B. Rejection of the Opinion

202. Against this position [n.198] there is argument in six ways, one of which is taken from the presupposition of form in the case of increase in that form - and in accord with this way I argue first as follows:

[First way] - Although it is not necessary that God increase charity in the instant in which a meritorious act is elicited (by which ‘charity merits to be increased’ [n.195]), yet he can then increase it, such that the increase which someone merits is given at the same point in time as the act is elicited.

203. From this I argue: this act, which merits increase of charity, is meritorious, -therefore it presupposes charity in the instant in which it is elicited. I ask which charity? Not the new part which is acquired, because this follows the act as the reward the merit; therefore it presupposes the charity that was pre-existent, and consequently it is not corrupted in that instant, - because if so, then in that instant a meritorious act could not be elicited, in which instant however someone merits increase of charity.Interpolation, in place of nn.202-203: “Against this opinion [n.198] the argument goes as follows: the supposition is made that it is possible that God can increase charity in the instant in which the meritorious act is elicited, - so let it be posited in fact that he is then increasing charity. I ask then by which charity the meritorious act is elicited (because it is necessarily elicited by some charity, as was shown before [Reportatio IA d.17 n.27]); not by the newly infused charity which was increasing charity in the instant in which that charity was supporting the act, because the newly infused charity is the reward of such an act and follows that meritorious act in some order; nor is it elicited by the preceding charity, because according to you [Godfrey] it is corrupted, for in the infusion of the later charity the prior is corrupted; therefore in the instant in which charity is increased there is a meritorious act and yet it is not from any charity, which is impossible.” ⁴⁰

204. But if someone impudently says that God never increases charity in the instant of time in which the act is had that is meritorious in respect of the increase but always later in duration, on the ground that God increases charity, not because of the act insofar as it is elicited, but insofar as it is in divine acceptance, and that in this way the charity remains after the instant in which the act is elicited, and that then after that instant the increase is conferred:

205. Although this response is altogether improbable if it deny that God can increase charity then [sc. in the same instant that the act is elicited] (because if he can, let his doing so be posited in fact, and the argument proceeds), nevertheless it does not in other respects escape difficulty.

First indeed because in moral and intellectual virtues virtue is increased by the elicited act, and not when the act is not, because when it is not it causes nothing; therefore then, when the act is present, is there reason for increasing the habit. Therefore if then a new individual is generated and the one that was before is corrupted, it follows that the act that is augmentative of the habit is not elicited by the habit but by the power alone, which seems discordant, because then - in accord with what was said in the preceding question [nn.69-70] - the act that is augmentative of the habit would be more imperfect than another act, elicited by the habit, that is non-augmentative of the habit.Interpolation, in place of nn.204-205: “You will say that God does not increase charity in the instant in which the meritorious act is elicited, but the act of charity passes by and stands in divine acceptance as something rewardable, and then God - accepting the meritorious act - afterward gives increase to the pre-existing charity as a sort of reward for the act, and he does not at once in the same instant give the reward along with the merit, just as he did not give beatitude to the good angels in the first instant in which they merited it but in some later instant of nature. - On the contrary: although this could be said in the proposed case about the infused virtues, yet it could not be said about the increase of the natural virtues, moral and intellectual, and especially the moral; for moral virtue is increased by moral acts, just as it is generated from them (Ethics 2.1.1103b21-22); therefore the act which augments and increases moral virtue is only increasing it when it exists. Therefore I ask whether, when it increases it, it does so from some virtue or not. If from some virtue, from which virtue? Not from the preceding one, because that is corrupted - nor from the degree that it brings about, because that is posterior as effect to its cause; therefore, when it increases virtue it does so not from any virtue; but this is impossible, because then it would not be virtuous and yet it would generate virtue, which is against the Philosopher and against all understanding, because “from like acts like habits are generated” [Ethics ibid.]. - One could argue in the same way about an intellectual act: when the act of speculating exists the intellectual or speculative habit is increased, because when the act does not exist it does nothing; but that act is not from the preceding habit, because then there is no such habit because it is corrupted (because in the instant in which it comes to be is the habit increased, not from the preceding degree [of the habit]); nor is it from the subsequent degree, because that is subsequent; therefore such an act cannot be said in any way to cause increase, because there is no term at which the increase comes to be.” ⁴¹

