II. To the Initial Arguments

212. To the first argument [n.175] I say that although this sort of foundation of relations includes several things that do not become something per se one (as is proved there about successive and permanent), yet it does not follow that a sacrament (as to its formal idea) is not per se one.

213. And if argument is made against this that a relation is not per se one unless it has one foundation, I reply that if perhaps this be true of real relations (about which there is a doubt, because perhaps in the case of many men pulling a boat there is a single relation of the pullers to the one thing pulled), yet in relations of reason the proposition is manifestly false, because however diverse the things are that can come together in the foundation of one relation of reason, there is only need that the many things be conceived there in the intellect as one thing with an order to some signified thing.

214. This is plain, since of this single relation which is ‘to signify good vintage’ the whole of the following can well be the foundation ‘a circle covered in leaves of ivy placed on a cross’ etc. Thus also, many statements woven together or one statement from many syllables (which make nothing per se one) are the foundation of one relation, which is ‘to signify that in God there are things that are in him intrinsically’, although however the thing signified is one and the same simplest thing.

215. To the second and third arguments [nn.176-177] the answer is plain in the explanation of the Master’s definition [nn.210-211].

216. To the fourth [n.178] the answer is plain from the definitions, because what one definition does not express another does express, so that thus, by a collection from all of them of what is found scattered about in them singly, one complete definition can be got, and of this sort is the one posited above [n.207].