C. To the Arguments when Maintaining the Third Way

71. [To the principal negative arguments] - To the principal arguments. By holding this way [sc. the third], I reply to the first argument [n.15]. Although it be said that a habit is not an absolute form, because of those words of the Philosopher in Physics 7 [n.15], yet, by holding any quality to be an absolute form (and a quality of the first species is no less a quality than one of another species [Categories 8.8b25-11a38]), it can be said that something which the relation is the same as can be an active principle, although relation is not an active principle; nor either is that which the relation is the same as an active principle by reason of the relation, but by reason of the absolute which the relation itself is the same as. The distinction between these things, namely relation and the absolute essence which the relation is the same as, can be plain from many other things said above, where formal non-identity is posited along with perfect real identity [I d.2 nn.388-410, d.8 n.191-217]; and this will be plainer in II d.1 q.4 nn.21-25, where it will be said that the relation of the creature to God is the same as the absolute essence of the created thing and yet is not formally the same. To this extent, then, can the Philosopher by expounded, that ‘habit is in relation to something’, because by identity it includes the respect;Note of Scotus: “There is a doubt about the respect with the per se object, whether it is identical with the habit. It is certain that the respect whereby it is said to be a virtue - which is respect to a rule - is an extrinsic addition; hence it is not, on account of Aristotle’s intention, necessary to proceed to a respect identical with the habit, but it is sufficient that any habit be not in relation to something in divisible degrees. On the contrary: that whereby the place ‘accident through accident’ is not divided, neither that of which it is the accident? - Perhaps one idea in Physics 7 is about identical respect, another about ‘per accidens’ respect. ¹⁹ and yet it is not a respect only, but something absolute, - and therefore action can belong to it as to a principle of acting.

72. In confirmation of the reason [n.16] it can be said that a greater absoluteness is required in a term of motion than in a principle of acting, because nothing can be the term of a motion that has the same relation to itself. It is not so with the active principle.Interpolated text: “Or what is more to the purpose, it can be said that the reason does not prove the proposition save in a diminished way, - and to get its conclusion, which it intends, one must handle it in a way other than the words primarily signify (on which matter I do not now wish to dwell), or one would have to make clear other reasons for it so as to prove principally the said conclusion (this conclusion ‘whether a habit is something absolute’ will be spoken of elsewhere).” ²⁰,Note of Scotus: “One must add to the Philosopher’s minor [n.15] as follows: ‘every habit is identically in relation to something not according to divisible stages.’ And in this way the major is true: ‘whatever is identically in relation to something not according to divisible stages cannot terminate motion’ [n.72]. - But it can well terminate change. Hence a habit is not generated by way of continuity (so that its generation should thus be motion), but if it has stages, each is indivisible and in each the object is indivisibly regarded; and each is generated by simple change, which does not terminate motion in that form (but perhaps motion in the passions or certain other things), for more and less in a form do not suffice for motion in that form unless each stage is divisible, so that one can proceed continuously from one to the other. For motion is not composed of changes. Therefor the Philosopher’s middle is not ‘habit is in relation to something’, - but it is this ‘in relation to something not according to divisible stages’, if in each stage it indivisibly regards that with which it is identically relative. And from this perhaps, as from something more manifest, it follows that the absolute itself - which it thus regards - does not have divisible stages; but this does not follow as from the cause; rather the fact the absolute does not have divisible stages is the cause of the fact that ‘the respect is not divisible’ (because a relation takes the more and less from its foundation), not conversely, although sometimes the converse could be the cause of its becoming known. But this indivisibility of respect identical with the absolute does not prove that it is not the principle of acting, as is plain about any active form - if any is indivisible, it has ‘a respect identical’ with God. Therefore it does not follow ‘it does not terminate motion because of an indivisible identical relation, therefore it is for that reason not a principle of acting’, because an identical indivisible relation is repugnant to a from acquired through motion, not however to an active form.” ²¹

73. To the second argument [n.17] I say that of one action there is one principle per se, and that in one order of being principle; however, there can be many principles in diverse orders of being principle, which do not have a unity insofar as they are principles save the unity of order, although sometimes along with unity of order comes the fact that there is a unity of subject and accident, but this is accidental.

So in the proposed case. Habit and power are two active powers of different order, each is in its order ‘a per se one’. And along with this unity of order there comes the unity of accident and subject among these ordered things, and this is accidental, because if the first cause could be conjoined to the second without such an informing of one by the other as they are conjoined with when one is informed by the other, they could in the same way have sufficient unity for causing one effect. When therefore it is said that ‘of one action there is an active cause per se one’, I concede that there is, namely in one order, - but in another order of being principle there can well be one cause and another cause, and that whether this and that cause constitute ‘a one per accidens’ or not but only ‘a one in unity of order’; and although there be here ‘a unity per accidens’, yet there is always still preserved a unity of order of principle to thing caused by the principle.

