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I. To the Second Question
A. The Opinion of Henry of Ghent
17. As to these questions [n.6] there is need first to see about the speaking of the angels.
18. And, passing over a number of opinions, there is one opinion that needs reading out, and here four things need looking at:
Namely, first, how the speaking angel knows the thing he speaks about (which, according to this opinion, is posited as being an individual singular); second, how what is known by one angel escapes another; third, how the thing is plain to the angel when - by speaking it - he expresses it; and fourth about illumination.
1. How the Angel who speaks knows Singulars
19. As to the first point, it is said that an angel knows the singular, not first and not through any proper idea, but through the universal that was co-created with his intellect.
20. The proof is fourfold:
First, that13 “‘as each thing is disposed to being, so it is to knowledge’ (Metaphysics 2.1.993b30-31); but the form of a singular adds nothing to the universal save negation; therefore it adds nothing in knowledge either.”
21. Second, because “if an angel did not know the singular under the idea of its universal, then, since there is no other intrinsic reason by which he may know it (because neither the angel’s essence nor his habit is such a reason; for, to begin with, the habit is in respect of the universal), it would follow that the very singular would be presented to the angel’s intellect so as to move it as its first and per se object under the idea of singularity; but this is false, because things that are per se objects and not first do not move save through the idea of objects that are per se and first, in the way that size and figure do not move sight save with color at the same time.” But the singular is not the first object of the intellect, because “nothing is the first object of the intellect save the universal.”a
a. a[Interpolation] The first consequence is plain, because there is no other intrinsic idea whereby the singular may be known; because neither the essence of the angel is such an idea - nor the habit, because the habit is first with respect to the universal.
22. Third, thus: “Every cognitive power must, in apprehending, be determined proportionally to what it has to apprehend. Therefore the intellect, when understanding the singular, is determined proportionally to the determination of this singular - and as to this, either it is determined of its own nature or it is determinable by the species that it receives (namely by the species of the singular). And if in the first way, then the angel’s intellect would be more determined than our intellect is;” nay, in both ways a determination or determinability of the angelic intellect “greater than of our senses” follows, because our senses are not limited or determined of their nature, nor are they determinable by the species that they receive (“for the species of the singular is not received in the sense first but in the organ”). Further, the deduction is drawn that such determination to the singular object would be a certain limitation and impediment “to intellection of the universal, just as it is in the case of the senses,” - and much more in an angel than in the senses, because the sense does not receive the species of the singular [sc. since rather the organ does].
23. Fourth, because “just as through the apprehension of universals from without there is generated in our intellect the habit of science - so in the intellect of an angel, if it knew singulars first, there could be an acquired habit of science besides the science of his own universals, which is against the Philosopher in Metaphysics 7.10.1035b33-6a8 where he maintains that the scientific habit of universals is not other than that of singulars.”
24. As to this first article [n.18], the speaking angel’s mode of knowing the singular is set down thus:
“An angel’s intellect apprehends the form, by its own habit, according to the idea of a universal - but after the supposit has existence in fact or in revelation, the angel’s intellect at once apprehends the form in the supposit under the idea of a universal first and per se with the same apprehension as it apprehended it with before it was participated in by the supposit; and it is an accident of the angelic intellect that it apprehends the form in the supposit, just as it is an accident of the essence of a thing that something included under it is in the supposit. So first and per se the angel’s intellect knows the singular form under the idea of a universal (that is, under an indeterminate, confused, and undesignated idea), but because this very same form - as it is in the thing itself - is determinate and designated, the intellect secondarily understands this designation. And the knowledge of the universal is the same as the knowledge of the singular, save for the addition of a respect and a negation whereby the universal is understood as designated ‘in this’;” “for these [sc. knowledges] do not differ on the part of the thing known nor on the part of the act of knowing, but only in the manner of knowing without designation and knowing with designation, of which the latter adds to the former only the idea of negation, as has been said” [n.20].
25. From this it is plain how “the angelic intellect - as along an extended line -understands the singular.”
First, indeed, “the essence in the habit does not move under the idea of an object but under the idea of something inherent - but it terminates the act of understanding under the idea of something known and not of something inherent;” and so from the object to the habit “there is properly no circumflexion” but as it a were a line extended from point to point. “Next, from the object known in the universal, the intellect proceeds to the universal in the supposit, under the idea of universal, and finally from the object, known in the supposit under the idea of a universal, it proceeds to know the same object under the idea of a singular,” so that there is as it were a straight line from the object in the habit (as from a first point) to the singular (as to the last point) through two intermediate points.
