Footnotes

¹The Vatican editors say the opinion is found in an anonymous commentary on the Sentences, though they also note that the opinion is attributed by some to John of Berwick and William of Macclesfield.

²The logical point being made here is hard to follow, even with the explanations provided by the Vatican editors.

³Scotus here proceeds to quote Henry, though, according to the Vatican editors, his quoting, for whatever reason, is not fully accurate.

⁴In Latin the neuter ‘album’ (‘the white’) can be treated as a substantive, but the masculine ‘albus’ (‘a white [man]’) cannot be.

⁵Note by Scotus: “Godfrey of Fontaines Quodlibet VII q.4: ‘On the contrary [to the opinion of n.16]: essence stands along with opposites, therefore it is distinguished from both. - Response: essence is not opposed to anything from which the generator and the generated are really distinguished; the one inspiriting is thus opposed.’”

⁶Note by Scotus: “Another way - in distinction 10 nn.18-19 - that infinite will is not more indeterminate for operation or production than the intellect.”

⁷Note by the Vatican editors: “This is true but not in diverse way, as it is taken in the major [n.59] where two diverse things - intellect and will - are compared, but it is true in uniform way, namely by comparing either intellect to intellect or will to will; and thus it is true that it belongs more to the more perfect will, namely the divine will, which is more perfect than ours; but it does not belong to any intellect more, because any intellect is determined necessarily.”

⁸That is, the three persons before intellect and will are understood and two more afterwards (Son and Holy Spirit being, as it were, produced twice). The Vatican editors say otherwise: “namely two persons before the intellect and will, and three afterwards, because intellect and will are in the Father; cf. n.70.”

⁹An empty space is left here by Scotus; the question is unanswered in the Ordinatio.

¹⁰Scotus added nothing here but left a blank space.

¹¹The second principal argument [n.2] was in fact responded to already [n.83]; the argument responded to here is only found in the Lectura I d.13 n.4.

¹²The four terms will be ‘loves neighbor’ and ‘effective love’ in the minor, and ‘God’ and ‘formal love’ in the major, and so a claim that love of neighbor is effective love of love will not establish that that effective love of love is the formal love that is God, for there will be no common middle term. Hence, if Augustine’s argument is to be valid, ‘love’ cannot be taken to mean effective love only.

¹³Sc. if love of neighbor is a formal love other than the formal love that is the Holy Spirit, then one cannot argue from one to the other; in particular one cannot argue back from the formal love that is the Holy Spirit to this supposed other (created) formal love that is love of neighbor (which would be the fallacy of asserting the antecedent from asserting of the consequent).

¹⁴Note by Scotus: “This is true of the genus of action, it is false of operation-action.”

¹⁵Note by Scotus: “By that action a subject, whose formal principle is ‘an accident through an accident’ of that subject, is not per se perfected.”

¹⁶Note by Scotus: “If heat were an active principle in respect of something which would be a perfection of wood, there would be nothing similar to ‘heat is active’ (each unfitting result rightly follows when one posits habit as the reason for receiving the operation); nothing would be similar about operation, - for a material cause of operation is lacking; nothing either about acting, about genus of action, because in this way it is only a principle of something immanent, not of something transient (but why is it not?).”

¹⁷Note by Scotus: “This respect - aptitudinal respect - follows from the nature of the extremes [sc. habit and prudence], but actual respect does not; for this habit is fit, of its species, to be subordinate to prudence in acting, but it is not subordinate - in acting - from the nature of the very extremes, even when they exist together in the same thing; for when he [sc. who has both the habit and prudence] has an appetite in accord with this habit and not from the dictate of reason (if this is possible), then the habit is not subordinate, nor is the act morally good.

On the contrary: he always uses it as a virtue, because he uses it as it is fit to be subordinate; for it is not a virtue precisely as actually subordinate in acting, because then someone who is not doing anything would not have any virtue. - Again, every respect that is not from the nature of the extremes has a proper cause. What is the cause here?

