C. Instances against Scotus’ own Opinion

272. It is objected against this view [n.271] that then a sensible thing could cause intellection immediately, without an intelligible species (which was denied in 1 d.3 nn.334, 382); because a sensible thing present to the senses is of such sort simply as it is in a certain respect in the intelligible species; therefore if in the intelligible species (where it is in a certain respect) it can cause intellection, much more can it do so as it is in itself according to its being simply and absolutely.

273. Further, it seems one can argue against this position [n.269] as was argued against the opinion [of Aquinas, n.266], that nothing is for anything the reason for its operating with an immanent operation unless it informs it; but although the essence of an angel is actually intelligible and present to the intellect, yet it does not inform the intellect; therefore the essence is not for the intellect the reason for its operating with an immanent operation.

274. Further, if these two agents always concur for the same common effect [n.270], then they have an order between them, since they are not of the same idea; therefore one of the two is prior or superior, and the other posterior and inferior, and so one will be a moved mover and the other will, with respect to it, be an unmoved mover. But the object is not a moved mover with respect to the intellect but an unmoved mover;     therefore the intellect is a moved mover with respect to the object [1 d.3 n.554].

275. Further, fourth: what is said about these partial causes concurring for one common effect [sc. that they are one integral cause of intellection, n.270] seems unacceptable, because two things distinct in genus cannot cause an effect of the same idea; but the spiritual and bodily, or the intelligible and sensible, differ in genus; therefore etc     .

276. Proof of the major: because corresponding to these two ideas in the partial causes are two distinct somethings in the effect, and so the same effect would be bodily and spiritual, which is unacceptable. Second, because every agent is more excellent than its patient [1 d.3 n.507]; but the bodily or sensible is in no way more excellent than the spiritual; therefore it cannot be the agent in respect of the spiritual save in virtue of some more excellent agent, and so it will be a moved mover. Next third, because then one of the causes could be so intensified that the whole virtue of both could be in that one of the two, and then it alone could sufficiently cause the effect without the other [1 d.3 n.497], which is unacceptable in the case of two such agents.

277. Response to the first objection [n.272]. In 1 d.3 [nn.349-350, 382] an intelligible species different from the act was posited for this reason, that the object -whether as existing in itself or as existing in any species whatever outside the possible intellect - does not have the idea of an intelligible in act. And then I concede the fact that, wherever there is a thing existing as of some sort in a certain respect and something can make it simply of that sort, there it could, if it were simply such in act, do the same thing simply. But the sensible object is in a certain respect in the intelligible species and is not actually intelligible outside the species; and so, although in the species (where it is in a certain respect such) it could cause a diminished intellection, yet it can never cause intellection outside the species, whether a diminished or a perfect intellection, because outside the species it is not actually (but only potentially) such a sort of being as the actualizer of it is. Now the essence of an angel is such a sort of being diminishedly, that is, a being of such sort in the species (if it has a species); but it is in itself simply a being and such a being is actually intelligible;     therefore etc     .

278. To the second [n.273] I say that on the opinion that does not posit the intellect to have any activity, different from the activity it has formally from the object or through the species of the object (just as neither does the wood have an action in heating different from the action which is that of the heat [1 d.3 nn.456-459]) - that on this opinion it necessarily follows that the intellect (not having anything formally) does not do anything formally; and so was it argued against the first opinion [of Aquinas, nn.266-267], which seems to think this same thing about the intellect. But, as was said in 1 d.3 [nn.486-489, 494, 498, 500], the intellect does have its own proper activity along with an object present to it (present in itself or in its species), but an object concurring with it to cause an effect common to them both, so that the union and coming together of these formal parts suffice; and yet there is no requirement that one of the parts inform the other, because neither gives to the other an act pertaining to its own partial causality.

279. To the third [n.274] I say that ‘moved mover’ can be understood in two ways: either because it receives from the unmoved mover some form as first act (whereby it may move), or because the form, possessed as first act, receives from the unmoved mover some (further) form as second act, by which it may act.

280. Now the first way exists in certain ordered causes where a first gives virtue to a second; but this way is not in the issue at hand, because neither does the intellect, as acting by its own partial causality, give this act, whereby it operates for intellection, to the species of the object; and much less does the reverse happen, because the species of the object does not give to the intellect any activity pertaining to the causality of it.

281. The second way is seen in certain things moving locally, the way the hand moves the stick and the stick moves the ball; for the hand does not give to the stick the hardness by which it impels the body toward some place; rather it gives to the stick precisely a local motion whereby, namely, it is applied to this impelling because of the incompossibility that one hard body against another hard body not yield to it.Tr. A possible reference to an early form of golf? ⁶⁸ This is the way it seems to be in things acting for some effect produced by generation or alteration, because although the ordered causes there have some reason for causing and the inferior does not cause save in virtue of the superior, yet this virtue or assistance or influence -whatever name one gives it - is not the impression of some form or of something or other inhering in the inferior or superior cause, but is only an order and actual conjunction of such active causes, from which, as thus conjoined and with their proper activities presupposed to the conjoining, an effect follows common to both causes [1 d.3 nn.495-496].

282. Therefore to the issue at hand [nn.274, 279] I say that not only are the causes in question not mover and moved in the first way but they are not even properly so in the second way (the way that the sun and a father are disposed in generation); rather they are only two causes disposed as it were equally, in respect of the fact that neither per se totally moves and yet one of them has, in respect of the effect, a causality prior to the other.

283. For perhaps the inferior cause never acts in virtue of the superior cause (properly speaking), unless in its form, whereby it acts, it depends in some way on the superior cause, although it does not then - when it acts - receive that form from the superior cause but has it prior in duration or in nature. For neither does the object depend on the soul (at any rate as the soul is the possible intellect) with respect to the form by which it actually operates for the intellection, nor much less so the reverse dependence; and therefore the object is in no way an unmoved mover with respect to the soul as it operates for intellection.

284. However it can be a mover with respect to the soul insofar as the soul receives the intelligible species, but then it does not move the soul as to the causality that the soul has per se, but moves it per accidens to the form in respect of the partial cause, insofar as the soul operates on that form. And this is the way it was said in 1 d.3 [n.563] that ‘the agent intellect and the phantasm are one total cause of the [intelligible] species’, and further that ‘the intelligible species and something in the soul (whether the agent intellect or the possible intellect) are one total cause of intellection’ [nn.563-564]; so that in the first case there is an object (or a phantasm) moving the soul to intellection, and not to the first act that is the soul’s as it is soul but to the act that is from the rest of the partial cause previous it; but in the second case the object does not move the soul at all, neither to the first act of the soul nor as to any other concurrent cause, but it acts precisely for the common effect - and then the soul, by the act that it had [sc. through its first act], displays in its own order its perfect acting [or: displays.. .its acting through the effect], so that there is no motion of the soul there for acting naturally prior to the effect produced. However the soul is not moved to the effect insofar as it is active but insofar as it receptive of the effect, and so, although it is moved, yet it is not a moved mover, because it is not moved to actively moving but to receiving.

285. To the fourth [n.275] I say that the first proposition [sc. ‘two things distinct in genus cannot cause an effect of the same idea’] is false of partial causes ordered in some way or other to the same effect - that is, that there is an essential order to them and they are not altogether of the same idea. For such partial causes, which are of a different idea, are not only distinct in species (because causes of the same species do not go together in common as causes ordered to the same effect), nor are they only distinct in number (because then they are not of such idea [sc. ordered partial causes]) - therefore they are distinct in genus; and if you take it that they are not distinct ‘in this sort of genus’, a consequence drawn from the idea of distinction in genus cannot hold more of this genus than of that.