A. First Opinion

110. In this question there is an opinion which says that the first object of our intellect is the quiddity of a material thing, because a power is proportioned to its object [Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia q.84 a.7].

111. Now there is a triple cognitive power: one is altogether separate from matter both in being and in operating, as the separate intellect; another is conjoined to matter both in being and in operating, as an organic power which in its being perfects matter and only operates through the medium of an organ, from which it is not separate in operating as neither in being; another is conjoined to matter in being only but it does not use a material organ in operating, as our intellect.

112. To these powers there correspond proportionate absolute objects. For to the altogether separate power, namely the first power, a quiddity altogether separate from matter ought to correspond; to the second an altogether material singular; so to the third corresponds the quiddity of a material thing that, although it be in matter, is yet not knowable as it exists in singular matter.

113. On the contrary: this cannot be sustained by a theologian, for the intellect, while existing as the same power in its nature, will per se know the quiddity of an immaterial substance, as is plain according to the faith about a blessed soul. But a power cannot, while remaining the same, have an act about anything that is not contained under its first object.

114. But if you say [Aquinas, ST Ia q.12 a.5] that it will be raised by the light of glory to the fact of knowing the immaterial substances - on the contrary: the first object of a habit is contained under the first object of the power, or at any does not go beyond it, because if the habit has regard to some object that is not contained under the first object of the power but goes beyond it, then the habit would not be the habit of that power, but would make it to be not that power but another one. There is a confirmation of this argument, that since a power, in the first moment of nature in which it is the power, has such and such object as first, then by nothing posterior in nature that presupposes the idea of the power can any other object become the first object of it. But every habit naturally presupposes the power.

115. Also, if this opinion [n.1] were posited by the Philosopher [On the Soul III.7.431a16-17, 8.432a7-9, Scotus, Ord. Prol. n.33], namely if he posited that our intellect, because of its infirmity among other intellects (namely the divine and the angelic), and because of its conjunction with the imaginative power in its knowing, has an immediate ordering to the phantasm [Aquinas, ST. Ia 1.89 a.1] just as phantasms have an immediate ordering to the common sense, and that therefore, just like imagination, it is not moved by anything save by what is an object of the common sense (although it know the same object in a different way) - then he would thus be saying that our intellect, not only because of some state it is in but by the nature of the power, could not understand anything save what can be abstracted from a phantasm [Aquinas, ST. Ia 1.88 a.1].

116. Against this there is a threefold argument. First that in an intellect knowing an effect there is a natural desire to knowing the cause, and that in an intellect knowing the cause universally there is a natural desire to knowing it in particular and distinctly; but a natural desire is not a desire for something that, by the nature of the desirer, is impossible for the desirer, because then the desire would be vain; therefore it is not impossible for the intellect, on the part of the intellect, to know an immaterial substance in the particular from the fact it knows the material substance that is the effect of it [cf. Aquinas, ibid. q.88 a.2], and so the immaterial substance does not go beyond the first object of the intellect.

117. Besides, no power can know any object under an idea more common than is the idea of its first object. This is plain first by reason, because then the idea of the first object would not be adequate. It is also plain from an example, for sight does not know anything through an idea more common than is the idea of color or light, which is its first object; but the intellect does know a thing under an idea more common than is the idea of something imaginable [cf. n.115], because it knows a thing under the idea of being in general, otherwise metaphysics would not be a science for our intellect;     therefore etc     .

118. Besides, third [n.116] (and it returns as it were to the same as the second [n.117]): whatever is per se known by a cognitive power is either its first object or is contained under its first object; being as being is more common than what is sensible; it is per se understood by us, otherwise metaphysics would not be a science more transcendent than physics; therefore nothing can be the first object of our intellect which is more particular than being, because then being in itself would in no way be understood by us.

119. Therefore, it seems that what is supposed in the stated opinion [n.110] about the first object (and this when speaking of the power from the power’s nature) is false. And this is apparent because, if the first question [n.1] be solved by way of this opinion, saying that the sensible quiddity is the first object of the intellect, not God or being [nn.125, 137; Aquinas, ibid. q.88 a.3], the solution is resting on a false foundation.

120. The congruity too that is adduced for the opinion [nn.110, 112] is no congruity. For power and object should not be assimilated together in their way of being, for they are related as mover and movable and these are related as dissimilar, because related as act and power. They are, however, proportionate, because this proportion requires dissimilarity in the things proportioned, as is commonly the case with a proportion - as is apparent in matter and form, part and whole, cause and caused, and other proportions. So, from such a mode of being of the power cannot be concluded a similar mode of being in the object.

121. An objection against this [n.120; Aquinas ST Ia q.85 a.2] is that, although a making agent can be dissimilar from its object (which is a passive object there), yet an operating agent should, in its knowing operation, be assimilated to the object it operates about, because the object is not passive there but is rather an agent and an assimilating agent. For everyone was agreed on this point, that knowledge comes to be through assimilation, nor did Aristotle contradict them about this [On the Soul 1.2.404b7-5b17, 3.8.431b29-2a1]. Therefore, required here is not only proportion but also likeness.

