e. To the Fifth Argument

102. To the fifth main argument [n.25] from Metaphysics 5, one can, in one way, say that no relation of the second mode is founded on action and passion but only on active and passive power, as was said in Rep. IA d.27 nn.51-52, because the relations that seem founded on action and passion are not present when action and passion are present, and are present when action and passion are not present.

103. The point is plain: for when someone among creatures is generating he is not a father; but afterwards, when the offspring has already been formed, he who has generated begins to be father just as the offspring begins to be son; yet there is no action then, for the father could then not exist, or not then be acting with any new action at all besides the first one. But a relation cannot exist save when its foundation does; and if its foundation is complete, and that on both sides, the relation will also be there at the same time. So actions can be a condition for relations only as being dispositions previous to such relations.

104. So the statement of the Philosopher there [n.25] is saved, that relations of the second mode are said ‘according to active and passive power’ as according to foundations, and are said ‘according to actions of powers’ as according to dispositions previous to those relations.

105. It can in another way be said that the Philosopher is speaking of action according to the signification of the name, as it imports relation of producer to produced [n.57]; and action in this signification states per se something in the category of relation, as was said above [n.62]; and then the remark ‘according to active and passive power’ must be expounded as before [n.104], namely as according to foundation. But the following remark, ‘according to actions of powers’ [n.104] must be understood of actions formally, the way that the like is said according to likeness; and there is something in the text that clearly corresponds to this, for the Philosopher says, “a father is father of a son, for the former made and the latter is what was made”: ‘made’, that is, produced, ‘what was made’, that is, what was produced.

106. And if you object that the Philosopher gives an example of heater to heatable and again of heating to what becomes hot and of cutting to what is cut, as if he is talking of acting things [Metaphysics 5.15.1021a14-19, 21-23] - I reply that he is expounding how he understands the words, saying immediately afterwards, “The terms are said to be ‘to another’ according to time, as what did make to what is made, and what will make to what must be made.” Now here the thing producing is ‘always acting’, and the thing done is the thing produced; and so one should understand ‘heat-making’ as taken for what is productive of the whole hot thing, the way he says in Metaphysics 7.8.1033b8-18 [d.12 n.324], that the whole composite is generated, namely in the case of generations per accidens, as in the generation of substance. And he takes ‘heatable’ for the whole that is able to be produced and not for the passive thing as it is able to undergo change; and so he takes ‘heater’ for the producer of the whole hot thing, and ‘what becomes hot’ for the whole composite that terminates the production, and not for the subject transformed to heat; and so too of the relation of what is cut to what cuts.

107. It can be said in a third way that the Philosopher is not only setting down the kinds of relation there but also the modes in which each of them is said to be ‘to another’, just as also in the chapter on quality [Metaphysics 5.14.1020a33] he sets down not only the kinds of quality but the modes; hence he says, “‘What sort of’ or ‘quality’ is in one way said to be the difference of a substance,” although substantial difference does not belong to the category of quality. So here relatives in the second mode of relatives are possibly being set down according to what is said to be ‘to another’, and not as according to relation formally but as according to some extrinsic respect coming to a thing and having a likeness to the mode.

108. And then the text may be expounded as follows: “active and passive things according to active and passive power” [n.104] are said to be ‘to something’ as the foundations of relations properly speaking. What follows, “according to actions of powers” may be expounded of actions in the category of action, because it is according to actions that things are formally called actives to passives and conversely; they are not so called according to relations properly in the category of relation, but according to certain respects pertaining to the second mode of relatives and not pertaining to the category of relation, though they do have a mode similar to certain species of relation - and in this way they belong to one mode of relatives but not to any kind of relation.