adequacy first.

24. To being with, then, we must look at habitual cognition. As concerns this I say that concepts are twofold: one is simply simple, namely that which is not resoluble into other prior concepts, of which sort is the concept of being and its ultimate differences; the other is a simple concept but not simply simple, namely that which is resoluble into other prior concepts, of which sort is the concept of a thing defined (which is resoluble into the concepts of the parts of the definition), and so of other like terms.

25. Secondly I say that the second concept here [n.24] is knowledge, one being actual knowledge and another habitual knowledge; etc.

26. Third I say that actual knowledge is double: one is distinct, whereby a whole thing is actually known and actually in its totality; the other is confused, whereby a thing is not known actually in its totality because not all the things that are knowable about it are actually known. An example: it would be a contradiction to understand man actually without understanding all the things that are included in him essentially; yet it is not necessary for all these things to be understood actually, but only habitually. Accordingly, when all of them were understood actually, the thing would then be said to be known distinctly, because the whole of it would be known actually and totally; but when the things included in it are understood not actually but habitually, then the thing is said to be known confusedly.

27. Fourth I say that to know confusedly and distinctly are one thing and that to know a confused thing and a distinct thing are another; for in the former the confusion and distinctness are on the part of the knowledge and in the latter on the part of the thing, as is plain.

28. On the basis of these premises I say that when speaking of actual knowledge, which is here at issue, the first naturally known thing, naturally confused with confused knowledge, is the most specific species; but the first thing naturally known with distinct knowledge is being. But there is clarification of this as follows:

29. The first thing by which the possible intellect is naturally moved is the representative object in a phantasm together with the agent intellect, and, according to the common opinion, it does not immediately and directly represent the particular but the universal, namely the specific nature; therefore the specific nature is naturally first known; and because many things are included in it, of which included things the first is being, which is supreme, therefore, if the nature is to be distinctly known, there is need to start from being, and from the fact that being has a concept simply simple so that it includes nothing else. Therefore being can be only known distinctly, and thus it is plain that the first distinctly known thing is being, and the first confusedly known thing is the most specific species. But because the more universal things are the more confused things, therefore is it said in Physics 1 that the more confused things are known first by us. But this ‘known first’ must be understood of distinct knowledge, because we are now beginning from it, as was said [just above]; and what in such knowledge is more distinct is what is last known, as is plain; etc.

30. One must note here, however, that, as Scotus seems to think, no particular is, in our present state, known in its proper idea either by the intellect or by the senses. The reason is that, if the particular could be known in its proper idea, it could be distinguished from everything that is not it, and yet it cannot be. For suppose that there is here a single whiteness and it is present as an object to your senses, and suppose that God by his own power were to annihilate it and immediately replace it with a whiteness that was not numerically the same but very similar to it, you will think it is the same and yet it will not be the same; but if you knew the first whiteness in its own proper and singular nature, you would immediately notice that it was not the same. This would also be clear of many other cases that, whether by the senses or in any other way, you cannot distinguish between, and yet they are really distinct. The particular and singular, therefore, are, in our present state, not known by the intellect or the senses in their proper idea of singularity, but they are known by aggregation of many accidents, namely size, shape, color, and many such things.

To the Arguments

31. To the first argument for the opposite [q.2 n.2] I say that the proposition is in all cases true only in respect of the divine intellect, which knows things according to the degrees of their entity; and so what is first and most being is first and most known by it. But because our knowledge begins from the senses, therefore are sensible things first known to us, yet they do not have existence first. So it is true that the first being is of itself the first knowable, but it is the first known only to the most perfect intellect, which also knows things in all their degrees, etc.

Question Three. Whether God is the sufficient object of our intellect

Scotus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.3
Thomas, ST Ia q.85 a.1
Francis of Meyronne, Sent. 1 d.3 q.2
John Bacconitanus, Sent.1 d.3 q.1

1. The second question‘Second’ because questions one and two above were really parts of one question, or because this question begins the second part of distinction 3 (see footnote 10, to q.5 n.1 below). ¹²⁰ is whether God is the first sufficient object of a wayfarer’s intellect.

2. That he is. Just as there is no participated being unless there is being by essence, so participated being is not known unless unparticipated being is first known; therefore God, who is being by essence, is the first sufficient object of any intellect whatever, etc.

3. Also, the first thing in any genus is the cause of everything in that genus, from Metaphysics 2 text.4; but God is the first and most perfect of all knowables; therefore etc.

4. Further, things are related to being known as they are related to being; but God is the first being; therefore etc.

5. On the contrary. The first object of a power, by the primacy of its sufficiency, is predicated of everything that can be known by that power, as visible is said of everything that the eye can see; but God is not predicated of everything that the wayfarer’s intellect understands; therefore etc.

6. Further, no power can apprehend or understand any object under an idea more common than the idea of its first object; but the intellect understands things under an idea more common than God; therefore God is not the first object of the intellect.

To the Question

7. I reply by saying that Thomas [ST la q.12 a.4, q.85 a.1] posits that - just as powers are threefold: one altogether separate from matter in its being and in its operating, another altogether material in its being and in its operating, a third separate from matter in its operating but not in its being (the first is a separate intellect, the second is a material organic power, the third is a conjoined intellect which perfects matter in existing but does not use a material organ in operating) - so there are three objects proportionally corresponding to them. For immaterial quiddity corresponds to the first power as its first object; the material particular corresponds thus to the second power; the quiddity of a material thing corresponds thus to the third power, which quiddity, despite being in matter, is yet not known in the material singular, for it is purified by the irradiating of the agent intellect.

8. On the contrary. While a power remains the same power it cannot, by any habit added to it, exercise its act about an object that is not conceived under the formal idea of the first sufficient object of that power; but an intellect when blessed and when not blessed is numerically the same intellect; therefore, however much the habit of glory is added to the intellect when blessed yet, since such habit does not make the intellect not to be the same power as it was before, the intellect will when blessed not exercise its act about separate substances, which is absurd. The proof of the minor is that the first object of a habit either is contained under the first object of the power or at least does not go beyond it; otherwise it would not be a habit of the power.

9. Now Henry of Ghent says [Quodlibet 15 q.9 and 13 q.9] that the naturally first object of the intellect and of the will is God, the reason for which is that, just as the first object is naturally first simply, so it naturally first moves the intellect and the will, and whatever else moves them moves them by virtue of it, etc.

10. Against this is the argument brought against the first argument at the beginning [n.5]. On the supposition, therefore, of the univocity of being (which was proved supra, d.3 response to q.1 nn.11-14), I say that the first sufficient natural object of the intellect and of the will is being. However I will first state what the univocity of being extends to and what it does not extend to. Second I will demonstrate the proposed conclusion.

11. About the first point I say that being is not said univocally and quidditatively of the ultimate differences or properties of being. I first give a twofold proof. The first proof is that if being is thus univocally said, then two ultimate differences, labeled a and b, will not be in their totality primarily diverse but will be different,Things are said to be ‘diverse’ if they are in another genus but ‘different’ if they are other in the same genus. So white and red are different but white and square are diverse. ¹²¹ because they will be ‘some other being’, that is, they will be one in being by the fact that they include ‘some other being’, namely the concept of being. And then I will take precisely the reasons by which they [a and b] differ, and so either there will be an infinite regress or some ultimate differences will be found that will then be so diverse in their totality that they include nothing common; and consequently, since being states a single concept (as was proved, q.3 response to q.1 nn.11-14), these ultimate differences do not quidditatively include it.

12. The second proof is as follows: Just as a composite thing is composed of act and potency, so a composite concept is composed of an actual and formal concept; and just as act does not include potency, so an actual concept does not include a potential one; and just as the concept of being, which is potential, is simply simple, so an ultimate simple complex (at which ultimate resolution stops) is simply simple; and thus being, which states something potential, will not be predicated of difference, which states something actual.

13. Second [second of the twofold proof, n.11] I prove it following the Philosopher in Metaphysics 4 text 5 as follows: Being qua being has properties, and (following the Philosopher in Posterior Analytics 1 text 9) properties are predicated of the subject in the second and not the first mode of statement per se. Therefore, just as a property does not include the subject quidditatively, so the properties of being do not include being quidditatively.

