I. To the Question

A. The Opinion of Others

340. On this question there are many ways of speaking.

[First opinion] - In one way is every intelligible species denied naturally preceding the act of understanding, because of the reasons set down for the first side of the question [nn.333-338]. The way of setting it down is this: once the impression of the sensible species on the organ of sense, and the whole process as far as the imaginative power, have been achieved, the agent intellect abstracts from the object in a phantasm and moves the possible intellect to a simple apprehension of the essence - but in such a way that neither does the possible intellect receive an impressed species from the phantasm, nor is the object present to the intellect save because it is present in imagination.

341. And this is proved from the following deduction: for the sense receives a species that is other than the act, either because the organ is of the same idea as the medium, or because the species received is a disposition proximate to receiving the action of sensing. Neither of these occurs in the intellect; for the intellect is a non-organic power and is of itself supremely disposed to act of understanding;     therefore etc     .

342. This is said to be Aristotle’s intention in On the Soul 3.4.429a27-28, where he commends the ancients who say that “the soul is the place of species, not the whole soul but the intellective soul.” Now this distinction does not seem true if one means that the other parts do not have species (for there are species in the sensitive part), but [it is true] because the other parts do not, as they are places, have species but do, as they are subjects, have accidents; and the intellect does, as a place, have them, because it has them as they are an expressed form, not as they are an impressed one.

343. This [n.340] is also taken from On the Soul 3.8.432a8-9, because, according to Aristotle, “we contemplate the ‘what it is’ in phantasms,” and “phantasms are disposed to the intellect as sensibles are to the senses,” and “we understand nothing without phantasms,” and many like things does he say. From these is the conclusion drawn that he does not posit an intelligible species, because if an intelligible species were posited the intellect would not contemplate the ‘what it is’ in phantasms but in the intelligible species. Likewise it would not need to be turned toward phantasms, but the intelligible species would suffice, and in that would it have present to it the object it would be turned toward.

344. If it be argued against this from the Philosopher there [n.343[,“it is necessary that either the things are in the soul or the species of things; the things are not there, so the species are,” he replies [Henry, ibid.] that on the part of the intellect, that is, in the intellect, there is an impressed species (which is the habit or the act), or an expressed species (which is the species in the phantasm), or a quiddity (which quiddity, shining forth [in the phantasm], is the species with respect to the singular - for ‘this stone’ is not in the soul but the quiddity, which is the species with respect to such stone).

345. This is also posited to be the intention of Augustine, who maintains that the word is not generated from the intelligible species but from the habit. For Augustine says, On the Trinity 15.10 n.19, that, “the word is born from the knowledge itself that we hold in memory,” and ibid. ch.11 n.20, “the word is generated from the knowledge that abides in the soul.”

346. [Second opinion]. Another doctor [Godfrey of Fontaines, Quodlibet 9 q.19, also 1.9] posits the same thing, denying an intelligible species; and he deals with the argument about the organ [n.341] that was touched on in the above opinion [n.340].

347. He posits another argument as well, of this sort:a that any power that is in potency to some act is first perfected in such act by the presence of an agent proportioned to it; but the power of apprehension is a power first ordered to this act, namely to apprehension; therefore by an agent first proportioned to it is it perfected in this act, which is the act ‘to apprehend’.b

a.a [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.92] what something is in potency to first and per se, that and nothing else does it receive from an object that is proportionable to itself; the cognitive power is in potency per se and first with respect to its own knowledge; therefore, it receives knowledge and not a species from a proportioned object.

b.b [Note by Scotus] The same conclusion as the stated opinion [n.340] is held by Godfrey, Quodlibet 9 q.19, “what something is per se in potency to, has in it per se being and nothing else from a proportional agent; the apprehending power is only per se in potency to knowledge.”
“Augustine On the Trinity 11.2 n.2, ‘the very form that is imposed on sight is called vision’.” “The organ in its changing agrees with the medium.”