2. How Knowledge of a Singular escapes another Angel
26. From this the second point is clear [n.18], namely how the intellection by this angel about a singular can escape another angel:
For - according to this position - by the same old apprehension, by which he was previously apprehending a quiddity set before him in his habit absolutely, he will now comprehend it “in whatever way it was (existent or revealed [24]), for it cannot escape him in any respect save only because what was conceived before is conceived by him now under a new respect.” An example: “if there were a single intellect one in number in everyone, then, from whoever’s phantasm a universal were abstracted - after the intellect had once abstracted it, and had understood it in him from whom it abstracted it, then if (while that intellect remains in place) it begins to understand it in someone else, it would not perceive a new universal with a new intellect; rather the old universal (that it had first perceived under the old respect) it would now perceive under a new respect, namely in this phantasm.”
27. So it is with the angelic intellect, because, without making some new thing under the universal concept but by renewing the concept - conceiving the universal many times in diverse particulars - this singular and that singular are conceived. And, because this angel sees a singular (which he did not see before) without any newness of concept, therefore “although another angel sees universal forms in the first angel (which are the ideas for knowing particulars), yet this other angel does not see the particulars that the first angel sees, whether they are existent or revealed;” or at any rate, if the second angel could see existent singulars through his own habit and through the universals that shine within him, yet he cannot see revealed ones. Nor even can he see - as the first angel sees - those singulars, because the first angel sees them without any newness of concept.
28. Briefly then, as to this article:
For this reason a singular - understood by one angel - is posited as escaping another angel, that although the intellect of the first angel (and the universal, which is for him the idea of understanding) is plain to him, yet his concept, as it is about the singular, is not plain to the second angel, because the fact that the first angel is using the universal form to conceive the singular produces nothing new in the intellect of the second angel. And if the singular is not existent, the second angel cannot see it - not even the very thing known - through his own habit or the first angel’s habit; but if it is existent and he can see it through his own habit, yet the singular, known or unknown, does not enable him to see the intellectual acts of the first angel. And so there is need of speaking [sc. by the first angel to the second] either because of the singular the first angel knows that escapes the second angel (as when the singular is a non-existing revealed singular) - or because of the first angel’s very act of knowing which escapes the second angel, and this whether the act of knowing is about a revealed singular or a naturally known one.
3. How Knowledge of a Singular is made Clear to Another Angel
29. On the third point [n.18] it is said that “just as we cannot express to another in speech designated singulars known to us save by expressing vague singulars (whatever the properties and accidents they are designated by), so neither can an angel by speaking manifest something to another angel under the same designation under which it was revealed to the first angel; rather he forms for the second angel a new concept - really different - about a vague singular” (which new concept in fact the second angelic intellect sees in the intellect of the first angel as if he were reading in a book), and by this concept the intellect of the seeing or second angel is changed so as to perceive the singular, not only as it is something in itself, but also as it is something in the speaker, as in the case of our own speech. Hence the second angel too “forms in his intellect a like vague concept, under the idea of a universal, about the particular - and hereby he is said to ‘hear’, because ‘to see in another angel’ and ‘to hear’ are the same thing; and, because the second concept is ordered only to indicating a hidden concept of the mind, therefore it is not properly called ‘to understand’ but ‘to speak’, even though it is in itself a sort of understanding.”
4. How One Angel illumines Another
30. On the fourth point [n.18] it is said that a superior angel’s illuming an inferior angel can be understood in four ways, namely: either by pouring in light, or by presenting light, or by removing an obstacle, or by making something by which, when made, light is caused in the receiver. In the first way the sun illumines the medium; in the second way someone carrying a candle illumines a house at night; in the third way someone who opens a window during the day; in the fourth way someone who cures an eye - which sick eye had no capacity for light before and now does - is said to illumine the eye.
31. Now it is said that only God illumines in the first way, and this either by causing natural light, or by impressing supernatural light, whether created light (of grace or glory) or uncreated, either as the reason for seeing or as the object seen (and this whether temporarily as in the enraptured, or permanently as in the blessed). In the second way one angel illumines another about some truth perfective of the intellect by speaking to him in the way stated [n.29]. An angel also illumines in the third way, as is proved from Augustine On the Psalms, psalm 118 sermon 18 n.4, Psalm 118.34, ‘Give me understanding’, when he says, “An angel can do something in a man’s mind so that it has capacity for God, just as someone who makes open a window is said to illumine the house.” In the fourth way too an angel can illumine another, as is proved from Augustine ibid. when he says, “God has made the angel such as to be able to do something whereby the human mind is helped to grasp the light of God.”
