IV. Doubt about the First Object of the Intellect for this Present State

185. But there remains a doubt why, if being according to its most common idea is the first object of the intellect, anything contained under being cannot naturally move the intellect, as was argued in the first argument for the first question [n.25]; and in that case it seems that God, and all immaterial substances, could be naturally known by us, which has been denied [nn.56-57]. Indeed, this has been denied about all substances and all essential parts of substances, because it has been said [n.137] that they are not conceived in any quidditative concept save in the concept of being.

186. I reply. That is assigned to be the first object of a power which is adequate to the power by reason of the power, but not that which is adequate to the power in any state, just as the first object of sight is not posited to be what is adequate to sight existing in a medium that is illuminated by a candle precisely, but what is of a nature to be adequate to sight of itself, as far as concerns the nature of sight. But now, as was proved before [nn.113-119] (against the first opinion about the first, that is, adequate object of the intellect, which opinion posits the quiddity of a material thing to be the first object), nothing can, in idea of first object, be made adequate to our intellect by the nature of the power save the most common object; however what is adequate to the intellect in idea of what moves it for this present state is the quiddity of a material thing, and therefore the intellect for this present state will not understand other things that are not contained under this first mover of it.

187. But what is the idea of this state? I reply: a ‘state’ seems to be nothing but a ‘stable permanence’ secured by laws of wisdom. Now it has been secured by those laws that our intellect for this present state understands only the things whose species shine forth in a phantasm - and this either because of penalty for original sin, or because of the natural concord of the powers of the soul in operating, according as we see a superior power operate on the same thing that an inferior power operates on, if each is going to have perfect operation. And so in fact it is in our case, that, as to whatever universal we understand, we have a phantasm actually of a singular instance of it. However, this concordance, which is in fact for this present state, does not belong to the nature of the intellect from the fact it is an intellect; nor even from the fact it is in a body, because then it would have a like concordance in a glorious body, which is false. Wherever this present state comes from, then, whether from the pure will of God, or from punitive justice (which cause Augustine points to On the Trinity 15 n.50, “What is the cause,” he says, “why you cannot see the light with a fixed gaze unless, to be sure, it is infirmity? And who made it for you save, to be sure, iniquity?”) - whether, I say, this is the total cause, or there is some other one, at any rate there is, from the fact the intellect is a power and a nature, no first object of it save something common to all intelligibles, even though the first object, adequate to it in moving it, be for this present state the quiddity of a sensible thing.

188. And if you say, granted that being in common would be the adequate common object for this present state, yet separate substances would not move the intellect save in a greater light than is the natural light of the agent intellect - this reason seems no reason. First, because if such light is required, there is no reason on the part of the intellect, from the fact it is such a power, why it could not now have such light; for it is of itself receptive of such light, otherwise it could, while remaining the same, never receive it. Second, because when a pair of agents run together for some effect, the more that one of them can supply the place of the other, the more is a lesser perfection required in the other - and sometimes no perfection at all if it supply the whole place of the other; but the object and light run together for acting on the possible intellect; therefore, the more the object is more perfect and more able to supply the place of light, the more does a lesser light suffice, or at any rate a greater light is not required. But the first intelligible is light maximally and able maximally to supply the place of intellectual light; therefore if, as far as concerns its own part, it be conceived under the first object adequate to our intellect for this present state, there would not be any defect on the part of the light without its being able to move our intellect.