14. I say that although being is not contained quidditatively in everything intelligible (for it is not thus contained in the properties and ultimate differences of being, as was said), and although, as a result, being is not common, with the commonness of quidditative predication, to all intelligibles, yet it is in some way common to everything as to virtual containment. And this virtual containment suffices for being to be called the natural first and adequate object of the intellect and of the will, and common to all intelligibles. And although it follows from this that the reason adduced against the first argument at the beginning [n.5] and against Henry’s opinion [n.10] is not in itself a good argument, yet it is valid against Henry, because God is not predicated quidditatively of everything intelligible, nor is he contained in everything the way intelligible is so contained, as is plain.

15. But against what was said in the first article [n.11], and against the univocity of being that it posited, argument is made in another way from the Philosopher in Metaphysics 3 text 10, where he says that being is not a genus, for then its difference would not be a per se being. And if you say that it would be, the result is that being is a genus, because it is, according to you, univocally predicated of its logical inferiors, and, according to you, something can be outside the idea [of being], and then this something will be able to be a true difference.

16. Again against the univocity of being: The Philosopher says in Metaphysics 4 that being is said of all beings the way health is said of all healthy things, and so not logically [sc. but analogically].

17. Again in the same place he says that everything metaphysics is about is not a one but related to a one; therefore being, which is the subject there, is not univocal but analogical, etc.

18. Again in Metaphysics 7 text 14 & 15, accidents are not beings but of beings, etc.

19. Again Porphyry says [Predicables, on species] that if anyone speaks of all beings he will call them beings equivocally and non-univocally, etc.

20. These arguments notwithstanding, I bring forward yet another sort of reason in favor of univocity:

21. Whatever things are properly matched together in respect of some third thing are named with one name univocally in respect to it; but substance and accident, created being and uncreated being, are properly matched in respect of being; therefore etc. The major is plain from Physics 7 text 26. It is also plain in an example, for this proposition is not true: whiteness is more a color than sound is; the reason for this is that color has no unity in respect of whiteness and sound, but only in respect of whiteness. The minor is plain because substance is properly more a being than accident is, and uncreated being than created being; and the point is plain from the Philosopher in Metaphysics 7 text 5, where he says that substance excels more than accident; but his meaning cannot be that substance is more substance than accident is, because then accident will be a substance; nor can his meaning be that accident is less accident; etc.

22. In reply to the objections that were brought forward [nn.15-19], I say to the first part of the first objection [n.15] that, in the case of many differences, being is said quidditatively; but only in the case of the ultimate differences and properties of being is it not predicated quidditatively; the point has been explained [nn.11-13]. However, the idea of genus requires that all differences, both immediate and remote, be outside the idea of the genus, etc.

23. And for this reason does Aristotle say there [n.15] that if being were a genus all the differences would be per se non-being, which is unacceptable; but it is not unacceptable, rather it is necessary, as to the ultimate differences and properties, as has been shown.

24. Hereby is plain the solution to the second part of the first objection [n.15], that, because not all differences exclude being quidditatively, being cannot be a genus.

25. To the second, third, and fourth objections, and to all the authorities taken from the Philosopher that could be adduced for the purpose [nn.16-18], I say that, speaking naturally and metaphysically, it is true that being is analogical insofar it does not state any real unity outside the intellect and as to the same things it is said of. But nevertheless, logically speaking, it is univocal, because the concept of being is truly abstracted from them and is truly one concept, as has been said and made clear.

26. I confirm the fact, for the Philosopher says, Physics 7, that equivocations are latent in a genus; and he means it to the extent that not every genus has a real unity in respect of its species; indeed sometimes the idea of a genus is taken, in reality, from some other form, a form from which the difference is taken, as is plain according to those who posit a plurality of forms; and yet, despite this fact, the genus is a true logical genus, because one concept can be naturally abstracted from things really diverse; therefore it is plain that, notwithstanding the fact an accident is a being by way of attribution to substance, that also a concept of being abstracted from other things is logically a univocal concept, and it has a certain unity, as was made clear above. For it was not to be imagined that being as said of God and creatures would have a real unity outside the intellect, because then such being would naturally precede God himself, and so God will not be the first principle.

27. To Porphyry [n.19] I say that Aristotle, whom he cites there, does not say in his Logic that being is equivocal; but if he says it in his Physics or Metaphysics, the thing has just been expounded, etc.

28. I come now to the second article [n.10], which is about the principal matter at issue; and I say that the adequate natural first object of the intellect and the will is being.

29. I prove this about the intellect in two ways, and first as follows: The object of a habit does not exceed the object of the power of the habit, because then it would not be the object of the power; but the object of the habit that is metaphysics is being, as is plain in Metaphysics 6 text 1; and that habit is an intellectual one; therefore nothing inferior to being can be set down as the adequate object of the intellect; and nothing is superior to being; therefore being is the object.

30. Second as follows: The adequate first object of a power ought to contain under it quidditatively or virtually everything to which the power extends, otherwise it would not be the adequate object; but there is nothing that may contain everything intelligible save being, for being (as explained above) contains everything by quidditative or virtual containment (according to what was expounded above). I prove that truth, or the true, is not the object in question, because although the true is transcendent as being is, it cannot be posited as the adequate first object because it does not contain all intelligibles. For the true, as a property of being, does not contain being, nor the things that are per se being, whether quidditatively or virtually; but on the other hand the subject does contain the property virtually, albeit not quidditatively, etc.

31. Now, that being is the adequate first object of the will is plain from this, that whatever the intellect can understand the will, since it is free, can will, provided however the thing understood has the idea of being; for the intellect is of itself proportioned to the will. Many however do not concede that the will can will whatever the intellect can understand, etc.

32. Against this article [n.28] there is argument as follows: distinct powers have formally distinct objects, from On the Soul 2 text 33; but will and intellect are formally distinct powers, and sense and intellect are formally distinct powers, and yet the sensible is not formally distinct from being; on the contrary it formally includes being as its superior.

33. Again: Because then the intellect will naturally be able to understand separate substances per se, since they are contained per se under being.

34. To the first of these [n.32] I say that disparate powers of the sort that sight and hearing are have also formally distinct objects, just as they are formally distinct powers; but subordinate powers in the same genus, of which sort are the sensitive cognitive power and the intellective power that is also cognitive, need to have subordinate objects, just as they themselves are subordinate; and just as is plain about the particular sense and the common sense, so the sensible does not have to be distinct from the intellect but may be contained under it. Powers, however, that have an order between them but are not of the same genus, of which sort the intellect and will are, do not need to possess formally distinct objects because of the fact they have an order, for everything willed is known first, etc.

35. To the second [n.33] I say that, just as was said above, the intellect in this present state only naturally understands what it is naturally moved by; but it is only naturally moved by the object that shines forth in a phantasm along with the agent intellect; and everything such is sensible. And therefore the quiddity of sensible things is the first natural mover of the intellect in this present state; but nevertheless, that which the intellect is capable of should be assigned to it as its adequate first object. Hence the intellect, and the like, is the whole of being. For the conjoined and non-conjoined intellect are numerically the same intellect; indeed every blessed conjoined intellect has power for every intelligible and every being. But the fact that in this present state the intellect cannot be moved naturally save by sensible things is a result either of the natural connection of the powers of inferiors, or of superiors, or because of the sin of our first Parent, as Augustine seems to mean in On the Trinity 15 last chapter; and Augustine’s view is perhaps more likely, because the blessed intellect would be conjoined with the same body after glorification, and consequently the connection would be the same; and yet the blessed intellect would understand sensible substances.

To the Arguments

36. As to the first argument, then, at the beginning [n.2], namely that there is no participated being unless there is being by essence and so participated being is not known unless it is a being through being by essence. However, the following inference does not hold, namely that just as being is from unparticipated being, so being is not known unless unparticipated being is known and unless being is known through the idea of being by essence. An example: A stone is not a being unless there is being by essence. Let there be being by essence. Yet the inference does not hold: the stone is not formally white or hard unless being by essence is white or hard.

32. Hereby is plain the solution to Henry’s argument [n.9]. For although God is simply the first being and is of himself the first knowable, yet he is not naturally for us the first known or the first knowable. Such he is for his own true intellect, which is a purely simple intellect.This response to Henry will serve also as a response to the remaining two arguments at the beginning, nn.3, 4 (which are not expressly addressed); for they both turn on the same idea, namely that since God is first therefore he is first known. ¹²²

Question Four. Whether some sound and certain truth can be known by the intellect of the wayfarer without special illumination from the uncreated light

Scotus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.4
Thomas, ST Ia q.44 a.3

1. The fourth question is whether the wayfarer can possess some sound and certain truth without special illumination from the uncreated light.