32. This is also proved by reason, because “all things are ordered” and “connected with each other” (according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 12.10.1075a16 and Dionysius Divine Names ch.7); and this order is noted not only in essences but also in operations. From this the argument goes: “An inferior angel is, through the natural influence on him of a superior angel, able to be reduced to his natural state and his state of ultimate natural perfection; but his ultimate perfection is through his best work (or in his best work), and the ultimate and most perfect work of an angel is to understand something as a divine work in a way over and above the common course of understanding by light of the natural intellect; therefore by the influence of a superior angel the inferior one is reduced from potency to act, so that he may be illumined in respect of such knowledge.”
B. Rejection of the Opinion
33. Against these views, and first against the first article [nn.19-25].
If ‘as each thing is disposed to being, so it is to knowledge’ (n.20, Metaphysics 2.1.993b30-31), and the singular adds some entity over and above the entity of the universal (from 2 d.3 nn.147, 168-70, 187-88, 192, 197), then the universal when known is not the total perfect reason for knowing the singular according to the total knowability of the singular - which is against him who holds this opinion [nn.24-25].
34. Further, where a plurality entails a greater perfection, a numerical infinity entails an infinite perfection. But so it is in the reasons about representation, because ‘to be apple to represent several things’ entails a greater perfection (for it entails that this single idea includes the perfection of two proper ideas, representative ideas, as I say); therefore being able to represent infinite things distinctly entails that the representing reason is infinitely perfect [2 d.3 nn.367-68, 1 d.2 n.127, d.3 n.352].
35. Further, the representing reason, uniform in itself and in the intellect, does not represent anything in a non-uniform way; nay, neither can the divine ideas - because they are reasons that naturally represent - represent to the divine intellect any diversity in the objects unless they necessarily naturally represent this, as was touched on in 1 d.39 on future contingents [not extant in the Ordinatio but in the Lectura]. Therefore this single idea (which is posited by Henry [nn.19, 24]) will either represent opposites at the same time, opposites pertaining to the existence of things, and this naturally (and then it will always represent opposites, and thus the angel will understand opposites and so nothing) - or it will represent one opposite determinately, and so never the other one. So if an angel at some time has a certain and determinate knowledge of one opposite - as to its existence - through this single idea, he will never through the same idea have a determinate and certain knowledge of the other opposite.
36. Further, fourth, there is particular argument:
An angel cannot, by this habit, know a revealed singular. - For it is posited [by Henry] that the singular is not known through the universal that shines in the habit save because the universal is participated in by the singular itself [n.24]. On this supposition I argue as follows: the singular is naturally known in revelation before the habit is the reason for knowing it; therefore the singular is naturally known distinctly before the habit is the reason for knowing it; therefore the habit is not the reason for the first distinct knowing of the singular - and thus we have the proposed conclusion [sc. set down at the beginning of this paragraph].
37. The proof of the antecedent is from their own statements, because the universal that shines in the habit is not the reason for knowing the singular save because the universal is in the singular, whether it exists in itself or in revelation [n.24]; so the singular naturally has such and such existence - and so naturally has the universal within it (the universal abstracted from it) - before the habit is the reason for knowing the singular.
Proof of the first consequence [n.36]: existence in revelation is nothing but the existence in actuality known by him to whom the revelation is made. For it is not existence in the intellect of the revealer, because this existence is eternal and perpetual; nor is it existence in any existence other than the knowledge of him to whom the revelation is made, because then - by the fact it would exist in such existence - it would be naturally known to anyone else, in the way this opinion posits that anyone can, by his habit, have distinct knowledge of anything existent [nn.27-28].
38. Further, from this position it follows that any existent singular will be naturally known to any other angel [nn.27-28], and so local distance will not impede the intellection of the angel, which is denied by many [including by Scotus himself, 2 d.2 n.205] and seems to be contrary to Augustine in his book On Care for the Dead ch.14 n.17.14
39. Further, the reasons by which he proves that the singular cannot be understood by an angel [nn.20-23] seem to proceed from the view that knowing a singular is a mark of imperfection in the intellect; but this is false, because then the divine intellect would not know the singular. The reasons are also not conclusive, nor should the conclusion be conceded unless necessary reasons lead to it; for it is probable that just as some common sense can sense every sensible, so some created intellect can understand everything per se intelligible - of which sort the singular is.
