II. To the Principal Arguments

18. To the first principal argument [n.1] I say that ‘to enjoy’ is taken in an extended sense for a love of the honorable that is distinct from love of the useful or of the pleasant; or ‘things honorable’ [sc. invisible goods] are there spoken of in the plural, not because of a plurality of essences, but because of a plurality of enjoyable perfections in God.

19. To the second [n.2] I say that a relation to a term or object that is simply infinite is necessarily finite, because what is for an end is, insofar as it is such, finite, even when taken as altogether proximate to the end, namely when taken along with everything that suffices for immediately attaining the ultimate end, and yet the idea of end, to which it is immediately related, is based only on the infinite. And this often happens in the case of relations of proportions or of proportionalities, but not of likenesses, because the first extremes are there maximally dissimilar. Thus in the proposed case I say that the relation between the power and the object is not one of likeness but of proportion, and therefore a finite capacity can be finite in nature, in the way its nature is finite, and yet be related to a term or object, as to its correlative, that is simply infinite.Interpolation: “just as any being whatever for an end, however finite it may, is yet never referred to the ultimate end unless that ultimate end is infinite. Or in another way, and it comes back to the same, one should say that although the appetite of a creature is, in its subject, finite, yet it is not so in its object, because it is for an infinite end. - And if an argument is made about adequacy, namely that an adequate object satisfies, one should say that adequacy is twofold, namely in entity, and this requires a likeness in the nature of the things that are made adequate, and there is no such adequacy between the created power of enjoyment and the enjoyable object; the other adequacy is according to proportion and correspondence, which necessarily requires a diversity in the natures that are made adequate, and such adequacy does exist between the power of enjoyment and the enjoyable object. An example about adequacy between matter and form” [n.21]. ⁸

On the contrary, an adequate object would satisfy. - I reply: not one that is adequate in reality, but one adequate in the idea of object; such adequacy accords with proportion and correspondence.

20. I use the same reply to the other argument [n.3], that nothing is greater in the idea of object than the object that is proportioned to the soul; yet there is something greater, namely something that is attainable in a greater or better way than can be attained by the soul, but this ‘greater’ is not in the object but in the act. I explain this by an example: if one posits some white object that has ten grades of visibility, and if one posits a sight that grasps that white thing and some whiteness according to one grade and another more perfect sight that grasps them according to the ten grades, the second sight will perfectly grasp that white thing as to all grades of its visibility, because it will see that object with as much whiteness as can on the part of the object be seen; and yet if there were a third sight, more perfect than the second and more acute, it will see that white thing more perfectly. Hence there will not in that case be an excess on the part of the visible thing and of the object in itself, or of the grades of the object, because simply and in its uniform disposition it is the same thing, but the excess will be on the part of the seers and the acts of seeing.

21. To the fourth [n.4] I say that not just any form satisfies the appetite of matter in its total extent, because there are as many appetites of matter to forms as there are forms that can be received in matter; therefore no one form can satisfy all matter’s appetites, but one form might satisfy it most perfectly, namely the most perfect form; but that form would not satisfy all the appetites of matter unless in that one form were included all the others. To the proposed case, then, I say that one object can include all objects in a way, and therefore only that object would make the power rest to the extent that the power can be made to rest.Text cancelled by Scotus: “as was argued in the second article against Avicenna [n.10: canceled text in footnote 3].” ⁹ But things are not altogether alike as to internal and external rest, because anything that is receptive is at rest internally when some finite thing has been received; but externally or terminatively it ought not to rest in something finite, because it can be ordered to something more perfect than it can receive formally in itself; because a finite thing can only receive a finite form although it very well has an infinite object. - When it is proved that any form brings matter to rest, because otherwise it would be violently at rest under any form whatever [n.4], I say that violent rest never happens except when the thing at rest is determinately inclined to the opposite, as in the example of a heavy object with respect to descent downwards and its being at rest on a beam [n.4]; but prime matter is inclined thus determinately to no form, and therefore it is at rest under any form at all; it is not violently at rest but naturally, because of its indeterminate inclination to any form.

22. To the fifth [n.5] I say that the intellect assents to any truth because of the evidence of that very truth - the evidence which the truth produces naturally of itself in the intellect - and therefore it is not in the power of the intellect to assent to a truth more or less firmly but only according to the proportion of the very truth that moves it; but it is in the power of the will to assent more intensely to the good, or not to assent, although less perfectly than when the good is seen, and therefore the consequence does not hold of the true with respect to the intellect as it does of the good with respect to the will.Interpolation: “To the sixth [footnote to n.5] one must say that ‘to seek for its own sake’ is double, either formally, and in this way the virtues of which Ambrose speaks are to be sought after, or finally, and in this way only God is to be sought after. And to the confirmation one should say that being by its essence, or being such by its essence, in one way is distinguished from ‘accidentally’, and in this way any thing is what it is by its essence; in another way existing by its essence is distinguished from that which exists by another, and thus only God exists by his essence; for he is not reduced to any other prior being that might be more perfect than he or be his measure, and thus too only God is good by his essence.” ¹⁰