1. Pain

a. Opinion of Henry of Ghent

27. As to the first matter, one assertion is [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 11 q.8] that “the first root of pain is an alteration in a fitting natural disposition that offends and corrupts it; the second and proximate root of pain is apprehension of this alteration.” The second root is not sufficient without the first, since otherwise the blessed could feel pain after the resurrection; for if one of the blessed were in fire he would apprehend the supreme heat perfectly but would not be harmed by it, and so, if mere apprehension without an alteration first were sufficient, someone blessed could be in pain while in a fire that was afflicting him.

28. But a distinction is made about apprehension, that apprehension is one thing and perception another; for sense apprehension has the sensible thing itself for object (as the apprehension of sight has color for object and the apprehension of hearing has sound for object), but the perception annexed to apprehension has an agreeable or harmful sense condition for object. This perception of what is agreeable or harmful has the power to move us to the experiencing of it that the thing itself has, as is plain from De Motu Animalium 7.701b16-32, that “phantasms sometimes, like things, move us to being warmed and cooled, and a small change in the heart causes a big one in the body; for just as a small change in the ship’s wheel causes a big change in the prow, so these sense intentions, possessing the power of the object, can move us to passions in the soul, namely pain; and they also accompany the body’s changes in its natural undergoings of hot and cold.”

29. In this way, then, apprehension is said to be only a cause sine qua non, as being the second root of pain; but perception, as the first root, is cause as to why there is pain. Because there is in a sense-intention of something agreeable and harmful the idea of being able to be moved to some passion in the soul (as being the object that the intention concerns), so the idea of moving power exists also in perception as to causing in the body the real undergoing that the perception in the soul accompanies.

b. Rejection of the Opinion

30. Against these assertions.

First, it seems that the first root [n.27] is no root, because just as (according to him) “the first root of pain is an alteration in a fitting natural disposition that offends and corrupts it,” so the first root in pleasure is “an alteration in a fitting natural disposition that induces and preserves it.” But this alteration seems to be no alteration, for I ask what the term of the alteration is. Not the sensation itself because the alteration precedes the sensation as the first root precedes the second; nor much less can it be the sensation which follows the passion, because this sensation follows both roots; therefore the proper term is the disposition of both, which naturally precedes both every act of sense and every act of the delighting or sorrowing power. But nothing such seems necessary for pleasure, for nothing precedes the two of them save perhaps the species of the object; but if the species had thus pre-existed in the imaginative power, which conserves the species, there could no less be a new alteration, and every root necessary for pleasure should now be kept preserved. But if the sensation alone existed, there could no less be some pleasure, because there would no less be some perfect operation which, according to the Philosopher (Ethics 10.4.1174b18-23), is necessarily followed by pleasure.

31. Further, that the second root is sufficient without the first is proved by the fact that, although the organ of sense is a natural body (and so capable of undergoing a real passion), yet it is, as an organ of sense, so balanced that it is in proportion between the sense objects; in this way indeed is it of a nature to receive alterations in intention from the object as the object is a sense object; and in this way some object is agreeable to sense and another is disagreeable, and so is something that delights or pains. Therefore, even if every action prior to the intentional act were removed, still, provided the intentional act were of some thus disagreeable object in the organ (as it is a sense organ), or in the sense, pain would follow.

32. And this seems to be clear in the case of some of the senses, for although a disposition really preservative of an individual’s nature be induced by certain sense objects, yet these sense objects cause the feeling of pain if they are disagreeable to the senses as they are sense organs (as in the case of bitter medicine that pains the sense of taste, although it is healthy for the sick person [Ethics 10.2.1173b20-28]). For only the sense of touch is so bestowed by nature on animals that what disagrees with this sense as a sense accompanies what disagrees with it as a nature. And that is why the two alterations in the other senses go together even though one is of a different idea from the other, and even though the one that is sensed in the sense organ could be without the other (and conversely), and so the disagreeableness in the one could be without the disagreeableness in the other - and so pain without the first root.

