b. Whether any Actual Intellection at all is the Word

62. But a further doubt remains, whether any actual intellection at all is the word.

63. [Opinions of others] - To this a reply is given in the negative, and that one must add - as a specific difference - ‘intellection which is declarative’ [n.11].

64. I argue against this because in the Father there is declarative knowledge formally, - for the intellection that is in the Father ‘insofar as he is intelligence’ is declarative of the Father ‘insofar as he is memory’, and thus perfectly, just as actual intellection ‘as it is in the Son’ declares habitual knowledge as it is in the memory of the Son; but in the Father there is not the word formally, as will be said in the solution of the question [n.71].

65. Likewise, the word declares itself, according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.3 n.4: “If,” he says, “this word that we pronounce is temporal and manifests both itself and that of which we speak, how much more does the word of God etc.” and manifest itself? ‘To declare’ then does not state a real relation, nor consequently the relation of what is generated; but the word is nothing but generated intellection (ibid. IX ch.12 n.18), otherwise it could be posited formally in the Father.

66. A reply is also given in another way as concerns this article [n.62], that the word is actual knowledge ‘that is the term of inquiry’.

67. This is shown from Augustine ibid. when he says that the word is a thing born or an offspring; but it is a thing born because it is a thing found, - but it is not a thing found save because it is inquired into; hence Augustine means that this thing born of the mind is preceded by an appetite moving to inquiry.

68. He seems to mean the same in ibid. XV ch.15 n.25 when he inquires as follows: “Then a true word comes to be when that which I said to us ‘spreads with a certain rapid motion’ comes to that which we know and is thence formed, taking on its likeness in every way, so that in whatever way each thing is known so too is it thought;” this ‘rapid thinking’ is inquiry, of the sort that will not exist in the fatherland, as he indicates [ch.41 or 16]: “Perhaps there will not be rapid thoughts there.”

69. The position then is that after confused knowledge there follows inquiry and argumentation, and finally one reaches perfect knowledge, which is as it were generated by that inquiry; and the perfect knowledge, which is the term of inquiry, is the word.

70. Against this I argue as follows: if it belongs to the idea of the word that ‘it is born through inquiry’, then God does not have a word; second, in that case an angel does not have a word about things naturally known to him; third, then the blessed do not have a word about the divine essence, nor about anything perfectly known without inquiry; fourth, therefore he who has the perfect habit of science and at once operates through the habit cannot have a word, - all which things seem absurd.

71. [Scotus’ own opinion] - Therefore, setting these opinions aside, I say as to this article [n.62] that not any actual intellection at all is the word (as was proved against the way that set down ‘declarative’ as proper to the word [nn.64-65]), but generated knowledge is; and therefore in the Father there is no word formally.

72. But any generated knowledge whatever - which Augustine calls offspring - is a word, though not in the way Augustine posits a perfect word, namely one that represents the divine word [nn.45-46].

73. I make clear the first of these [sc. that any generated knowledge is a word], because any actual intellection is generated from memory, imperfect from imperfect as perfect from perfect; therefore any knowledge is offspring and expressive of the parent, and is generated to express the parent. - And this is confirmed first from Augustine On the Trinity IX ch.10 n.15: “Everything known is said to be a word impressed on the mind, as long as it can be defined and produced from the memory;” again ibid. XV ch.12 n.22: “Nor does it matter when he who speaks what he knows learnt it; for sometimes as soon as he learns it he says it.” And briefly, whatever difference is found between the first generated imperfect knowledge and the knowledge that follows inquiry, there is no formal difference because of which the latter could be called word and the former not, as it seems.

74. I make the second clear [sc. not any generated knowledge is the perfect word, n.72], because our intellect does not immediately have perfect knowledge of the object, because according to the Philosopher Physics 1.1.184a16-23 what is inborn in us a way of proceeding from the confused to the distinct; and therefore first, in order of origin, there is impressed on us a confused knowledge of the object before a distinct one, - and therefore inquiry is necessary for our intellect to come to distinct knowledge; and therefore inquiry is necessary previous to the perfect word, because there is no perfect word unless there is perfect actual knowledge.

75. So then one must understand that when some object is known confusedly inquiry follows - by way of division - into the differences that belong to it; and when all the differences have been found, definitive knowledge of the object is perfect actual knowledge and is perfectly declarative of the habitual knowledge which was first in the memory; and this definitive knowledge, perfectly declarative, is the perfect word.

76. This is what Augustine says ibid. IX ch.10 n.15: “I define what temperance is, and this is its word;” and in the same place Augustine premises, in the same chapter, what he was already set down above: “as long as it can be defined and produced from the memory,” [n.73] - that is distinctly and definitively and actually known, by virtue of what is in the memory.

77. It does not     therefore belong to the idea of the word to be born after inquiry, but it is necessary for an imperfect intellect - which cannot at once have definitive knowledge of the object - to have such knowledge after inquiry; and therefore the perfect word does not exist in us without inquiry. And yet when a perfect word follows such inquiry, the inquiry is not the generation of the word itself formally, but is quasipreliminary to the word being generated; which Augustine well indicates in the afore cited authority [n.68] “hither and thither with a certain rapid motion” etc     . “when it comes to that which we know and is thence formed,” it is the word etc., - indicating that this scattering about (that is, inquiry) is not the generation of the word formally but is followed by the generation of the word from what we know, that is, form the object habitually known in the memory.

78. And if it be objected ‘for what then is inquiry necessary?’ - one can say to this that motion is necessary for the introduction of perfect form (which could not be introduced at the beginning of the motion), or there is introduction of many forms ordered to the introduction of the final form, and without that order of forms the final form could not be at once introduced. And accordingly this order is posited: first there is habitual confused knowledge, second confused actual intellection, third inquiry (and in inquiry there are many words from many habitual knowledges virtually contained in memory), which inquiry is followed by distinct and actual knowledge of the first object whose knowledge is being inquired into, - which ‘actual distinct’ knowledge impresses perfect habitual knowledge on memory, and then first there is perfect memory and it is likened to the memory in the Father; ultimately, from perfect memory is generated a perfect word, without inquiry coming between it and the word, - and this generation is likened to the generation of the perfect divine word, from perfect paternal memory. No word is perfect, then, representing the divine word (which is what Augustine is most investigating) save that which is born of perfect memory without inquiry coming between such memory and such word, although neither could that memory be had by us - because of the imperfection of our intellect - unless inquiry precede.