IV. To the Principal Arguments of the Second Question

92. To the arguments of the second question.

To the first [n.7]. Although some say that ‘an angel can by an act of will hide his intellection and not hide it’ (and this ‘not hiding’ is a speaking), yet there does not seem any reason that something actually intelligible should be present to a passive intellect and not be able to affect it; nor does there seem a greater reason that an angel could through his will more hide his intellection than his essence. Also, why can the other angel, from whom he wills to hide his intellection, not see that volition? If one posits that the volition is hidden too, then it would be hidden by another volition, and so on ad infinitum. - And therefore, if one concedes that the knowledge of this angel is open to another, just as is his essence, but his speaking cannot be - the speaking by which this knowledge (or known thing) is expressed - yet this is not for the reason that, without such expression, it could not be seen, but because, without the expression, it would not be known by the knowledge that is hearing; and also often, without previous hearing, there would not be vision of this cognition.

93. And if you say that at any rate in that case it could be vain to speak about that by which, without speaking, the thing he wants to speak about is manifest [n.7], I say that although an angel may see another angel’s intellection before he hears from him, yet the hearing would not be vain, because it would be ‘a per se perfection’ communicated liberally to the angel (by the other angel); and it is for this most of all that speaking exists among intellectual beings, that they may liberally and freely communicate their concepts to each other. But if the knowledge of this concept is seen in this angel [sc. without this angel speaking it], then this angel does not liberally communicate his concept to another; for he is disposed in this seeing [sc. the seeing of him by the other angel] as someone not understanding and not willing, because his knowledge is naturally visible (and what is naturally active - and what naturally moves when seen - would act in the same way even were it not in someone understanding and willing). Likewise hearing too, when it precedes, stimulates to seeing the intellection of the speaking angel - such that, although the vision could exist without the stimulation, yet it does not exist without it.

94. There is also a confirmation of the fact that speaking is not posited here in vain [n.93], because the angels are conceded to speak to God, and yet they cannot make anything more manifest to him than it was before, nor even manifest in another way to him than it was before (which are however possible in the case of an angel), but they can will from liberality alone to make this plain to God (they desire everything as much as they can, so that if they could cause a concept in him they would cause it [n.71]) - and this is speaking to God. So the speaking [sc. of angel to angel] is more necessary.

95. To the second argument it is plain from what has been said how one angel can speak to another distant angel while doing nothing to the medium [nn.55-60] - and how he can speak to one and not another, whether this other is nearer or further away [nn.81-82].

96. To the third [n.9] I say that although it is most true that God has communicated to an angel the species of all quiddities, yet, if those species had not been communicated (or co-created), it would not be unacceptable for an angel to acquire them, because what is a matter of perfection in an inferior intellect is not to be denied to a superior and more perfect intellect; but it is a matter of perfection in our intellect that it has something whereby it can actively acquire the species of all quiddities, so that, although ‘to be able to receive such species’ is a mark of imperfection, yet ‘to be able actively to acquire them’ is a mark of perfection (making up for the imperfection), such as commonly are all the perfections of creatures.

97. Likewise too, given that God has co-created the species of the quiddities, yet one need not say that he co-created the species of all singulars intelligible to an angel; for it is not likely that a singular would be able to come to be of which an angel could not have a distinct knowledge - and yet if the world were to last to infinity (as is possible), there would be an infinity of singulars, each of which an angel could distinctly know, and yet he would not have infinite co-created species at the same time; therefore he could acquire the species of something de novo.

98. Given also that God co-created with the angel’s intellect the species both of singulars and of future quiddities, yet the angel cannot have through them all the knowledge possible to him - because he does not have intuitive knowledge; for this cannot be had through the species of an object that can remain while the object is absent; for this is contrary to the idea of intuitive knowledge, that it be of a thing not actually existent and not present to hand (2 d.3 nn.318-323). So let the assumed proposition be denied, that ‘an angel can know nothing save through innate species’ [n.9].

99. And given, fourth, that this assumed proposition were true, there could still be a speaking about propositions whose terms an angel has innate species of, because those species of the terms would not be a sufficient cause of knowing a contingently true proposition about those terms, because a contingent proposition is not known to be true from the terms [n.69, d.11 n.15].

