B. Scotus’ own Opinion

12. To the question therefore I reply first that an angel cannot effectively cause anything in the intellect of a man whose guardian he is; second what an angel can do.

1. An Angel cannot effectively cause anything in the Intellect of the Man whose Guardian he is

13. On the first point I say that no actual intellection or intelligible species can be caused in our intellect by an angel as by a total cause. But the reason is not because of any lack of power on the part of the angel (because he is sufficiently in first act and can cause second act in another angel [n.3; d.9 n.52]), but the reason is because of our intellect which, for this present state, is a passive thing determined to a determinate active thing, that is, to phantasm and agent intellect; and so it is prevented from being able immediately to be affected by any actual intelligible without a phantasm, because ‘phantasms are for this present state disposed to our intellect as sensibles are to the senses’ [n.4] - namely to this extent, that as the senses are only first affected by the external sensible thing, so our intellect is only affected, as to first affect, by the phantasm. Now why this is so was touched on earlier [1 d.3 n.187], namely, that it is from the order of powers - which order is not merely from the nature of man as man, because then there would not be another order in blessedness; so the order is either because of guilt, or because of this present state on account of something pertaining to guilt (let the cause of this be sought elsewhere [2 d.3 nn.289-90, Lectura 2 d.11 nn.15-16]).

14. Now from this there follows a certain corollary, namely that an intellect cannot be caught up in rapture by an angel to intellectual vision, and that any rapture -done by the power of the devil - is precisely to intensely imagining something; and so raptures by devils are rather madnesses than raptures, because intense imagination makes the mind very distracted from all other thought of anything of actual intellection which the mind seems to be seeing intellectually; and perhaps there accompanies the intense imagination of a thing an intellection of the imaginable thing, but there is there no intellection of a merely intelligible and non-imaginable thing. Thus too any rapture for which a man can by custom dispose himself in this life is not to any intellectual vision but to an imaginative one (and to an intellection concomitant with the imaginative vision), although however (perhaps) such quieting in a man from all extrinsic things by such a vision sometimes disposes him so that God may catch a mind thus tranquil up to intellectual vision.

2. What an Angel can do in the Intellect of the Man whose Guardian he is

15. On the second point, namely what an angel can do in the intellect [n.12].

Because of the statements of the saints (especially of Dionysius Celestial

Hierarchy 4 who says that ‘revelations are made to us through the angels’), it is manifest that an angel can teach a man just as a man does (though more perfectly), because a man teaches by proposing certain signs known to the hearer, and when these have been proposed the hearer is occupied with them as much as possible and is thus united in himself (which sort of union does not exist in someone who is finding out a science, because someone finding out a science is distracted about many things). Likewise from these signs the hearer puts together in turn the simple concepts (the way the speaker and teacher puts them together), conjoining in turn complex concepts (the way the signs of ordered conjoining are in the speaker), and from such signs he perceives the truth of the propositions from their terms, and the relation of proposition to proposition, from which he gets his own truth and so learns; which truth or proposition he would not learn by himself or get hold of without any teacher, even though he had the species of all the terms; for a possessor of the concepts of many terms does not know how and in whatever way he may put them together, nor does he know the propositions ordered in any way to the terms; and if he did this he could from the terms quickly conceive the truth of many propositions, and from these propositions the truth of other propositions - and this is how the clever learn, finding things out for themselves; but the slower need to have someone propose known signs to them so that they may learn through teaching.

16. And in this way it is certain that an angel can teach, either by using conventional signs and doing this by forming the signs in an assumed body (or in something else [sc. the air]), or by using natural signs, namely the things themselves, applying to the senses those present to hand, by which the senses are in turn affected and from these the phantasms are in turn generated and so further - from the phantasms -intelligible species are in turn abstracted.

17. However there might be doubt whether an angel could use natural signs more quickly than he himself (or a man) could use conventional signs. - For it would seem remarkable if he could affect sight more quickly with many sensible or visible objects -from which objects species would be abstracted necessary for one great argumentation -than he (or a man) could use conventional signs representing those objects.

18. But as to other affirmations [sc. about an angel’s power as to phantasms and intelligible species, n.16], namely about what an angel can do or cause in a man’s power of imagination - whether he can effectively cause a new phantasm (as by offering a new imaginable thing) or transpose phantasms already possessed, is matter for doubt.

19. However it is commonly conceded that he cannot cause a new phantasm without a natural cause as intermediary, namely the object that is of a nature to cause such a phantasm.

20. About the transference too of a phantasm from the organ of one man to the organ of another there seems to be doubt whether he could transfer the spirit or humor -informed with a phantasm in the organ of Socrates - to the organ of Plato while the same phantasm remains (for he cannot transfer a phantasm other than by transferring the subject of it [sc. the spirit or humor]).

21. And perhaps it might be said that, when the humor is transferred from the organ of Socrates, the phantasm would not remain in it, because the phantasm would not be in the same proportion to its cause [sc. the particular sense] by which it was generated.

- But this reason is not conclusive, because the particular sense in respect of a phantasm is only a cause of the phantasm’s being made and not of its being when made.

22. Also, if such a transfer might be made, with the phantasm formed in Socrates still remaining, it might be denied that he to whose organ the transfer was made could use such phantasm, because no one’s imagination is of a nature to use a phantasm save one generated by a sensible object present to his own senses. - But this reason too is not conclusive, because if God impressed on a man born blind a phantasm of color, he could use it when awake to imagine colors; for what is not a cause of the being of a form but only of its coming to be does not seem to be a necessary cause of the form as to the second act of it.

23. Now as to neither of these two doubts does there seem to be a necessary reason for one side or the other.

24. In a third way, about the transference of phantasms in the same man, it is said that an angel can cause local motion of humors and spirits, on which motion there follows the transference of phantasms and the affecting in turn of the possible intellect by them. -But this seems difficult to understand; for not just any phantasm has spirit or humor for its subject, because there could be so many phantasms together in the power of imagination that proper subjects could not be assigned to them; also, no motion of spirit or humor seems to make any phantasm move more than before unless it does something to the phantasm by way of alteration.

25. Finally fourth, one can concede the following, that an angel can remove an impediment from the power of imagination; for example, if the impediment to orderly affecting by phantasms was a disturbance of the spirits or humors, an angel can quiet them, and when these are quieted the phantasms can occur in turn.

26. It can also be said - besides the way in which an angel can teach by sensible signs more excellently than a man can [nn.15-16], and besides any way he can act about the power of imagination [nn.18-25] (although no way is very certain save the last one about the removal of an impediment [n.25]) - that an angel can do something as regard the possible intellect; not indeed by immediately causing an intelligible species as total cause of it but as partial cause, by the joint action of his agent intellect with the agent intellect of the man, so that the two agent intellects (namely of man and angel), which are of the same nature, could operate along with the phantasm more effectively than the agent intellect of the man could alone, and thus produce a more perfect intelligible species and one that more perfectly represents the quiddity.