To the first: he uses it but not as making it a virtue. In another way: although he uses that which is a virtue, not however as it is a virtue, because although being fit for subordination is sufficient for the being of virtue, nevertheless for using it ‘as it is a virtue’ requires it to be subordinated, because to use it is to be subordinated.

To the second: the respect in an effect is from the two causes, conjoined in the acting; and not from the form of one in relation to itself, nor from the form of the other, nor of both and of both as conjoined in the subject, but of them as conjoined in actually acting, and thus of both as conjoined such that the habit moves to desire from the dictate of prudence. Such conjoining of them, therefore, in actually acting is the source whereby the relation is in the effect; not that it is the source whereby the acting is moral (because this would be got from prudence alone, without the other habit moving), but that it is the source whereby the acting is moral and easy and pleasant, - as in Ethics 2.5.1106a15-21.

But what is the source of this conjunction of them in acting, because it is an extrinsic respect? - Response: from their absolute natures there is first this conjunction, and second the relation of them in the effect.

But what is the ‘absolute’ from them such that this respect should be caused second? -Response: from prudence there is an absolute act in the intellect, - and from that act as prior cause and rule, and from the appetite as ruled, there is an absolute act of desiring. If the conjunction of the causes precedes in nature the common effect, nothing ‘absolute’ comes from the two causes before their conjunction does (a resulting difficulty: the source of the action primarily is not the source of the second conjunction in the action). If the first - in the order of nature - is a caused ‘absolute’, from it there is a relation of it to each cause, and from it conversely a relation of each cause to it, - from it the conjunction of one with the other.

¹⁸Note of Scotus: “I do not say ‘conjoined in the same subject’ but, along with this, ‘conjoined to it as to a rule and prior cause’, to which this habit is subordinated insofar as it is a mover, - and this subordination or conformity is the essential idea of virtue; and the absolute form, as it is precisely mover under such a respect, is precisely active for an act that has a like respect (because what agrees with the ruled agrees with the rule), and thus the habit ‘as it is a virtue’ is precisely a mover to an act morally right, which - as it is absolutely such a form - is absolutely active for such an act ‘in its substance’, nor does it there have the idea of subordinate cause with respect to prudence.”

¹⁹Note of Scotus: “There is a doubt about the respect with the per se object, whether it is identical with the habit. It is certain that the respect whereby it is said to be a virtue - which is respect to a rule - is an extrinsic addition; hence it is not, on account of Aristotle’s intention, necessary to proceed to a respect identical with the habit, but it is sufficient that any habit be not in relation to something in divisible degrees.

On the contrary: that whereby the place ‘accident through accident’ is not divided, neither that of which it is the accident? - Perhaps one idea in Physics 7 is about identical respect, another about ‘per accidens’ respect.

²⁰Interpolated text: “Or what is more to the purpose, it can be said that the reason does not prove the proposition save in a diminished way, - and to get its conclusion, which it intends, one must handle it in a way other than the words primarily signify (on which matter I do not now wish to dwell), or one would have to make clear other reasons for it so as to prove principally the said conclusion (this conclusion ‘whether a habit is something absolute’ will be spoken of elsewhere).”

²¹Note of Scotus: “One must add to the Philosopher’s minor [n.15] as follows: ‘every habit is identically in relation to something not according to divisible stages.’ And in this way the major is true: ‘whatever is identically in relation to something not according to divisible stages cannot terminate motion’ [n.72]. - But it can well terminate change. Hence a habit is not generated by way of continuity (so that its generation should thus be motion), but if it has stages, each is indivisible and in each the object is indivisibly regarded; and each is generated by simple change, which does not terminate motion in that form (but perhaps motion in the passions or certain other things), for more and less in a form do not suffice for motion in that form unless each stage is divisible, so that one can proceed continuously from one to the other. For motion is not composed of changes.

Therefor the Philosopher’s middle is not ‘habit is in relation to something’, - but it is this ‘in relation to something not according to divisible stages’, if in each stage it indivisibly regards that with which it is identically relative. And from this perhaps, as from something more manifest, it follows that the absolute itself - which it thus regards - does not have divisible stages; but this does not follow as from the cause; rather the fact the absolute does not have divisible stages is the cause of the fact that ‘the respect is not divisible’ (because a relation takes the more and less from its foundation), not conversely, although sometimes the converse could be the cause of its becoming known.