40. Against the second article [nn.26-28] the argument is as follows:
Henry himself rejects species in blessedness, because one of the blessed would naturally see it in the intellect of a second blessed, and consequently he would naturally see what the species represents. So it is argued in the issue at hand: if the habit is the reason for naturally knowing the singular, then, since a first angel would see the habit naturally in another angel, the object that this other angel would see through this habit could not escape the first angel.
41. Further, when two intelligibles are compared to a same intellect which is not bound to the power of imagination, the more actual and more perfect intelligible - not exceeding the natural faculty of the intellect’s nature - is more intelligible to that intellect; but for Henry, a vague concept, formed in the intellect of the angel who does the speaking, is intelligible to the other angel by its natural power [n.29]; therefore much more intelligible to this other angel is the determinate concept which this vague concept expresses (because a determinate concept is more perfect and more intelligible; and the intellect of any angel whatever has any caused concept whatever for any intelligible not exceeding it, and this intellect is not bound to a phantasm, as is plain; therefore etc.).
42. Further, third: either there is one act of understanding all singulars or there are different ones. If there is a single same one - and it is naturally of all singulars (for it is of them as it precedes the act of will of the one understanding, because it is through an action of understanding which precedes every commanded intellection and every volition) - then that act cannot be of one singular without being of another singular; just as neither can a natural cause, as far as concerns itself, be cause of one effect (to which it is naturally ordered) and not of another [sc. to which it is also naturally ordered] - and if by one action it is of all effects in general, then it is necessarily of all of them together. So if this act cannot be of all of them together, it cannot - as far as it is natural - be one and the same for all of them, because then it could (as such) be of all of them together. - If there are several acts, then one angel, seeing this and that act to be different in the intellect of the angel speaking to him, can distinctly see which object this act is of and which object that act is of; and thus it will not escape him what singular the speaking angel is considering, because of the identity of the non-varied act in that angel (for that angel will have different acts for considering different singulars).
43. Against the third article [n.29]:
First: it follows that in the intellect of the angel who is speaking there are two concepts about the same thing, one vague that designates and the other determinate that is designated [sc. which is unacceptable]; for it is then determinate when it is the reason for generating the vague designating one.a
a. a[Interpolation] Hence if the determinate conditions of the singular were in the hearer as they are in the speaker, the hearer would express that singular determinately to himself; but so it is in the case of an angel, because the habit he [Henry] posits is in the one angel just as in the other.
44. Further, it seems superfluous to posit this vague concept. For we express a determinate singular, known to us, through a vague singular, because we know we cannot cause a concept in the intellect of him to whom we speak and we know that the universal conditions of a vague particular are known to him; if we could make a distinct concept about what we were speaking about, a determinate singular known to us would not be expressed by a vague particular; therefore since an angel can make a distinct concept of a distinct singular known to him in the intellect of another angel (as will be plain in our solution [nn.49-52, 65]), in vain does Henry posit a vague indeterminate concept.
45. Against the fourth article [nn.30-32]:
First: it does not seem that the disposition for a purely supernatural form could be caused by an angel, because although for a form immediately producible by God (but as cooperating with the common course of nature) some natural cause could make disposition (as with the organic body in respect of the intellective soul) - yet for a form altogether supernatural (that is, without the common course of nature cooperating), that ‘a natural agent produce an immediate disposition’ seems unacceptable.
46. Further, the reason adduced for this article [n.32] would prove that the superior angel made the inferior angel see something revealed in the Word [nn.86-87]; for this is the ultimate perfection of the intellect, to see the Word, much more than to understand some revealed truth beyond the common course of natural intellection.
47. Further, against this whole opinion there are two difficulties:
First, how the speaking angel does not speak to just anyone. For if ‘to speak’ means precisely ‘to express a concept’ (which is seen in him as in a book [n.29]), and if this expressed concept can be seen by anyone equally - then he who expresses it speaks equally to anyone.
48. The other difficulty is how a first angel speaks to a second when he causes nothing in the second but only in himself [n.29]; for there seems no reason for the second to understand more now than before if nothing else comes to be in him. And this seems especially absurd in illumination [n.31], for it is clear that the first angel is illumined immediately by God and when God illumines he makes nothing in himself but the first thing he makes is in the intellect or angel illumined; therefore it is likely thus in the case of other inferiors who illumine, that the one who illumines does not cause anything in himself by the fact he illumines, but that the first thing caused is in the one illumined.
