5. To the Arguments for the Second and Third Opinions

193. To the arguments that are for the second opinion and consequently against the third opinion:

194. [To the authorities of Aristotle] - To the first [n.174] response was made in the first question [n.19].

As to the second [n.175], the opposite could rather be drawn from the doubt in Physics 5, because if the health that continued for a day remains the same, why will the health that existed in the morning and was interrupted at noon and returned in the evening not in the same way be the same? Hence the negative response that is alleged is not expressly obtained there [in Physics 5].

195. To the other authority from Categories [n.176]: if privation, which is the term ‘from which’, cannot return the same, neither can the term ‘to which’ (and this when speaking of the precise term ‘from which’, and as regard a natural agent). But now the only cause why it does not return the same is that the positive state, with which the privation is conjoined, does not return the same; for if the form can return that, according to the order of generation, immediately precedes the other form in the matter, there appears no reason why the concomitant privation could not also return. This proposition, then, from the Categories is understood in the order of natural generation in descending process, because after the privation there the positive state does not return, for the form does not return that immediately preceded the positive state in the order of generation. Briefly it can be said that the proposition is understood of identity in species, not of identity in number, and then of immediate return; and consequently neither [of these authorities, nn.175, 176] is about mediate return.

196. To the one from Ethics 6 [n.177]: the Philosopher understands the phrase “to make undone what has been done” to mean that one cannot make them not to have been done; but it does not follow that therefore one cannot make them present, because it is not repugnant for them to have been done and to be, by another making, present now, even had they been destroyed between the first action and the second.

197. To the reasons for the opinion:

[To the first reason] - As to the first [n.178], it is plain that it should not move us: First because some part of the matter remains the same notwithstanding the division of it; therefore in that part the same form as before would be brought back (if return of the same form is not impeded for any other reason than the difference of the matter); and then the new generated thing would in part be numerically the same as what was before, and in part diverse, because as regard the part of the matter that remains the generated thing would be the same as what was first corrupted; but as regard other parts of the matter (that have succeeded to those that were before in the corrupted thing and have been dispersed) the generated thing would be different from what was corrupted.

Second because God or an angel could collect all the parts of the matter of the corrupted thing and apply them in due proportion to a natural agent, and thus, according to this reason, the whole of the numerically same thing would return as before.

Similarly, the whole matter can be naturally preserved the same without division - for example if fire in the urinal be converted into air and all the air conversely be converted into fire, there is here no dispersion of the matter.

The response then is that it is not necessary for the matter of the previously corrupted thing to be divided and, granted it remained the same, it would not be the whole idea of the return of the same thing.

198. [To the second reason] - As to the next, about motion and change, response was made in the first question [n.27].

199. As to the confirmation, about the interchange of proportions [n.179], I say that an interchanged proportion is taken from Euclid 5 prop.16, “if quantities are proportional, they will also be quantities when proportioned” [Euclid: “If four quantities be proportional, they will be proportional when interchanged”].

200. And this point is carried over [sc. to the confirmation]. Also, to arguments of this sort the answer is plain from Aristotle Prior Analytics 2.22.68a3-16: “If a and b are converted, c and d are also converted; if a and d contradict, b and c contradict.” And thus does the argument from interchanged proportion universally hold, provided the interchange happen as to contradiction and conversion. But if it happen as to contradiction and consequent and antecedent, it is not valid, but there is a fallacy of the consequent. Hence this inference is not valid: as man is to non-man, so animal is to nonanimal; therefore, by interchange, as man is to animal as to consequence, so non-man is to non-animal as to consequence [cf. Ord. I d.36 nn.56-57].

201. As to the proposed conclusion, which is argued for to this effect, which is that ‘it cannot be without this’ [n.179: sc. ‘this product cannot be without this production’], the consequence is not valid when a common term determines for itself another common term [sc. ‘product’ and ‘production’], and an inferior under a common term [sc. ‘this product’ under ‘product’] does not determine for itself an inferior under the other common term [sc. ‘this product’ under ‘this production’]. But the following is quite possible that, from the fact that some common term determines for itself another common term, the only consequence is that an inferior determines for itself the same common term.