122. Response. It is one thing to speak of the mode of being of the power in itself, and another thing to speak of it insofar as it is under second act, or in proximate disposition to second act, which is different from the nature of the power. But now [sc. in this life] it is the case that the knowing power is assimilated to the known object. This is true through its act of knowing, which is a certain likeness of the object, or through the species, which disposes it proximately for knowing. But to conclude from this that the very intellect in itself naturally has a mode of being similar to the mode of being of the object, or conversely, is to commit the fallacy of the accident and of figure of speech - in just the way this inference does not hold: ‘the copper coin is assimilated to Caesar because it is assimilated to him through the image impressed on the coin, therefore the copper coin in itself has a like mode of being to the mode of being of Caesar’. Or more to the issue at hand, ‘an eye seeing through the species of the object is assimilated to the object, therefore sight has a mode of being similar to the mode of being of the object’. And so further, just as ‘certain visible things have matter (which is the cause of corruption and is in potency to contradictory opposites as mixed things are), certain lack such matter, as the heavenly bodies, therefore a certain sort of vision will exist in such matter, another without such matter, or a certain sort of organ is such, and another not such’. Until modern times material bodies were typically explained (at least by those who, unlike the ancient atomists, followed the elaborations of Aristotle) in terms of elements that were not parcels of matter or energy (like protons, electrons, quarks etc.), but the realized sense qualities of the hot, the cold, the wet, and the dry. All material bodies were various mixtures of these realized sense qualities, as water was a mixture of the wet and cold, fire a mixture of the hot and dry etc. All other bodies, including living bodies, were various mixtures of these first mixtures. But since such mixed bodies, however good their mixing may be, are composed ultimately of contraries (hot/cold, wet/dry), and since contraries act against each other, these bodies have a natural tendency to dissolve into their elements, or they are corruptible. The heavenly bodies, by contrast, are not corruptible, because they are not composed of contraries but of a distinct and single element without a contrary (sometimes called ‘ether’), which was a fifth element beyond the previous four, or in Latin a ‘quint-essence’. ¹⁵ Or still more to the issue at hand, ‘an idea in the divine mind, which is a likeness of the object, is immaterial, therefore the stone too of which it is the idea, is immaterial’. Because of this congruity, then, it does not seem congruous to narrow down the intellect, from the nature of its power, to the sensible object, so that it not go beyond the senses save only in mode of knowing.

123. In agreement here are Aristotle [n.115] and the article [nn.186-187] that the quiddity of a sensible thing is now [sc. in this present life] the adequate object, understanding ‘sensible’- properly, or that it is included essentially or virtually in the sensible thing;-16 in another way, understanding quiddity as specific quiddity (whether remote or included virtually, they both reduce to the same thing). It is not now, therefore, because it is the object of the highest sense, the intellect’s adequate object, because the intellect understands everything included essentially in the sensible thing, right up to being (under which difference in no way do the senses know it), and also up to what is included virtually, as relations (which the senses do not know). Nor is it necessary here to make the distinction that only the sensible thing is the object doing the moving; the terminating entity, because included in the sensible thing in some way or other, is not only the term but also a mover, at least it moves the intelligence through the proper species in the memory, whether generated by itself or something else.

124. In disagreement: the object that is adequate, from the nature of the power, to the intellect [nn.186-187] is nothing under being. This, the article [nn.186-187], is against Aristotle. And the first reason here well opposes Thomas [n.113]. But does natural reason really show this? If so, it is much more in contradiction with Aristotle [n.115]; if not I reply to the ‘Against this there is a threefold argument’ [n.116].

To the first [n.116]: every antecedent about [there being a] natural desire for a is more obscure than is a plurality [of natural desires; Metaphysics 10.3.1054a28-29, “multitude is prior in idea to what is indivisible, on account of the senses”], unless it be proved a posteriori. And if there is a proof it is in us (from promptness toward the act of desire), it is not valid unless it be shown that true apprehension precedes the act, that the act immediately follows a true apprehension. To the second [n.117]: being, as it is a certain single intelligible, is contained under the sensible quiddity above expounded.-17 The other argument [n.118], about metaphysics, proves that being as ‘this intelligible’ is understood by us; but if it were the first object, this would be according to its whole indifference to everything in which it is preserved, not as a single intelligible thing in itself - and anything you like of that indifference could be understood [cf. Ord. Prol. n.33]. Therefore, it is not the adequate object now [for this present life].

There still remains the major of the second argument and the major of the third [nn.117, 118, first lines, that only the first object, or what falls under it, is known]. They seem evident at this sort of sign0. For these two occurrences of the symbol - inserted by Scotus, see n.124, second paragraph ¹⁶, At the same symbol above in n.123. See previous footnote. ¹⁷, The Vatican editors report that a like symbol, corresponding to this one, is not found in Scotus’ manuscripts. ¹⁸ For being, insofar as it is being, is more common than any other concept of first intention (a second intention is not the first object), and it is understood thus without any contraction at all being understood along with it, or a relation to sensibles or any relation.