C. Scotus’ own Solution

1. How Body is in a Place

216. To solve this question, then, we must first consider the place of body.

For any body, beside the ultimate one (which has nothing outside it containing it), possesses five features: to be in an actual place, to be in a determinate because equal place, to be in a place commensurately, to be determinately in this place or in that, and to be naturally or violently in a place.

217. The first four belong to body insofar as it is extended, a quantum, or a body; the last one belong to it insofar as it is a natural body. For although no extended thing exists unless it also has qualities, yet it is naturally an existent with extension before it is an existent with qualities - and in this regard it is an object of mathematics before it possesses quality, that is, it is first such as is considered per se and first by a mathematician.

218. This is what the Philosopher means in Physics 4.8.216a27-b8 ‘On the Vacuum’, because he maintains that “if a cube is put in air or water, even if it have no natural qualities, yet it causes as much displacement as an inserted body,” so that it causes a distance as great as the body; and this does not belong to it insofar as it is natural only, but insofar as it is precisely an extension, a quantum, and so a mathematical object.

a. On the First Article

219. Now I say, expounding each of these five points in turn [n.216], that every such body (other than the body of the first sphere) is first in place, that is, in that which precisely contains it and is immovable; for this is what is understood by the definition of the Philosopher Physics 4 ‘On Place’ [n.193], namely that “place is the ultimate, immovable, first limit of the containing body.”

220. For the divisible, according to the dimension by which it is divisible, cannot be immediately applied to anything nor can immediately contain it; and that which precisely contains something is an indivisible in the genus of quantity and is per se and extrinsic (for nothing indivisible in the genus of quantity exists per se but exists in something divisible); and so the consequence is that what precisely contains something is the ultimate limit of some divisible container. But this ultimacy does not belong to the idea of place, just as it does not belong to the idea precisely of quantity either - because if an indivisible could per se exist and not be the ultimate limit of anything divisible, it could be what precisely contains a thing.

221. Now place, over and above having this ultimate containing, has immobility in addition (whereby it is distinguished from a vessel, according to Aristotle Physics 4.4.212a14-16), which immobility diverse people have in diverse ways tried to save by reference to the poles and to the center.

222. But briefly I say that if the subject does not remain the same, no relative accident stays the same, according to the Philosopher [Categories 5.2b4-6]. And therefore, since it is manifest that every substance that precisely contains this body precisely can be moved locally and not remain numerically the same, it is plain that any accident (absolute and relative) that is in what contains the body is able not to remain numerically the same; and so neither will place remain numerically the same, whether place is posited to be something absolute in such containing body or something relative.

223. And if it be said [Aquinas, Giles of Rome] that place is the ultimate limit of the whole universe and that, although it varies as it is the ultimate limit of the container, yet it does not vary as it is the ultimate limit of the whole universe - this too is not a solution, because place is only the ultimate limit of the whole universe because it is the ultimate limit of part of it; and therefore, if it is different for one part and for another, it is not the same for the whole universe. For although there are many parts in some whole, yet what belongs to the whole through one part first and precisely and afterwards through another part precisely - this is not numerically the same.

224. I say therefore that place has an immobility opposed altogether to local motion, and an incorruptibility by equivalence when compared to local motion.

225. The first point is plain because, if a place were in some way locally movable, however much this is taken to be per accidens [e.g. as a sailor at rest on a ship is moved per accidens], one could say that it is in a place and a different place can be assigned to it one after another; in the same way that a likeness, although it is moved per accidens quasi-accidentally, namely at four or five degrees removed (because first the body moves, and thereby the surface of the body, and thereby the whiteness of the surface, and thereby the likeness [sc. of this whiteness with another whiteness]), yet likeness and surface are truly in different places one after the other.

226. In like manner, then, something at rest could be moved locally; for, because it has one place after another successively, it is locally moved; but something fixed could have different places containing it if the place were moved per accidens.

227. I prove the second point [n.224] by the fact that, although a place is corrupted by the local motion of its subject, such that, when air is moved locally, the same idea of place does not remain in it as before (as is plain from what has already been proved [n.222]), nor can the same idea of place remain in the water that succeeds to the air, because the same accident numerically cannot remain in two different subjects [n.222], yet the succeeding idea of place (which is different in idea from the preceding one) is truly the same as the preceding one by equivalence as to local motion, for that local motion should be from the preceding place to the succeeding one is as incompossible as if the place were altogether the same numerically. But no local motion can be from one ‘where’ to another ‘where’ unless these two ‘wheres’ correspond to two places different in species - relative to the whole universe; hereby these respects, which are only different numerically, seem to be numerically one, because they are as non-distinct with respect to local motion as if they were only one respect.

