To Question Two

22. Now in answer to the second question I say that there is a triple order to intelligible things: the first order is that of origin or generation; the next is the order of perfection; the third is the order of adequacy or of causality in the precise sense.

23. Of the first two priorities the Philosopher speaks in Metaphysics 9.15; of the third he speaks in Posterior Analytics 1.11, about the definition of the universal, because it states precision and adequacy first.

24. To being with, then, we must look at habitual cognition. As concerns this I say that concepts are twofold: one is simply simple, namely that which is not resoluble into other prior concepts, of which sort is the concept of being and its ultimate differences; the other is a simple concept but not simply simple, namely that which is resoluble into other prior concepts, of which sort is the concept of a thing defined (which is resoluble into the concepts of the parts of the definition), and so of other like terms.

25. Secondly I say that the second concept here [n.24] is knowledge, one being actual knowledge and another habitual knowledge; etc.

26. Third I say that actual knowledge is double: one is distinct, whereby a whole thing is actually known and actually in its totality; the other is confused, whereby a thing is not known actually in its totality because not all the things that are knowable about it are actually known. An example: it would be a contradiction to understand man actually without understanding all the things that are included in him essentially; yet it is not necessary for all these things to be understood actually, but only habitually. Accordingly, when all of them were understood actually, the thing would then be said to be known distinctly, because the whole of it would be known actually and totally; but when the things included in it are understood not actually but habitually, then the thing is said to be known confusedly.

27. Fourth I say that to know confusedly and distinctly are one thing and that to know a confused thing and a distinct thing are another; for in the former the confusion and distinctness are on the part of the knowledge and in the latter on the part of the thing, as is plain.

28. On the basis of these premises I say that when speaking of actual knowledge, which is here at issue, the first naturally known thing, naturally confused with confused knowledge, is the most specific species; but the first thing naturally known with distinct knowledge is being. But there is clarification of this as follows:

29. The first thing by which the possible intellect is naturally moved is the representative object in a phantasm together with the agent intellect, and, according to the common opinion, it does not immediately and directly represent the particular but the universal, namely the specific nature; therefore the specific nature is naturally first known; and because many things are included in it, of which included things the first is being, which is supreme, therefore, if the nature is to be distinctly known, there is need to start from being, and from the fact that being has a concept simply simple so that it includes nothing else. Therefore being can be only known distinctly, and thus it is plain that the first distinctly known thing is being, and the first confusedly known thing is the most specific species. But because the more universal things are the more confused things,     therefore is it said in Physics 1 that the more confused things are known first by us. But this ‘known first’ must be understood of distinct knowledge, because we are now beginning from it, as was said [just above]; and what in such knowledge is more distinct is what is last known, as is plain; etc     .

30. One must note here, however, that, as Scotus seems to think, no particular is, in our present state, known in its proper idea either by the intellect or by the senses. The reason is that, if the particular could be known in its proper idea, it could be distinguished from everything that is not it, and yet it cannot be. For suppose that there is here a single whiteness and it is present as an object to your senses, and suppose that God by his own power were to annihilate it and immediately replace it with a whiteness that was not numerically the same but very similar to it, you will think it is the same and yet it will not be the same; but if you knew the first whiteness in its own proper and singular nature, you would immediately notice that it was not the same. This would also be clear of many other cases that, whether by the senses or in any other way, you cannot distinguish between, and yet they are really distinct. The particular and singular, therefore, are, in our present state, not known by the intellect or the senses in their proper idea of singularity, but they are known by aggregation of many accidents, namely size, shape, color, and many such things.

To the Arguments

31. To the first argument for the opposite [q.2 n.2] I say that the proposition is in all cases true only in respect of the divine intellect, which knows things according to the degrees of their entity; and so what is first and most being is first and most known by it. But because our knowledge begins from the senses,     therefore are sensible things first known to us, yet they do not have existence first. So it is true that the first being is of itself the first knowable, but it is the first known only to the most perfect intellect, which also knows things in all their degrees, etc     .