But this indivisibility of respect identical with the absolute does not prove that it is not the principle of acting, as is plain about any active form - if any is indivisible, it has ‘a respect identical’ with God. Therefore it does not follow ‘it does not terminate motion because of an indivisible identical relation, therefore it is for that reason not a principle of acting’, because an identical indivisible relation is repugnant to a from acquired through motion, not however to an active form.”

²²Note by Scotus: “Nothing: the extreme [sc. prudence] to which the other [sc. the moral habit] is referred does not give anything to its correlative effectively but only terminatively.” I.e. [Vatican editors] the habit as it is completely a moral habit, just as it causes nothing in respect of the act, so it gives nothing to the act.

²³Tr. A clear anticipation of Ockham’s razor, so called, namely that entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.

²⁴Note by Scotus: “There is a position [from St. Thomas Aquinas and Godfrey of Fontaines] that for a meritorious act the will along with charity is not sufficient but a special influence is required, - not the influence of a permanent form but of a motion, just as an instrument has motion from the principal agent over and above its own form.

The first reason: a natural form is given to something so that it might act, because such action is proportioned to it; grace is not given to us so that we might act but so that we might be acted on (Romans 8.14: “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God”), and this because such action is not proportioned. - A confirmation comes from John 4.14: “the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up” etc. An example: grace is like a weight, not like art; a weight is not an operative principle, and grace is like the spherical shape given to a mass of lead. Another example: grace is compared to the active generative power of a mother; a mother has this force (because she has a human soul), but in a diminished way and not as capable of acting unless it be moved by the active force of the father.

Second reason: grace now does not perfectly heal nature. The point is taken from Augustine On Nature and Grace I ch.26 n.29, where he says in general: ‘as the healthy eye cannot see without light, so neither can even the just soul live rightly without the spiritual light’. - A confirmation comes from Romans 7.25 about ‘the law of sin’, and 8.26 ‘we know not what we should pray for as we ought’ and ‘the Spirit makes intercession’.

Third reason: an act is considered as it is from free choice, as it is from free choice informed by grace, third - in addition to this - as it is from free choice moved by the Holy Spirit. In the first way it is not even worthy of a reward; in the second way it is worthy (just as is also a baptized child) but not with condign worth (John 4.14: ‘a well springing up’ whose water does not rise above its beginning); in the third way then it does have condign worth.”

²⁵Tr. As that the directing of the horse to an end by the rider, which is a relation to something extrinsic to the horse caused by a more principal cause (for the rider is such a more principal cause), is less principally a property of the horse than the running of the horse (for the running belongs more to the horse than the direction of the running), which running is caused by the less principal cause that is the horse itself.

²⁶Text cancelled by Scotus: “This argument of Augustine, then, proves that God is to be loved and yet not that he is my love formally, nor that there is in me another love formally. Two arguments must, indeed, be understood in Augustine’s argument, one of which is: ‘he who loves his brother loves the love by which he formally loves; but that love is participated love;     therefore he loves participated love’. Further, the other syllogism is: ‘he who loves participated love ought to love love by essence; God is love by essence; therefore etc     .’

²⁷Tr. In this way Scotus shows and preserves the truth in Platonism that good things are good by participation in the perfect form of goodness but not that men are men by participation in some perfect form of man.

²⁸No response was given by Scotus to these two objections [nn.175-176].

²⁹Interpolation, see the immediately follow appendix.

³⁰From Scotus’ Additiones Magnae d.17 p.1 q.2.

³¹On the Spirit and the Letter ch. 9 n.15; Epist. 194 to the priest Sixtus ch.5 n.19; On Grace and Free Choice ch.5 n.12; Retractions I ch.23 n.3; Peter Lombard Sentences II d.27 ch.5 n.243, ch.8 n.246, ch.11 n.249, d.28 ch.3 n.257.