206. And if it also concede the conclusion that ‘the act augmentative of the acquired habit is elicited by the power alone’ (although this seems discordant), yet it does not escape the following special difficulty, if the intelligible species is posited as being increased by the act of understanding. For that act cannot be elicited by the power alone, the species having been removed, because - as was made plain in I d.3 nn.486-498 - the intellect is not sufficient without the species for eliciting an act of understanding; therefore no intellection that is elicited from the power alone can increase the species; the intellection, then, that is augmentative of the species presupposes the species, and not the individual one that is generated - so the preexisting individual, and consequently the preexisting one is not corrupted.

207. But if it be denied that intellection increases the intelligible species, the final instance - against the proposal - is as follows:

The will can, by its own act, weaken an act of understanding, - the proof is that it can totally corrupt and remove the intellect from this act; and yet the volition that weakens intellection necessarily presupposes intellection; not some new one that follows the volition itself, as is plain; therefore some intellection that precedes volition and consequently the preexisting intellection is not corrupted by it.Interpolation, in place of n.207: “Again, the will can weaken an act of understanding, because it can corrupt the act of it altogether by its own willing, by turning it away from consideration of any secondary object so that it does not determinately consider it. But every act of the will is naturally preceded by an act of the intellect. In that instant, then, in which the will weakens the act of the intellect by its own imperative act, the intellect must be in its own act; not in the preceding intense act, because that act does not remain intense when the will thus weakens it, as the position holds; nor in the weakened act, because that act naturally follows the act of the will; therefore if the weakened act is not some part of the reality of the intense act, it follows that in the instant in which the will is in its act with respect to any object, the intellect is not first naturally in act with respect to that object, and then the will is willing something unknown, - which is impossible.” ⁴²

208. [Second way] - The second way is from the perfection of that which is introduced by the increase.

Here the argument goes first as follows: in acts augmentative of a habit the tenth act can be more imperfect than the first, and yet by that tenth act the habit is increased to some degree to which it could not before be increased by the first or second act; this cannot be if the preexisting whole is corrupted, because the perfection of the first or second act was in itself greater than the perfection of the tenth act was in itself, and consequently the individual of whose generation the first act was capable could be more perfect than the individual of which the tenth act was capable; therefore the fact that what follows the tenth act is more perfect than what follows the first will not be because the new individual is generated by virtue of the tenth, but because something is added to the preexisting individual - generated by the preceding acts -, and thus the preexisting individual will remain.Interpolation, in place of n.208: “Secondly I argue in this way by supposing that the second or third act could intensify the habit even though it is not more perfect or more intense than the first act, -then I argue: if the later act intensifies the habit and yet is not necessarily more intense nor more perfect than any preceding act whatever, then it does not generate a more perfect individual habit of charity, which is contrary to you [sc. Godfrey]. The proof of the consequence is that an act generating a habit cannot generate it save according to the proportion of its own virtue; so if this act, which is more imperfect than the first act, generates an individual habit of charity, and a more perfect one, this will be either in virtue of the preceding acts, and then these acts remain and are not corrupted, as the opinion supposes [of Godfrey], - or by its own virtue, and then the effect will be more perfect than its whole cause in virtue, which is false.” ⁴³