74. By this the response is plain to the confirmation about the unity of formal principle [n.18]; for I concede such unity in what is the principle ‘by which’ in one order of being principle.

75. To the other [n.19] I say that an accident can well be the principle of some effect that can be received in its subject, just as the intelligible species is the principle of understanding received in the possible intellect; and thus can a form be the principle ‘by which’ with respect to the change of its subject.

76. To the other [n.20], about sensitive appetite, I say that it has the idea of active principle in some way, although not of being active freely; and this is what Damascene means, that ‘sense does not lead but is led’; that is, it is not master of its own action, which is ‘to lead’, - but with respect to its own action it is determined by the agent itself to a definite operation, and this is ‘to be led’. Also, that the sensitive appetite is not free, although it is in some way active, and the sense itself similarly - this will be spoken of elsewhere [II d.29 q. un nn.3-4, Suppl. d.25 q. un nn.8, 24].

77. [To the arguments against the second way] - To the arguments that are made against the second way, which posits that the habit is an active principle of intensity in the act, because they seem to be against this way [sc. the third] (to this extent, that it posits the act ‘elicited by the habit and the power acting with equal effort’ to be more intense than the act elicited by the power alone), I show, by running through them, how they are not repugnant to this way.

78. About the first [n.28] it is plain that this way does not posit two distinct things in act possessing two principles, but the same ‘per se one’ act has two principles in diverse orders of being principle [n.40].

79. To the second [n.29] I concede the inference, namely that when the power is operating with equal effort ‘the act is always more intense when the habit is working along with it than when it is not’, but from this the unfitting result does not follow -which does result against that way [sc. the second] - namely that when the power is acting with any effort whatever ‘the act is always equally intense’; this does follow there, because all of the intensity is attributed to the habit, - but it does not follow here, because all of the intensity is attributed to two causes; and it is attributed to the power, indeed, according to its greater or lesser effort, - but to the habit always equally, as far as concerns itself [n.32].

80. To the third [n.30] I concede that a will could come to exist in pure nature that would elicit a more intense act than another will along with the habit does; and this is not unfitting if one posits these two to be ordered principles, as it would be unfitting if one posits the whole intensity to be from the habit or attributes the whole intensity to the habit and not to the power.

81. The same point answers the fourth argument [n.31].

82. [To the arguments against the third way specifically] - To the arguments made against the third opinion [nn.41-45].

To the first [n.41] one should deny the major, because one should say that two equivocal partial, but not total, causes of distinct species can be causes for each other.

83. To the proof of it, which is through ‘the eminence of an equivocal cause’ I reply: this proof holds of a total cause, and I do not posit a circle in total equivocal causes. - To the other proof I say that two effects, when compared to their one common cause, can have a mutual order to each other in nature of partial cause, - as intelligible species and understanding, when comparing the agent and possible intellect, because with respect to intellection the species is partial cause, and ‘intellection’ can be posited as a sort of cause of the species insofar as it includes it.

84. To the other [n.43] one can say that the generative act of the habit need not be the idea of acting ‘by which’, as the generated habit can be the idea ‘by which’, - just as the virtue of the sun cannot be the principle ‘by which’ with respect to every act with respect to which the form of what is generated by the sun is the principle ‘by which’. And when it is said that ‘whatever is the cause of a cause etc.’ [n.43] - this is true as the remote principle ‘by which’ (when there is a remote principle ‘by which’), but not as the immediate principle ‘by which’.

85. To the third [n.44] I say that a habit - at whatever stage - cannot supply the whole place of the power, because although its causality is diminished, and the causality too of the power is diminished, yet the causality of the habit is of a different idea from the causality of the power; because, although the causality of the power is diminished, yet the habit is ‘in its idea’ the second cause, namely which the power is able to use, - and thus, if it is increased to infinity, it could never become the principle that uses (as the generative virtue of the father, however much it is increased, cannot become the virtue of the sun). The causality of the power, therefore, is not of the same idea as the causality of the habit, nor can the habit, when made intense, reach to its level, but they are always of a different idea; and yet the habit, when causing along with the power, causes a more perfect act than would be caused by one of them alone.

86. To the last one [n.45]: the supposition will be denied in the following material ‘On the Increase of Charity’ [nn. 225, 249].