2. And it seems that he cannot. For Augustine On the Trinity 9.8 says that we gaze on inviolable truth, and by state by means of it what sort of mind should belong with reasons to eternal man.

3. And in the same place, in the truth by which all temporal things are made we behold the form; therefrom do we get, as a word within ourselves, the conception of true knowledge.

4. And in Confessions 12 chs.2 & 3 Augustine says that if both of us see the truth, you do not see it in me or I in you, but we both see it with a changeless truth as far as possible above the intellect.

5. On the contrary, in Romans 1 it is said that the invisible things of God from the creation of the world are understood by the mind through the things that are made. These, the invisible things of God, are eternal ideas. Therefore they are known from creatures, and so, before they are seen, a sure knowledge of creatures is attained.

To the Question.

Henry of Ghent’s Answer

6. The question here is about the knowledge of truth, which is known by the intellect as it combines and divides; the question is not about the first truth or being, but about the idea, etc.

7. The opinion of Henry [of Ghent] about this question is in the negative. Here one must note that, just as there is a twofold exemplar, namely created and uncreated (the uncreated the idea, and the created the impressed intelligible species), so there is a twofold conformity corresponding to them. But Henry says that through the created exemplar, or the acquired one within us, there cannot be had an altogether sound and certain truth; in fact it is fallible, which he proves as follows:

8. The object from which the created exemplar (that is the true species posited above) is abstracted is changeable; therefore it cannot be the cause of anything unchangeable, but the sound and certain knowledge of any truth about anything is had about it under the idea of changeability; therefore it is not had from such an eternal exemplar. Hence Augustine in 83 Questions q.9 says that sound truth is not to be expected from sensible things, because they are changeable, etc.

9. Further, the soul is not ruled or perfected by anything more changeable than itself; but the sort of created exemplar posited above is more changeable than the soul; therefore etc. The major is from Augustine On True Religion, etc.

10. Further, he who has such eternal truth should have wherewith to discern the true from the untrue or from the seeming true, which the wayfarer does not have (for the created exemplar or species cannot do it). And the proof is that this species either represents itself as it is, and then it is a true understanding, or represents itself as the object, and then it is a false understanding; therefore it can err, as is plain in dreams. From these premises the conclusion is drawn that sure knowledge cannot be had by looking at the created exemplar.

11. His way of putting this is as follows: for he says that God does not have the idea of exemplar as a known thing by which, when looked at, sound truth is known; so God is known in some general attribute. But he is the reason for knowing as naked exemplar and as proper idea of uncreated essence. Hence Henry says that the uncreated light illumines the intellect of an angel by direct vision, as it were, and this light, as seen, is the reason for an angel’s seeing in himself other things. But the uncreated light illumines our intellect as by reflected vision in this present state, and therefore it is the reason of seeing for our intellect and is not seen.

12. I argue against this opinion, and first by turning Henry’s reasons in the opposite direction. For if the object too in the containing mind changes [n.8], no certitude can be had about it under an unchangeable idea; indeed in no light at all can certitude about it be had, because there is no certitude when the object can be known in a way other than how the subject is. There is no certitude then in knowing the changeable as unchangeable. It is plain too that the antecedent of this reasoning is false, for it imposes the view of Heraclitus, that sensibles are continually changing, Metaphysics 4 text 23. It also follows that if, because of the changeability of the exemplar in our soul, there can be no certitude (since anything posited subjectively in the soul is changeable, including the act of understanding itself), then it follows that by nothing in the soul will the soul be set right so as not to err.

13. Likewise, according to this opinion [n.9], the created species is inherent with this species alonea apart from the being;The text prints ‘absente’ but, to make sense, it should be ‘abs ente’. ¹²³ but when something is known that is repugnant to certitude, no certitude can be had; for, just as from one contingent premise joined to another contingent premise a contingent conclusion follows [Prior Analytics ch.21], so from an uncertain thing and a certain thing (when they come together for some piece of knowledge) no certain conclusion follows, etc.

14. Again, the same is plain about the third reason [n.10], for if the species abstracted from the thing is concurrent with all knowledge and if it is not possible to judge when the species represents itself as itself and when it represents itself as the object, then, however much something else is concurrent with it, no certitude can be had whereby to discriminate the true from the seeming true etc.

15. Now, that this opinion is not, as some mean to say, the opinion of Augustine, is plain from Augustine when he says [Soliloquies 2] that for no reason does anyone concede that the speculations of the sciences to be the truest. And Boethius says [De Hebdomadibus] that the common conceptions of the soul are those that, when heard, everyone approves. The Philosopher too in Metaphysics 2 com.1 says that the first principles are certain and known to everyone, like the doors in a house.

16. From these three authorities the argument goes as follows: Whatever agrees with everything of some species is consequent to the specific nature; therefore since everyone has sure knowledge of the first principles, and since knowledge of the conclusions depends on knowledge of the principles, it follows that sure knowledge of the conclusion can be known by anyone. And elsewhere Augustine says On the Trinity 15.13, “Far be it that we should doubt to be true and certain the things we have learnt through the senses of the body.”

17. I now solve Henry’s arguments etc. As to the first [n.8], about the changeability of the object, I say that the antecedent is false. Nor is it the opinion of Augustine but of Heraclitus [rather Cratylus], who did not want to speak but to move his finger, as is said in Metaphysics 4. And given that the antecedent were true, sure knowledge could still, according to Aristotle, be had about the fact that everything is moved contingently; and from the fact that everything is moveable contingently, sure and sound and unchangeable knowledge is had that everything changeable was changeable. For the following consequence does not hold: the object is changeable; therefore whatever is generated by it does not represent anything under the idea of being unchangeable. For the changeability of the object is not the reason for knowledge, but rather the nature of the changeable object is; what is generated by it, then, represents the nature per se; therefore if the nature has some unchangeable relation to something else, this something else is represented by its exemplar as being unchangeably united to it and thus through two exemplars.

18. To the second [n.9] I say that a double changeability can be understood in the soul: one is from affirmation to negation and conversely, namely from non-intellection to intellection and conversely; the other is as it were from contraries to contrary, namely from correctness to error and conversely. The soul is changeable in the first way as to any object whatever, and such changeableness is not removed from it by anything existing formally in the soul. But the soul is not changeable in the second way until it reaches propositions that are not evident from the terms. But about propositions that are evident from the terms the soul cannot change in this second way of being changeable, because the apprehended terms are a necessary cause of the conformity of the composition with the terms. Therefore if the soul is capable of absolute changeability from rightness to error, then there is nothing by which it can set itself right; at least it cannot set itself right as to the objects that the intellect, once the terms are grasped, cannot be in error about.

19. To the third [n.10] I say that, when the intelligible species or the exemplar is said not to represent itself as the object in dreams, then it is a phantasm and not an intelligible species; therefore if the intellect is using only a phantasm in which the object is present to it and is not using another intelligible species, then it does not seem able to discern the true from the seeming true by anything that the object is manifest in; but positing an impressed species in the intellect is not valid reasoning, because the intellect cannot use that species itself for the object, because in fact it does not use it in sleep.

20. And if answer be made that because a phantasm can represent an object the intellect can at least err and can even be impeded from operating correctly, as is plain of the mad and people asleep - I say that the intellect does not then err because it does not then act.

21. And so the response to Henry’s arguments is plain, etc.

22. What remains now is to argue against the conclusion of Henry’s opinion. Hence I ask what he means by sound truth. For either he means certain and infallible truth, without any doubt or deception, and this can be had by purely natural power. Or he means by truth a property of being; but since being can be naturally known, so too can its property, namely the true; consequently, by abstraction, truth can be known, for any form that can be understood in something can also be understood in itself by abstraction. Or he means by sound truth conformity with the exemplar, and then I ask whether the conformity is with the created exemplar (and then the proposed conclusion is gained) or with the uncreated exemplar; and if with the uncreated exemplar then, since conformity cannot be known unless what the conformity is with is known, it follows that the uncreated exemplar is known in the created exemplar, which is contrary to how he posits things.