³²Ps.-Hermes Trismegistus, Philosophorum XXIV prop.2: “God is an infinite sphere of which the center is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.”

³³Interpolation: “in the case of things that are not great in mass, to be greater is to be better.”

³⁴Interpolation, replacing ‘because...increased’: “Because if it were not corrupted, then the form of charity would be changed from lesser to greater; this is false, because a simple form cannot be the subject of a transmutation.”

³⁵Interpolation, in place of ‘therefore...pre-existed’: “therefore pre-existing charity, when increased by a new degree of subsequent charity, should remain and not be corrupted.”

³⁶Interpolation, in place of ‘nothing...reason’: “in every intensification of any form whatever, the degree of the preceding form is corrupted upon the advent of the other, subsequent form.”

³⁷Interpolation, in place of ‘therefore...number’: “the degree that precedes and that which arrives de novo are, in the case of this change of increase in the form, terms of the change, therefore they are not together at the same time; therefore one is corrupted when the other arrives.”

³⁸Interpolation, in place of n.200: “For this opinion [n.198] I add two reasons. The first is this: the more and less in the same species are related in the same way that the more and less in diverse species are proportionally related; but in diverse species the more that one species is more perfect than another the more perfectly it contains it and in a simpler way, such that the species contained by it does not make any addition to it; therefore since simplicity is perfection in all forms, it seems too that in the same species the simpler form is more perfect, not possessing a preceding degree or form added to it.”

³⁹Interpolation, in place of n.201: “Again, more and less in accidental forms are related in a way similar to that in which they are related in substantial forms, if there be more and less in substances; but according to everyone who posits a more and less in substantial form, the more perfect substance, even in the same species, is simpler than another one, not by making addition to the less perfect but by containing it in a simple way - as is posited about the soul of Christ, which was not more composite than the soul of Peter but simpler, and yet was more perfect in essence of soul; therefore it is the same way with accidental form.”

⁴⁰Interpolation, 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.”

⁴¹Interpolation, 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.”

⁴²Interpolation, 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.”

⁴³Interpolation, 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.”

⁴⁴Text 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?”

⁴⁵A reference to the passage marked [**] in the note to n.209.

⁴⁶Interpolation, 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.”

⁴⁷Tr. 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.

⁴⁸Note 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].”

⁴⁹Tr. 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.

⁵⁰The sign ‘(—)’ was put here for this clause by Scotus.

⁵¹Vatican editors: “by saying, ‘there is a difference or a non-identity between men, therefore there is a difference or a non-identity between them in the form of humanity or according to the form of humanity’; or, in other words, ‘this man differs from that man or is not that man, therefore they are different or not the same in the form of humanity or according to the form of humanity’. Tr. the denial of a logically inferior difference (e.g. an individual difference that distinguishes this man from that) is not followed by the denial of a logically superior difference (e.g. a specific difference that distinguishes this species, man, from that species, horse). Or, to put it in logical form: while the conditional statement ‘if they are the same individual then they are the same species’ is true, one commits the fallacy of the consequent if one argues from the denial of the antecedent (the denial of the inferior difference) to a denial of the consequent (the denial of a superior difference), as in ‘but they are not the same individual, therefore they are not the same species’.

⁵²Vatican editors: for example, ‘capable of laughter’ belongs first to man not because it belongs to a part of him, because it does not belong first either to his soul or his body [n.52].

⁵³Tr. As in the case of the prior and the posterior, where the prior will be prior to whatever the posterior is prior to [n.33 above].

⁵⁴Tr. That is, one can argue in the direct sense forward ‘a is like b, b is like c, therefore a is like c’, but one cannot convert back and argue ‘therefore a is like a’, for the phrase ‘everything other than a that is like a’ blocks this backward move.

⁵⁵Vatican editors: the text actually says ‘the first’ because it is first in the Lectura though second here, just as the text says ‘the second’ in n.22 because it is second in the Lectura but third here. The one that is first here [n.17] lacks an argument against it.