B. Scotus’ Response and his own Opinion

348. My argument against this position [n.340]: Whether a singular is understood or not I do not care now [cf. canceled note to n.75]; for it is certain that the universal can be understood by the intellect, and the intellect is posited by philosophers as a power distinct from the sensitive powers because of its understanding of the universal, and because of composition and division [sc. in propositions], and because of syllogizing, rather than because of knowledge of the singular - if it be possible to understand the singular [cf. Henry of Ghent, Summa a40 qq.1, 4]/

349. From this manifest point, then, namely that the intellect can understand the universal, I take this proposition, ‘the intellect can have an object actually universal,a per se present to it in idea of object, naturally prior to its understanding it’. From this follows the proposed conclusion, that in that prior stage the intellect has an object present [to it] in an intelligible species, and so it has an intelligible species prior to act.

a.a [Note by Scotus] ‘universal’: therefore although a species of the nature [of a thing] be posited, ‘because we can understand a nature not present in itself, and different from the species of the universal (because it does not display [the nature] indifferently in this way), and through the action of the agent intellect (because the possible intellect does not make present its own object)’ - yet that is not a premise in this question [n.333] but a conclusion, for from this solution [nn.348-370] the conclusion is: there is an intelligible species for everything understood that is absent; therefore the reasons that are drawn from universality prove the necessity of a species [nn.352, 357, 359, 363-365]; but the arguments from the presence [of the object, nn.336-338] prove the possibility [of a species] from the nobility of the intellect in the genus of created cognitive powers.

350. The assumed premise [n .249, ‘the intellect can understand the universal’] seems manifest enough, because the object is naturally prior to the act; therefore universality, which is the proper condition of an object insofar as it is object, precedes the act of the intellect or of understanding; therefore under that idea too [of universality] must the object be present, because the presence of the object precedes the act.a

a.a [Note by Scotus] Note that an object is understood in a determinate organ, and although what is thus understood not be received in an organ, yet it will be determined to an organ as to that in which the object precisely is as object.

351. I prove the consequence [‘From this follows^’ n.249] first on the part of the universality of the object [nn.352-365], second on the part of presence [of the object, nn.366-369]. On the part of the universality of the object I argue in three ways, one of which is taken from the side of the phantasm representing it, and one from the side of the agent intellect, and one The Vatican Editors note that in place of the (here) italicized three Scotus put ‘six’, and in place of the first italicized one he put ‘first two’, and in place of the second and third italicized one he put ‘two’, in each case. The reason the Vatican Editors give for their correction is that there are in fact only three ways that Scotus gives, but the three ways together have six arguments, two each. Scotus’ numbering seems thus not so much wrong as less perspicuous perhaps than it is on the numbering of the Vatican Editors. ⁴² from the side of the more and less common.

1. Reasons on the Part of the Universality of the Object

352. [Reasons on the part of the representing phantasm] - First I argue as follows: a species has the sort of idea of representing it has from the fact it is the sort of species it is, and that in respect of the object under the sort of idea the object has of being something represented. Therefore, while the same species remains, it does not have two representative ideas, nor is it representative with respect to two ideas in the representable thing. But to understand an object under the idea of universal and singular requires a double representative idea or idea of representing, and in respect of a double idea of what is formally representable. Therefore, while the same thing remains the same, it does not represent in this way and that; therefore the phantasm, which of itself represents the object under the idea of a singular, cannot represent it under the idea of a universal.a

a.a [Interpolated text, cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.97] Or the argument can be formed in this way: a species the same and of the same idea is not per se representative of an object under opposite ideas of representable thing. The idea of singular and the idea of universal are opposite ideas in a knowable and representable thing. Therefore, no species the same and of one idea can be representative of an object under the idea of universal and of singular. A species in a phantasm represents a singular object under the idea of singular. Therefore, it cannot represent that object under the idea of a universal. - Proof of the major [the first proposition in this interpolation] is that a species under the idea by which it represents the object is measured by the object. But the same thing cannot be measured by two opposite measures, or conversely; for then the same thing would be said twice, according to the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5.15.1021a31-b3. Therefore the same species cannot represent two opposite objects, or the same object under opposite objective ideas.