23. Further, when the intellect understands something confusedly it can grasp it definitively by investigating its definition through a process of division. This knowledge is the most perfect kind and belongs to simple understanding, and from this most perfect kind of knowledge of terms the intellect can understand principles, and from principles conclusions, and in this way its knowledge becomes complete, etc.

Andreas’ own Answer

24. To the question I say that, because of Augustine’s words [nn.2-4],Note that because Andreas accepts the arguments at the beginning he has no need to give an answer to them; so no section responding to such arguments is found in this question. ¹²⁴ one must concede the fact that infallible truths are seen in eternal patterns. But here the ‘in’ can be taken as meaning the object and in four ways: as in the proximate object, or as in what contains the proximate object, or as in that by virtue of which the proximate object moves, or as in the remote object.

25. To understand the first of these I say that all intelligibles have intelligible being by act of the divine intellect, and all truths about these intelligibles are visible in them; and the intellect, understanding them as intellect and the necessary truths about them by virtue of them, sees the necessary truths in them as in its objects. Now these are truths insofar as they are secondary objects of the divine intellect, because they are conformed to their exemplar, namely to the divine intellect; they are also light because they make things manifest and are unchangeable and necessary; they are also eternal, but in a certain respect, because eternity is a condition of what exists in a certain respect, and these things only have existence in a certain respect. Thus we can in a first way say that the intellect sees things in the eternal light, that is, in a secondary object of the divine intellect, which, in the way just expounded, is the truth or the eternal light.

26. The second way is plain from the fact that the divine intellect contains the truths as a sort of book, after the manner stated by Augustine [On the Trinity chs.14-15], that the eternal patterns are written in the book of eternal light, that is, in the divine intellect insofar as it contains these truths. And although the book is not something seen, yet the things written in it are seen to be the quiddities of things; and the intellect could be said to see truths in the light, that is, in the book as it contains the object (and this is the second way), or to see them also in the truths that are in a certain respect eternal light, as we see truths in objects (and this according to the first way). The latter of these ways seems to be of Augustine’s mind, because the idea of square body remains incorruptible and unchangeable but the body itself does not remain so, save as it is a secondary object of the divine intellect, etc.

27. But there is a doubt here; for if we do not see the truths as they are in the divine intellect (for we do we not see that intellect), then we will be said to see them in the uncreated light, and that because what we see in such eternal light (eternal in a certain respect) are things that have being in the uncreated light as in the intellect that knows them. Here the second way replies that things as they are the secondary object of the divine intellect have being only in a certain respect. But real operation does not belong to any being by that being’s power as it precisely is a being in a certain respect; but if operation does in any way belong to it then it must do so by the power of another thing that has being simply. These objects, then are, according to Aristotle, only able strictly speaking to move the intellect by virtue of the being of the divine intellect, which is being simply and through which the objects have being in a certain respect. Thus it is, then, that we see things in the eternal light (eternal in a certain respect eternal) as in the proximate object; but we see them in the uncreated light as in the proximate cause, by virtue of which the proximate object moves the intellect, etc.

28. Alongside this can be said that, as to the third way [n.24], we see things in the eternal light as in the proximate cause of the object in itself. For the divine intellect produces things by its own indwelling intelligible act, and by this act it gives to each object, to this object and to that, this or that sort of being; consequently to each is given the idea of the kind of thing it is, and through these ideas do things first move the intellect to sure knowledge. But the fact that one can indeed say the understanding of the matter is to see things in the eternal light (because the light is the cause of the object) is apparent from a likeness: for we are properly said to understand in the light of the agent intellect -although however this light is but the active cause, either as being what makes the object actual, or as that by virtue of which the object moves, or as both. So this double causality of the divine intellect (namely that it is the true uncreated light which produces secondary objects in intelligible being and is that by virtue of which produced secondary objects also actually move the intellect) can as it were integrally include the third member (the one about the cause [n.24], because of which we are said to see truly in the eternal light).

29. But if you object against these two ways (which integrally include the third one about the cause) that then it seems rather to be the case that we are said to see in God’s will, or in God as will, than in God as he is light, because the divine will is the immediate principle of any extrinsic act of God etc. - I reply that the divine intellect produces objects in intelligible being insofar as it is in some way prior to the divine will, and so it seems to be a merely natural power with respect to them, because God is only a free cause with respect to something if the supposition is first made that some willing or act of will in some way precedes it; and so the intellect, as prior to the act of will, produces intelligible objects such that a prior cause seems to cooperate naturally with the intelligibles for their effect, namely in the way terms, when apprehended and joined together, cause apprehension of the conformity [of the proposition] to themselves. There seems, then, to be a contradiction in the intellect forming some such composition of terms and the composition not being in conformity in the terms - though it is possible that the terms not be conceived; for although God voluntarily acts along with the intellect in putting or not putting terms together, nevertheless, when the intellect has put them together, the conformity of the composition with the terms seems to follow necessarily the intelligible nature of the terms, which nature they have from the intellect of God as this intellect naturally brings the terms about in intelligible being.

30. Thus it is apparent how no special illumination is necessary for seeing things in the eternal patterns. For Augustine posits those truths alone to be seen in them that are, by the force of the terms, necessary extremes, and in such cases there is the maximum of necessity, that is, in both the proximate and the remote causes with respect to the effect, namely, in both the divine intellect with respect to the objects that move the intellect, and in the objects in relation to the truth of the proposition about them. But if it is posited that God cooperates as to the effect with a general influence but not with natural necessity, I say that, whether there is a general influence here or a natural necessity, plainly no special illumination is necessarily required.

31. The assumption from Augustine [n.30] is plain from On the Trinity 4.15 when he speaks about these matters: “Some are able to raise the sharpness of their mind above every creature to attain in some way or other to the light of incommunicable truth, which they mockingly say Christians who live by faith alone are not yet able to do.” Therefore he maintains that Christians do not see the things of faith in the eternal patterns. But philosophers see many necessary things in those patterns according to Augustine when he says [On the Trinity 9.6] “the mind must not be of the sort it is in just any man,” as if he were to say, “contingent things are not seen there but necessary ones;” therefore he means the necessary ones are seen through eternal patterns, because contingent things, which are only known through the senses are or believed from histories, are not known; and yet a special illumination is more required in the case of believing contingent things than in knowing necessary ones, where a special illumination is furthest removed and the general illumination is alone sufficient.

32. On the contrary: Why then does Augustine say [On the Trinity 12.14] that few are able by sharpness of mind to attain to the intelligible ideas, and that only pure souls reach them?

33. I reply that the purity in question here should not be understood as purity from vices, because Augustine maintains [83 Questions q.46, On the Trinity 14.15] that an unjust man may see in the eternal patterns what in them one should think. But the purity must be understood as an elevating of the intellect to understanding truths as they are manifest in themselves, and not only as they are manifest in phantasms. Here one needs to note that a sensible thing causes a single confused phantasm representing in the imaginative power something per accidens one, namely the thing in its size, shape, color, and other sensible accidents. And just as the phantasm represents the thing only confusedly and per accidens, so many people perceive only a per accidens thing. But pure truths are precisely what they are through the proper nature of the terms, to the extent the terms are abstracted from everything joined per accidens with them. For the proposition, ‘every whole is greater than its part’, is true not only as it is a whole of stone or wood, but as it is a whole abstracted from everything to which it is per accidens conjoined. Therefore when the intellect understands a whole as it is in wood or stone, it does not have sound truth about it; and in this way Augustine says that few are able thus to understand, for few have so subtle a sort of mind; and he who understands with a confused and per accidens sort of concept is in the valley and surrounded by fog. But he who understands truths purely, and understands them as, from the idea of their terms, they precisely are, is on a broad mountain, having the valley and fog below.The printed text has ‘sincerum’ or ‘sound’ which makes no sense in the context. It may be a misprint for ‘inferius’ or ‘sub pedem’ or the like, which is what is translated here. ¹²⁵

33. One can, then, in this way concede that sound truths are known in uncreated light as in a remote known object [n.24]; for the uncreated light is the first principle of theoretical matters and the ultimate end of practical ones, and the principles of theory and practice are taken up in this way. Therefore knowledge of beings through such principles is nobler, and such knowledge belongs to theologians. Yet, notwithstanding, Augustine says that sound truth can be had without special illumination, etc.

