2. What View Should be Held

57. Because, however, I do not believe this opinion [n.56] to be true (as was said [in Rep. IIA d.16 nn.11, 18-19]), neither also is it clear that it is the same thing to be more principal with respect to ‘being’ and with respect to any perfection consequent to ‘being’, since something can be cause of something in being and yet that other thing receives [perfections] through no other cause; rather, if it were uncaused, it would receive [them] - just as God is cause of a triangle in being, yet, if a triangle were uncaused, it would by itself have three angles equal to two right angles.

58. And this is most of all true where there is no process in the same order, as suppose if one thing be prior in order of active principle and after that the second thing is prior to a third in order of passive principle. Even in the same order this only holds if the priority is essential, understanding this as follows, that it be impossible for the second to be prior to the third unless the first be prior to the second and to the third (as is plain in efficient causes, where a posterior can cause without a prior that is not essentially or necessarily prior in this way).

59. But, in the issue at hand, there is in the idea of the receptive subject no such essential priority thus of essence to power in the receiving, because if the immediate receptive subject could exist per se without an intermediate, it could per se receive, with the intermediate receiving neither mediately nor immediately. But a hypothesis is necessary (on the supposition that this hypothesis is necessary for many things), that, in the case of things distinct in absolute being, either one of them can, without contradiction, exist without the other.

60. It seems, therefore, that if the opinion were probable [n.59], yet in no way would it have to be conceded that the essence received the operation more principally than the power.

61. Dismissing, therefore, these and other opinions about powers, and dismissing the equivocations about what is ‘more principal’, I say that that is simply more principal with respect to a which, when anything else whatever has been per possibile or per impossibile removed, would be disposed in the same way toward a, and that nothing else, with it removed, would be thus disposed toward a.

62. This reasoning is proved from the idea of firstness, that that is first with respect to something, which when taken away there is nothing that is of this sort with respect to that something; but, when anything else is taken away, it is disposed in the same way toward that something; and it simply is simply more principal. These clarifications are made on behalf of the major [n.61].

63. But now, whether a power is a perfection that is unitively contained in the essence, or whether it is an essential part of the essence, or whether it is disposed differently in this way and that (according to different opinions), the essence would not receive beatitude when the power is, per possibile or per impossibile, taken away; but when the essence is per possibile or per impossibile taken away, the power would receive beatitude. Therefore, in the way in which firstness is, in fact or in idea, possible there, the power receives beatitude more principally, and consequently beatitude perfects the power more principally.

64. The proof of the minor [n.63] is from the preceding solution [n.52], that beatitude, according to that solution, consists in operation; now operation would perfect the power if it existed alone without the essence, but would in no way perfect the essence if it existed alone without the power.

65. If to this proof of the minor an objection is drawn from the fact that no accident perfects another accident but perfects only a substance, yet one accident is prior to another - according to the Philosopher, Metaphysics 4.4.1007b2-4, 12-13, “For an accident is an accident of an accident only because both are accident to the same thing,” and later, “for this is no more an accident of that than that is of this” [cf. Ord. IV d.12 n.108]. So, if the power is an accident of the essence, then in whatever way it were, per possibile or per impossibile, to exist without the essence, it could not receive an accident; but the essence could receive a mediated accident, whether it received it afterwards or before, because it is receptive of both accidents, and immediately so under the idea of being the subject.

66. The minor of this objection [sc. the power is an accident of the essence] I do not reckon to be true, as I said [n.63], but let it be. The major, however [sc. no accident perfects another accident], is false, as was said in [Ord. IV d.12 nn.146-151].

67. And the fact is plain from Avicenna, Metaphysics II ch.1, because fast and slow are accidents of motion, and curved and straight accidents of line.

68. And it is plain too by reason, because whatever belongs to something per se in the second mode [Aristotle, Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a34-b18] is an accident of it, for in that mode the subject is put in the definition of the predicate as something added on that does not belong [to a definition] with respect to an accident save as to the subject of it. But there are many accidents that are present per se in the second mode in accidents and in no substance, as is plain of all the properties of the mathematical sciences, none of which is about any substance as about its first subject [Ord. IV d.12 n.143].

69. But what is adduced from the Philosopher [n.65] needs expounding, because if he means precisely that ‘because two accidents are accident of the same subject, therefore one is accident of the other’, it follows that surface is as accident of whiteness as whiteness is of surface.

70. The same follows from the second authority, that ‘this is no more accident of that than that is of this’ [n.65].

71. His understanding then is not about ordered accidents, one of which is the idea of receiving the other, but about the disparate accidents of which he gives examples, as ‘white’ and ‘musical’.

72. Now this suffices for his purpose there, as he wants it to be impossible for there to be an infinite regress in predications per accidens, as I have elsewhere expounded his intention [Ord. IV d.12 n.158].