VI. To the Principal Arguments of the First Question.

345. To the principal arguments of the first question. To the first [n.217] I say that faith is not a speculative habit and that to believe is not a speculative act, nor is the vision that follows believing speculative, but practical; for the vision is of a nature to be conform to enjoyment and it is first naturally had in the intellect so that right fruition may be elicited in conformity with it.

346. To the second [n.218] one must say that the contingent thing that practical science is about is the end or what is for the end; but in doable things action is the ultimate end according to the Philosopher in Ethics 6.2.1139b3-4; therefore the contingency of action suffices for the object of practical science.

347. Against this is argued, first, that science is of necessary things;     therefore there is no science about contingent things. The antecedent is plain from the definition of ‘to know’ in Posterior Analytics 1.2.71b15-16.

348. Likewise from Ethics 6.2.1139a3-15, the scientific is distinguished from the calculative by reference to the necessary and the contingent [n.226], therefore all the habits of the scientific part are about the necessary; but science is a habit of that part; therefore etc     .

349. Further, if theology is about the contingent doable, therefore it is a habit of action along with true reason; but, as is said in Ethics 6.5.1140b20-21, this is the definition of prudence; therefore theology is prudence, not science.

350. To the first [nn.347-348] I reply: there are many necessary truths about contingent things, because it is a necessary conclusion that an act that is contingently elicited should be such as to be right; about it, then, there is science as far as concerns the conclusion necessarily deduced, although it is in itself contingent as far as it is elicited by its proper power.

The response is then plain to the authority of the Philosopher in the Posterior Analytics [n.347]: science is of something necessary that is said about the contingent, and so necessary truths are included in the understanding of the contingent, or they are deduced about something that is contingent by reason of some prior necessary thing [Posterior Analytics 1.8.75b24-25, 33-36; n.212].

The same point provides the response to the authority of the Philosopher in the Ethics [n.348], that the habit of the calculative part is about the act insofar as it is contingently elicited; but the scientific habit or science is about the same thing insofar as something about it is necessarily deduced. If it be objected that there is not the same object for a scientific habit as for a calculative one, we will speak about this next [n.351], how there can be the same object for several habits, although not the same habit for several objects.

351. To the second [n.349] I say that it would prove that moral science is prudence, for moral science is a habit of action along with true reason. Therefore I say that the definition of prudence must be understood of the proximate habit of action, such as is the habit acquired from acts. Hence, just as art is related, in respect of things to be made, to the habit of the man of experience, so is moral science related, in respect of things to be done, to the habit of prudence, because the habits of art and of moral science are as it were remote givers of direction, since they are universal; but the habits of prudence and of the man of experience, because they are generated from acts, are particular and proximate givers of direction. This exposition is necessary, otherwise there would be no practical science, because any practical science is a habit of doing or of making; but the conclusion is discordant and contrary to the Philosopher in Metaphysics 6.1.1025b25, as it seems, and against Avicenna in Metaphysics 1 ch.1 (70ra), and against other authors.

352. To the third reason [n.219] that Boethius understands by theology metaphysics. And as to what he says about the substance of God, I say that God is considered in that science insofar as it is possible in acquired sciences to consider him.

353. To the next [n.220] I say that it is a mark of nobility in an inferior that it reaches what is superior, according to the Philosopher in Politics 7.14.1333a21-22. Hence the sensitive power in man is nobler than the sensitive power of a brute, because in man it is ordered to the intellective power. It is therefore a mark of nobility in science that it is ordered to the act of a nobler power. But the Philosopher does not posit any science to be conform to the action of the will about the end, because he did not posit the will to have action about the end but as it were a certain simple natural motion, and therefore he did not posit that there could be any nobler science through conformity to the end; if however he had posited some action about the end, he would not have denied, as it seems, that practical science in respect to that action was nobler than speculative science about the same thing, for example, if there were some speculative science about what moral science is about, he would not say that the speculative science was nobler than the moral science. But we do posit that there is true action about the end, to which knowledge is of a nature to be conform, and therefore that practical knowledge about the end is nobler than any speculative knowledge. Therefore the first proposition of the argument [n.220], which it seems could be taken from the Metaphysics, although the Philosopher does not expressly say it, is to be denied.

354. To the first proof of it [n.220] I say that what is for its own sake is nobler than what is for the sake of some act inferior to it; but whatever he posits as practical is for the sake of something lower than speculative consideration, because it is at any rate about some object inferior to what he posits as the object of speculative consideration; and therefore whatever he posits as practical is less noble than something speculative. Now what is for the sake of some other act, nobler than its own act, is not, because of such order, less noble; for then our sensitive power would be less noble than the sensitive power of the brute.

To the second proof of the denied proposition, when the discussion is about certitude [n.220], I say that any scientific knowledge with respect to its object is equally certain proportionally, because any science makes resolution to its immediate principles; but it is not equally certain in quantity, because these knowables are more certain than those. Thus everything that the Philosopher posits practical science about is a less certain and perfect knowable in itself than what he posits some speculative science about; therefore some speculative science according to him is set down as more certain in quantity than any practical science. But we posit the doable knowable, that is, what is attainable by doing, which is truly action, to be in itself most knowable, and therefore the science of it is not exceeded by any other science either in quantity or in proportion of certitude.

355. To the other reason about necessary existents [n.221] I say that this science was not invented for the sake of extrinsic necessities but for intrinsic ones (as namely for the order and moderation of passions and actions), just as moral science, if it were invented after all extrinsic necessities had been possessed, would no less be practical. Now this science was not invented ‘for escaping ignorance’, because many more knowables could be handed down in so great a quantity of doctrine than have here been handed down; but here the same things are frequently repeated, so that the listener may more efficaciously be induced to the doing of the things that are here proved.