353. Response [Henry of Ghent, Summa a58 a.2 ad 3]: the same representative in different lights represents an object under different ideas, just as phosphorescent things represent themselves in daylight under the idea of things colored, in light at night under the idea of things luminous.

354. To the contrary: This representative thing is naturally something in itself first before it represents [anything] in this or that sort of light; for because it is the sort of species it is, therefore does a light agree with it in which it may represent one thing and not another. Otherwise, one would posit, or could posit, that the same species would represent color and sound (though the species as it is in vibrating air represents sound, and as it is in illumed air it represents color), and thus no distinction between the representative things could be shown. Therefore, in the prior stage one must understand a unity of the species in itself before a unity of the representation (and of the object represented) follows on insofar as it is represented in it or through it. And so something that is the same in that prior stage cannot have a diverse idea of representing, nor can it represent the object under different ideas of the object’s being representable. There is a confirmation, that light does not represent formally, nor is it the formal idea of what is representative, but is only that in which something is represented. Also it seems that the more perfect the light, the more precisely and distinctly does that shine forth in it which the representative thing represents.a

a.a [Interpolated text; in place of ‘There is a confirmation.. .representative thing represents’. Cf. Scotus, Rep. IA d.3 nn.99-101]. Or form the argument like this:
     Light does not represent but is that in which the representative represents, because the light in the medium is of the same idea whether I see white or black; for light does not distinguish representative essentially from representative. However, there is a different species and representative of white and black, and consequently the distinction of light does not cause a distinct idea of representing or of representative, but, while the same nature of the representative remains, it always represents the same representable and a representable of the same idea; therefore, not under diverse ideas.
The argument is confirmed, because a representative in more perfect light does not represent a different thing, but represents the same thing more clearly than in more imperfect light; the fact is plain about the species of white and black in sunlight and moonlight. Therefore, although the species in the organ of imagination may, in the light of the agent intellect, represent the singular more clearly (so that the intellect can understand it better than in [the species’] proper light, namely the light of imagination), yet it never represents, in any light whatever, the universal object under a universal idea.
     Their example about phosphorescent things [nn.353, 355] is not valid, for I ask whether they represent with the same representative differently by day and by night, or with different representatives. Not with the same, because then they would represent by day as they do by night, because the representative is something in itself before it represents in such or such light. If it represents in different representatives diverse elements in phosphorescent things, the conclusion is gained, whether the light is the same or diverse.

355. Nor is the example [n.353, of phosphorescent things] of any worth for the issue at hand. Rather it is to the opposite, because either two qualities are in such a body, as light and color, one of which reduplicates itself in a greater present light, the other in a lesser one, when no other thing moves [the senses] more efficaciously; or each at the same time reduplicates itself in a greater light, but what moves more efficaciously is perceived and what moves less efficaciously is not perceived (just as the stars reduplicate their rays by day and yet are not seen, because something else brighter moves sight more efficaciously); or if there is a single sensible quality in such a body, it causes diverse representatives in different light, namely one in greater light, another in a lesser light. And so it is always the case that there is not the same representative of the object under diverse idea of being representable, however much one and another light come together.

356. If you reply [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.34 q.5] that the same thing according to the same quality can be similar to diverse things, as one white thing according to the same whiteness is similar to diverse white things - this is nothing to the purpose, because in relations of an essential order there cannot be different things in something that are dependent on two things in the same order; as, for example, of the same measured thing on two measures in the same order, or of the same participating thing on two participated things in the same order, or of the same effect on two total causes in the same order (as was proved in the question about the unity of God previously [Ord. I d.2 n.73]). Therefore, in this relation, where there is not only likeness but imitation and passive exemplification, it is impossible for the same absolute to be referred to diverse things, and thus there cannot be the same species in idea of representing for diverse things under the idea of diverse things.