C. Scotus’ own Response
1. On an Angel’s Mode of Speaking
49. To the question then about speaking [n.6] I first reply that an angel speaks to an angel by causing in him immediately a concept of the object he is talking about.
For this I posit two reasons.
a) First Reason
50. The first reason is as follows: every speaker would, if he could, cause a concept immediately in him to whom he is speaking about what he is speaking of; an angel can do this in respect of a second angel; therefore etc.
51. Proof of the major, because a speaker intends principally to express his concept to the intellect he is speaking to; but every natural agent would, if it could, at once introduce what it principally intends.
52. Proof of the minor: that which is sufficiently in first act with respect to some effect can cause that effect in something receptive that is proportioned to it and nearby; but an angel, possessing actual knowledge of some object - let it be a - , is sufficiently in first act for causing actual intellection of a; therefore it can cause that effect in any intellect that is receptive of the effect. Now the intellect of a second angel, which does not conceive a distinctly, is receptive; therefore the first angel can cause in this intellect knowledge of the object. - Proof of the major here, because the first extremes of an active and passive proportion are the most universal ones (being abstracted from any active and any passive extreme), because the proportion is present in the particulars under each extreme by its common idea and therefore is present in the extremes. Proof of the minor here: an angel has in himself the act of knowing a and has the species (whatever species be posited as necessary for knowledge), and through what he has he can make his understanding to be in a second act by causing in himself intellection of a as an effect; so it follows that he can cause this in a second angel’s intellect, a passive one (which is of the same nature as his own intellect).
53. An instance against this reason [n.50] is that it is not conclusive save about two angels absolutely taken - because if they are distant from each other, the distance will be an impediment because of one’s not being able to act on the other; for a distant thing cannot act on a distant thing unless it first act on the medium between them; but the medium cannot receive the speaking of an angel nor can it hear an angel speaking; therefore etc. [Lectura 2 d.9 n.52].
54. There is confirmation from the Philosopher in On the Soul 2.7.419a15-20, where he maintains that if there were a vacuum nothing would be seen, because the visible species cannot reach the eye; hence the Philosopher maintains Physics 7.2.243a3-6 that ‘mover and moved are simultaneous’, and this when speaking of what is immediately moved, which must be moved by the mover before the thing mediately moved is moved.
55. To exclude these objections I show first that a distant angel can cause a concept in a distant angel: for if the action on the medium not be prior in nature to the action on the term, the action on the term would not depend on the action on the medium (the point is clear from the idea of natural priority, because a sufficient cause of two things - neither of which is naturally prior to the other - can cause either without the other); but in the issue at hand there is no such priority; therefore an angel can act on a distant term while not acting at all on the medium.
56. Proof of the minor. Action on the medium only naturally precedes action on the term for two reasons: either because the action is of the same nature on the medium as on the term, and then the action is naturally received in the medium first, just as the nearer passive thing is naturally affected before the more remote one; or because, if the action is not of the same nature, the agent has two active forms (or a same form that includes virtually two active forms), one of which is naturally prior to the other, and the agent is of a nature to act on the medium according to the form that is active first and to act on the term according to the other form. An example of the first is when the sun illumines the parts of the medium [sc. the air]; an example of the second is when the sun generates minerals in the bowels of the earth [1 d.37 n.4] or generates a worm in the earth, and illumines the interposed medium. - Therefore, when each of these causes is excluded (namely that neither is the medium receptive of the same action as the term, nor does the agent have another active form really or virtually by which it is of a nature to act on the medium with an action of a nature other than the action on the term), then in no way does action on the medium precede the natural action on the term. And so it is in the issue at hand; for the corporeal distance, which is between the distant angels, is of a nature to receive neither an action of the same nature as the distant and listening angel, nor another action of a different nature prior to it, because the speaking angel has a form neither virtually nor formally active for an action prior to the action which is his speaking.
57. This point is confirmed in three ways:
First, by positing an impossibility, namely that were God not everywhere in his essence, he would yet be omnipotent (according to what was said above in 1 d.37 nn.7-8), and he could immediately cause anything anywhere (although he were not present there by his essence); and yet he would not act on the medium by an action of the same nature nor of another nature, because the thing caused would come from him immediately.
58. Second, if this impossible position be not admitted, since the idea is manifest as impossible - the conclusion is sufficiently obtained because the sun immediately causes a worm (or some other generable and corruptible substance), and yet it does not act on the medium with an action of that nature (namely, of generation), nor with an action of another nature, save because the sun has another active form (namely a quality, light) whereby it is of a nature to act in some way before it acts through its substantial form, just as alteration precedes generation.