⁵⁶Tr. An active power that transforms or changes things has a subject that it acts on and an object that is the term of its acting on the subject (as fire acts on a cold thing as subject and has heat as the object which it brings about in that cold thing and which is the term of its acting on that cold thing); but an active power can have an object it produces without having a subject which it transforms or changes in producing it, as is precisely true of the power of producing persons in divine reality or of producing creatures ex nihilo.

⁵⁷Tr. If only a is b, then necessarily only b is a.

⁵⁸Tr., from Vatican editors’ note to n.27 below: If the term ‘God’ in the first proposition, the antecedent, stands indefinitely for a person, then it is equivalent to ‘only some person who is God is God’, which is equivalent to ‘only the Father or only the Son or only the Holy Spirit who are God is God’, and so entails each exponent of the consequent, namely ‘only the Father is God’ and ‘only the Son is God’ and ‘only the Holy Spirit is God’.

⁵⁹Tr. Only if ‘God’ in ‘other than God’ is distributed or taken wholly, that is, as equivalent to ‘other than God altogether’, would the conclusion ‘other than the Father’ follow. For the Father is other than God in some sense, because he is other than God the Son, but the Father is not other than the Father.

⁶⁰Tr. That is, the proposition ‘no one knows... but...’ can be repeated as to all three persons of the Trinity: no one knows the Son but the Father, no one knows the Holy Spirit but the Son, no one knows the Father but the Holy Spirit, etc.

⁶¹Tr. That is, the term ‘only’ is taken like a quantifier, such as ‘all’ or ‘no’, not like a term. So it is not taken as excluding the Son and Holy Spirit but as making ‘Father’ precise.

⁶²Tr. ‘Only’ as categorematic qualifies the noun, so that ‘only the Father.’ is equivalent to ‘the Father on his own’. ‘Only’ as syncategorematic qualifies the proposition, so that ‘only the Father.’ is equivalent to ‘the Father with exclusion of everything other than the Father.’

⁶³Tr. The proposition ‘only the Father is God’ is false because it excludes the Son and the Holy Spirit from being God. But ‘God’, being an essential and not a personal name, belongs to all three persons.

⁶⁴The Vatican editors, in the Preface to this volume, point out that this note assumes that passages from the Reportatio are to be added. The note makes frequent reference to these passages and has to be understood in relation to them.

⁶⁵Tr. That is, in ‘only the Father is God’ the correlative, or the Son, is not what the Father (the included) is, but to what or of what the Father is, as that the Son is not what the Father is but to what or of what the Father is the Father.

⁶⁶Tr. ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ are opposed relatives in the subject term ‘God’.

⁶⁷Tr. ‘Only’ determines the concept ‘Father’, but the concept ‘Father’ includes the concept ‘Son’ (for they are relatives), so ‘only’ does not exclude ‘Son’ from the subject term.

⁶⁸Tr. If one denies the consequence ‘only the Father is,     therefore the Father is, therefore the Son is, therefore the Son is God (or wise or omnipotent etc   .)’ on the grounds that ‘Father’ excludes ‘Son’, then one should, by parity of reasoning, rule out saying ‘only the Father is Father’ because this too, by rejecting the same sequence of inferences, will exclude ‘Son’ and so will exclude the Son’s being or being God or being wise or omnipotent etc. But it is absurd to rule out saying ‘only the Father is Father’.

⁶⁹Tr. ‘Only the Father is God’ is excluded, not because ‘Father’ does not include ‘Son’ (on the contrary it does), but because ‘only’ as applied to ‘Father’ excludes, not ‘Son’ from ‘Father’, but the application to ‘Son’ of the predicate ‘God’.