357. Second as to the first way Instead of ‘first way’, Scotus wrote ‘first member’; see footnote to n.351. ⁴³ I argue as follows, that something representative that represents, according to its whole power, something under one idea cannot at the same time represent the same thing or another thing under another idea of object. But the phantasm, in which the universal is understood [cf. n.349], represents, according to its whole power, the object as a singular to the imaginative power, because then there is actual imagination of the object in the singular. And it is plain that this is according to the whole power of the phantasm, because otherwise the imaginative power could not, through the phantasm, have as perfect an act about the object as the object has a nature for being represented by the phantasm; therefore, the phantasm cannot then represent the object under another idea of the representable.

358. Again, why cannot there be in the imaginative power an act in respect of an object universal in act if there can be a species there in respect of such an object, since the act is a certain species?

359. [Reasons on the part of the agent intellect]. In the second way Instead of ‘second way’, Scotus wrote ‘second member’; see footnote to n.351. ⁴⁴ I argue as follows: the agent intellect is a purely active power, according to the Philosopher On the Soul [3.5.430a11-15], both because it is “by what making all things is” and because it is compared to the possible intellect also “as art is to matter;” therefore it can have a real action. Every real action has some real term. That real term is not received in a phantasm, because the thing received would be extended, and so the agent intellect would not transfer it from order to order, and [the thing received] would not be more proportioned to the possible intellect than the phantasm is.a Nor either does the agent intellect cause anything in phantasms, because [a phantasm] is not its passive object, according to the aforesaid authorities [the Philosopher, ibid.]; therefore it [the agent intellect’s real term] is only received in the possible intellect, for the agent intellect is receptive of nothing. That first caused thing cannot be posited to be an act of understanding, because the first term of the action of the agent intellect is the universal in act, because it transfers from order to order; but the universal in act precedes the act of understanding (as was assumed already in the antecedent [n.349]), because an object under the idea of object precedes the act [n.350].b The argument here is not that the phantasm together with the agent intellect cannot cause an intellection, but that it cannot cause an intellection of a universal unless it first causes a species - because the universal too in act precedes by nature the intellection of itself, and the universal is the first term of intellection.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus; replaced by ‘the thing received would be extended.. .phantasm is’] whatever is there is extended, and not able to be in proportion to moving the possible intellect.

b.b [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 nn.104-105] It will be said [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.58 q.2, supra n.340] that the term of the action of the agent intellect is the universal object, under the idea of a universal, shining forth in the phantasm.
     On the contrary: the universal object, under the idea of a universal, only has diminished being as known being (just as Hercules in a statue has only diminished being, because he has, in the image, represented being). But if it does have some real being, this is insofar as it exists in something as what represents it under this idea, namely such that the agent intellect (as was said) makes something that represents a universal out of what was representing a singular. Therefore, since the term of real action is not an object having diminished being, as known being or represented being, but something real, it follows that such action of the agent intellect terminates at a real form in existence, by which a universal is formally represented as a universal, and which real form is accompanied by an intentional term, as by a universal object, according to the representative being it has in the species.

360. And there is a confirmation of the reason, because it is [universally] posited that the agent intellect makes a universal from a non-universal, or makes understanding in act from understanding in potency, as is said by the authorities of the Philosopher [On the Soul 3.5.430a14-17] and of the Commentator [Averroes, On the Soul III com.18]. Since the universal as universal is not anything in existence, but is only in something as representing it under such an idea, these words [‘makes a universal from a non-universal     etc .’] will only have meaning because the agent intellect makes something to be representative of the universal out of that which was representative of the singular, however much the ‘out of’ be materially or virtually understood. Real action is only terminated at something that represents the object under the idea of the universal; therefore      the real action of the agent intellect is terminated at some real form in existence that formally represents the universal as universal, because otherwise its action could not be terminated at the universal under the idea of the universal.