209. But if it be said that the preceding acts elicited by charity remain in divine acceptance (although not in themselves, nor in anything impressed by them), then the argument about the acquisition of intellectual and moral habits [n.208] is not solved.Text cancelled by Scotus: “The reasoning about natural agents [n.208] is also not solved; for posit that to something with nine degrees of heat there comes something hot in a lesser degree, then the latter can in some way intensify the former thing with its nine degrees of heat, and consequently the hot thing that will exist in the term of the action will be more perfect in heat than the agent is that comes to it and increases it; this would be impossible if it were ‘a new individual’ generated by the act of the now present hot thing. The proof of the major is that, according to the Philosopher Physics 8.10.266a24-b6, “a greater extensive virtue exists in a greater magnitude,” - therefore if from the beginning the virtue in the greater magnitude is close to the thing acted on by it, it will act more; but this, as far as the action is concerned, is just the same as if it was one greater continuous magnitude, or was many magnitudes all together - contiguous with each other - equal to that one magnitude; therefore a less extensive magnitude, if it is from the beginning contiguous with a greater extensive hot thing, has power for introducing a more perfect form, - therefore, if from the beginning a large hot thing acts of itself, it will not introduce as great a form as would be introduced if some small hot thing were contiguous with it; therefore the thing acted on is left potential with respect to a degree [sc. of heat] that can be introduced by that lesser hot thing if it becomes contiguous, - therefore the lesser thing, when it arrives, will reduce it to act. Response: let everything be conceded up to the final consequence; but let that consequence be denied, because a lesser thing, when it arrives, does not find the thing that is acted on to be in a contrary disposition which it could conquer but it is conquered by that disposition - therefore it will be simply acted on, and if it does any little thing to the contrary, this will be by being more intensely weakened, but eventually it will be conquered. Nor can this be evaded by an order of degrees, to wit, that the agent can reduce the thing acted on, which was before in a different degree, to a more perfect degree than it could have reduced it to at the beginning, just as an agent can make a thing acted on, which is already organized, to be alive, and yet it cannot reduce a non-organized thing to as great a perfection as the prior one did (and this because of the order of forms in becoming, or of degrees in form, on account of which order the thing existing in a more imperfect degree can be at once reduced to a degree more perfect, - not so if it were not in that degree); this response - I say - is not valid, because if a thing hot in eight degrees intensifies a thing hot in nine degrees and this intensification is done by the heat of a weaker agent and by the generation of a new individual, then in the instant in which a thing hot in ten degrees is generated, the thing generated will exceed in perfection the heat of the generator - which is impossible; therefore increase does not happen in this way.” This interpolation is followed by the following note of Duns Scotus: “The two reasons are against Godfrey, one that in alteration there is no continuous change (because what subject would it have?), the other that a changeable thing will be hot with many heats, because the part in a motion more remote from the mover is not as intense in form as a part close to the mover. [**] But what is set down here above under [the above interpolation] is not certain, because what is there supposed, namely that ‘the weaker thing, when it arrives, intensifies more intensely, even as to any degree at all’, is rather the other way round, and then ‘the thing that is acted on is contrary, insofar as what arrives is imperfect and is not able to conquer what is more perfect but is conquered by it, -therefore it does not act, or if it reacts in any respect, it will be more intensely weak in making it like itself’; this does not seem to be an instance, save in the case of light; perhaps there something less virtuous than the first agent intensifies the effect of it, and yet it would not be capable in itself save of what is weaker in the form which it finds in the thing it acts on. What is the cause there if the hot thing does not so act?” ⁴⁴

210. If no agent can intensify the form, which it finds in what it acts on, to make it more perfect than the form which it could of itself cause in what it acts on, this whole second reasoning fails, because then an act never intensifies a habit save to that degree which it could of itself induce, and then it would not be apparent why it could not induce it if it was a new individual such that nothing of what preexisted would remain. But because it is manifest that a tenth act, as equally intense as the first, intensifies the habit beyond the degree induced by the first or second act, therefore the first proposition [sc. at the beginning here, n.210] seems in need of being denied.

211. But then there is a doubt whether this is so in the case of heat, namely that a weaker thing, when it arrives, intensifies the more intense heat that is found in what it acts on (it seems it does not, as here below in the line marked **A reference to the passage marked [**] in the note to n.209. ⁴⁵). One can say that a univocal agent does not intensify its own more intense form that is found in what it acts on, but rather the reverse; but an equivocal agent does intensify it, because it is of a nature to act on this and not to be acted on by it, and its own form is more noble than any degree of an equivocal effect that it finds, although it not have at once of itself power for so great a degree of equivocal effect. Therefore light is intensified infinitely if infinite lights of the same species are put around a medium, each one of which would intensify the light in that medium.

212. [Third way] - The third way is taken from natural things and the action of contrary on contrary.