⁷⁰Tr. A suggestion about this puzzling remark: The claim being made is that to speak of an accident or property (e.g. wisdom) is to include and not exclude the subject whose property it is (e.g. a wise man). Thus to say ‘only the Father is God’ is to include ‘Son’ because ‘Son’ is also subject of ‘God’. Scotus’ response is that the subject is included when a property in the concrete is in question (as ‘wise’), but not when a property in the abstract is (as ‘wisdom’). Hence it is contradictory to say ‘whiteness’ includes a subject, because, as abstract, it is taken precisely as excluding a subject. In relation to ‘only the Father is God’, then, the point perhaps is that ‘God’ taken concretely or along with a subject always means one or other of the persons. But when it means the essence without reference to the personal subjects it is not taken concretely but, as it were, abstractly (as ‘God-ness’). So if ‘God’ is taken concretely in ‘only the Father is God’ then it includes the subject, that is, the person in question, and is equivalent to ‘only the Father is God the Father’, which is true and uncontroversial. But if ‘God’ is taken abstractly then ‘only the Father is God’ is equivalent to ‘only the Father is God-ness’, which is false if not indeed contradictory.

⁷¹Aristotle is arguing at this point in the Physics against Parmenides and Melissus, that if they say that only the principle is, then they are saying that what is from the principle is not. So the Philosopher thinks that to assert ‘only’ of one of a correlative pair (here the pair of ‘principle’ and ‘from a principle’) is to exclude, and not implicitly to include, the other correlative.

⁷²Tr. ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ are opposite relatives, and opposites exclude one opposite from being the other, so to say ‘only the Father...’ cannot be to include the Son implicitly.

⁷³Tr. Relational terms, as ‘father-son’, do not have a strict conceptual definition, because neither relative can be defined in isolation from the other (as that one cannot define ‘father’ without mentioning the son relative to whom a father is father). But one can nevertheless understand relations and relatives. Hence it is not to the point to say that ‘only the Father.’, with ‘Father’ taken in its whole conceptual idea, implicitly includes the Son, because there is no whole conceptual idea of ‘Father’ in the first place and the ‘only’ attached to it has to be interpreted according to this feature of relative terms, that is, as excluding from the predicate the opposing relative (‘Son’) which its understanding nevertheless implicitly includes.

⁷⁴Tr. The other way of saving ‘only the Father is God’ is to say that ‘only’, taken as an adjective (as categorematic), signifies the Father as to deity, while the substantive ‘Father’ signifies the Father as to person. Hence ‘only the Father is God’ means something like ‘the Father only as to deity is God’, which does not exclude the Son from also being God. Scotus’ response is that if the substantive is taken personally, as signifying a ‘whom’ and not a ‘what’, the adjective attaching to it must be taken personally too. Hence ‘only the Father is God’ means ‘the person alone who is Father is God’, which does exclude the Son from being God. The response is confirmed by appealing to the converse of ‘only the Father’, namely ‘no non-Father’, because to say ‘no non-Father is God’ also clearly excludes the Son from being God.

⁷⁵A reference to Reportatio IA d.21 nn.27-30. And see n.14 below. Perhaps the point about composition and division is that if ‘only’ is taken as dividing Father from Son, the proposition is false; if it is taken as combining them (because they are said relatively to each other), it is true. Scotus’ response is doubtless that ‘only’ as used here excludes taking the proposition in a combined sense.

⁷⁶Tr. ‘Only’ in this case means ‘you by yourself count as so many, even if others also by themselves count as so many’; it does not mean ‘you alone and no one else count as so many’.

⁷⁷Tr. In the second way ‘so great is the Father only’ means ‘only the Father is so great and not also the Son and Holy Spirit’, which is false.

⁷⁸Tr. The negative statement ‘nothing non-identical with man or non-man is non-man’ should, like any negative, be reducible or convertible to an equivalent affirmative (according to the rules for obversion, as that ‘no a is b’ is equivalent to ‘all a is non-b’). Scotus’ answer is that it is reducible to two affirmatives, according to its two-fold and contradictory subject: ‘everything non-identical with man is non-man’ and ‘everything non-identical with non-man is man’.