361. Here, about the action of the agent intellect, Godfrey of Fontaines [Quodlibet 5 q.10] removes what gets in the way of it by separating the quiddity from singularity, not in its being but in its acting on [the agent intellect]. And it does not act on the phantasm, nor on the possible intellect, but touches virtually on the phantasm. This is explained as follows: in the phantasm there is a ‘what’ [sc. its quiddity] and a ‘this’ [sc. its singularity]; in the light, co-created with the possible intellect, the ‘what’ is the mover of the power so moved, the ‘this’ is not. An example: if white and sweet are together, the white moves the illumined medium, the sweet does not; therefore, the light abstracts the color from the sweet and separates it as far as moving [the sense] is concerned, and moves aside what gets in the way [sc. the sweet] into something that does not move [the sense].

362. On the contrary. Either the ‘what’ as it is in the phantasm has sufficient active power to move the possible intellect to an intellection of the universal, and the result is that the universal is not the term of action of the agent intellect. Or it does not [have sufficient power], and another agent is required properly acting in that way, the way that properly active power is lacking to the ‘what’.

Again, the ‘this’ conjoined to the ‘what’ is not an obstacle - just as it is neither an obstacle to the being of the ‘what’, so is it neither an obstacle to [the ‘what’] being a mover of the intellect.

Again, what removes an obstacle has an action prior to the action of the thing from which the obstacle is removed; grant that [prior] action here, and on what [does it act]? And toward what term? - But this argument is solved by the ‘This is explained as follows’ [n.361], because the argument [here n.362] is against what properly removes [an obstacle], not against what disposes a passive subject for receiving.

363. Again second, according to this way [the second way, n.351], because the agent intellect in idea of active element does not exceed the possible intellect in idea of passive element; therefore, whatever is caused by the agent intellect is received in the possible intellect. Therefore, the first term of action of the agent intellect is received in the possible intellect, and so since the first action of the agent intellect is to the universal in act, this universal, or that by which it has such being, is received in the possible intellect.

364. [Reasons on the part of the more and less common] - According to the third way [n.351] I argue as follows: a less universal habit and a more universal habit are distinct proper habits, otherwise metaphysics as metaphysics would not be a habit of the intellect because it would be about the most universal object for all the other objects. But it is possible to use a more universal habit without using any less universal habit, just as it is possible to have an act of understanding about what is more universal (in the way it is considered by the habit) without having an act about what is less universal. But an act about what is more universal is not had unless it is present to the intellect under that sort of idea.     Therefore , what is more universal can be present to the intellect through something other than that through which there is in the intellect the presence of something less universal. But if an object were precisely understood in the phantasm, the more universal would never be present save in the less universal, because never present save in some imaginable singular. Therefore etc     .

365. Again lastly according to this way [n.351]: the more universal, when it is apprehended in its inferior,a is never apprehended according to its total indifference. For the total indifference of the more universal accords with the fact that, as conceived, it is the same as each one of its inferiors; and never is the more common as conceived in some inferior the same as each inferior but precisely the same as the inferior in which it is conceived. Therefore, any universal conceived in a singular, or anything more common conceived in something less common, is not conceived according to its total indifference; but the intellect can conceive it according to its total indifference; therefore, the more common is not precisely conceived in the less common, or the universal in the singular, and so not the universal precisely in the phantasm. For a phantasm is only properly of the singular, and this insofar as it is a singular of the most specific species - and this if the phantasm is impressed by something duly close to it [cf. n.73].

a.a [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.106] The more universal cannot, according to its total indifference, be understood or represented in what represents the less universal; but the imaginable species per se and first represents an individual as it is a ‘this’; therefore, in it the universal cannot be represented according to the total indifference that it has relative to all its individuals.
The proof of the major is that never is the more universal known according to its total indifference save when it is known as one knowable the same as all its inferiors; but, as it has being and is known in one singular, it is impossible for it to be the same as all other singulars, but [it is] precisely the same as the singular in which it is. Therefore, it is not known, in the representative of one singular, according to its total indifference; so there would not be any universal categories, nor definitions, nor species, nor genera, nor anything of the sort, precisely. Therefore, the universal is not known in the phantasm; for the phantasm is only properly of the singular.