An example: ‘as surface is to this surface, so is color to this color’ and conversely; therefore, by permutation, ‘as surface cannot be without color, so neither can this surface be without this color’ - this does not follow, because although one common term determines for itself another common term, yet the singular term does not determine for itself a singular term. Similarly: ‘as body is to this body, so place is to this place’; therefore, by permutation, ‘as body is to place, so this body is to this place’; but body cannot be without place; therefore neither can this body be without this place - the consequence is not valid, because this body does not determine this place for itself in the same way that body determines place for itself. But this consequence holds: if that which is necessarily required for another cannot be without something, neither can that for which it is required be without that something. And so, since production is necessarily included in the idea of ‘this production’, if production cannot be without product, the consequence is that ‘this production’ will not be able to be without ‘this product’; but neither production in common nor product in common necessarily require ‘this’ production.

202. In brief: permutation only holds in accord with the same thing that the proportion accorded with before, or in accord with something where ‘to be a proportion’ is included in the first proposition - as in this case, which is that included in ‘a proportional is in accord with convertibility’ is ‘the proportionals are in accord with repugnance’ [sc. that ‘product’ and ‘this product’ agree in being repugnant to ‘without production’ and ‘without this production’ respectively]. But in the issue at hand it is not so, because in ‘being proportional as to higher and lower’ is not universally included ‘being proportional as to the same sort of inseparability in the lower as in the higher’.

203. [To the third reason] - To the next one [n.180] I say that the potencyprinciple always remains the same, and it suffices for the reception of form. Because if you seek beyond this principle for another potency, which is a potency of relation, it does nothing for the reception of form; but if it be required, it can be said to be now the same.

204. And when you ask, “either it remains the same or it returns the same” [n.180], each can be granted:

The first, to be sure, because, when speaking absolutely about the potency that states the order of the receiver to the received, the order remains the same whether before the received thing is present or when it is present, because the order follows the nature of the receiver, which nature is naturally perfected by such form. And the proof that the potency remains is that if God were to bring back the same form (which is not denied to be possible for him), it would make with the matter something ‘per se one’ just as before; therefore the potency in the matter with respect to the form would be the same as before.

205. And then when the argument is made that ‘potency is destroyed in the arrival of form’ [n.180], one must say that this is not properly understood of the idea itself of potency, but of a certain respect concomitant with the potency that the potency has because of the fact that it precedes act, which preceding is a certain priority in duration to act; but this is not included per se in the idea of potency, because potency can exist at the same time along with this priority and along with immediacy to act.

206. One could also say that potency before act remains always the same, even along with act; and yet opposites are not together at the same time, because the potency before act is not a potency for form for the same ‘now’ as when act is present in it, because it has act for that ‘now’. But the potency before act is not present in it for the same form, but for a form in the future.

207. Now that either one of these responses may be true is proved by this that, if something can have a potency for form, it already has the potency, because the impossible cannot become possible and, consequently, potency for some form cannot be had at some time without being had now, provided that what is susceptive of the form is possible now.

208. It might in another way be said that the same potency would return, just as it is also possible that the same act return. And then it would be said that, for the moment when the act is present, the potency opposite to act does not remain but that it does return when the act ceases.

209. In a final way it might be said that, from the beginning of creation, there are distinct potencies in the potency-principle, as many as are the receivable forms, not only distinct in species, but in number and not precisely so many but even that there are as many for the same form as there are times when the form can be induced, and that each of these potencies ceases to be when its proper act arrives and does not return; and yet the same form can return, because there is not only a single potency for it but different potencies according as the form was differently inducible into the same potencyprinciple.

When it is argued against the second member [n.180] that the same potency cannot return because neither can the privation - it was said above [n.195] that privation can return if the positive state can return with which the privation is conjoined; and about potency in the same way, if the form prior in the order of generation can return with which the potency for the second form is concomitant.

210. When it is argued, against each member [n.180], that there is no potency for the past, this is true of the past as it is past; hence there is properly no potency for the past to have been or not been, but there is potency for the thing that was past insofar, however, as it can be future.

Now this argument about potency [n.180] works not only against a natural agent but also against the return of the same material form through divine action, because divine action requires in matter a potency that it perfects. He who would say that these potencies are nothing, when speaking of any power besides that which states a respect of the receiver to the form received, should free himself of all this bother, because how many nothings are posited does not matter. But the potency that is a real relation on the part of matter to form (just as, conversely, in-forming is a real relation of form to matter) - that potency, I say, returns the same if the form returns; or if it not return before the composite, it could return the same (the point was stated in the first question [n.41]).

211. [To the fourth argument] - To the final argument [n.181], as to why the same thing in number would not return at once with the initial return of the same thing in species, one can say that there are impediments on the part of the passive thing and the agent, because of which inseparable accidents cannot immediately be brought back; and without these inseparable accidents the same substance would not be brought back. It need not always be so that there are such impediments.