⁷⁹Vatican editors: This rule is not as such found in Aristotle but arises from two of the things he says. For he says first: “On the proposition ‘no man is just’ there follows the proposition ‘every man is nonjust;” he says second, “‘a non-just man is’ whose negation is ‘a non-just man is not’.” From the first of Aristotle’s statements this rule follows: ‘from a negative about a finite predicate there follows an affirmative about an infinite predicate’, and conversely ‘from an affirmative about an infinite predicate there follows a negative about a finite predicate’, from which finally there follows ‘man is non-just, therefore man is not just’. But according to the second of Aristotle’s statements, by adding ‘not’ to his first example, this sequence follows: ‘no man is non-just, therefore every man is not nonjust’; there also follows ‘therefore every man is just’ and ‘no man is not just’, because this sequence holds ‘man is non-just, therefore man is not just’, as has been said.

⁸⁰Vatican editors: “that is: therefore by running through from the first (‘only man is capable of laughter’) to the last (‘therefore everything capable of laughter is a man’), the rule [n.9] follows.”

⁸¹Tr. The composite sense of ‘every man who is white runs’ is ‘every white man runs’; the divided sense is ‘every man runs - and it just so happens, as an independent fact, that every man is white’.

⁸²Tr. ‘Only God is Father’ (where the addition to ‘only God’ of ‘who is Father’ is divided off) is true, but it does not entail ‘only the Father is God’. The divided sense does not allow an inference from person to nature (from ‘Father’ to ‘God’), which would exclude the other persons, the Son and Holy Spirit, from also being God.

⁸³Tr. The inference ‘therefore only the Father is God’ can be allowed to be true whether the antecedent ‘only God who is Father is God’ is taken in a composite or divided sense. For ‘only the Father is God’ does not mean ‘only the Father, and not the Son or Holy Spirit, is God’ as if ‘God’ were a universal term under which only the singular instance ‘Father’ was contained. Rather it means ‘only the Father is this God’, where ‘this God’ means the Trinitarian God. Hence whether ‘only God who is the Father’ is taken in the composite or the divided sense the inference that he is this God, namely the Trinitarian God, remains true.

⁸⁴Vatican editors: e.g. ‘only the animal that is man is rational, therefore only man is rational’.

⁸⁵Vatican editors: “Some say [such as Richard of Middleton] that, according to Priscian, in every conclusion where there is a noun and a qualifying adjective a ‘who is’ is always understood as the copula by which the construction is expressed, as in ‘a white man runs’, that is, ‘a man who is white runs’. So in the proposition here [‘only the Father is God’], if it is divided thus, ‘only the Father, who is God, is God’, it is true, but in the composite sense [sc. ‘only the Father-God is God’] it is false.” Priscian ch.1 nn.6-7: “But there are occasions when, by an ellipsis of a verb or participial substantive, a construction of the following sort is wont to be made in these sorts of grammatical cases (that is, the nominative case along with the oblique cases): ‘Achilles the son of Peleus killed many Trojans in battle’; for the participle of a verb for the substantive is implicitly understood, namely ‘being’ [sc. ‘Achilles being the son of Peleus’], but we do not now use it, and in its place we can say or understand ‘[Achilles] who is’ or ‘who was’ the son of Peleus. Likewise with other cases following a nominative, the aforesaid participle, or things taken for it, must be understood with the nominative: ‘an agreeable friend is going with me’, that is, ‘a friend who is agreeable to me’.” Also ch.2 n.27: “And in all these cases, even oblique ones, a ‘who is’ is understood: as ‘of a horse white in color’ (that is ‘of the horse which is of white color’), ‘for a horse white in color’ ‘toward a horse white in color’.”

⁸⁶Tr. If any qualification or adjective, categorematic or syncategorematic, added to a noun is an implicit relative clause (as that ‘white man’ is implicitly ‘a man who is white’, or that ‘only men’ is implicitly ‘only those who are men’), so that all qualified nouns admit of a divided and a composite sense, then, however closely one tied the adjective to a noun so as to express the composite sense and exclude the divided sense (as, say, ‘white-man’ or ‘white-man man’), the result would itself admit of a composite and divided sense (as ‘man who is white-man’), and so on ad infinitum. Consequently, one would never be able to disambiguate any statement as composite instead of divided, and so one would never be able to express or conceive anything determinate.