Question Five. Whether a trace or footprint of the Trinity is found in all creatures

Scotus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.5
Thomas, ST Ia q.45 a.7
Richard of St. Victor, Sent. 1 d.3 q.1 a.1
Durandus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.4
Francis of Meyronnes, Sent. 1 d.3 q.3

1. The question asked in the third place‘Third’ because it looks to be the third part of the distinction, although the fifth question overall. The first two or three questions are the first part (about the knowability of God), the fourth question (or the third and fourth question together) is the second part (about creaturely knowledge in general in its dependence on God), the fifth question is the third part (about the trace or footprint of the Trinity - although the printed text calls it the second part), the sixth to ninth questions are the fourth part (about the image of the Trinity - although the printed text calls it the third part). ¹²⁶ is whether there is a trace or footprint of the Trinity in creatures.

2. That there is not, because a footprint leads to knowledge of what imprinted it, and so we could know the Trinity, which is false.

3. Again, in intellectual nature there is an image of the Trinity, so there is no footprint; for image and footprint have opposite ways of representing something.

4. Again, intellectual nature, because it is nobler, has a higher way of representing than lower substances do, namely by way of image; but there are many natures in intellectual nature that have a less perfect rank, just as animate things rank above inanimate things and, after that, above simple things; so these natures will have different ways of representing, because the idea of trace or footprint will not be common to them all, etc.

5. To the contrary is Augustine, On the Trinity 6 last chapter, who says that we should be able, by looking at the creator through the things that are made, to understand the Trinity, whose footprint, as has been said, is posited to exist in creatures.

To the Question

6. I reply that, according to the Philosopher Topics 6.2, all transferred senses are transferred according to some likeness.

7. First, then, one must note what in creatures a trace or footprint is, and second in what consists that whereby the footprint is transferred to divine realities, and third whether the footprint is found in any creature whatever.

8. As to the first point, a trace or footprint is said to be an impression left by the foot of an animal as it passes by, if there is something that yields to the foot. Footprints do not represent what they belong to perfectly but by way of inference, and not as to the proper form of the individual (the way an image does) but rather as to the form of the nature. An example: If I see the footprint of a horse in the ground, I argue that a horse has been there; not however that this or that particular horse has but absolutely that some horse has; and even this could be wrong, because the foot could have been cut off from the whole horse, etc.

9. As to the second point [n.7], any creature at all is said to be referred back to God in three respects: as an example back to its exemplar cause, as a product back to the producing cause, and as a thing ordered back to its final cause; and all three respects are parts of a footprint. However, it seems one should speak in another way in accord with Augustine On the Trinity 6 last chapter [n.5] last chapter; for he maintains that the parts of the footprint are units, species, and order, the first two of which are absolutes, as is plain.

10. On the third point [n.7], any creature at all is said to have its proper unity whereby it is distinguished from everything that is not of the same sort; and it has its own species, whereby it imitates its own proper idea; and it has its proper order, whereby it has a certain rank among beings; and so there is a divine footprint in every creature whatever.

To the Arguments

11. To the first argument for the contrary [n.2] I say that from the fact a footprint leads by way of argument and imperfectly to a knowledge of that of which it is the footprint, it does not follow that a Trinity of distinct persons can be known by such created footprint, etc.

12. To the second argument [n.3] I say that, although a created essence, insofar as it is such an exemplar, is created according to some determinate exemplar (so any creature represents God under the idea of footprint), yet, insofar as intellectual nature has in it one essence and several operations possessing an order of origin between them, it represents the Trinity by reason of all the operations found in such nature; to this extent an intellectual nature is not a footprint and an image in the same way, as will be plain below, etc.

13. To the last argument [n.4] I say that there are different ways of representing in creaturely essences, that is, different ways of being a footprint; but because there is a material subject in which many things representing unity and trinity come together, therefore such a nature has the idea of image, as intellectual nature does. But such coming together is not found in any nature lower than intellectual nature; and for this reason all other natures have precisely just the idea of footprint, etc.

Question Six. Whether in intellectual nature taken properly there is memory properly, that is an intellect possessing an intelligible species naturally prior to the act of understanding

Scotus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.6
Thomas, ST Ia q.79 a.6

1. The question asked in fourth place‘Fourth’ because the fourth part of distinction 3, but the particular question is number 6 overall (see footnote 10 to q.5 n.1 above). ¹²⁷ is whether some species impressed on the possible intellect necessarily precedes all intellection by nature.

2. That it does not. A species is only posited because of the presence of the object; but the object present to the intellect is prior in nature to the impressed species; therefore positing a species is otiose. The proof of the major is that a species is only caused or impressed when the object is present; and here is confirmation, because the object that is in the phantasm, together with the agent intellect, can cause and impress a species on the possible intellect (according to you); thus the natural phantasm can cause simple intellection,The printed text has no nouns qualified by the adjectives ‘natural’ and ‘simple’, so what look to be the appropriate nouns are added in the translation (rightly or wrongly) from the context. ¹²⁸ so the species would be impressed to no purpose.

3. Again, because it would then follow that the possible intellect would not be moved immediately to understanding by the intelligible object but would first suffer from it some real effect, namely by receiving in impression the real species; so the impression would be impressed to no purpose.

4. On the contrary. The possible intellect is sometimes in essential potency for understanding and sometimes in actual potency etc. But it only moves from essential potency to accidental potency by some real change in it, as is plain of all like cases. Now such real change is nothing but the impression of the species; therefore etc.

To the Question

5. Reply. Henry of Ghent denies, for the reasons just given, there is any impressed species in the possible intellect, and he posits only an impressed species such that the object evident in the phantasm when illumined by the agent intellect is by impression in the imaginative power, and such that in the possible intellect there is by expression only act and habit of understanding.

6. On the contrary. The same thing cannot represent diverse things in diverse ways; but the phantasm, qua phantasm, represents the singular; therefore it does not represent the universal; therefore the universal cannot be understood unless one posits an intelligible species that is impressed on the possible intellect; etc.

7. I reply. The same thing can represent diverse things under different lights. So the phantasm represents the particular in the light of imagination and the universal in the light of the agent intellect. There is a confirmation, because, according to you, the separated soul understands the universal and the singular and everything else through the same species and in the same and not different light. So this objection does not seem cogent against Henry.

8. I therefore argue against Henry in a different way, and first as follows: The agent intellect is active and not receptive; but its action is real; therefore the term of its action is real; but such term cannot be intellection, because the object, as object, precedes intellection by natural order; now the object, as object, is a universal and it is only made a universal by the agent intellect; therefore the first and immediate term of the action of the agent intellect is the universal or universality; and universality is not intellection but a condition of the object on the part of the object; but this real term of the action of the agent intellect is not in the agent intellect itself (because the agent intellect is not receptive, as was said), nor is it in the imagination, because, first, it is not posited as being there, second because the agent intellect impresses nothing positive on the phantasm, and third because an agent does not extend to more things actively than the passive or possible thing extends to passively, and every active action received from an agent is received passively. Therefore it is impossible for the universal, which is the first term of the action of the agent intellect, to be received by impression in the possible intellect in advance of all intellection [sc. in advance of the agent intellect making the universal]; and this is nothing other than that the intelligible species impressed on the possible intellect representatively is first and per se the universal, etc.

9. There is a confirmation because, in everyone’s view, the first operation of the agent intellect is to make actually intelligible what is potentially intelligible - and this is everyone’s view as was said; the term of this action is only in the possible intellect, for as the agent intellect is that which makes everything so the possible intellect is that which becomes everything; but being actually intelligible is on the part the object and not on that of the act; therefore etc.

10. Again, the possible intellect, qua distinct from the sensitive part of the soul, is said to possess the object present to it under its idea as object; but the possible intellect will not have this if there be impressed on it no intelligible species that is representative of the object; therefore etc.

11. I say, therefore, that because of these reasons (one on the part of the agent intellect [nn.8-9] and the other on the part of the possible intellect [n.10]) there is an intelligible species impressed on the possible intellect prior in order of nature to all intellection; and indeed the object, as present in the species of the object, is made manifest in this species and receives in it its being known, etc.

To the Arguments

12. To the first argument at the beginning [n.2] I say that, as is plain from what has been said, the natural order requires that the first and immediate term of the action of the agent intellect is not intellection but the species that is naturally representative and that does represent the object as actually intelligible etc.