228. An example of this is in some way plain in the case of significant names, because this word ‘man’, however often it is spoken, is called numerically one word, and it differs numerically from this word ‘stone’; but since the same word numerically cannot be spoken twice (so that there are as many words distinct in number as there are speakings), and since this word ‘man’ and this word ‘stone’ are distinct not only numerically but also specifically - yet because with respect to expressing the goal of a word (namely the concept signified) the word ‘man’ and the word ‘stone’, however often each is spoken, are by equivalence numerically the same, therefore they are said to be numerically one word with respect to this goal.

229. So I say in the issue at hand that place is immovable locally per se and per accidens - yet it is corruptible when the subject is moved locally, because there does not then remain in it the same idea of place; and yet it is not corruptible in itself and by equivalence, because necessarily there succeeds to the body, in which that idea of place was, some other body, in which there is an idea of place numerically different from the preceding one yet the same as the preceding one equivalently by comparison with the local motion.

230. But is it not the case that any body - different from the first body or sphere -is necessarily in a place because it is an extension, a quantum?

Aristotle would say so, because he would say there cannot be ‘a body different from the celestial body’ in the sphere of the active and passive elements [sc. the sublunary sphere where are the elements of earth, air, fire, and water] unless he said it was necessarily contained under something precisely containing it.

231. But the opposite seems to be true according to Catholics, because God could make a stone without any other body existing that was the place of it - or he could make a stone existing apart from every other body, because he could make it outside the universe; and in both ways it would not be in place and yet it would be the same [sc. as other stones] with respect to everything absolute in itself. By nothing absolute in another thing, therefore, must it necessarily be in place, but it has only a passive potency whereby it can be in place; and this would be when a place has been posited in actual existence and when the presence of the stone with respect to some other body as its place has been posited.

b. On the Other Articles

232. About the second article [n.216] I say that - on the supposition of the first article - an extended body is actually in a place, because it is in what actually precisely contains it; for it cannot be in place without the ultimate limit (which is what proximately contains it) making it actual, because it makes the sides of the containing body to be spatially distant. But it is otherwise about a part in the whole, which does not make a surface potentially in the containing body to be actual; and so a part is not in a whole as a placed thing is in a place (Physics 4.5.212b3-6).

233. About the third article [n.216] I say - because of sameness of quantity - that a body necessarily requires a place equal to it.

And for this reason a body is in place commensurately, such that a part of the contained surface corresponds to a part of the containing surface, and the whole of it to the whole.

234. The fifth article [n.216] belongs to a body from the determinate place that places it.

235. The sixth article belongs to a body insofar as it is a natural body, namely from the fact that - insofar as it has a determinate substantial form and determinate qualities - it is of a nature to be preserved and saved by some place that contains it and to be corrupted by another; and when it is contained by the ultimate surface of that which is of a nature to save it, it is said to be in its natural place, even though that naturalness is in many respects accidental to the idea of place; therefore it is to this extent in its natural place because it is in what naturally places it, that is, in the ultimate of the thing containing it which is of a nature to save what is contained in it.

2. How an Angel is in Place

236. Applying these points to the issue at hand about the angel, I say that an angel is not necessarily in place, because an angel could much more be made without the creation of the corporeal creature or could, after the corporeal creature was made, also be made to be beyond every corporeal creature. And yet there is a passive potency in an angel by which he can be in a place; and this potency is founded either in his substance immediately, or in his substance as it is a limited nature actually existent, or in something extrinsic to the angel (whatever that is). And so there is no need to ask for any intrinsic reason for an angel’s being necessarily in place, because there is none in him, but there is only in him a passive potentiality by which he can be in a place, because this is not repugnant to him.

237. So, on the supposition of this first point [n.236], there is no need for an angel to be in a place actually, because there is no need for him to be in some indivisible container actually existing; for he does not make the sides of the container to be spatially distant, and so he does not make the containing surface to be actual.

238. But about the third article [n.216] there is a doubt, and about this article the second question has been moved [n.197]. However, it can be conceded that an angel cannot be in a place ever so large, because this is proper to God. And from this it seems that he cannot be in a place ever so small, from Euclid 1.35, for Euclid maintains there -look at him there [“parallelograms on the same base and on the same parallel lines are equal to each other”].

239. From this I argue as follows: whatever can be in one of two equals can also be in the other, provided no shape by which one of the equals is distinguished from the other is repugnant to it; but in an angel no shape of the place which he is in is repugnant to him; therefore if he can be in one of the equals, he can be in the other - and consequently if he can be in a little square and there is no repugnance in his being in a quadrilateral ever so narrow (which is something one must say in saying there is no repugnance in his being in any size of place), it seems that there is no repugnance in his being in a place ever so long, because the quadrangle is equal to the little square in which he is able to be.

240. This fact is made clear by the opposite in natural bodies. For water, which can be in a square, can for this reason not be in a quadrangle ever so long, because it cannot be in a place ever so narrow; and so it cannot be extended ever so much in length; for it cannot be extended in length without being narrowed in width, and if it cannot be narrowed to infinity in width, it cannot be extended to infinity in length. The opposite holds in the issue at hand; for if an angel does not determine a place ever so small (because then he will be able to be in however narrow and narrower a place), then etc.

