VII. To the Principal Arguments of the Second Question.

356. To the arguments of the second question. To the authority of the Philosopher in On the Soul [n.223] I say that he is speaking there of the end as known; for the intellect that is calculating for the sake of something is calculating for the sake of the end as known and as principle of demonstration.

357. To the second authority from the Metaphysics [n.224] I say the practical is not for the sake of use as for its per se end; yet it does have some relation to use, such that use is its per se object, or something that virtually includes use, of which sort the only being the Philosopher posited was being for an end; and every such object is less noble than the object of speculation; and therefore such order to action proves the ignobility of the practical in respect of the speculative.

358. To the third authority from the Metaphysics [n.225] I say that the speculative and practical have diverse ends speaking of ends per se within the genus of knowledge, but those ends do not first distinguish them, but there is a prior distinction from the objects, as was said before [nn.252-255, 259, 265-266].

359. To the reasons for the opposite position when argument is given against making distinction by objects:

To the first [n.249] I say that a speculative habit and a practical habit cannot be about the same object. - But when the opposite is proved through the remark of the Philosopher in On the Soul that “the intellect is made practical by extension,” I say that the Philosopher does not say the following, namely that the speculative intellect is made practical by extension; but Aristotle, when he posits three grades of intellect, of which the first considers speculables only, the second considers doables, not by commanding to pursue or flee, he says that “by extending itself further it intends to pursue or flee,” so that this extension is of intellect imperfectly practical to consideration perfectly practical, for example from apprehension of things terrible to a complete command about them, prescribing flight or pursuit. A concession, however, that the speculative intellect is made practical is not to the purpose, because ‘speculative’ and ‘practical’ are accidental differences of the intellect, although they are essential differences of habits and acts, and therefore habits and acts are not extended.

360. To the other about medicine [n.250], some say that the universal habit is speculative but when from it the particular habit is acquired it becomes practical. - On the contrary: then from speculative principles a practical conclusion would follow, which is discordant.

361. Therefore one must speak otherwise and say that when there are extreme opposites, the more something departs from one of the opposites, so much the more does it approach the other; the consideration that most has the idea of the practical is the one that is of a nature to be immediately conform formally to the action to be elicited; therefore the more something departs from that, so much the more does it approach the speculative; therefore the universal habit, which is not of a nature to be immediately conform to action, can be said to be in a way speculative with respect to a habit that is immediately of a nature to be conform to the action to be elicited. In this way art could be set down as a speculative habit with respect to the habit of the man of experience, because art, as being a more universal habit, is not thus immediately directive, as appears from Metaphysics 1.1.981a14-24, “the one with the art will err, the one with experience will not err.” In this way medicine can be distinguished into the speculative, namely the one that is about universal causes and cures, which is a knowledge more remote from the action to be elicited, and into the practical, which is about particulars and things closer to action and more immediately conform to the action to be elicited. However, in truth that more universal knowledge, which is called speculative comparatively, is simply and most truly practical, because it virtually includes the particular knowledge that is formally conform to action.

362. To the next one about moral goodness and badness [n.251] I say that not every good act is good first from the circumstance of the end as end, nay some act is good from the circumstance of the object, to wit when the end is the object, and there the circumstance of the end as object first gives rectitude to the act [nn.263-264]; for the act is from the object alone simply good, as the act ‘to love God’ is simply good without any other circumstances. So it is false that the first goodness of the moral act is taken from the end as the end is contradistinguished from the object, nay it is false in a second way, because, although an act about what is for the end has the end for its first circumstance, yet there is from the object a prior goodness, the goodness by which an act is said to be good in its kind; the third response, directly to the purpose, is that although the circumstance formally circumstances the action so as to make it good, yet it does not formally circumstance practical understanding; for the intellect does not command an act moderately or in a middling way, such that it is circumstanced by this circumstance to command moderately, but the intellect commands the act according to the utmost of its power; but the ‘commanding’ is right from the principle, and the principle is taken from the first object.

363. Against this is that the distinction is not through the objects. The proof is that everything formally of a certain sort is of that sort by something intrinsic to it,     therefore , if a habit is formally practical, this is by something intrinsic to it; but this is not the object; therefore etc     . Example: the sun is not formally hot although it is virtually hot.

364. Further, the object only distinguishes the habit as an efficient cause; efficient causes do not distinguish the effect into species, because an effect the same in species can come from causes diverse in species, as a hot thing the same in species is generated equivocally and univocally by fire and by the sun.

365. To the first [n.363] I say that being practical means intrinsic to knowledge just as aptitudinal respect means intrinsic to the foundation, and that some knowledge is naturally apt to be referred [sc. to something else], that is by a nature intrinsic to the knowledge, which nature it has from the object as from its extrinsic cause. I say then that a habit is practical by what is intrinsic as by the formal cause, but by the object, which is extrinsic, as by the efficient cause.

366. To the second [n.364] I say that although from essentially ordered causes, one of which is univocal and the other equivocal, there can result, when each is causing, an effect one and the same in nature, as in the example of heat, however, when proximate causes of the same order to the effect cause something insofar as these causes are distinct, especially if each is univocal with the effect (whether the univocity is complete or diminished), there cannot result from such distinct causes an effect of the same nature. I say univocity is complete when there is likeness in form and in the mode of being of the form; I say univocity is diminished when there is likeness in form although the likeness has another mode of being, in the way that the real house outside comes from the house in the mind of the builder (hence the Philosopher calls this generation ‘in some way’ univocal, Metaphysics 79.1034a21-25). Because     therefore the object is the proximate cause with respect to knowledge and is univocal, although in a diminished way, it follows that the formal distinction of objects, since these cause knowledges insofar as they are distinct, necessarily includes a formal distinction of knowledges.