a. As to the First Question

16. Against this opinion - as to the first question [n.12] - I argue first that it seems irrational to posit that the same power is active with respect to one of its acts and passive with respect to another of its acts, because from this it seems that it is not a power of the same nature. For any power of one nature involves a like disposition of the power to the object; for sight is not active with respect to one act of seeing and passive with respect to another; hence any act of one power has a like disposition of power to object. Therefore if the intellect is only passive with respect to simple knowledge of a stone, and perfectly active with respect to conversion - which is second act - whereby it understands that it understands a stone, it will (as it seems) not be one power; it also seems unacceptable that it would be unable to have some activity with respect to a more imperfect act and yet could be totally active with respect to a more perfect act (now it is posited by some people that that conversion is a more perfect act than simple intellection).

17. As to what is added afterwards, that actual intellection is the reason for generating declarative knowledge [n.12], this seems to be unacceptable in our own case, because a more imperfect form cannot be a perfect reason for generating something perfect; but the first knowledge in us is confused and more imperfect than distinct knowledge;     therefore etc     .

18. Besides, if first knowledge is the reason for generating second knowledge [sc. distinct or declarative knowledge] - then either when it is not first, and then a non-being will be the reason for acting, or when it is, and then they [sc. first and second knowledge] will be either of the same idea or of a different one; if the latter, and the prior is more imperfect than the second, then it is not a principle for generating the second, because the more imperfect is not a principle for producing a more perfect (hence in equivocal production the cause is always more perfect than the effect); if the former, then two acts of understanding of the same species will be in the same intellect or in the same power (and with respect to the same object), because memory and intelligence are one power.

19. Again,a then a trinity would not be posited in the mind according as it is mind, because the mind will not have any proper activity according as it is mind, but precisely according to an accident of it through an accident (which is simple knowledge), just as neither does wood have any activity with respect to the heating that is attributed to it through the heat that is an accident of it through an accident; and so it seems Augustine sought in vain for parent and offspring in the mind ‘according as it is mind’, because the idea of parent does not seem to belong to the soul according to anything in it, but according to some accident precisely, which is imprinted on it by the object.

a [Interpolation] Further, as to any reflexive act of the intellect there is some more perfect direct act that can be had, because a direct act of the intellect - by which it understands a quiddity - is more perfect than the act by which it understands its own understanding, because it has a more noble object; therefore since the word is perfect knowledge of the thing, it does not include the act by which one knows that one knows.

20. Further, to generate a word is not an act of intelligence but of memory, according to Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.14 n.24; but every actual intellection belongs to intelligence, not to memory, according to him ibid. XIV ch.7 n.10; therefore no actual intellection is a reason for generating the word.

21. Further, what it says about conversion, that it is necessarily previous to generation of the word [n.12], seems to be against Augustine ibid. XV ch.16 n.26, where he seems to say that our most perfect word will be in the fatherland with respect to the beatific object, - and yet that act will not be a convertive one, because the beatific vision does not have any created thing for immediate object (but every convertive act in us has something created for object, as the act or the power); nor does that vision presuppose conversion, because if that vision is the effect of the divine essence alone (or of the intellect cooperating with the divine essence), it naturally precedes the conversion of the intellect to its own understanding.a

a [Interpolation] Again, as confused intellection is to an object confusedly presented, so is a distinct intellection to an object distinctly presented, - and it will not be a word of the object but of the act.

22. Also as to the statement that the intellect, as it is being converted, is purely active and yet, as converted, it is purely passive with respect to the generated knowledge which is the word, - it seems thoroughly irrational that the same thing under the idea under which it is ‘active’ is only passive with respect to an act of the same idea, or that insofar as it is purely ‘passive’ it is active with respect to an act of the same idea; but the intellect, insofar as it receives simple knowledge, is only passive and, insofar as it converts, it is only active; therefore it seems that it is unacceptable that insofar as it converts it is passive with respect to generation of the word, and insofar as it has simple knowledge it is active with respect to the same generation.