For a hot thing acting on a cold thing weakens the cold thing before it corrupts it completely. If in this weakening of the cold thing a new individual cold thing is generated, I ask by what is it generated? If recourse is not had to a universal agent (which recourse is here irrational), no particular generator for this individual can be assigned, because the hot that is weakening the cold thing cannot of itself generate an individual cold thing; therefore neither is the weakened cold thing a new individual.Interpolation, in place of 212: “Third as follows: a hot thing corrupting a cold thing first weakens the cold thing; for two movements go together, intensification and increase in heat and weakening in coldness (namely the motion of intensifying heat and weakening coldness); therefore according to this opinion [sc. of Godfrey] a new individual cold thing is generated. I ask then for the term ‘from which’ of this motion towards coldness; it cannot be said that the greater coldness is what precedes, because this coldness is corrupted; nor is the weaker degree of cold that which follows, because then the effect would surpass its cause in entity and perfection, which is not intelligible, according to Augustine The Literal Meaning of Genesis 12 ch.16 n.33 and 83 Questions q.2. - Again, everything which moves is, while it moves, partly in the term ‘from which’ and partly in the term ‘to which’ (Physics 6.1.231b28-232a6). If therefore the hot thing acts on the cold thing, then in the whole motion the cold thing possesses something of the term ‘to which’ (namely something of hot); if then in the whole motion the cold thing is not weakened before it is corrupted, the consequence is that the extreme contrary, and not a weakened contrary, exists along with some degree of its contrary, and consequently, since these forms of contrariety do not have any latitude in being contrary, extreme contraries could at the same time be true. The cold thing then is weakened. Therefore, according to this opinion [sc. of Godfrey] some supposit for cold is generated; but it is not generated from the preceding cold, because that has been corrupted; therefore it is generated from the hot, and thus the hot would generate the cold, which is impossible. - Again, fourth as follows: if the preceding form is always corrupted, the consequence is that there cannot be motion according to degree in the form of quality, because as soon as there is a departure from the term ‘from which’, another form is generated; therefore there will only be motion in quality according to the degree of the movable thing. But this is false, because then there would be a continuous motion whose parts were yet not joined to any common term, because the changing that joins them - I ask what is it in? Either it is in something divisible or in something indivisible; not in a part that is divisible, because no part is changed as a whole but part before part, according to this opinion [sc. of Godfrey]; therefore the motion would take place in an indivisible part, and so a point would become hot. - Again, it also follows that every heatable, while it is being heated, is heated with infinite heats; because if motion takes place precisely successively in accord with the degrees of the movable thing, since there are infinite parts in a movable thing (as in a heatable thing), at least potentially, and no part of the movable is made hot with the same degree of heat as another part, but with another heat and in another degree, - the result is that the whole will be made hot by infinite degrees of heat, which is impossible.” ⁴⁶

213. [Fourth way] - The fourth way is taken from the fact that the Philosopher allows for motion in the case of accidents in the same manner in which he denies it for substances [Metaphysics 8.3.1043b32-44a11], and consequently the more and less, as they are required in accidents, so they are not required in substances; but if there were no increase in accidents save by corruption of what preexists and by generation of what is new - and this is how more and less can be found in substances - then the more or less would exist no more in accidents than in substances.

214. [Fifth way] - Fifth, an argument is drawn from the fact that a nature which admits of more and less in determinate degree will be a species in relation to individuals, and an inferior species to boot contained under a species of nature, and thus no species of a nature capable of being intensified of weakened - as we posit these species now - will be a most specific species.Tr. Whiteness and blackness etc. are now posited to be most specific species in the genus of color, but if each of these has inferior species beneath it (sc. because each degree of whiteness or blackness is a sub-species under the species of white and black), then whiteness and blackness will be the genera of these inferior species and not most specific species themselves after all. ⁴⁷

