c. Action is an Extrinsic Respect added to a Thing

41. From these points the result is that, if action is a distinct category, then it per se states as such only a respect or relation. Further, if all respects o relations have one quidditative idea common to relations, then only one category of relation would be posited, and so there are only four categories.The first four of the ten categories are substance, quantity, quality, and relation. The remaining six, namely when, where, action, passion, position, being clad, all involve relation or reference to something, so that if everything involving relation belongs to the category of relation, these six categories would not be distinct categories after all but members of the category of relation. ⁵⁸

42. Therefore if this famous division of categories is to be saved (for, according to Avicenna Metaphysics 3.1, 1.4, we are compelled to hold to the division whereby there are said to be ten most general categories - compelled, I say, because of the ancient authority of the philosophers, which it should not be easy to contradict), one must say that respect or relation does have enough formal ideas, enough, I say, for distinction of categories.

43. But this difference sufficient for this purpose, which is collected with more probability from the words of the authors, is an intrinsic and external respect coming to a thing, so that that is called ‘an internal respect coming to a thing’ which necessarily follows both extremes posited as actual, or which (and this is the same) necessarily follows its foundation, the term being included or not excluded; and so that that is called ‘an extrinsic respect’ which does not necessarily follow the extremes, even when both are posited as actual. And then the six principles, which the author of Six Principles is dealing with, are not, to this extent, species of relation, because relation states a respect coming intrinsically to a thing, but the six principles are called respects that come extrinsically to a thing. Action then will be an extrinsic respect coming to a thing.

45. But to what thing?

To the thing acted on, it seems, according to the Philosopher, in Physics 3.2.113b-114a, when he maintains that action and passion are founded on motion, but motion in the thing acted upon, and motion is not distinct formally save as to being ‘from this’ and ‘in this’.

46. But the contrary seems to be the case. Because the respect and the foundation will be in the same thing, and the idea of foundation seems to make the fact clear; but active power is in the agent, and is the foundation of the respect.

47. Again, opposite respects do not exist in the same thing, at any rate not qua the same, nor are they universally necessarily simultaneous; passion or the respect of passion is universally in the thing acted upon; therefore the opposite respect is not necessarily in the same thing.

48. Again, whatever thing some form is in, that thing is simply of the sort that accords with the form; for it seems altogether irrational that a form should be in something and not make that thing to be informed by the form; therefore, if action is formally in the thing acted upon, the thing acted upon is formally the agent.

49. It will be said, then, that action is an extrinsic respect coming to a thing, and that it is in the agent as in the supposit or subject, and in the form, which is called ‘active power’, as in the proximate foundation. And passion states the opposite respect, corresponding to the former, and it is in the thing acted upon as in a subject, and it is in the passive power as in the proximate foundation.

50. Further, in particular, a created agent has a respect to the first or total term, which is called the product, and a respect to the term that is called the produced or introduced form, and a respect to the subject of that form, which is the thing acted upon or changed.

51. Now, that these respects are different is proved by the fact they are to different terms.

52. It is also proved by something else, because the corresponding converse respects are altogether different; for the respect of product to producer is as that of dependent on that on which it depends, and this simply according to its being, as ‘being’ is taken simply. But the respect of changeable to changer is not a respect of something dependent simply as to being, for the changeable, in its being simply, goes along with the agent as co-cause, and it does not receive from the agent its being simply but only its being according to the form introduced. The respects too of product and form introduced are plainly different, although both are respects of dependent to producer, because that depends first which receives being first, and this is the product, but that depends secondarily and per accidens which receives being secondarily, and this is the form educed or introduced.

53. Of these three respects on the part of the agent, the first two are not extrinsic respects coming to the agent, for either the agent does not have a real relation to the thing produced or introduced (as is true of God when he produces creatures or produces something in creatures), or, if the agent does have a real relation, yet the relation necessarily follows the foundation once the term has been posited. But this is more manifest of the respect that follows in the thing produced or educed, which namely is not an extrinsic respect coming to it, because it necessarily follows the foundation once the term has been posited.

54. But the respect that is a respect to the thing acted upon is an extrinsic respect coming to the agent, since it is very well possible for the active and passive thing to be next to each other and yet not to have this respect, because the agent may not be that by which the passive thing is changed, and the passive thing may not be changed by it, if for instance there is something preventing the action. Therefore action, since it is an extrinsic respect coming to it as it has been drawn out, will be a relation of the agent to the changed passive thing.

55. And there is confirmation of this from the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5.12.1019a15-16, 20a4-6, who defines active power to be ‘a principle of changing another insofar as it is other’; but just as active power is a principle, so action - which is the act of an active power - will be the changing of another, that is of the passive thing, insofar as it is other. But the two other respects, namely of production and introduction, or eduction, and that whether they are active or passive, will belong to the category of relation properly speaking, because they are intrinsic respects coming to a thing.