II. To the Arguments

35. [To the principal argument] - To the principal argument of Augustine [n.28] I concede that no creature is truly simple, because it is composite - in the aforesaid way - from positivity and privation [n.32], act and potency objectively [n.33], and combinable with some other creature [n.34].

36. [To the argument of the opinion of others] - And from this is plain the response to the argument about the first opinion [n.29]; for no act is pure that lacks a grade of actuality, just as no light is pure that lacks a grade of light, even if there is not mixed with that impure light any positive entity but only a lack of a more perfect grade of light.

37. To the second [n.30] I say that ‘to participate’ is in some way the same as ‘to take part in’, so that it involves a double relation - both of part to whole and of taker to taken.

The first relation is real. Nor yet is part understood to be that which is something of the thing, but it is taken extensively, insofar as every less is said to be part of a more; but everything that is a ‘finite such’ is simply a ‘less such’, if anything such is of a nature to be infinite; but any perfection simply is of a nature to be infinite - therefore wherever there is a finite perfection it is less than some similar perfection, and so it is a part extensively.

38. But the second relation - namely of taker to taken - is a relation of reason, as in the case of creatures between the giver and the given. However a thing is taken in three ways; either such that the ‘whole’ taken is part of the taker, as the species participates the genus (as far as the essential parts of the genus are concerned, not the subjective ones),The essential parts of something are what define it; the subjective parts are the kinds it divides into. So ‘animal’, which is by definition ‘animate sensing body’, is taken wholly by the species ‘man’ (for man is a rational animate sensing body), but the subjective parts of animal are all the kinds of animals (horses, dogs, giraffes), and of course none of these is taken into the definition of man. ⁴⁵ or ‘part’ of the taken is part of the taker, or -in the third way - ‘part’ of the taken is the whole taker itself. In the first two ways the relation of taker and taken can be conceded to be real, but not in the third way; this third way is the one in the intended proposition, because every limited perfection (which perfection is of itself, however, not determined to limitation, and it is the part taken) is the limited whole itself,I.e. no perfection is of itself limited, but in creatures every perfection is limited, being a partaking of the perfection that is of itself unlimited [n.37]. Thus a limited perfection is a part of unlimited perfection, but in creatures this limited perfection is the whole creaturely perfection itself. ⁴⁶ except that a distinction can be made here between the supposit taking and the nature taken - but there is not thus a real distinction.