a. To the first Argument

83. To the first argument against this article, when it is said that ‘by relation nothing is produced, by production something is produced’ [nn.19-21]; this reasoning should not move anyone with intelligence; for divine production, by which something external is produced, is not anything absolute in God (as all agree), because God does not relate to creatures according to anything absolute in himself; therefore everyone must say that the production whereby God is said to produce is a respect. But how is it more unacceptable to say that he produces by relation than that he produces by respect? For whatever seems contrary to ‘he produces by relation’ would have to be taken from a middle term common to every respect - just as an absolute form in a category can be related to production in the way that no respect can be.

84. Second, it is manifest that a product is more formally produced by the passive production of it than by the active production of the agent; but the passive production of a product is not a passion in the category of passion, because it is not anything extrinsic coming to it but rather something intrinsic, because it arises from its foundation; so it is a relation properly speaking. Therefore a creature is produced by a production that is formally a relation properly speaking.

85. I respond therefore to the argument that both premises are amphibolies; for the ablative can be taken by reason of formal proximate or remote principle; and this multiplicity universally happens when something abstract is construed in the ablative along with some concrete denominating respect. For this proposition is true, ‘the like is like by likeness’, namely when understanding the ablative to be taken in idea of proximately denominating form; and this proposition is true, ‘the like is like by quality’, when understanding the ablative to be taken in idea of remote formal principle; likewise this proposition is true, ‘the hot heats by heat’, and this proposition, ‘the hot heats by heating’, but each in a different sense.

86. As concerns the issue at hand, if the ablative is taken in both premises by reason of proximately denominating form, the minor premise is true [sc. ‘by production something is produced’] and the major false [‘by relation nothing is produced’], because the production, whereby it is formally produced, is relation. And so the syllogism is formed from opposites, like this one: ‘no man is running, Socrates runs, therefore Socrates is not a man’; and no wonder that an impossible conclusion is inferred, nay an incompossible conclusion according to Prior Analytics 2.2.55a10-19.

87. But when taking the major negative premise [sc. ‘by relation nothing is produced’] as the ablative is taken in idea of remote formal principle, and the affirmative minor [sc. ‘by production something is produced’] is taken as the ablative is taken in idea of proximately denominating form, then both are true; but then to infer that production is not relation is the fallacy of figure of speech, by change of idea of proximate formal principle into idea of remote formal principle, or conversely; or, to speak logically, by change of absolute to relational, for the remote principle of anything denominated by relation is absolute, but the proximate principle is a respect.

88. And perhaps ‘the figure of speech’ could here be posited according to the first mode, by likeness of termination; nor is this ever as evident elsewhere than in such paralogisms; for this is because of the causal termination, which shows a like construction of cases. And here the argument is deceptive by amphiboly as to the premises, and it is plain that the inference could be made as if similar terminations in the same case signified the same sentence in the premises.