33. As to the objection about the blessed [n.27], it will be touched on in Ord.4 d.44 p.2 q.2 nn.2-9, about how the bodies of the damned are made by corporeal fire to suffer.

34. As to the point about the difference between apprehension and perception [n.28], it seems that one power has only one perfect act at the same time; therefore the senses should not be posited as having two acts about their object at the same time, even though the same act qua ‘perfect’ could be called perception and qua ‘imperfect’ be called apprehension. So it is called apprehension when, namely, the operation of the senses is imperfect because the one sensing is distracted, being busied in his intention about the action of the other powers. Also, if apprehension and perception should be distinguished, perception seems more removed from pain than apprehension, because the operation that perception expresses seems to be more pleasant than the passion that apprehension expresses.

35. Also, what Henry seems to say of objects of sensitive perception as to their relations [sc. that they involve the idea of the agreeable and disagreeable, n.28] is not correct, because no sense can perceive the relations but perceives only certain non-relational or absolute things that are the principles which move the senses; but relations are not principles of moving any sense to any act.

36. Likewise, if the relations are posited to be objects of an act other than apprehension, it seems one should posit two acts of sight and two acts of hearing (and so on of each sense), one of which would apprehend color or sound and the other of which would perceive the intentions that circumstance them, because powers get their distinctions from distinct first objects.

37. What is cited from De Motu Animalium [n.28] does not serve to show that the intentions of agreeable and disagreeable cause the first bodily passions in the heart that the animal passions follow, nor even that they cause those very animal passions - rather it serves to show that the very sense objects, which are displayed in imagination (and which Aristotle is there talking about), or the imaginations themselves by virtue of the objects, cause such passions; and so the text serves to show that one must posit as causing pain ideas that are objective and are different from relational ones.

c. Scotus’ own Response

38. One can reply in another way as follows. Active and passive power are, in general, the same in absolute nature (namely, some hot thing is the same as the heating power and another hot thing the same as the heatable power), and on these absolute natures are founded certain relations such that ‘this passive thing’ is disposed to ‘this active thing’ so as to receive from it the form for which it is in passive potency; and when a power thus proportioned or disposed comes close to the active thing, there is then a relation of coming close together, a mutual relation, on which it follows that the passive thing receives a form from the active thing -not however that the relation of action in the active thing and of passion in the passive thing, or their tendencies prior to their coming together (or the relation of coming close in the active and passive thing), are causes of such a form; rather these relations will be causes ‘sine qua non’. So, in like manner, one can say as to the matter at hand that this absolute thing, e.g. sight, is disposed to some visible thing as to something perfective of it (e.g. to some perfect or beautiful white thing) and, conversely, to a contrary visible thing as to something corruptive of it (or it is not disposed to it but disposed from it), and then the relation that is the term of the relation of the disposing to the disposed is called ‘agreement’ and the contrary is called ‘disagreement’ (because there is no relation of equality in the sense objects but of inequality), insofar as the ‘agreeable’ is said to be that to which it is dispositionally inclined (that is, to something extrinsic which is perfective of it), and the ‘disagreeable’ that from which it is dispositionally disinclined as from something extrinsic that is corruptive and offensive to it. Nor is there any other reason that sight is disposed with such an inclination to something white save that sight is the sort of passive thing it is and white the sort of active thing it is; just as there is no other reason that matter is inclined to form as to an intrinsic perfection save that matter is the sort of absolute entity it is and form the sort of absolute entity it is. Now upon this relation, which is founded on these absolute terms, there follows a coming together, which coming together is greatest when the white thing in its very presence is seen or perceived by sight.

39. From this coming together it follows that the inclined thing receives (from the perfective thing to which it is inclined) some perfection; and this perfection is pleasure, which, because it only moves in the presence of the agent cause, is called a ‘passion’, though it is really a quality and not of the genus of ‘passion’ as passion is a category (as I said elsewhere [On the Categories qq. 3036 nn.54-60]). For a like reason intellection is called an ‘action’, though it is really a quality; also, just as intellection possesses something additional to this idea of action (namely that, like action, it has regard to an object), so this additional something has regard to an efficient cause by which it is produced as a passion is. And by these two facts one says ‘it [intellection] is an action’ and ‘it is a passion’.