59. Third, if this is not conceded, it is plain that every natural generator generates a natural body (not a surface merely), and yet it is not present immediately save by its surface, and it acts on the surface of the thing generated; therefore a generator acts where it is not either by essence or by mathematical contact; yet it is there [sc. beneath the surface] by virtual contact and this suffices for action, just as if it were present by essence or mathematically. And that a thing act first on the medium between itself and what it is thus present to is not absolutely required for it to act on what it is thus present to, but just because the medium has a capacity for an action of the same nature as the term.
60. A more apt example for the issue at hand, after these three, is about the act of knowing, because the intuitive knowledge of sight is not of the same nature in the medium as in the organ [sc. because then the medium itself would see; 1 d.3 nn.471-472, Rep. IIA d.9 q.3] - and if an action happen in the organ of another nature than in the medium, vision is what happens to sight, insofar as it is an effect of the visible thing, by the fact that the visible thing is of a nature to generate both the species [sc. in the medium] and vision [sc. in the organ] as two ordered effects. Therefore, this remote receptive thing [sc. the organ as receptive of vision] receives something of which nothing of the same nature is received in the medium; but a received thing of another nature is received in the medium, and this is what happens to it, because the thing received in the medium is not the cause of the thing received in the term [the organ], but is as it were a prior effect, when comparing both effects to the same cause.
61. Hereby is the response plain to the instance from On the Soul [n.54], namely that nothing would be seen unless there were a medium; not that it is per se of the idea of visible color to cause something in the medium so that it may be seen, but that vision and the species of the visible thing are ordered effects of the same object (of the color), such that the species is of a nature to be generated before vision is (as first act before second act), and the species is in a nearer medium or organ before it is in a remoter medium or organ, just as in fact in general a form of the same idea is caused in a nearer thing before it is caused in a remoter one [1 d.3 nn.239, 254-55, 388-90, 473, 504-505, 2 d.3 n.295].
62. And by the same fact the response is plain to the quote from the Physics [n.54], for the agent is immediate to the proximate passive thing, and this by an immediacy corresponding to mathematical contact, when the medium is receptive of an action of the same nature (or of another nature, with respect to which the agent has the form [n.56]) -or by an immediacy corresponding to virtual contact, because the agent is present to the distant thing mathematically (so as to cause the effect in it) just as if it were present to it in its essence [n.59]; and in this way ‘to be present in essence’ is thus not that its power is there but that it is able by its power to cause the effect as if it were there, although neither it nor its power is there.
63. But there is an objection against this, that then local distance will not impede the speaking of an angel; for if a distant angel may immediately cause illumination in another distant angel, while causing nothing in the medium, that medium will be for it -in its action - as if it were no distance; for, as far as its action is concerned, it will be just as if the two angels were immediate to each other. Therefore the result will thus be that local distance will not impede the speaking of an angel.
64. I reply that between agent and patient there can be a mathematical distance in three ways. [No response to the objection given here; see Lectura 2 d.9 nn.60-63].
b) Second Reason
65. Second principally, for the solution [n.49], I argue thus: an inferior angel knows himself intuitively by essence (as is plain above, 2 d.3 nn.269-71), therefore a superior angel too knows the inferior intuitively by essence (proof of the consequence, that every object knowable by an inferior can be knowable by a superior with equal or more perfection; but no abstractive knowledge of any object is more perfect than intuitive knowledge, because abstractive knowledge through a species can be about something not existent and not present in itself, and thus such knowledge does not know it nor reach it most perfectly [n.98, 2 d.3 nn.318-323, 392]); and it is not necessary that angels be immediate to each other locally for a superior angel to know intuitively an inferior one; therefore, given that they are distant locally, the superior will intuitively know the inferior. But this knowledge is not through any species or habit that could be present in something not existent; therefore it comes about in the angel intuiting that intuitive knowledge, and yet the known essence does not generate in the medium anything of the same idea - or of another idea - , because the medium is not capable of intellection nor of a species purely intelligible [nn.56, 60-61]; therefore, by similarity, if something actually intelligible is posited in an angel, something of a nature to generate some knowledge (though not intuitive) in a passive or receptive intellect, then that something actually intelligible can generate actual knowledge in the intellect of a distant angel without generating anything in the medium.a
a. a[Interpolation] (in place of ‘in the intellects medium’) but the intellect of a distant angel is receptive of such knowledge; therefore that something intelligible in act, existing in the intellect of an angel, can cause actual knowledge of itself in the intellect of a distant angel.