14. And hereby is plain the answer to the second argument [n.3]. For the natural order requires that the possible intellect be moved to an impression of the intelligible species before it is moved to intellection; it is of course, however, moved to understanding immediately by the intellect representing the species, but it is moved first to an impression of the species, as was said.

Question Seven. Whether the intellective part of the soul taken properly, or some part of it, is the whole cause, or the whole principle of generating, which generates actual knowledge

Scotus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.7
Thomas, ST Ia q.85 a.2

1. The question asked fifth‘Fifth’ perhaps because, although this question belongs to the general discussion of image (the fourth part of d.3), it here takes a diversion through the details of how the created mind knows, and then the question of image proper is returned to in question nine below. ¹²⁹ is whether the possible intellect is purely passive with respect to generated knowledge.

2. That it is, from Aristotle On the Soul 3 text 18, who says that the agent intellect is what makes everything and the possible intellect what becomes everything; therefore, just as the agent intellect is purely active with respect to intellection, so the possible intellect is purely passive, etc.

3. On the contrary: Sometimes the possible intellect is in essential potency to understanding, and sometimes in accidental potency; but this distinction cannot be taken properly in something purely passive; therefore etc.

To the Question

4. Some say that, because the possible intellect is purely active, therefore understanding is an act merely of life; so it comes from a principle of life, and consequently it is not from an object but from the power, etc.

5. Again, the more perfect a form is the more actual it is; since therefore the intellect is a perfect form among other lower forms it is purely active.

6. Again, from On the Soul 3, intellection is an immanent action, so it is not the effect of an object, because then there would be an influence from outside the agent, for the act of understanding is in the possible intellect as in its subject.

7. Again, intellection is an action, and action is distinguished from passion; but action of this sort is in an agent and is its perfection (Physics 3, Ethics 2, Metaphysics 9); therefore, since the possible intellect is perfected by itself, the perfection comes actively from itself; this is said to be Augustine’s meaning On the Trinity 4.5, On Genesis 28 etc.

8. On the contrary, from On the Trinity 9 last chapter, where Augustine says that knowledge is from both, that is, both knower and known; and ibid. 2.2 & 5 where he says that vision is generated by seeing; and ibid. 15.10 & 24 where he says that the word comes from the thing we know; therefore the object contributes some activity, etc.

9. Again by argument thus: the efficient and material causes are sufficient for the effect when they are disposed and proximate to each other and not impeded - necessarily so if the efficient cause is a natural one, or, if it is a voluntary one, the effect can follow; for the effect essentially depends on the efficient and material causes; but the possible intellect is a sufficient continuing matter for intellection; therefore, if it is sufficient matter in respect of some same intellection and is purely active, then intellection follows even when everything else is removed; and so there will be intellection without an object, which is impossible, etc.

10. Others assert the opposite extreme [Averroes On the Soul com.17 & 18, Godfrey of Fontaines Quodlibet 7 q.7], namely that the possible intellect is purely passive. The reason is that it is susceptive of intellection as being the matter of it; so, if it were able to effect intellection, then material and efficient cause would coincide in numerically the same thing, which is contrary to Aristotle Physics 2 text 70 where he says they do not coincide.

11. Again, it would then follow that the same thing was active and passive with respect to the same thing, which is against the first principle [sc. the principle: ‘the same thing cannot both be and not be’], etc.

12. Again, it would follow that the extreme terms of a real completion, namely of producer and produced, would be in the same foundation, which seems impossible.

13. Hence these others say [n.10] that, since the agent intellect is the same really as the possible intellect, it does not do or cause anything in the possible intellect but only makes the object that is manifest in the phantasm to be actually intelligible and actually able to move the possible intellect to understand. But intellection and volition are, they say, caused precisely by the intellective object; namely intellection by the object manifest in the phantasm (when this is actually imagined and illumined by the agent intellect), and volition by the object made actually intellective, etc.

14. On the contrary: The sensitive soul is the same really as the intellective soul, so the reason they give for the agent intellect’s being unable to cause or do anything in the possible intellect is a reason for its being unable to be in the sensitive soul. Therefore either the agent intellect causes something positively in the phantasm (which is contrary to what they say); or it removes something from it, namely the material conditions and that sort of thing, and then the same problem arises, that by acting it removes something or it does nothing, and then the phantasm alone will cause intellection - which is false, however, because the effect would be nobler than its cause, and because a less noble thing would act on what is more noble, etc.

15. Again, acts of discursion and composing and denying could not be in the sensitive soul, as is plain, and likewise neither reflexive acts or relations of reason or logical intentions, and yet all these are intellections.

16. Again mental acts could not be in the sensitive soul etc.

17. Henry of Ghent [Quodlibet 5 q.14] holds a different view, that the possible intellect is not active or passive with respect to the impression of the species because, as he says, there is no impressed species. But with respect to simple knowledge the possible intellect, because there is no impressed species, is purely passive, for it is instead caused by the object manifest in the phantasm, and the same is expressive in the intellect. But with respect to the further knowledge, which is the word, the possible intellect is active by means of the simple knowledge that it is informed by first.

18. On the contrary: Although this opinion, which does not posit an impressed species, was argued against in another question above [d.3 q.4], yet to the extent it has regard to the present matter it is argued against here again as follows:

19. The first knowledge, which is called simple, is confused and imperfect with respect to second knowledge, according to Henry, and can be of the same species as the first, because it can be about the same object; but the formal principle of causing an effective object cannot be more imperfect than the effect that it causes of the same species; therefore an intellect informed by simple knowledge cannot be made active by it for causing a second effect if, in the person, it was purely passive, etc.

20. The Thomists and Giles of Rome say in a different way that the object in the memory (if it is per se there primarily), or the species of the object in the memory, causes another intellective species, and this second species is generated knowledge while the first is not (and here they differ from the second power that Henry posits), because nothing is impressed on the intellect absolutely before knowledge is; and here they agree with Henry. But he posits that, in respect of all knowledge, both first and second knowledge, the intellect is purely passive, and all knowledge is caused by the object; and here they differ from Henry. They posit instead that the intellect is indeed purely passive in respect of all knowledge but, when the object is not present per se, the first impression of the species in the memory is not intellect but second intelligence.

21. To the contrary: I say about discursive, vital, reflex acts, and the like what I said against the second opinion [nn.14-16], that intellection does not come precisely from the object or the species of the object, both because of the arguments made against this sort of opinion, and also because then the idea of image is not preserved in the mind when it is mind, for nothing of the mind would have the idea of parent by way of intellection.

22. I also say that intellection is not entirely from the power, both for the reasons made against the first opinion [nn.8-12] and for two other reasons:

23. First that intellection would not be a likeness of the object but of the power, because it would not be caused by the object save by the power; but this is unacceptable because understanding is about the object not about the power, for the object is what is understood.

24. Second because the power would have to have non-successively an active and infinite power - it can understand an infinity of intelligible things differing in species; but the intellect does not gain for itself any power from the fact it actually understands, but must have the power first so that it can understand; therefore it must pre-possess as much power as can understand infinities, though it understands this specifically diverse intelligible species through one power and that specifically diverse intelligible species through another power, but it can understand several things of the same species through the same power; therefore since two powers are more than one, powers infinite extensively would be infinite intensively. And if you say that fire can successively burn an infinity of combustible things and yet does not have infinite power, I say that the case is not the same, because all the combustibles are of the same species in idea of combusting, and therefore the fire burns all of them by the same power. But intelligibles are not so, because the intellect understands one intelligible as it is specifically distinct from another.

25. I say therefore that both the power and the object, or the species, are each per se partial causes, and both together integrally constitute one total cause. This is confirmed by Augustine On the Trinity 9 last chapter, as cited above [n.8].

26. But note that when several causes in the genus of efficient cause come together for causing the same effect, sometimes they come together as several men for dragging a weight, sometimes as subordinate but such that a lower receives power from a higher (as the cause in a creature receives power from the uncreated cause), sometimes as essentially ordered but such that one does not receive power from the other (though one is more excellent than the other, as in the case of father and mother in generating offspring, according to those who posit that a mother has active power in generating). The causes above listed [n.25] do not come together in the first way, because just as a stronger person could come along there who would by himself drag as much as two persons were dragging, so there could be a single more powerful intellect here which would cause intellection by itself without the object, which however is impossible. Nor do the causes above listed [n.25] come together in the second way [as is evident].

