III. To the Principal Arguments

395. To the principal arguments [350-353].

To the first [n.350] I say that the Philosopher’s intention in Metaphysics 8 concerns subaltern species; this is clear from the first property of a number, where

Aristotle maintains that just as a number stops at indivisible units so the resolution of definitions stops at indivisibles; therefore the quiddities are ordered in the universe the way numbers are ordered, as resolvable to unities. He is speaking therefore of subaltern species, and so it is not to the purpose when speaking of the most specific species in the universe.

Yet if this point is taken, not from authority but as something true in itself, to be about most specific species, I say that a higher angel has a more perfect entity than a lower one; however the higher angel does not include the whole entity of the lower, such that the lower only differs from him by negation, for species in the universe are not distinguished by negations but by their proper ideas. Nevertheless the divine essence, which is infinite, does include eminently all perfections, and for this reason no higher angel is a sufficient reason for knowing a lower but the divine essence alone is.

396. As for the quote from On the Soul 2 [n.351], I say that the Philosopher is speaking there specifically of the sensitive, vegetative, and intellective soul. Nor is there a likeness between the species of numbers (or figures) and the most specific species in the universe, because greater numbers (and figures) include lesser ones as parts and according to the whole entity of numbers, and therefore they are sufficient reasons for knowing the lesser ones; but the higher species in the universe do not thus include the lower species.

397. To the second argument [n.352] I reply by conceding that the species of a material thing is a perfection of an angel in intelligible being, but an accidental perfection (not a substantial or essential one), and such a perfection does not always simply exceed what it perfects; rather, every accident is simply less a being than substance is (from Metaphysics 7.1.1028a13-20).

398. And if you ask how the species of a material thing can be an accidental perfection of a nature already perfect if that species is thus lower than the lowest nature (namely than corporeal substance), because that which is the reason for understanding whiteness in a perfect intellect (as in an angelic intellect) seems to be more perfect than whiteness - I say that the species is not altogether lower than the lowest nature, because it is not the effect of it as of the total cause but is the effect of it and of the intellect of the angel as of integral parts of one total cause. But the effect of some partial cause can exceed its partial cause, because it can have something of perfection from the other partial cause on account of which it can exceed the former partial cause; hence the species of whiteness in the intellect of the angel is a perfection of his intellect; indeed it is not a more imperfect entity than the entity that whiteness is but rather a more perfect one. And this does not belong to it insofar as it generated from whiteness but because it is generated as well from the intellect of the angel, as being a living perfection and in some way more perfect than whiteness itself (and yet it does in some way fail of entity simply, because it is an entity generated from whiteness); but this excess of perfection is only ‘in a certain respect’.

399. As to the final argument [n.353], it is plain that an angel’s understanding himself through a species stands together with his understanding himself through his essence, just as does his thus understanding anything other than himself [n.394] - and that naturally, the divine essence alone excepted [nn.324-325].