2. Further Clarification of the Question
66. For further clarification of the proposed position [n.49] two things remain to be seen: first, what is generated in the intellect of the hearing angel by the speaking angel - second, how an angel can speak to one angel and not another if both are equally present.
a) What is caused in the Intellect of the Hearing Angel
67. On the first point [n.66] I say that the speaking angel can then cause the act only (such that he does not cause the species), and can cause the act and the species together, and can cause the species only.
68. Proof of the first claim [n.67]: the speaking can be about something habitually known to the hearing angel, because just as we can speak imperfectly about what we would perfectly know by communicating our concepts to others (although we would know that others know those same concepts), so it seems possible in the case of angels that the speaking is about what is habitually known to both; but then no species is generated by the speaking angel other than the one that is had by the hearing angel (because then there would be two species in the same angel with respect to the same object) - nor even is the already possessed species intensified, because we may posit that the already possessed species is most perfect.
69. Likewise, the speakings - for the most part - are about propositions pertaining to the actual existence of things; now such propositions are not evident from the terms; therefore, although someone may have the species of the extremes, not for this reason is his intellect capable of some propositional intellection (or knowledge) about those extremes, namely one that is determinately to one side of the contradiction (as about the thing’s existence or non-existence). There can in that case be caused some act of knowing such a proposition without the causing of any species.
70. I prove the second [n.67] because if the hearing angel does not have the species of the singular about which the speaking angel is speaking, his intellect is receptive both of the species and of the act and lacks both - and the intellect of the speaking angel is in first act, sufficient for generating both; this is plain about the species, because an intelligible species can generate an intelligible species of the same nature, just as also the species of a sensible thing in the medium can generate a sensible species of the same nature; it is likewise plain about the act, because the species that in the speaker is the principle of knowing what it is the species can also be the reason for generating actual intellection of the same object in another intellect capable of it.
71. I prove the third [n.67] because a lesser active virtue cannot hinder a greater virtue from its action; therefore if the greater considers something in its proper genus, for instance a, the inferior - wanting to speak to him about b - will not be able to impede his actual intellection; so he will not then cause actual intellection of b, because there cannot be two in the superior angel. But the inferior angel will cause something, as far as he will be able, because he wants to communicate something to another as far as he can; therefore he will cause a species of b, if it is not already possessed in the superior angel’s intellect.
72. Also from the same major as before [sc. that a lesser virtue cannot hinder a greater virtue, n.71] and from this minor, namely that ‘a superior and an inferior can together speak to the same angel’, it follows that the superior will make that same angel understand what he himself is speaking about but the inferior will not, though he will make something compossible with that intellection, namely the species of what he himself wishes to speak about.
73. In these two cases [nn.71-72] the speaking angel can generate a species such that he cannot generate then an act; given too that there is nothing on the part of the hearer to prevent him being able to receive both (the species and the act), the speaker -from the fact he wants to cause (as will be said later [n.177]) - can cause one [the species] and not the other [the act] (namely causing the first but not the second), because the two need not always accompany each other.
74. And in this last member [n.67, 71-73] the speaker speaks and yet the hearer does not perfectly hear, because hearing is an intellection of the intelligible thing expressed by the speaker; it is just as if a man were to speak to a man distracted by study, whose ear would receive the species of sound and yet he would not hear (that is, he would not conceive it distinctly under the idea of sign), and he would not have an understanding of what was expressed; rather only the species of the sound would generate in his memory or imagination some residual species, and he would be able later - recovering from the distraction - to consider what it was a sign of; and so the preceding speech would be an occasion for him of understanding, although he had earlier heard nothing distinctly through it. However, in the other two members [nn.67-70], where actual intellection is expressed by the speaker when he says something, the hearer hears.
75. But what sort of understanding is this act called ‘hearing’?
I reply:
An angel can understand an object a in four ways (besides seeing it in the Word [2 d.3 nn.328-330]), namely intuitively in itself, intuitively in the intellect of another angel that knows it, abstractively through an habitual species (co-created or acquired), and none of these intellections is hearing, because none of them is per se expressed by someone understanding qua understanding - rather it is accidental to the first angel that the one understanding is understanding (for he would remain just the same if the one understanding were not understanding); and in these three ways, if some intellect causes something, it is the intellect of the one understanding (and not of someone else), and the object concurs there with the object as partial cause, as was said before [1 d.3 nn.486-94]. In the fourth way an angel can understand a such that the intellection is brought about in him through another ‘expressing’ intellect, and the first angel’s intellect has no causality with respect to this act but is passive only; this knowing alone is hearing, and it is expressed by the one understanding insofar as he is understanding.