2. Reasons on the Part of the Presence of the Object

366. From the second membera [n.351], namely from the presence of the object, is proof given for the first consequence [n.349]. First as follows: Either the intellect can have an object present to it in idea of intelligible object without the fact it is to any inferior power, or it cannot. If it cannot, then, it cannot have any operation without the inferior powers (because it cannot have an object present without them), and if it cannot have an operation without them, then it cannot be without them, according to the Philosopher in his preface to On the Soul [1.1.403a3-10]. But if it can have an object present without the object’s presence to an inferior power, then it has [sc. an operation without the inferior powers]. The proof of the consequence is that the agents of such presence of the object, namely the phantasm and the agent intellect, are close enough to the possible intellect, and they act by way of nature and so they necessarily cause in it that of which it is itself receptive.b

a.a [Note by Scotus] The second way [n.349], three reasons against Henry; note the first with the third.

b.b [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.107] Now the intellect, as it is distinguished from the sensitive part, can have an object present in its proper presentiality or it cannot. If it can, the intended conclusion is gained, that the object is not present in abstractive cognition before an elicited act is save through some representative that I call a species. If it cannot, then it cannot have any operation proper to itself without the sensitive part, and consequently neither can it be without it, according to the argument of the Philosopher On the Soul 1 [n.366], “if the intellect cannot have an operation proper to itself, it cannot be separated;” and so it could not have an operation proper to itself in which it would not depend on the sensitive part.

367. Second as follows: the other cognitive powers have an object present to them, not merely secondarily (namely because these objects are present to other inferior powers), but in its proper presentiality, just as the common sense has color present to it, not only insofar as color is present to sight, but because it has the species of color present in the organ of the common sense. Therefore, since this is a mark of perfection in the cognitive power (to have an object present to it under the idea in which it is an object of this sort of power), it follows that not only can this power have an object present to it because it is present to the imaginative power, but can have it in its proper presentiality, insofar, of course, as it shines forth for the intellect through something that is in the intellect.

368. Again third; if a power, which is not able to have an act save about an object present to it, cannot have that object present save through another power with which it is contingently conjoined, it depends in its operation on such power as is contingently conjoined with it, and so it is imperfect. But the intellect cannot have an act save about an object present to it and, for you, it cannot have an object present save in the virtue of imagination [n.340]. But the virtue of imagination is contingently conjoined to the intellect insofar as it is a power;     therefore , the intellect in its operation depends on another power that is contingently conjoined with it, and so this puts an imperfection of cognitive power in it [cf. Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 4 q.7]; but no imperfection is to be posited in any nature unless a necessity appear in such nature; therefore such imperfection is not to be posited in the intellect.

369. If you object that plurality is only to be posited where there is necessity, here there is no necessity, therefore etc     . - I reply: there is necessity when the perfection of nature requires it. Now although the supposit that a man is can have, because he is a man, an object present to him in the phantasm, yet the intellectual nature of man, as it is intellectual, does not have an object sufficiently present to it if it has it only in a presence begged from the imaginative power. This therefore much cheapens intellective nature as it is intellective, because that is removed from it which is a mark of perfection in a cognitive power, and which is found in the sensitive power, as in the imaginative power. Therefore, plurality is being posited here on account of necessity, because on account of saving the perfection of a more perfect nature, a perfection which is greater than that of a more imperfect nature, or at least equal to it.

3. Scotus’ Concluding Opinion

370. To the question therefore [n.333], I say that it is necessary to posit in the intellect, as the intellect has the idea of memory, an intelligible species,a which species represents the universal as universal, prior naturally to the act of understanding - for the reasons already set down on the part of the object: insofar as the object is universal and insofar as it is present to the intellect [nn.352-369], which two conditions, namely universality and presence, naturally precede intellection.

a.a [Note by Scotus] There is a proper species of anything that is per se and primarily understood -Parisian Collations 4. [“The quiddity of an accident more truly has being in the intellect through a species than the quiddity of a substance has, because perhaps the substance is not understood through its proper species, by the fact it does not act on the intellect, as neither on the senses, through its proper species. Similarly, the quiddity of a material substance more truly has being in the intelligible species than the quiddity of an immaterial substance has, which immaterial substance does not have a proper phantasm, not even the phantasm of an accident.”]

