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.