76. The difference is plain, then, between hearing and the other three ways of knowing (which ways can generally be called ‘seeing’), because in the case of hearing the intellect of the hearer is as it were passive, and whatever is in it, as that it has an habitual species of what is heard - that species too does not act on the hearing; also, whatever is present there does nothing for the hearing, for if the same singular were intuitively present to the hearer as is present to the speaker, it would not - as present to the hearer - generate hearing but would only generate vision in him. Therefore only the intellect of the speaker or the things that are in it as it, or that are present to it as it, are active with respect to hearing; and they are so with respect to hearing as to a proximate effect, for they first cause, as present to the speaker, actual intellection in the speaker before they cause hearing in the hearer.
77. And from this is plain how the will of the speaker makes for this speaking, because as the will, after the first intellection, makes for the union of memory and intelligence for any second act that needs to be had in the angel whose will it is, so it can make for the later act to be had in the hearing angel; for if the prior effect, without which the posterior one is not caused, is in the power of someone, then if the prior is not, neither will the posterior be.
78. And from this something else is also apparent, namely how the actual intellection in the speaking angel is not the reason for him of his acting insofar as he speaks, but something pertaining to the speaker’s memory is - because in ordered effects of the same nature, as it were, one of which is of a nature to be generated by an equivocal cause, the prior effect need not be the cause of the posterior effect but each can be caused by the same equivocal cause; and this is specifically the case in the issue at hand, because actual intellection does not have the idea of being parent so much as the memory does (hence the Father in divine reality does not generate by intelligence [but by memory, I d.2 nn.221, 291]).
79. Evident also, third, is what the order is of hearing to the intellection that is ‘vision’ [n.76]. For although vision in Michael - whether of the object or of the intellection of the object - could be followed by Gabriel’s speaking about the same thing, yet Gabriel does not then cause knowledge of anything not already known [sc. by Michael]. Nor is speaking as necessary then as when Gabriel’s speaking precedes either vision [sc. of Michael]; for when Gabriel knows something in its proper genus or as revealed, which Michael does not know in particular, he can cause a concept in Michael’s intellect which may properly be called hearing - and when it has been caused, Michael can turn himself to see Gabriel’s intellect, and therein will be seen the intellection that Gabriel has, and in that intellection too will in some way be seen the object of Gabriel’s intellection; and if that object cannot be seen further (neither in itself nor in the Word), then it [sc. Gabriel’s intellection] is the ultimate perfection that Michael can have of the known object, namely to see it in Gabriel’s intellect. Thus, therefore, insofar as hearing is ordered to having knowledge of something unknown, it precedes all vision, both of the thing in itself in the intellect of the other who sees it, and of the thing through its habitual species - and this triple vision was said to be distinct from hearing [n.75].
80. Hearing is also said to differ from all vision as far as certitude is concerned -and this difference can perhaps be inferred from the idea of ordered effects, of which the posterior [sc. hearing] is more imperfect etc.15
b) How an Angel speaks to One Angel and not to Another
81. On the second principal point, namely how an angel can speak to one angel and not to another [n.66], I say that just as it is in the power of an angel - as concerns the first intellection - to use this species or that in the memory for actual intellection of this object or that, so, if he had several intelligences, he would have it in his power to generate knowledge in this intelligence or in that; for what is naturally passive is not more determined to undergoing than what is naturally active is to acting. So just as the active power that is of itself subject to the will can of itself act and not act (because of the will’s command to act and not to act), so it can be determined to act on this passive thing and not on that; and just as a determination would be made for intelligences intrinsic to an angel, if there were several intelligences in it, so a determination could be made for this or that extrinsic intellect, which intellects - to this extent - are passive in the same way as the intrinsic ones are passive, in that the intrinsic active power would act by command of the will.
82. Further, there follows a corollary from this, that there are as many speakings as there are hearings - because however many angels be present (or whether one of them is nearer and one further away), then, just as memory would not generate [sc. actual intellection] in Michael save by command of his will, so neither does memory generate it in the intellect of one angel and not of another save by determination of the will of the speaking angel.
83. But then a doubt arises about how many angels one angel can speak to at once, because a natural agent cannot have at the same time any number whatever of adequate effects - and so one act of generating is not sufficient for many angels to hear, because one act of generating is of one intellection in one angel, which intellection that angel alone hears.16