II. To the Initial Arguments

91. To the first main argument [n.44]: That they may be lights “for days and years etc     .” is not the principal end but an end under that end, namely for the time of the mortal life of men, who need such distinction of times.

92. The answer to the second [n.45] is plain from the same point: “For all the days etc.,” that is, all the days for which seed-time and harvest is useful, which is only for mortal life. Or in another way: “for all the days of the earth,” that is, all the days of the earthly life of man.

93. As to the next [nn.46-47], it is plain the conclusion was the Philosopher’s intention, but the proof ‘because the agent is not wearied’ is bad; for an agent, although not wearied in acting, can voluntarily stop acting; hence this must be conceded, that ‘every agent that is wearied in acting at some time stops’. But if it is not wearied there is no necessity that it [not]This extra ‘not’ is a variant noted by the Vatican editors in the apparatus criticus but not inserted in the text. The context of the argument, however, suggests it should be so inserted. ³⁹ stop, because there is a reason for stopping or ceasing other than weariness.

As to the other proofs from Metaphysics 9, that there is no potency of contradiction there [n.48], and this because there is no matter there: if these proofs are adduced for proving indefatigability, I concede that the issue at hand [sc. the heaven does not cease moving] does not follow from indefatigability; but if they are adduced for proving the main conclusion [sc. there is no potency of contradiction there], they are not valid, because whether the matter that is a part of a substance is in the heaven or not, there is at any rate in the heaven a potency for ‘where’, namely a movable subject; and one would have to prove that this subject is not of itself in potency of contradiction to motion and non-motion. For the opposite seems more probable, since it does not have in itself any potency save the receptive potency of a movable thing for motion, and every potency precisely receptive seems to be a potency of contradiction.

94. To the next [n.49], I say that motion is only a perfection of the heaven in a certain respect, and the sort of stopping [in question here] is not unacceptable, especially since perpetual rest is a greater perfection for it.

95. And if you argue ‘then its moving now would be altogether vain’, and further ‘motion is related to rest as potency to privation’ - As to the first I say: the heaven is not moved because of some intrinsic perfection completive of it that would consist in motion or be acquired by motion; but while the non-imperfection of the heaven stands (because it is in a potency that is indifferent to moving and resting), nevertheless the perfection of the heaven for the present state of things requires rather that the heaven move, on account of the state of corruptible things. As to the second: when taking ‘rest’ as it states precisely lack of motion, then rest is thus more imperfect, because to the extent that what motion states is something positive rest would be more imperfect. However, the lack of motion, as lack, is not thus imperfect but there is something that is substrate in rest, namely uniformity or identity in being, and this is simply more perfect than the positive thing in motion, namely motion’s being now this way and now that.

96. To the next [n.50] Avicenna replies [nn.77-78] that the motion of the heaven is neither natural nor violent but, on the part of the agent, voluntary, though with a will of the sort that (according to him and to Aristotle) it is determined necessarily to acting. But on the part of the passive subject the motion must be posited to be neither, in the way that it was said elsewhere [e.g. d.43 n.234] that surface is in neutral potency to whiteness. And universally, when a subject is determinately inclined to neither contrary, it receives neither of them naturally or violently. However, there is in the heaven a certain aptitude for circular motion because of the fact it is of spherical shape; but this aptitude does not suffice for naturalness, but only for non-violence.A concession, however implicit on Scotus’ part, that the motion of heavenly bodies, however circular these bodies are or appear to be, need not by nature, or at all, be circular (and in fact it is not). ⁴⁰