a. The First Proposition

82. The proof of the first proposition is that the act (necessarily preceding the term of creation) is required either as an act productive of the term or as the formal initial productive of the term (an example of the first: heating in respect of heat generated in wood; an example of the second: heat in the fire in respect of the heating of the wood).

83. But the act is not required in the first way, because an act productive of something and a formal productive act are in the same thing; so an act immanent to the agent as a productive act is not required to produce anything outside.

84. Nor is the act required in the second way [n.82], because an accidental act cannot be the formal initial of producing a substance.

First because an accident necessarily requires, in its existing, a receptive potency [sc. a substance able to receive it]; but every form requiring a receptive potency necessarily requires, if it is active, a passive potency in its acting, otherwise the form terminating the action would be more removed from matter than the form is that is the principle of the action - and this is unacceptable because removal from matter argues perfection; but the formal term of action cannot be more perfect than the formal principle of acting.

Second because accident is more imperfect than substance, from Metaphysics 7.1.1028a29-36; but nothing is a formal principle of producing a thing more perfect than itself. For if it is a univocal producer it is equally perfect, and if it is an equivocal one it must be more perfect. But never can something more imperfect than the product produce something more perfect than itself.

85. [Objections and their solution] - A response is made here that an accident can be the principle of producing a substance by virtue of a substance, because it is an instrument of a substance - though it cannot do so by its own virtue (an example from heat, which is an instrument of the soul in generating flesh, On the Soul 2.4.416b27-29).

86. Against this: every instrument, or anything acting in virtue of another, either attains the initial effect or disposes for the initial term of the act. But neither of these is given in the matter at issue. For an accident cannot attain the effect of the initial agent, namely an agent creating a substance, because if the initial agent were a univocal agent it would not necessarily require any agent intermediary between its form and its effect. But an equivocal agent is more perfect than a univocal one. Therefore, it does not necessarily require such an intermediary, and consequently does not have an instrument through which to attain the term. Nor can an accident serve as preceding disposition, because creation presupposes nothing that is disposed to it.

87. A confirmation of this [n.86] is that where accidents are instruments for generating a substance, they do not reach the initial term but only a certain disposition on the way to it, as is plain of the alterative qualities of the elements, which do not attain the substantial form. Otherwise quality would be a principle that acts immediately on the matter [sc. prime matter] that is receptive of substantial form, which is unacceptable because quality can only be received in a substance composite in its existence [sc. composite of matter and act]. Neither then can an accident act save on a composite substance and so not on pure matter.

88. Hereby is plain the answer to the point about heat in On the Soul [n.85]: for heat is called an instrument of the soul in the generation of animated flesh in so far as it is a principle for alteration in an alteration that is previous to generation - and not because, in the instant of generation, it reaches the form of flesh as its term, just as neither does it reach the substantial matter of flesh as its passive object.

89. Against this response [nn.86-88] an objection is raised based on Metaphysics 7.7.1032a13-14, b1,11-12, that “The house outside is made by the house in the mind.” And yet ‘the house outside’ has the being of a house more truly than ‘the house in the mind’, for the ‘house in the mind’ has diminished being in respect of ‘the house outside’, just as a known being is diminished in respect of real being. Therefore, a more imperfect thing (namely something having being in knowledge) can be the principle for producing something more perfect.

90. And this example is applied to the issue at hand as follows: as the house in the mind is related to the house outside, so is an angel (in the actual knowledge of an angel) related to an angel outside. But, according to the Philosopher [n.89], the house outside is made by the house in the mind. Therefore, from an angel that is in another angel’s intellect as known, that same angel can come to be outside.

91. It is not then the accidentality of angelic knowledge that prevents the creation of an understood substance.

92. To the first objection [n.89], then, I say that it is one thing to speak of a truer or more perfect ‘being simply’ and another thing to speak of a truer or more perfect ‘being of this sort’. For a stone in the divine mind has ‘being simply’ more truly and more perfectly than the stone outside, because a known object is said to have the being that knowledge itself has. Hence Augustine on John 1.3-4, tr.1 n.16, “What was made in him was life,” says ‘the thing known is creative life in the Word’, and this because the Word’s knowledge is really creative life. For what is said objectively of the thing known must be really found in the knowledge itself. But a stone in the divine intellect does not have a truer being of stone than the stone outside does, otherwise something intrinsic really to God would be formally and properly a stone.