27. I raise the question about the comparison of the two partial causes [n.25] that cause generated knowledge.

Question Eight. Whether the more principal cause of generated knowledge is the object in itself or present in the species or the intellective part of the soul

Scotus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.8

1. But then the question arises as to which of these two causes [q.7 n.25] is more principal.

2. It seems, to begin with, that the object itself moves without being moved (On the Soul 3 text 54); while the intellect does not move to intellection unless moved, first because it is moved by the species impressed by the object, and second because its effect, namely intellection, is more like the object than like the power.

3. On the contrary. The cause that is more actual with respect to the same effect is more principal than the cause that is less actual; but the intellective power is more of this sort, especially when the object has a diminished being.

4. Again the object works along with the power and not conversely, because we can understand when we wish (from Aristotle), which would not be the case if the object was the principal cause.

5. Again, the object is determined to this intellection alone, that is, only to an intellection about itself; but the power is determined to intellection as such and so is a cause more universal and more indeterminate with a universality and indetermination that state perfection (as is plain); and so it follows that the power is more principal.

6. So for these three reasons, especially the last, I concede this conclusion, etc.

To the Arguments

7. As to the solutions of the arguments: To the first argument of the first opinion [q.7 n.4] I say that although a non-living thing cannot be the total cause of a living effect, it can yet be a partial cause, as is plain of the sun in the generation of man, etc.

8. As to the second [q.7 n.5] I say that, because the infinite is perfect, its not being totally active is not repugnant to it, but that it have some activity is sufficient for it, etc.

9. To the third [q.7 n.6] I say that, for an action to be immanent, it is enough that it not pass beyond the supposit of the agent, or beyond its own total cause, and that, even if it pass beyond a less principal partial cause, it yet remain within its principal partial cause - which is sufficient for action properly speaking. And hereby is plain the answer to the fourth argument [q.7 n.7].

10. As for the quote from Augustine [q.7 n.8] I say that his intention was not this [sc. that the object contributes some activity] but what has been said [sc. that the intellect is the principal cause], as is plain from the places there cited.

11. As to the first argument of the second question [rather second opinion, q.7 n.10] I say that it is true about matter properly speaking that it is pure potency, but this is not true of the subject of an accidental from, which is matter in a certain respect; for such a subject states in itself an act, and so there is no repugnance to its being an efficient cause, etc.

12. To the second argument [q.7 n.11] I say that the same thing cannot be active and passive with respect to the same thing in the same way, namely that it be formally such both in act and in potency; but it can be virtually such in act and formally such in potency, and this when it is an equivocal agent. In fact all change toward a non-active form is from an equivocal agent, because the formal principle of acting is always an active form (otherwise it would not be the principle of acting); therefore change that is to a non-active form is change to a form dissimilar to the principle of acting and so dissimilar to the equivocal active cause. I then say that that this can sometimes fail to hold, though not always, in the case of equivocal agents, just as change can also be from an equivocal agent and yet to an active form; but what is sufficient for the idea of an equivocal cause is that the formal term of the change be of a different idea from the formal principle of the acting. There is an example of this from those who posit that a substance is actively causing in itself its proper accident at the prior moment when the substance precedes its proper accident: the subject in this case is, with respect to the same thing, virtually such in act and formally such in potency.

13. To the third [q.7 n.12] I say that some relations cannot go together in the same nature and the same supposit, as the relations of cause to caused. The reason is that then the same thing would depend essentially on itself, for the caused depends essentially on the cause. Some relations cannot go together in the same supposit but can in the same nature, when the nature is communicable without division to several supposits, of which sort is the divine nature; and these are relations of motion to moved. The reason is that, as the divine nature is of itself unlimited to the extremes of this relation, so a supposit or nature can in some way be unlimited as to the extremes of the relation; thus it is in the issue at hand, that the intellect and will are of themselves unlimited as to their power and understanding and willing being virtually informed by such acts, etc.

14. To the first principal argument [q.7 n.2] I say that the soul, by reason of the agent intellect, can activate any intellection, and, by reason of the possible intellect, can receive any intellection; and you may understand this of the intellection that is about an object naturally moving the power, otherwise the agent intellect would not be able to activate it; however I say that the activity of the agent intellect is not immediately directed to understanding but to illumining, and this illumination is necessarily prior to natural intellection; and therefore the activity of intellection must be immediately from both the object and the power, as was said above etc.

15. Nevertheless, the soul’s intellection of itself might well be totally from itself, because it would be both thing understanding and thing understood; however, according to Scotus, it cannot by had by the wayfarer save only by inference through the species of different sensible things; the reason is that only the species of sensible things are in the phantasm and illumined by the agent intellect.

16. Next, to the first argument of the first question [q.8 n.2] I say that a moved mover is a less principal cause than an unmoved mover, unless the moved becomes mover in such a way that it receives the power of moving from the motion by which it is itself moved; but so it is here, because the intellect receives no power of understanding into itself from the impression of the species, but the species must be impressed in such a way that it and the intellect are simultaneous, as being two partial causes integrally forming one total cause. Hence I say that the agent intellect with respect to the impression of the species, and the phantasm with which the intellect integrally forms one total cause, and the possible intellect with respect to intellection are all a more principal cause than the object or the species etc.

17. To the second [sc. the second reason given in q.8 n.2 and/or n.3] I say that the cause that makes the effect more like what it should be like is more principal, and not necessarily the cause that the effect itself is more like. An example: a like effect caused by God and by a second cause is more like the second cause, and yet God is the more principal cause. Hence a less principal cause does not actively make the effects more like itself, though it is indeed more like the effects. But such likeness is more brought about actively by the more principal cause. For it is certain that the intelligible species is more like the phantasm than like the agent intellect, and yet the agent intellect is the more principal cause; otherwise a less noble thing would, as if principal agent, act on a more noble thing, etc.

Question Nine. Whether the image of the Trinity exists in the mind distinctly

Bonaventure, Sent. 1 d.3 q.3
Alexander of Hales, Summa Ia q.61 p.3 a.1
Scotus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.9
Thomas, ST Ia q.93 aa.5-6
Richard of St. Victor, Sent. 1 d.3 q.1 a.2
Durandus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.4
Francis of Meyronnes, Sent. 1 d.3 q.4
John Bacconitanus, Sent. 1 d.3 q.3

1. The final question in this distinction is whether there is in the soul distinctly an image of the Trinity.

2. That there is not: Because then we could naturally come to a distinct knowledge of the Trinity through it. The proof of the consequence is as follows: an image is per se reflective of that of which it is the image, etc.

3. Further, the mind represents one [divine] person in the mind no more than it represents another, as is plain from Augustine On the Trinity 15.7, 14 when he says that the Father is intellective memory - will as also memory - and the Son likewise; therefore the memory represents the Father no more distinctly than it represents the Son, and conversely.

4. Further, in the Trinity there are two produced persons in image, namely Son and the Holy Spirit; but no person is produced in memory, and consequently memory does not represent any production, and so neither is it the Trinity. The proof that no person is produced in the memory is that the acts themselves are the things exemplified in the soul, and not the second acts [see n.8 infra]; for there is no action of action since there would then be an infinite regress in the action, etc.

5. On the contrary: Augustine in On the Trinity 14 says that an image of the Trinity must be looked for, and it must be found where our nature possesses nothing better in itself, etc.

To the Question

6. The first thing that needs to be stated is what in creatures the idea of image is taken from. About this I say that an image represents the whole per se (just as I say that a trace or footprint represents a part per se [e.g. a horse’s foot] and represents the whole inferentially [e.g. a horse] as to the idea of the species of the whole [e.g. some horse or other and not this particular horse]); and I say that an image is naturally fit to imitate and to express that of which it is the image. Therefore, although a thing may be altogether like another thing, yet, because it does not imitate that other thing, it should not be called an image of it. Hence the impression of a foot in the ground is an image truly of the foot but it is a trace or footprint of the whole animal, etc.

7. The second thing that must be stated is in respect of what in God the idea of image in us is taken. About this I say that it is in respect of the three persons and of the one essence and of the procession of the persons. Here one must note that the concept of one person is a concept that is partial in respect of the whole Trinity. As to creatures, which lead us by way of image to a knowledge of the whole Trinity, they will represent the whole Trinity as to the total concept that our intellect can have of it; so they will represent the distinction of the persons, the unity of the essence, and the order of origin; for the real distinction that exists in divine reality by relations of origin will have an essential imitation in respect of the Trinity that creatures represent.