The proof of the first consequence is that anything that is said of individuals per se and in their ‘whatness’ and is ‘per se one thing’ is the species of them; nature in a determinate degree - in such and such a degree - is said of individuals in their ‘whatness’ and it is ‘per se one thing’, because the nature in this degree belongs essentially to the things that have nature in this degree, and the degree does not add to the nature something accidental to it; so it is plain that the nature in such a degree is a species, and plain that it is less common than the species of the nature in itself; therefore it would be a species inferior in order to the species of the nature.Note by Duns Scotus: “The fifth argument needs to be solved in the case of substances, against which it draws its conclusion. The minor then is false [sc. nature in a determinate degree - in such and such a degree - is said of individuals in their ‘whatness’ and it is ‘per se one thing’], because of the part that reads ‘in their whatness’, because the ‘what’ abstracts from all individual conditions, from ‘more’ just as much as from ‘thisness’ (Metaphysics 8.3.1043b32-44a11). ‘More’ is an individual condition, not a determinate one as is ‘this’, but an indeterminate one, because there can be the same degree though not the same ‘this’; but not conversely; for there cannot be this individual without this degree. - On the contrary: in that case the degree is being understood to determine the nature rather than to determine the ‘this’, and to be doing so per se and at that prior stage; otherwise it is an accident and a common difference; therefore etc. Response: common, but not universal, because individual. - On the contrary: at least it is a per se predicable, a mean between the most specific species and the individual; likewise, some species is posited as being distinguished by degrees of the form, as animals by degrees of sensitive form and angels by degrees of intellective form. Response: a species states the ‘what’, a species in a certain degree states the ‘what of the how much in virtue’; ‘how much’ is not a [specific] difference [I d.8 n.108].” ⁴⁸

215. [Sixth way] - Sixth and last there is the argument that if the reason adduced for the position [nn.198-199] is valid, it should work in the same way about the how much of bulk as about the how much of virtue, and so when a bulk is increased in amount nothing of it would remain the same; therefore in the case of increase in bulk properly speaking the preexisting quantity would not remain in the increased thing, which seems discordant.a

a [Interpolation] Further, the reasoning [n.199] is not valid, because then it would work universally about any increase, and so in bodily increase the term that precedes and the degree that increases would be incompossibles, which is to destroy increase.

216. Response in accord with this position is made by conceding the conclusion -that there is a new individual in the how much of bulk when something is bigger just as, when something is ‘more intensified’, there is a different individual of that intensifiable form.

217. But against this there seem to be two discordant results that follow.

The first is that if the species of wine are diluted in the Eucharist,Tr. In preparing the wine for consecration a small amount of water is added to it, and this small amount of water must, to that small extent, dilute the wine. ⁴⁹ there will be a greater quantity in bulk than there was before, because greater quantity follows on dilution; if then the quantity of wine which existed before does not remain after dilution, then the blood does not remain there, because it is commonly held that the wine does not remain there except to the extent that the accidents remain that are the affections of the converted wine.

218. The other discordance is that then it would seem that such dilution could not be by virtue of a natural agent, or that the natural agent would act without any matter or substance presupposed; for it is plain that substantial matter is not there presupposed, for there is not there an alterable substance, nor is it even presupposed that a quantity the same in number remains (for you), and yet the natural agent is able - as it seems - thus to dilute or condense those species; therefore the natural agent is able to act without presupposing anything in its action, and thus to create.

219. Response to these discordances:

To the first, that as long as accidents remain similar to affections of the wine the blood remains; and although they do not remain the same, they do nevertheless remain similar after dilution.

220. To the other the concession is made that the natural agent can act when nothing common remains under the terms; yet it does not create, because this later thing follows - in order of nature - that former thing; creation is not like this.

221. Argument is made against these responses:

Because although this numerically new quantity differs from the preexisting quantity, and a quantity of water does not differ from a quantity of wine in any other way save in number alone (because it plainly does not differ in species), the result is that because of the permanence of the accidents, the same in species, not in number, the blood does not remain under the new quantity more than it would remain under the quantity of water, if water was what was chiefly there, since this new quantity is not inclined to affect the wine - whose quantity it was before - more than to affect the water.

222. Against the other response [n.220] there seems to be discordance in an active natural virtue presupposing a subject in its action.

223. Further, I ask how one of these follows on the other? Either without the action of the agent - and this is manifestly discordant, because then the natural agent would act in vain, because without it the consequent would still follow. Therefore the consequent does not follow save by the action of the natural agent. But such an agent cannot make the effect to exist unless the material cause is presupposed; otherwise creation, or the sort of action that is repugnant to a natural agent, would not - by such consequence - be prevented.

224. Further, according to this opinion [n.220] a natural agent could be said to be the effective cause of introducing the intellective soul, because the intellective soul follows by natural order on the organization of the body; the consequence here is commonly held to be discordant.a

a [Interpolation] They reply - see elsewhere, and for the arguments contrary to it, namely in IV d.12 p.2 a.1 q.1 n.6-7, 14-17.