4. To the Reasons from the Authorities

371. This also which I have proved above [nn.352-370] seems to be the express intention of Aristotle in On the Soul [3.8.431b21-23] where, maintaining that the soul is “in some way everything,” he expounds himself by as it were proving that the soul is “sensible things through the senses and knowable things through science.”

372. Others expound this statement of the Philosopher by saying that Aristotle is not speaking uniformly in this case and that, because about the senses he means it as to impressed species and about the intellect as to the habit of science.

373. This exposition [n.372] does not seem to be to the intention of the Philosopher because, just as the ancients posited the soul to be everything really in order that it might know everything, so does the Philosopher posit that it is everything not really, but by a certain likeness [n.121]. Now if it were sensibles through the senses because of the impressed [sensible] species or likenesses, and were intelligibles through the intellect, then either this would be because of the science that is in the intellect, and in this way the soul would not be knowables by a likeness, for science in itself (setting aside the species representing the object) is not a likeness of the intelligible; or it would be because of something else representing the intelligible object, and then the intellect would not be intelligibles by the intelligible species but the soul would be through phantasms; for nothing would be there representing the intelligible save the phantasm alone, according to this sort of position.

374. Again Aristotle in Physics [8.4.255a33-5b5], and in com.30 according to the Commentator, posits that by acquired science the intellect is reduced from essential potency to accidental potency. I ask what does he understand by ‘science’? Not a habit following the act, because when the intellect performed the act it was not in essential potency. Therefore, a form following the act; therefore, an intelligible species. Proof: both because a phantasm does not reduce the intellect to accidental potency, and because then all science that is said to be a habit of the quiddity of the first object [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 9 q.4; Scotus, Ord. Prol. n.145] would be in a phantasm; therefore every habit about the same thing would be there, because according to the Philosopher [Posterior Analytics, 2.3.90b20-21] intellect and science are the same habit.

375. More expressly to this effect is the intention of Augustine. I prove this as follows: for nothing has a nature sufficient to generate actual knowledge unless it have an object naturally prior to the act, an object that is present to it in itself or in something that represents it. But, if one denies intelligible species, the whole intellective part does not have an object present to it before the act of understanding; and so nothing in the intellective part will be sufficiently a memory with respect to such intellection. Augustine denies this in On the Trinity 12.4 n.4 and 15.10 n.17

376. If you reply that the memory is in the intellective part properly taken, by the fact the intellect has come to be in first act of understanding, and thus is it active with respect to second act of understanding, such that, possessing a confused first knowledge. it is active in respect of a second distinct knowledge - this is against him [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.58 q.2, a.59 q.2; also Scotus, Ord. I d.2 nn.273-280] who thinks this opinion and against Augustine. Against him who thinks this because he posits [Henry, Quodlibet 5 q.25; cf. infra n.450] that the universal as it is in the phantasm is there as if in the memory; but as moving to an act of understanding it is present there as if in the intelligence.     Therefore , by that opinion, to be sure, no act of understanding is an act of memory but of the intelligence [cf. Scotus, Ord. I d.2 nn.290-291]. This appears from Augustine On the Trinity 15 ch.21 n.40, “those who attribute to intelligence everything that is thought etc     .”

377. This point is likewise proved by reason, because then: Either the act by which the memory is in first act will be the same as the act of intelligence, and then the same thing will be the idea of generating itself. Or it will be different from it, and then it will either be simultaneous with the act of intelligence (and then two acts are simultaneous), or it will not be simultaneous, and then memory will formally generate when it will not exist. For memory formally exists by that which, for you [n.376; cf. Scotus, Ord. I d.2 n.299], does not exist when the second act is generated.