93. To the issue at hand: the house in the intellect of the artisan is said to have the being that the knowledge itself of the house formally has; but, as it is, knowledge is simply more perfect than the form of the house outside, because the knowledge is a certain natural perfection of the soul; and the form of the house outside is either not real or, if it is, is much more imperfect than the knowledge is.

94. So, therefore, the answer to the first argument [n.89] is plain, that the house outside is said to come to be from the house in the mind, for it comes to be from the knowledge of the house in the mind as from the formal principle; and this knowledge of the house is simply more perfect than the house outside. Also the house inside, to the extent it participates in the being of cognition, is more perfect than itself outside.

95. And when it is said that the house inside is a diminished being and the house outside is a real being [n.89], I say that the knowledge of it is a real being and a more perfect being than the house outside. The house in the mind also participates objectively a more noble real being than is the being outside.

96. And in this way is to be understood the remark of Augustine On the Trinity 11 ch.11 n.6, that “a superior thing has a nobler being in itself than in the intellect, and conversely an inferior thing has a nobler being in the intellect than in itself.” This is to be understood of the being that belongs formally to knowledge itself, and by participation to the known thing. It is, however, true that the house outside has a truer being of house than the house in anyone’s intellect, but this is ‘being in a certain respect’, that is, a limited such being; but it has a simply nobler being in the intellect, above all in the divine intellect.

97. From this is plain the answer to the argument by similarity [n.90]; for I deny the similarity, because although the knowledge of a house is nobler than the house outside, yet the knowledge of an angel is not nobler than the angel is in himself, because an accident is not nobler than a substance.

98. And if you argue that it is similar, because the object on both sides is disposed in a similar way to the knowledge of it: ‘for it is of a nature to be the cause of its knowledge (namely the house cause of knowledge of itself as an angel cause of knowledge of himself), but a cause (if it is an equivocal one) is more perfect than its effect’. And likewise: ‘a house is the measure of the understanding of itself as an angel is the measure of an understanding of himself, but a measure is more perfect than the thing measured, for the measured depends on the measure and not conversely, Metaphysics 5.15.1021a29-30’ - I reply that a house is not of a nature to have, as to the above conditions (namely ‘to be cause’ or ‘to be measure’ of knowledge), the idea of an object in respect of knowledge of it, because an intellect that is moved by a being or quiddity in some sensible thing is not moved by an artefact as it is an artefact, because it is not thus an entity or has a whatness. But a house is only an object as to the third condition of knowledge,The three conditions for being an object of understanding are: cause, measure, term of intellection; cf. Ord. 1 d.3 nn.477-479. ³ namely that it terminates the act of knowing, and this condition of an object does not indicate a greater perfection in the object than in the act of knowing it.

99. And if you ask ‘what then is the object that is causative and measure of the knowledge of a house or of some other artefact?’, I reply that it is some natural entity or entities, whereby the intellect is moved to knowing the order or figure that the artefact adds to the natural entity. But an angel is in every way the object of knowledge of itself in the intellect of another angel; and for this reason a house can come to be from the knowledge of itself but not an angel from a knowledge of itself.

100. And hence is evident the invalidity of the argument, ‘a known object has diminished being, but the object outside has being simply and real being, so the object inside cannot be the principle of producing the object outside’ (or: ‘therefore the known thing inside cannot be the principle of knowing the known thing outside’). Yet this argument does really prove, ‘if knowledge is less noble than the form outside, then the knower cannot, by this knowledge, know the known thing outside’.

101. If the essence of a higher angel is the reason for knowing an inferior angel, then it contains the inferior angel in its knowability and therefore also in its entity. Therefore it can produce it whole - just as if an object is natural in two ways and artificial in a third, the natural contains the artificial eminently, because it contains what contains the artificial, namely the knowledge productive of it [nn.124-125].