8. I reply that what needs to be stated is where in us the image is. Here one must note that in the mind there are first acts, namely intellect and will, and second acts, namely intellection and volition;First act is the existence in the soul of the powers of intellect and will; second act is the exercising of these powers in acts of understanding and willing. ¹³⁰ and the principles of these second acts are principles distinct in respect of their formal ideas, which formal ideas are act and will in the presence of their objects. Because of this the acts are of diverse ideas, for the cognitive act and the other volitional act will have distinct principles, etc.

9. Now one must note that the image does not consist only in acts of paternity, first because there are only two such acts (and so the image would be only of a duality and not also of a trinity); and second because between these acts there is no real distinction of thing and thing, nor is there an order of origin either (though there is consubstantiality because a unity, albeit an essential unity, is communicated to the soul); and third because one of these acts is not produced by the other - not even in the case of individual acts, first because the acts are not essentially the same, and second because of the other two reasons just stated, namely that there are only two acts and that one does not originate from the other, etc.

10. I then say that the image consists in first and second acts in the following way, that the soul, qua having in itself the perfection of understanding and willing in idea of second act (namely in respect of knowledge generated along with the object present to it in idea of object), has the idea of memory and of parent (as of a father). However, to the extent that the soul has in itself the perfection of being able to receive generated knowledge in itself, it has the idea of a word; and to the extent the soul has in itself the perfection of being able to receive produced love, it thus has the idea of something spirated. And in this way the soul will be a trinity, of which the first part will be the parent, the second the thing generated, and the third the thing spirated, etc.

11. However there are here two doubts. The first is that there seems here to be a quarternity, because knowledge is produced from one memory and love is produced from another memory, etc.

12. On this point note that the first act in respect of volition, as namely the will, does not go together in the image with any of the three [n.10]: not with the third part because the same thing is not the principle of itself; and not with the second part because actual intelligence is not will; and not with the first part because memory is said properly to be the productive principle of generated knowledge; therefore the will is a fourth with them, etc.

13. The second doubt is that generated knowledge does not go together with the production of love the way that, in divine reality, the first person by nature originates the second person, and the first and second person originate the third. It is not like this in the image, because neither is the first the cause of the second nor are the first and second the cause of the third, etc.

14. I reply by saying that Augustine assigns or gives two ideas of image. The first is in On the Trinity 9, and it is mind, knowledge, and love. The other he gives in On the Trinity 10 as follows: memory, intelligence, and will. When dealing with these two in On the Trinity 15 he says that what is said in the case of the fourth in the listing [sc. memory] is more evident to the extent that memory expresses the idea of parent more than mind does.

15. To make clear the first part of the image [sc. mind and memory], note that mind can be taken in two ways: either we can understand by mind a first and perfect act with respect to both second acts (namely fecundity in generating a son and fecundity in spirating a holy spirit). In this way mind possesses the perfect idea of parent, because it includes both fecundities. And between these acts, namely knowledge and love, there are two objects produced in a certain order, and so there will not be a quaternity, because in a parent that has the idea of parent perfectly there occurs a double first act. And this is the way it is in divine reality, because there is in the Father a fecundity for generating and also for spirating, and the Father has this fecundity from himself and not as derived from something else, namely from the production of the Son (as some say). The proof of this is that it would then follow that the Father never had the fecundity in question; for the Father does not in any way have from production of the Son any reality whether absolute or relative, and so he will never have any reality that he does not have in the first moment of origin (namely insofar as he is pre-understood in order of origin to the Son); therefore he does not have this sort of fecundity of generating and spirating from production of the Son.

16. In another way mind can be taken precisely for first act alone, namely as it has only a fecundity for generating or a fecundity in respect of generated knowledge (which is the same thing). And in this way the idea of image is imperfectly assigned to it, and in this way too mind does not have perfectly the idea of parent.

17. Thus, about the way image is assigned when memory is posited, I say, neither more nor less, that if memory is taken precisely as first act in respect of generated knowledge, or in respect of being generator, then in this way the idea of image is imperfectly assigned. But if memory is taken as it states first act as first act is perfect with respect to both second acts (namely fecundity for generating and for spirating), then memory has perfectly the idea of parent. And thus is the idea of image assigned perfectly by Augustine, etc.

18. I then say that mind or memory should be taken as it has the perfect idea of parent; but it is not perfectly parent save as it is taken in respect of knowledge and love -as is plain, because the Father in divine reality has in himself fecundity for both. Therefore, in the case of the mind in the first way of assigning image, or in the case of memory in the second way (or for the first part of the image) [n.14], the soul must be taken as it means the idea of the first act of the intellect, along with its object present to it in idea of object, and the idea of the first act of the will, along with its object present to it in idea of object, etc.

19. In the case of the second part of the image, generated knowledge, or the word, is taken for it; and in the case of the third part produced love is taken for it; and so it is plain that there is no quaternity there, because a double relation of fecundity is combined in the parent, if it is perfectly parent.

20. To the second doubt [n.13] I say that, because generated knowledge is an accident in the case of the soul and because an accident cannot have the idea of a producer, therefore, when memory generates knowledge, it does not communicate to it a fecundity of spirating the way this happens in divine reality (where generated knowledge is subsistent and has the same communicated nature as in the generator); and so, to this extent, and also as to real identity in absolute thingness according to distinction of relation, there is not a total similarity between the image and the Trinity, as is plain; yet the second and third part of the image have, even if not an order of origin, yet some natural order properly, because volition naturally and necessarily presupposes intellection, and an origin can in some way be assigned to them, because intellection goes together with the idea of parent of love. For the object of the will is necessarily actually known, just as the object of the intellect is formally actually in the phantasm; and thereby one can see how the agent intellect belongs to the image, etc.

To the Arguments

21. To the first principal argument [n.2] I say that the assigning of an image of the Trinity in the soul only avails for someone who believes the Trinity, to enable him to investigate it in some way; but it does not do so for the sake of the Trinity becoming naturally known, first because the soul is not created by God as he is a Trinity, and second because the things mentioned [sc. in the image] are all primary together, as is plain.

22. To the second [n.3] I say that the major premise would be effective if the Father were posited as generating insofar as he understands (as some say) - and badly posited, as was proved above, because the Father does not generate in this way; rather, as I said, the Father has the divine essence by a second distinction present to himself under the idea of being actually intelligible (which belongs to the Father as he is memory) and in this way does he generate; but, as was made clear above, he does not generate insofar as he understands. And therefore I say that the antecedent is false, because the memory does not represent the Father more than the Son by the fact that memory alone exists in the Father, or that intelligence alone exists in the Son, but by the fact that the Father generates the Son insofar as he has the idea of memory and not as he has the idea of intelligence or will, etc.

23. To the third [n.4] I say that second acts are produced. The argument is pro se. Hence when it is said then there is no action of action, or action is not the term of action, and this [sc. some production] truly terminates action, as Augustine says On the Trinity 9 last chapter that knowledge is generated, and in On the Trinity 15.27 that volition proceeds - then these are not actions in the genus of action but are absolute forms in the genus of quality.

24. When you prove [n.4] that they are properly actions because they are second acts, I say that there are certain forms which have a fixed and permanent being not dependent on their cause (as heat in wood), and that there are certain forms which have a communicated dependence on their cause, as light in the medium depends on the sun; and about this Augustine says, Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.9, that the air has not been made bright but is being made bright; thus the first forms, because they are independent of their cause in existing, are not actions and are not called actions; but the second forms, because of their independence,The printed text says ‘independence’, but it may be a misprint for ‘dependence’. ¹³¹ seem to have their existence rather in becoming than in being, which is why they seem to be actions; and yet in truth they are not actions, because they have their parts together all at once, which is something repugnant to action, and they are not in a passive thing either, because they have existence at once in the whole and part is not acquired after part; and intellection and volition are forms of this sort, for they have a continuing dependence on the presence of their cause, etc.

25. Intellection and volition pass over into something other as to their term. It is unintelligible that volition and intellection exist and are not of something (I care not what that something is). It seems that they are called second acts because of this continuing dependence and because they pass over to a term; but in fact they are immanent forms, being whole all at once and not as things acquired part after part, etc.