100. To the adduced proofs that an angel cannot have acquired species [nn.10-15]

I reply:

To the first [n.10], that he has an agent intellect and a possible intellect.

101. And when argument is made against this as concerns the agent intellect [n.10], I say that an angel’s first (that is, adequate) object is not his essence, but the whole of being, comprehending under itself intelligible and sensible species. Now although his essence is actually intelligible yet a singular sensible is not, when we are speaking of what is intelligible by abstractive intellection of the sort that the universal is known by.

102. Also, when argument is made against this as concerns the possible intellect, because an angel’s intellect is not in potency to first act [n.10] - I say that even if a surface were created along with whiteness, it would no less be of itself receptive of whiteness, because a receptive potency need not precede in duration, but only in nature, the act for which it is in potency. Thus the intellect of an angel, although it were created along with all the species of intelligible things, would yet truly be possible and of itself in potency to first act even if it never preceded first act in duration; neither too would the possible intellect be denied in us if it had been created along with all intelligible species, because simultaneity in duration does not take away the idea of its passivity.

103. The same way too on the other side [sc. about the agent intellect]. Given that an angel would not need to abstract any species (if he had all such species co-created with him), he would no less have the power of abstracting, because active potency - which is a mark of perfection in an inferior nature - should not be denied to a superior nature [n.96], although the superior cause [sc. God, by co-creating species] prevented the action of the active power of the inferior cause; just as the agent intellect should not be denied in us such that our agent intellect could not have any act of abstracting - not because of its own nature, but because it was prevented by another superior agent which produced the effect that could be produced by our agent intellect.

104. To the second [n.11]. If the argument is made in uniform way, I concede the whole of it; for an angel is without a body that may be a part of it or an organ of it in operating - and so conclude that it does not depend on a body as on a part or organ as to what it operates on. But it does not follow that it does not depend on a body as on an object; for every passive intellect that is unable to have in itself the whole perfection of the object depends on the object about which it operates, and proportionally according to the proportion of the object.

105. And as to what is said about the union of the soul [n.11], I say that the soul is united not only so that it may operate about the body as an object, but is also united so that the whole composite of which it is a part might exist - such that the whole operating thing has the body not only for object but for part of the operator; but it is not so with an angel.

106. To the third [n.12] I say that it would prove that God could not understand the singular, because he cannot have an object in that middle, namely in the imaginable; therefore I say that a middle that is a middle for an inferior agent is not a middle for a more perfect agent. And as was said in the questions on the motion of an angel [2 d.2 nn.428-31, 515], although succession in the middle is possible, yet there is no actual succession save by reference to a limited power, for which the middle is what is of itself a middle between extremes and cannot make the movable to be simultaneously in the middle and at the extreme, or to be at once at the extreme as if there were no middle; but it is otherwise with infinite power. Likewise, if an imperfect heat had to proceed through many degrees up to degree a, then all those degrees would, for a perfect heat, not be in between, because it would at once begin from a itself; thus I say that a more perfect agent intellect can cause at once from a sensible object an intelligible species (in which species the thing would have being as actually intelligible), but a more imperfect virtue can require imaginable being as an intermediate disposition for intelligible being.

107. One can reply otherwise by saying that imaginable being is not a middle in the present case but an extreme - because the two extremes are these: ‘non-intelligible in act’ and ‘intelligible in act’. And though the extreme that is ‘non-intelligible in act’ could have many extremes (for example, sensible being, imaginable being), yet it is matter of accident in which of the extremes this extreme [sc. non-intelligible in act] is, because all of them have this extreme; and from this extreme, as it is in one of the many extremes, there can be some power of acting for the other extreme [sc. intelligible in act] - but this extreme [sc. non-intelligible in act], as it exists in another supposit, requires other things as well so as to act on the other extreme [sc. intelligible in act].a

a. a[Interpolation] [it is a matter of accident] that this extreme is in something that has all those extremes; for some power from this extreme can act immediately for the other extreme, but some power cannot.

