B. To the Second Argument

1. Response to the Argument

283. To the second initial argument [n.177] I say that the proposition ‘to act belongs per se to a supposit’ is not got from the Philosopher Metaphysics 1.1.981a17-18 but what is got there is that ‘action concerns singulars’, and to this extent the Philosopher puts experience before art in acting, or the experienced man before the artisan [cf. Ord. III d.36 n.85]. But whence is the place [sc. the argumentative topic] got? ‘Action is about the singular as object; therefore, it belongs only to a supposit as agent’ [Ord. III d.8 n.14].

284. If this proposition is taken, ‘action belongs to a supposit’, then from somewhere else than the Philosopher here at least is this proposition picked up: ‘action belongs to the supposit as what is ultimately denominated by action, but not as all that is denominated by it’. This solution you can gather from Ord. I d.5 nn18-24, where is obtained how from the same abstract term, especially one that states a respect, many denominative terms can be taken that denominate many things on which that form [sc. the abstract term] falls, and does so in order. For example, from the abstract term ‘potentiality’ is taken the concrete term proximate to it, which is ‘potency, power’ and is said of heat; and further is taken the concrete term ‘potent, being able’ and is said of the fire possessing the heat. In the same way can be taken from ‘action’ a concrete term that denominates the formal principle of acting, and it would be said of ‘heat’, as in ‘if it exists, heat heats’, that is, ‘is that whereby the possessor of heat acts’, just as heat is a heating power but is not a potentiality nor potent or powerful.

285. But from ‘action’ is commonly taken only the denominative that denominates the ultimate denominative, at which the whole dependence of the form has its term; and I concede that, however much a form is denominated by action, yet if that form is of a nature to be in a supposit, the supposit could, by a further denomination, be denominated by ‘action’.

286. But you might say, ‘at least as this denomination, whereby something is said to act, is customarily used, the form will not be denominated by action, and so the proposed conclusion holds’ [n.177].

287. I reply: a form possessing the idea of form is not thus denominated, that is ‘an informing form’ (because it is then the reason why something else is denominated by this denomination), but a ‘non-informing form’ is thus denominated. But a being per se is not denominated by this denomination, for it can be denominated by another denomination, as was said before [n.284]; and if it does not depend further on some other denominated thing, its denomination will be ultimate. And so this proposition ‘to act belongs to a supposit alone’ is briefly expounded as ‘or belongs to something having the mode of a supposit’. And by this remark ‘having the mode of a supposit’ I understand nothing positive beyond the essence of the form; rather I understand only the negation of its informing anything that acts through the form.

288. As to the confirmation from Boethius [n.178], it can be said (as he himself speaks there about ‘by what it is’ and ‘what it is’) that, according to its ‘what’, each created thing has these distinct in some way, in the way that no created thing is pure being (on which see Ord. I d.8 n.32); but it is not necessary that in any created thing the ‘by what it acts’ and ‘what acts’ be distinct; for if angel or soul are the simple essence of their power and really so, what acts with intellective action and by what it acts are not really different. And so here [sc. an accident in the Eucharist], it is a certain being and a simple act, and it does not inform anything else.

289. The example brought forward about the soul in man [n.179] is only a proof about the ‘what’ and ‘by what’ in the case of existing, and this when taking the partial ‘by what’, not the total ‘by what’; and I say this because a man is a man by humanity as by the total ‘by what’, but by the soul he is a man as by a partial ‘by what’. And this is what is sometimes accustomed to be said about the form of the whole and the form of a part; the form of the whole indeed is the quiddity of the thing, including each essential part, and this is not different in reality from the ‘what’, but it is perhaps only different in mode of understanding [Ord. III d.2 nn.80-84]. And in this way the ‘what’ and ‘by what’ with respect to action can only differ when the ‘by what’ is the total ‘by what’, which is always at least the case when the ‘by what’ is in nothing else - and perhaps even when it is in something else, because then the subject has no causality of its own with respect to action; but yet it is then denominated (with remote denomination) by the action, because it is denominated by the principle ‘by what’ of the action.

290. As to what is added from Metaphysics III about mathematics [n.180], that ‘in mathematics there is neither agent nor good’, I say that the quantity in the Eucharist is not a mathematical principle; for the mathematician abstracts from natural qualities in the way he abstracts from substantial form (for the mathematician abstracts in this way from the natural as from the metaphysical, or more so). I concede therefore that if the quality existed alone, it would not be the principle of acting with the sort of action that we are speaking of here [n.289]; but the natural quality, which is here [in the Eucharist] in the quantity, can well have virtual touch in respect of a passive object.

2. A Doubt and its Solution

291. And if you ask, ‘does a separated quantity without a quality act on the senses?’, it seems that it does.

292. Because it is per se perceptible, On the Soul 2.6.418a17-20.

293. And again, it could act on the intellect, because it is per se intelligible; but it could not act on our intellect unless it first acts on the senses;     therefore etc     .

294. To the contrary, because a quantity is not perceptible primarily; but that which is not per se perceptible primarily cannot act without what is perceptible primarily.

295. It could be said that the quantity would not be perceived because: either it would (according to some) have no action on the senses by impressing on them its own species but only the proper sensibles do (the common sensibles,The proper sensibles are those perceived by only one sense, as color, taste, sound etc., and the common sensibles are those perceived by more than one sense, as size, shape, place etc. ⁵⁰ however, only do something for the manner of affecting the senses); or if a common sensible cause its own species along with a proper sensible (otherwise how could it properly be perceived?), yet it cannot cause it without the concomitance of a proper sensible - not indeed that it would not be prior to the primarily sensible quality and so able to be separated in itself from that quality, but that it would not be prior in acting on the senses, and so, insofar as it is of such sort, it is not separable from a proper sensible.

296. And perhaps the reason is that by which the senses are primarily receptive powers of their proper object; and therefore from nothing else can they receive another act unless they are naturally prior in this act.

297. And thus is plain the answer to the first argument [n.292].

298. As to the second [n.293] I say that a quantity could move the intellect if it were proportionate to it or proportionately present to it; but it is not so for our intellect, because a quantity can become primarily present to our intellect only through the species, and it cannot be caused in the intellect if the species of the object were not first in the senses.