2. Rejection of the Opinion

413. Against this opinion:

That it is not the opinion of Augustine appears from the last chapter of On the Trinity 9.12 n.18 (or chapter 30 of the smaller version): “It must be clearly held that everything we know co-generates in us knowledge of itself; for knowledge is born of both, namely of the knower and the known etc     .”a

Again, ibid. 11.2 n.3, “Vision is generated from the seeable and the seer     etc .”

Again, ibid. 15.10 n.9 (as was said before [n.393]), “The knowledge formed by the thing that we know is a word.” Therefore     , he intends to attribute some causality to the object.

a.a [Interpolated text]. [Augustine cont.] “Therefore, when the mind knows itself it is the sole parent of its own knowledge, for it is both known and knower. And it was knowable to itself even before it knew itself, but knowledge of itself was not in it when it did not know itself.”

414. There is an argument by reason in favor of this, becausea when two causes prior to the thing itself, namely the efficient cause and the matter, are perfect in themselves and proximate and not impeded, the effect follows or can follow. Therefore if the soul is the active total cause of generated knowledge, and if it is the disposed matter, or receptive subject, with respect to the same knowledge, and if it is always actually present to itself, then, since it is a natural cause, there will always be in it every actual intellection of which it is itself the cause - of which, moreover, it is by itself the cause; or at least there will be an intellection that it most strongly has the power for.b

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] there are only four kinds of per se causes, as appears in Physics 2.3.194b23-5a3 and Metaphysics 5.2 1013a24-b4. So, when they exist perfect in themselves and are not impeded and are sufficiently close by, the effect comes from them if they are natural causes, or it will be possible for it to come from them if any of the causes is a freely acting cause. And because a form in some way has being through being produced, and the end follows the production in being of the thing (or if it precedes, this is insofar as it moves the efficient cause to act), therefore the major follows [sc. about the soul as active total cause, n.414].

b.b [Text canceled by Scotus] For the imperfection of a second cause in itself cannot be posited if the hypothesis is retained [sc. that the soul is active total cause], nor can non-proximity be posited, nor can impediment, because nothing would seem to be an impediment. And to take flight to a cause ‘sine qua non’ and to say that it is required for this, that knowledge be generated, this is to say that all per se causes are not sufficient causes, but that something else is required on which the thing to be caused essentially depends. So there will not only be four kinds of causes but more, or something will essentially depend on something that is not the cause of it. [Text interpolated in this canceled text] Again, all causes besides the said four are accidental to the thing; therefore, the thing does not simply depend on them, either in being or in becoming. The antecedent is expressly stated by the Commentator Physics 2 com.30-31; again, he proves that of anything whatever there are only four causes, or some of the four, in Physics 2 com. 67-70 through a sufficiency of demonstration.

415. By this are disproved the diverse ways that those, who posit this opinion [n.407], have of maintaining it. For if there be posited an object necessary in idea of sine qua non cause, or in idea of term or of stimulant [e.g. Olivi, ibid. q.58, 72] - if there not be given it some per se causality (since the soul is always perfect in itself and proximate to what it acts on) and if any new impediment not be removed - how will be preserved the fact that it [the object] is necessarily required save by positing five kinds of causes?

416. Specifically, too, the point about ‘stimulating’ does not seem valid. For I ask what it is ‘to stimulate’? If it is to cause something in the intellective power, then the object causes something before the intellective power of itself acts. Therefore, the intellective power is not the total active first cause in respect of anything caused in it, but the object is as well. If ‘to stimulate’ not be to cause something in the intellective power, then the intellective power is not differently disposed in itself after the stimulation than it was before, and so it is not more stimulated now than it was before.

417. This argument [n.414] would, however, work in like manner, as it seems, against action of the will. Hence response can be given that when forms have an essential order as they are received, either in the same nature or in the same power (and this whether by the same agent or by another), and given also that neither be the reason for receiving the other - never can the second be induced by the agent in the receptive subject of it unless the first has been induced already. An example about volition and delight: when positing that these are diverse really, never is the second received unless the first is received already; since however the second has a natural active cause [sc. the object] present to it before there is volition, in these sorts of ordered things is the major premise [n.414 init.] denied. The like holds of the intelligible species in relation to intellection, when positing the intelligible species not to be cause or receptive subject of intellection; the like holds of light in the medium [nn.471-473], if it does not act on or receive the species of color.

418. Note: it is said in another way [Olivi, ibid. qq.72, 58, 57, 23] that whenever the receiving of some form in its potential subject pre-requires of necessity the receiving of another form in its receptive subject, the major,a that ‘a perfect agent proximate to its passive subject and not impeded is able to act’ [n.414], is false, understanding this of proximate power - and this whether the recipient of the prior form is the same power as the recipient of the later form (example: volition and delight in the will), or is the same nature (example: intellection and volition in the soul, when positing the will to be totally active with respect to willing), or both forms are received in the same supposit, not in a single nature or power (example: about phantasm and intellection, if an intelligible species be denied and the total action be given to the intellect), or the prior and later form are received in different supposits (example: light from the sun in air and in water).

a.a Above the word ‘major’ the sign a was placed by Scotus. See n.421.

419. There is not here preserved the proposition [n.418] that the prior form is active with respect to the later one, or is the reason for receiving it, as with light in the medium in respect of the species of color. For if this [example of light] be instanced in such cases [sc. the four listed in n.418], the instance is of no value, because the proximate active or passive principle would in such cases be lacking. In the four instances already set down [n.418] neither condition [sc. lack of active and of passive principle] is met, for neither is volition the active cause of delight but the object is, nor is it the receptive subject, but the will is. So in the other instances [n.418], The Vatican Editors helpfully explain the same point about the remaining three cases in n.418 as follows: “Intellection is not the active cause of volition but the will is, nor is it the receptive subject but the soul is. The phantasm is not the active cause of intellection but the intellect is, nor is it the receptive subject but the supposit is. Light in the air is not the active cause of light in water but the sun is, nor is it the receptive subject but water is.” Hence, to complete the criticism, the claim in n.418, that the major ‘a perfect agent proximate to its passive subject and not impeded is able to act’ is sometimes false, is itself false. And the four examples given to illustrate it fail, because they are misdescribed; when they are correctly described the relevant major is seen to remain true. ⁴⁶ according to those opinions.

420. Nor should it be said that the major [n.418] is true unless two effects are necessarily producible in an ordered way by the same agent; because this is also not true if there is necessarily an order between forms that can be introduced by different agents, as is plain in the instances set down [n.418].

421. Universally, then, any form that, in order to be received in its passive subject, requires another form to be first received in any subject and by any agent, never is the active principle of the second form in accidental potency for acting on the receptive subject of the second form, unless the prior form has already been induced. Therefore the later [second] form depends, as to its coming to be, essentially on something different from the per se causes of it in its own coming to be, which per se causes are agent and matter.a This conclusion [sc. the previous sentence] can be conceded, because ‘first essentially’ does not belong only to the cause (the fact is plain in the treatise [by Scotus himself], On the First Principle ch. 1 nn.2-4), yet itb is not with probability denied unless the priority of the other form be shown - either as it is active with respect to the second form, or as it is the reason for the receiving, or as it is the effect of a cause nearer to a common cause, or to a cause that necessarily causes first.

a.a [Note by Scotus] It can be said that the later form does not, in the instant in which it is causable, depend on others. It is not causable save naturally after the other cause that is pre-required for it.

b.b Above ‘it’ the sign a was put by Scotus. See n.418.