108. To the fourth [n.13] I say that the symmetry about the celestial bodies is not conclusive; for if those qualities [sc. those that constitute the perfection of celestial bodies) were not co-created with the celestial body, there is nothing given that body whereby it could acquire those qualities - and thus it would always be non-perfect in reference to itself and to every natural cause, because no natural cause can produce those qualities in that body; but in general, any perfection that nature cannot supply is supplied immediately by God. But it is not so in the issue at hand, because an angel has that whereby (along with the cooperation of its other natural powers) it may act and be able to acquire such perfection - namely the species of all things - , given that they were not cocreated with it; for his intellect can from its natural virtue have intellection of any object whatever, and from these two [sc. intellect and object] as from partial causes, that is, by the action of the intellect and the object, he can have the species of the quiddity of any object whatever, and can afterwards use the species for abstractive intellection.

109. And when it is next argued that ‘then the object would act on the intellect of an angel’ [n.14] - I concede that it truly does, along with the intellect of the angel.

110. And when it is supposed that ‘two things of diverse genus cannot be cause of one effects’ [n.14] - I say that this is universally false; for an essential order is not of individuals of the same species (the thing is plain from Avicenna Metaphysics 6 ch.3); for individuals of the same species are not ordered to each other, therefore there is no essential order of the sort either [2 d.3 nn.13, 15]. Nor is there an essential order of individuals of diverse most specialized species; for of such kind are contraries and the means [sc. between them], which are not essentially ordered for causing the same thing.     Therefore all diverse efficient causes, which are essentially ordered, are diverse in genus.

111. And when the division is proved that ‘either they are required insofar as they are other in genus or insofar as they are the same in genus’ etc     . [n.14] - I say that either member of the division may be granted, because of the argument made against him [sc. against the proponent of this division, which argument now follows, nn.111-112].

For if it be said that they are required insofar as they are other in genus, then it cannot but follow that the effect is homogeneous; for the most simple effect can be caused by essentially ordered causes that differ in genus, from what was said [n.110]; this is plain in the case of heat, which is generated by the celestial body and by fire or by substance and quality, the first two of which [sc. celestial body and fire] differ in physical genus, and the second two [sc. substance and quality] differ in genus of category - and yet the effect is simple, not composed of things diverse in genus. Or as follows: it is universally false that effects ordered in the cause require two natures in the effect, one of which is caused by a superior and the other by an inferior cause; for then they would not be effects ‘ordered’ in respect of the one cause or in respect of the other, for this effect would be immediately caused by one cause and that effect would be immediately caused by the other cause.

112. But if the other member is granted [n.111], that the causes are not required insofar as they are other in genus - it does not follow that then one cause alone could be intensified so as to suffice for acting; for some perfection of causality in both is required (although they do not have to be other in genus), and this perfection could not be in one of them however intensified it is, and so the effects of both could not be in it either.

113. But setting aside the consequences here (which are not valid for establishing the truth), I say that agents diverse in genus are not per se required insofar as they are diverse in genus by an absolute diversity. Two causalities are, however, required well enough for intellection (one of which causalities is on the part of the intellect and the other on the part of the object), but sometimes the two causalities can come together in one nature, as when the intellect understands itself; for one of these causalities is common to the whole of being (namely that on the part of the object), but the other is determined to a determinate nature (namely to intellectual nature), and thus, in the case of intellectual nature, the common causality comes together with the special one; these causalities are not then per se required for causing insofar as they are diverse in genus by an absolute diversity. And I concede (not because of the argument in itself) that, in truth, each causality can come together in the same thing; for where there is the entity that the causality of the object follows and the entity that the causality of the intellect follows, the same thing can - according to the same causality - be the total cause with respect to intellection [n.75, 2 d.3 n.70, 1 d.3 nn.486-494].

114. But if an objection is still made that although things diverse in genus can cause the same thing, yet not things as diverse in genus as the intelligible and sensible; or at any rate, they cannot so cause without at least one acting in virtue of the other - and thus either the object would act in virtue of the intellect or conversely, and they will not be two causes acting for the effect equally.

