II. To the Principal Arguments

505. To the argument for the opposite [n.487] I say that the consequence of the Philosopher [sc. if a greater power moves in time, a greatest would move in an instant] holds from the fact that in the antecedent is included that the measure is divisible, because of what is posited in it [sc. time, for time is divisible]; but in whatever divisible measure some power can do something, a greater power can do it in a lesser measure. But in the antecedent ‘an angel changes in an instant’ is not included that the measure is divisible.

506. This consequence, then, that ‘it moves in an instant, therefore something can move in less than an instant’, does not so much hold from true propositions and the nature of the thing, but it holds from something false that is included in the antecedent [sc. the antecedent ‘it moves in an instant’]; for this premise, that ‘whatever some power causes in a divisible measure, a greater power can cause in a lesser measure’, is true from the nature of the thing, but the minor premise - which will have to subsumed there under this true major [sc. the minor ‘an angel moves in an instant’] - is not true from the nature of the thing, but only by hypothesis, namely that ‘there is motion in an instant’. But if it be said that ‘an angel changes in an instant’, and if from this one is to infer that ‘some power should change him in less than an instant’ - then the minor thus to be assumed will not be true from the nature of the thing, nor by hypothesis, and so the consequence will not be valid. And from this it is plain that many enthymematic consequences [sc. consequences where one premise is left unexpressed] do not hold precisely by virtue of some understood truth, but sometimes by virtue of some understood falsehood, provided however a falsehood is included in the antecedent.