C. What one Must Think about ‘To Act Instrumentally’

152. I say too that neither can a creature create instrumentally, so that it be a properly active instrument [nn.120-122]. I say so to this extent, because perhaps not every instrument is properly active (as will be stated below, n.167). For an instrument can only be active either as to a preceding disposition or as to the term itself. But in the case of creation nothing can precede that might be disposed to creation, and nothing can act for the term unless it have a form active in its own order. And although it would be able in virtue of another to attain the total effect and attain it wholly, yet such would not be any active virtue of some creature, as was shown above [nn.44-49].