To the Arguments

7. As to the solutions of the arguments: To the first argument of the first opinion [q.7 n.4] I say that although a non-living thing cannot be the total cause of a living effect, it can yet be a partial cause, as is plain of the sun in the generation of man, etc.

8. As to the second [q.7 n.5] I say that, because the infinite is perfect, its not being totally active is not repugnant to it, but that it have some activity is sufficient for it, etc.

9. To the third [q.7 n.6] I say that, for an action to be immanent, it is enough that it not pass beyond the supposit of the agent, or beyond its own total cause, and that, even if it pass beyond a less principal partial cause, it yet remain within its principal partial cause - which is sufficient for action properly speaking. And hereby is plain the answer to the fourth argument [q.7 n.7].

10. As for the quote from Augustine [q.7 n.8] I say that his intention was not this [sc. that the object contributes some activity] but what has been said [sc. that the intellect is the principal cause], as is plain from the places there cited.

11. As to the first argument of the second question [rather second opinion, q.7 n.10] I say that it is true about matter properly speaking that it is pure potency, but this is not true of the subject of an accidental from, which is matter in a certain respect; for such a subject states in itself an act, and so there is no repugnance to its being an efficient cause, etc.

12. To the second argument [q.7 n.11] I say that the same thing cannot be active and passive with respect to the same thing in the same way, namely that it be formally such both in act and in potency; but it can be virtually such in act and formally such in potency, and this when it is an equivocal agent. In fact all change toward a non-active form is from an equivocal agent, because the formal principle of acting is always an active form (otherwise it would not be the principle of acting); therefore change that is to a non-active form is change to a form dissimilar to the principle of acting and so dissimilar to the equivocal active cause. I then say that that this can sometimes fail to hold, though not always, in the case of equivocal agents, just as change can also be from an equivocal agent and yet to an active form; but what is sufficient for the idea of an equivocal cause is that the formal term of the change be of a different idea from the formal principle of the acting. There is an example of this from those who posit that a substance is actively causing in itself its proper accident at the prior moment when the substance precedes its proper accident: the subject in this case is, with respect to the same thing, virtually such in act and formally such in potency.

13. To the third [q.7 n.12] I say that some relations cannot go together in the same nature and the same supposit, as the relations of cause to caused. The reason is that then the same thing would depend essentially on itself, for the caused depends essentially on the cause. Some relations cannot go together in the same supposit but can in the same nature, when the nature is communicable without division to several supposits, of which sort is the divine nature; and these are relations of motion to moved. The reason is that, as the divine nature is of itself unlimited to the extremes of this relation, so a supposit or nature can in some way be unlimited as to the extremes of the relation; thus it is in the issue at hand, that the intellect and will are of themselves unlimited as to their power and understanding and willing being virtually informed by such acts, etc.

14. To the first principal argument [q.7 n.2] I say that the soul, by reason of the agent intellect, can activate any intellection, and, by reason of the possible intellect, can receive any intellection; and you may understand this of the intellection that is about an object naturally moving the power, otherwise the agent intellect would not be able to activate it; however I say that the activity of the agent intellect is not immediately directed to understanding but to illumining, and this illumination is necessarily prior to natural intellection; and     therefore the activity of intellection must be immediately from both the object and the power, as was said above etc     .

15. Nevertheless, the soul’s intellection of itself might well be totally from itself, because it would be both thing understanding and thing understood; however, according to Scotus, it cannot by had by the wayfarer save only by inference through the species of different sensible things; the reason is that only the species of sensible things are in the phantasm and illumined by the agent intellect.

16. Next, to the first argument of the first question [q.8 n.2] I say that a moved mover is a less principal cause than an unmoved mover, unless the moved becomes mover in such a way that it receives the power of moving from the motion by which it is itself moved; but so it is here, because the intellect receives no power of understanding into itself from the impression of the species, but the species must be impressed in such a way that it and the intellect are simultaneous, as being two partial causes integrally forming one total cause. Hence I say that the agent intellect with respect to the impression of the species, and the phantasm with which the intellect integrally forms one total cause, and the possible intellect with respect to intellection are all a more principal cause than the object or the species etc.

17. To the second [sc. the second reason given in q.8 n.2 and/or n.3] I say that the cause that makes the effect more like what it should be like is more principal, and not necessarily the cause that the effect itself is more like. An example: a like effect caused by God and by a second cause is more like the second cause, and yet God is the more principal cause. Hence a less principal cause does not actively make the effects more like itself, though it is indeed more like the effects. But such likeness is more brought about actively by the more principal cause. For it is certain that the intelligible species is more like the phantasm than like the agent intellect, and yet the agent intellect is the more principal cause; otherwise a less noble thing would, as if principal agent, act on a more noble thing, etc.