II. Scotus’ own Opinion

388. As to the question then [n.349], I concede the conclusions of the first four arguments [nn.367, 369, 371, 376], which prove that an angel has distinct reasons of knowing for knowing distinct quiddities.

389. And if it be asked what these reasons of knowing are, I say that an angel has reasons of knowing, different from the known essences themselves, that represent those essences, which reasons are both properly and truly called intelligible species; and if they are called habits by some people [e.g. Henry], they are thereby actually expressed as being accidents of species, for the idea of habit is an accident of a species, insofar as a species in the intellect, from which it is not easily deleted, has the idea of habit (because it has the idea of permanent form), but ‘species’ is not stated of the whatness of this quality or habit, just as ‘habit’ is not stated of the whatness of a species (for the same absolute essence in the genus of quality can be a habit and a disposition).

390. Likewise, ‘habit’ is universally used for a fixed such intelligible species, because although every such firm species is a habit, yet not conversely - rather, neither is every intelligible habit of the same object of which there is an intelligible species the same as the species.

The fact is plain, first because the species of the first object which is not naturally present through the essence naturally precedes the act of knowing it; but the habit with respect to that object naturally follows what it is generated from [n.384]; but the essentially same thing does not naturally follow and naturally precede, because there is no circle in essentially ordered things, neither in the case of causes nor in the case of caused things. Second because a habit can be more intense than something of which the species is less intense (and conversely), for he who has an imperfect intellect, in which an imperfect intelligible species is received, has a less intense intelligible species than someone else who has a sharper intellect (as is plain, because the natural causes in the former and the latter are unequal, namely the agent intellect and the phantasm, and natural causes act according to the ultimate of their power); therefore the intelligible species in the more imperfect intellect is less intense than in the more perfect intellect, and yet the slower intellect can more frequently consider the intelligible thing (of which it has the species), and thereby have a more intense habit with respect to this object, which habit is a quality facilitating the consideration of the object.

391. Thus this reason therefore (namely the species) is called per accidens and in general an ‘intelligible habit’, but per se and essentially such a reason is called an ‘intelligible species’, because in this way it is more properly expressed, more properly even than in the idea of a likeness.

392. But the proof that an angel, with respect to quiddities other than himself, has such a reason of knowing, different from his essence, is that he knows through something through which he would know those quiddities even if the quiddities were not in themselves existent; for this is a feature of perfection in our intellect, that we may have actual knowledge about a thing when it does not exist, so much more does this feature belong to the angelic intellect; but such knowledge of a thing, which can be had of it when it does not exist in itself, could only be had through a species representing it;     therefore etc     .

393. And herefrom follows further that an angel has a reason of knowing even about his own quiddity, because no knowledge imperfect in its kind belongs to a higher angel without an inferior angel having about the same thing a knowledge more imperfect in kind; but a superior angel can have knowledge about an inferior angel through a species (from what was already proved [n.392]), and knowledge through a species is more imperfect in its kind than knowledge through the essence; therefore an angel can have knowledge of himself through a species.

394. And if it is objected that this contradicts what was said in the first question [nn.269, 353], because it is said there that an angel knows himself through his own essence, I say that an angel can know any quiddity at all (other than himself and even his own) through a species of it and through the essence of it; he can know it through the essence indeed when he knows it with intuitive knowledge (namely under the idea under which it is present in actual existence); he can also know it through a species when he knows it with abstractive knowledge, about which a little will be touched on in d.9 qq.1-2 nn.19, 30 [cf. supra nn.318-323], in the question about the speaking of angels.