115. I reply that if the argument is taken from the idea of diversity in genus and applied to the intelligible and the sensible [n.114], as if it were more conclusive here than in other things, then there is a departure from the middle term. So from this the argument is that there is not a greater diversity here than in other things; for substance and accident (which are diverse most general genera) are more diverse than are sensible and intelligible substance (which belong to the same most general genus); for substance and accident can be agent causes with respect to the same effect (as with respect to simple heat [n.111]).

116. And in the issue at hand too I say that for an action that is consequent to every being, the sensible must operate just as also the intelligible (for the sensible is some sort of being); but the affecting of the intellect is such an action, and therefore the difference in genus that the sensible has from the intelligible is accidental to the sensible insofar as the sensible happens to affect the intellect, because this does not belong to the sensible insofar as it is non-intelligible but would belong to it if it were intelligible. Nor can anything so differ in genus from the intelligible as if it were in a disparate genus, because any being whatever, however much it is a sensible, is yet an intelligible; for whatever an inferior power can do per se and first, that a superior power can do per se and first.

117. When therefore it is said that ‘things diverse in genus, as are the sensible and the intelligible, cannot cause the same thing nor come together for the same action’ [n.114] - this is false of the action where the sensible is a sort of intelligible.

118. And when you add that ‘one cause acts in virtue of the other’ [n.114], I say that a acting in virtue of b can be understood in two ways: either that a receives from b the form by which it acts, or that - once the habit has been formed - it receives the action from it. Now in the second way, the efficient cause does not act in virtue of another, for fire - possessing the active form by which it acts - does not receive from the sun the action of heating nor does it receive from it a special motion for heating. Therefore in this case the inferior is said to act in virtue of the superior only because it in some way receives the form from the superior - just as ordered natural agents have their forms in ordered way such that an element receives its form in some fashion from the celestial body as the superior agent.

119. In the issue at hand [sc. of the sensible and intelligible] one partial cause receives from the other neither first act nor second act; and so in neither way [n.118] is one cause said - in the issue at hand - to cause in virtue of the other. Nor indeed does this belong to the idea of ordered agent causes, namely that one act in virtue of the other; but it is sufficient that one act more principally than the other [1 d.3 nn.559-560, 496].

120. To Augustine on Genesis [n.14] response was made in 1 d.3 nn.506-507. For Augustine proves that body cannot be the total cause of any action on spirit, which I concede. However it can be a partial cause, because what undergoes can exceed in nobility an agent cause that is partial; for the proposition from Augustine [sc. the agent is more excellent than the patient, n.114], as was said elsewhere [sc. 1 d.3 nn.506-507], depends on these propositions, that ‘the agent (or cause) is more excellent than the effect’ and ‘the effect as act is more excellent than what is as potency receptive of act’ - of which the first is only true of a total agent and the second only true of perfection simply; therefore the inferred proposition about the active thing in comparison with the passive thing [sc. the agent is more excellent] will not be true when speaking of a partial agent -and there is no need that the acting be in virtue of the partial agent.

121. As for the final argument [n.15], when it is said that ‘the like is known by its like’ - in the case of an angel nothing unacceptable follows, because an angel can have both abstractive and intuitive knowledge of a singular in its proper idea; for a perfection should not be denied to that intellect when there is no manifest reason for the denial; but it is mark of perfection in an intellect ‘to be able to know the singular distinctly’, otherwise this would not belong to the divine intellect.

122. But if argument is made about our intellect that ‘the phantasm in us - which is of the singular object - generates the intelligible species, therefore it reduces the intellect to act with respect to the singular’, I say that there is in this inference a fallacy of the consequent. For a likeness does not prove (or does not include) every likeness; the phantasm does indeed generate a species like itself (and representative of the object) with natural likeness, but not with likeness of determination or indetermination - for the natural likeness can be carried off by reason of the co-causing agent intellect, which intellect is able to attribute to the effect a greater indetermination than the effect could have from the phantasm alone, such that the likeness is of the nature represented whether the phantasm is a partial or a total cause; but it is not altogether the same with the likeness of determination and indetermination when a greater agent concurs that can attribute a greater indetermination.