378. If you also say [Henry, Quodlibet 5 q.25] that memory exists through the habit of science, this does not stand along with the opinion, because it says that by the habit the object is only present in a phantasm, and so someone who has the habit must have recourse to a phantasm in order actually to understand. Therefore, the object is not present precisely through a habit but through a phantasm, which is not in the intellective part. And this will be plainer in the response to the authorities of Augustine [nn.345, 393397], where he posits science to be in the memory and not a species impressed on the intellect, as is argued [by Henry, n.345] from his words.a

a.a [Several interpolated texts] But note first that he (Scotus) speaks differently in the Parisian Reportationes [Rep. IA d.3 nn.108-114] in the body of the question. For he speaks as follows:
     To the question then I say that it is necessary to posit in the intellect, as it has the idea of memory, an intelligible species representing the universal prior to an act of understanding naturally. And the necessity for this is double: one from the condition per se of the object, which is ‘universality’, and which, as the per se idea of the object, always precedes the act, which act would not be unless a species were impressed on the intellect; the other is the condition and dignity of the superior power, so that it not be cheapened [cf. n.370] (but how it would be cheapened is stated in the present question; cf. supra nn.368-369).
     As to evidence, then, for the question, one needs to know that memory, or the intellect under the idea of memory, can be taken in three ways. In one way as it is preservative of past species as they are past [supra n.331], and in this way does the Philosopher speak in On Memory [1.449b24-25, 451a14-17]. In another way as it is preservative of species representing objects in themselves, whether really or not; and in this way are we speaking here [cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.84: ‘whether memory has distinct intelligible species’; cf. supra n.333;] and I say that it does [sc. have distinct intelligible species], both because of universality and because of the dignity of the power. In a third way as memory has a principle of eliciting some actual knowledge (which however does not remain without a second act, in the way Avicenna [On the Soul p.3 ch.6; cf. supra n.331] posited a species in our intellect; and this will be spoken of in the next question [Rep. IA d.3 n.126; cf. infra n.401]). The things I proved above [Rep. IA d.3 nn.95-107; supra nn.352-369] seem to be the Philosopher’s intention in On the Soul 3, where he says that the soul is in some way all intelligibles through the intellect, as it is all sensibles through the senses [cf. supra n.371] - which cannot be meant ‘through a habit’, for a habit is not a likeness representative of an object, because a habit follows an act.
     And there is a confirmation of this, because the habit of science - through which the intellect is reduced from essential potency to accidental potency in respect of the acts of which the Philosopher speaks in On the Soul 2 and Physics 8 [cf. infra n.396] - necessarily precedes the act of understanding. Now the science that is a habit follows an act, because it is generated from acts; hence this science, which reduces the intellect from essential potency to accidental potency, is a species that is truly a habit, because it is of a nature to be rooted and fixed in the intellect. But yet not every habit is a species, because a habit actually rooted and fixed is not the species that precedes an act and that is of a nature to be rooted and fixed, because this is fixed afterwards by an act [cf. supra n.374, infra. n.396].
     Again, according to them [Henry of Ghent], it does not seem that any habit is to be posited in our intellect but only in the imaginative power [supra n.378], because with whatever mode of being the object in a power accords, with that same mode of being does everything virtually contained in the object accord. Therefore, if a universal object is, through its representative, not in the intellect but in the imaginative power, everything that must and can be explained about that power will be in the same imaginative power. And so there will only be an imaginative power (especially if phantasms combine in ordered fashion), which explains all the truths knowable about the object. And every science will be in imagination and will be a perfection of it, and will not be a perfection of the intellect (against the Philosopher). And so, since the species in imagination virtually contains the act of the intellect, therefore will the act be in imagination [cf. infra n.397].
     Again, Augustine in On the Trinity 12 and 15 [supra n.375] is investigating the Trinity, where he says that it is impossible to take from our soul or in our mind an image of the Trinity save by the fact that something is in the memory which something else is expressed from. I then argue as follows: if in the mind there is something that is parent of a word, it is necessary that this be through something intrinsic to or existing in memory. But there is no parent of a word save the memory possessing within itself an object present to the mind; otherwise it will not be a parent. Therefore, since the object is not quidditatively or really in memory, and since it is not a phantasm, the memory will necessarily through the intelligible species be a parent.