⁸⁷ Tr. The universal negative ‘no A is B’ converts simply to ‘no B is A’, but it implies also the particular form, ‘some B is not A’.

⁸⁸Tr. That is, ‘only man runs’ (an exclusionary affirmative) converts to ‘all that runs is a man’ (a universal affirmative with transposed terms), and contrariwise, ‘every man runs’ converts to ‘only what runs is a man’.

⁸⁹Vatican editors: Aristotle only taught that the universal affirmative, ‘all A is B’, was to be converted to the particular affirmative, ‘some B is A’, Prior Analytics 1.2.25a28-29.

⁹⁰Tr. Imperfect syllogisms are those in the second figure (A is B, C is B, therefore A is C) and third figure (B is A, B is C, therefore A is C). They are made perfect by being reduced, through conversion of propositions, to forms of the first figure (A is B, B is C, therefore A is C).

⁹¹Tr. Converting a universal affirmative, all A is B, to its exclusionary affirmative, only B is A, is to do the same as converting it to a particular affirmative, some B is A, so it does no more to reduce imperfect syllogisms to perfect ones than that particular affirmative is already doing. Therefore Aristotle had no need to introduce it in this context.

⁹²Tr. Sc. ‘not other than God, therefore not other than the Father’ is equivalent to ‘not not-God, therefore not not-Father’, which is equivalent to ‘God, therefore Father’, which is false of the Son and the Holy Spirit

⁹³Tr. Simple supposition is when a term is taken as to its meaning (a dog is a species of animal), and personal supposition is when the term is taken as to the thing it signifies (dogs run). So in the case of ‘only God is God’, if the subject term is taken in simple supposition the proposition is about the meaning of the term ‘God’ and not about the persons, so nothing follows about the persons. If the subject is taken in personal supposition, then it means ‘only the Father is God’ or ‘only the Son is God’ or ‘only the Holy Spirit is God’, and this way of speaking was rejected above in n.7.

⁹⁴Tr. If the subject term supposits confusedly (not determinately to this or that supposit) then one may not descend to such a determinate supposit. So here, because ‘only God’ in ‘only God is God’ supposits for the persons confusedly, one may not proceed from it to the determinate ‘only the Father is God’. To do so is to commit the fallacy of figure of speech, because it is to move from ‘God’ in simple supposition to ‘God’ in personal supposition.

⁹⁵Tr. In other words ‘only God is the Father’ could be maintained if it is understood to mean ‘only this God, who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit’.

⁹⁶See the Appendix at the end of this question.

⁹⁷Vatican editors: this note is a contraction of what is found in the Reportatio on the same question. The references are found in full there and are not repeated here. See the Appendix.

⁹⁸Vatican editors: which essence, however, cannot be naturally conceived by the wayfarer, I d.3 nn.56-57.

⁹⁹Vatican editors give the text from Lombard thus: “After what has been said, it seems we must discourse of the diversity of the names we use in speaking of the ineffable Unity and Trinity. Next we must show in what ways something is said about that Unity and Trinity.”

¹⁰⁰From Reportatio IA d.22 q. un.

¹⁰¹Tr. ‘Rounded down by being struck by the foot’ is an Englished version for the etymology of ‘rock’ mimicking the Latin ‘pede trita’ (‘worn down by the foot’), given by Scotus, for the Latin ‘petra’ (‘rock’).

¹⁰²Vatican editors: this assumption is not dealt with below, for it seems to have regard to the second way [nn.24-25], which Scotus did not complete. The assumption is dealt with extensively in Reportatio IA d.25 nn.24-29, although here in n.20, and also in the Lectura I d.23 n.20, Scotus did not concede a univocal common quidditative concept abstracted from the constituents of the persons.

¹⁰³Vatican editors: Scotus did not finish the question but left here a blank space.

¹⁰⁴Vatican editors: no such treatment of number by Scotus exists.

¹⁰⁵Vatican editors: number as posited in the intellect allows one to speak equally correctly of three in the case of a threefold grouping of stones and in the case of a trinity of persons.