40. The idea then of being cause of this pleasure is not the agreement that was the relation, nor either is it the presence of the object in perception, which is a different relation (a sort of coming together of agent and passive thing); rather the absolute form alone (on which the relation of being active object is founded) has the idea of causing also the absolute (which is the pleasure) in the absolute that is inclined to this absolute (the absolute form) as to an extrinsic cause of perfection.

41. So too from the opposite side about pain, that the absolute which is disposed against the corruptive object called ‘disagreeable’ (as the object is referred to the power) is followed by a coming together, and this is followed, third, by the impression of the passion which is the pain; and this pain is, as an intrinsic form, contrary to the disposition of the receiver of pain, just as the passive thing is, as extrinsic, contrary to the receiver’s disposition.

42. As to the commonly stated remark that ‘the agreeable pleases and the disagreeable saddens’, it must not be understood causally, as if the agreeableness or disagreeableness were the reasons for causing pleasure and pain in the power; but we abstract certain general reasons from the distinct absolute things (to which causing those effects belongs), and from those reasons (to which it belongs to be efficient cause of pleasure and pain) we abstract reasons of agreeable and disagreeable, as that we abstract the idea of disagreeable from that which is efficient cause of pain, and we take the idea of agreeable from that which is efficient cause of pleasure. It is as if we were to say that every active thing when close at hand acts on the passive thing; ‘active’ and ‘passive thing’ spoken of as relations are not the reasons for acting and undergoing, but rather the absolute things are that those relations refer to.

43. But if it be asked on what the form is impressed - as on what disposed perfectible thing the form called ‘pleasure’ is impressed and on what counterdisposed perfectible thing the form called ‘pain’ is impressed, whether on the sense power as apprehending things or as appetite - it seems more to be on the appetite, because we can distinguish the power by which the soul can apprehend something from the power by which the soul is inclined to some extrinsic thing that is perfective of it [n.38], and the inclination naturally has the preceding apprehension as term. And so, just as we attribute apprehension per se to sense, so it seems that the inclination (the inclination namely whose term follows on the apprehension) belongs to the sensitive appetite; for we posit a sensitive appetite only because of such a term and the pleasure that follows apprehension; and so, since the form that terminates the inclination belongs to the same thing that the being inclined belongs to, pleasure will be in the appetite that was inclined.

44. This is confirmed from Damascene Orthodox Faith ch.38 [2.22], “the term, that is, the definition, of the animal passions is this: ‘Passion is a movement of the sensible appetitive power in imagination of good and evil.’” ‘Sensible’ is put for ‘perceptible’ because a non-perceptible passion is not properly an animal passion; ‘in imagination of good and evil’ is put there as cause, for ‘good’ and ‘evil’ are put there as something absolute; but ‘agreeable’ or ‘disagreeable’ is the cause of the passion, and ‘imagination’, that is sensation in general, is a sort of coming together of agent and passive thing.

45. Further, the moral virtues are located in appetite and not in the cognitive part as it is distinguished from appetite, and they are located thus most of all because of pleasure, for they concern pleasures and sadnesses [cf. Ord. 3 d.33]. So the passions seem to be in the same part and not in the sensitive [cognitive] part. Therefore does Avicenna say in his Metaphyics 8.7 that “pleasure is the conjunction of any power/virtue with what is agreeable to it.”

46. Alternatively, Avicenna takes ‘virtue’ there as it includes the cognitive part as well as its own appetitive part, for any proper cognitive part has its own appetitive part and cannot be conjoined perfectly with anything agreeable to it unless conjoined according to both parts. And because of this closeness they are taken to be one power; for they are more inseparably conjoined than operation and pleasure, which the Philosopher says, Ethics 10.5.1175a19-21, seem to be the same because they cannot be separated from each other. Now such predications are causal, so that the sense is “pleasure belongs to any power agreeing with its agreeable object, for it is caused by an object agreeable to sense.”