241. Further, if there is some quantity of virtue in an angel according to which he can be in some place in proportion to the utmost of his power (namely, this angel so much and that angel so much), yet if he could, in accord with the utmost of his power, make himself to be in a place ever so much smaller than this one, which is adequate to him (and this ‘could’ belongs to some active power in him, because it is in his power to be able to use it for an effect adequate to him or not) - then ability rather to have this [lesser] quantity is more perfectly in his power, because he has an active power that is greater; and so he is able to use this active virtue ad infinitum so as to cause or be in a smaller and smaller place than is the place adequate to him; therefore he has an infinite power. The consequent is unacceptable, so the antecedent is too; just as, then, an infinity of power in him would be inferred if he could be in a larger and larger place ad infinitum, so an infinity of power in him is inferred if he could be always in a smaller and smaller place ad infinitum.

242. But as to whether he could be in a point or not [n.197] there seems no necessary reason for one side or the other; because although he is indivisible yet he does not have a limited indivisibility as a point does, and so he need not be in a point as in a place; nor perhaps is there any repugnance for him to be in a point as in a place, because nothing unacceptable seems to follow from this - because if from this is inferred that he could not be moved locally unless space were made of points, the inference does not hold (for he could immediately from a point in space put himself into a continuum, of which continuum the point is the term).

243. About this article [sc. the third, n.233] it seems one should concede that an angel has a determinate place, but indeterminately. In this way there is both some place which he cannot have a greater than, and some place which he cannot have a smaller than (speaking of continuous place), although perhaps he could be in a point.

244. Now whether an angel requires a determinate place and in a determinate way, such that an angel having so much power is, if he is present to a place, of necessity present to so much place, and it is not in his power to be present to a larger or smaller place (just as is true of bodies, because each body is necessarily in a place equal to it; the intellective soul too is necessarily in the place of the whole animate body, such that it is not in its power to be in a place larger or smaller than the whole body) - this is doubtful, because it does not seem one can easily prove necessarily either one side of the question or the other. For what is unacceptable if an angel’s quantity of power (by which he can be present to some place) is the natural reason for his being in so much place in his own way, just as the quantity of a natural body is the reason for the body’s being in a place in its own way - such that, although it is in my power to be in this place or in that, yet it is not in my power to be in this much place or in that much, because this effect is naturally consequent to a quantity that is not subject to my power, and just as the quantity in itself is not subject to my power so neither is it subject to my power as to its effect, namely to being in this much place or in that much? So nothing unacceptable seems to follow if this supposition is made about angels. Or if the supposition is made that the quantity of the power of angels has some place adequate to it, than which it cannot have a greater, although however this quantity may be subject to an angel’s will so that he is able not to have this place always but sometimes a larger or a smaller one, nothing unacceptable follows.

245. About the fourth article [sc. being in a place commensurately, n.233], it is plain that an angel is not in place commensurately, because he does not have one part after another side by side with different parts of the place.

246. About the fifth article [sc. being determinately in this place or some other, n.234] I say that an angel is in this place or in that, because he is not everywhere. And the reason for this needs investigating.

I say that although something could in itself be in passive potency to some physical genus and not determinately in potency to some species of this genus, yet the same thing reduces it to the act of the genus and of the species; just as a surface (qua surface), although it is of itself determined to a color and is not of itself determined to whiteness and blackness, yet is reduced by the same agent to the act of color and to the act of a color of this sort, because a surface is not colored save because it is colored thus - so I say here that although an angel is in potency to a ‘where’ in general and is not of himself determined to this ‘where’ or to that, yet he is reduced by the same agent to his actually being in a place and to his being in this place or in that in which first he is in place, when this agent produces him above the containing corporeal creature; but from then on he can reduce himself to the act of place, as will be plain in the question about the motion of an angel [n.444].

247. About the sixth article [sc. being in place naturally or violently, n.235], I say that an angel is not in any place naturally, because then he would be in some other place violently; then too some body would have a natural disposition to conserving him in a place, and some other body to corrupting him.

248. And there is a confirmation of this reason from Avicenna, Metaphysics 9.2 f.102va, when he maintains that the motion of the heaven is not natural (“because then it would reach an end in natural rest, and motion away from that rest would be violent” -and so would it be in the issue at hand), and this when taking naturalness properly, in the way that that is said to be moved naturally which is naturally inclined to motion.

249. And from this sixth article [n.247] it is plain that this passive potency (which is in an angel for being in place) is not natural or violent but neither - because what has this passive potency is not inclined naturally of itself to this form or to the opposite, but is disposed in neither way toward them, just as a surface is indifferently disposed to whiteness and blackness.