III. To the Arguments for the Opposite

72. To the arguments for the opposite.

[To the first] - The first [n.54] I concede.

73. [To the second] - To the second [n.55] I say that if the bread were converted into the quantity of Christ’s body yet Christ’s body would not be here nor its quantity, as was touched on in the first question of distinction 10 [nn.39-41].

74. To the proof touched on above but not solved [d.10 n.29], namely that ‘the thing generated is where the thing corrupted was’, I say that for this reason is it the case there, because the matter remains common, which in generation is not moved from there in place; and consequently the matter receives the form where it is, and hence what is generated from the matter and the form is where the thing corrupted was.

75. On the contrary: the matter is not the reason for being located in place, but quantity is; and the same quantity does not remain in the thing generated and the thing corrupted save as it is in the matter; therefore matter is not the reason why the generated thing is where the corrupted thing was before.

76. I say that matter by itself is disposed to be in place definitively, just as is any limited substance; but it has being in place circumscriptively as it is under quantity. So because it remains definitively where it was, therefore does it receive form there, and for this reason is the generated substance definitively there where the corrupted substance was before; and where a substance is definitively, there is it circumscriptively as it is a quantum. And therefore does it follow that the generated thing, as possessing quantity circumscriptively, is where the corrupted thing was circumscriptively. But one must not think that sometimes it was a substance here or there definitively and not circumscriptively anywhere; because it was never without the quantity that was the idea of circumscription.

77. Nevertheless, by not positing any quantity that remains the same (which I believe to be more true), one does not have to posit something remaining circumscriptively the same, nor posit the idea of being in the same place in the generated thing and in the corrupted thing; but the matter remaining in the place definitively where the thing corrupted was is sufficient.

78. It could be said,     therefore , that where also an agent finds a passive subject it gives it form there; but the agent generates, and in generating does not change place; therefore it gives being to the passive subject there; and where the passive subject receives form, there it is a composite of passive subject and introduced form; therefore etc     .

79. Having conceded, then, according to the common opinion that ‘the term of conversion could be there where the thing converted was’, I say that the ‘where’ should not be understood precisely, but in this way or that way part by part; and thus, where the bread was before, the body of Christ could be as a quantum precisely, or as in a part of its ‘where’, so that a part would be there and a part in the surrounding ‘where’. Let it also be that the principle common to some people [Aquinas, Richard of Middleton] were maintained, that ‘the term of conversion is where the thing converted was before’, yet it is not located there in place.

80. And thus one could concede that, if the quantity were the first term of the conversion, it would be where the substance of the bread was before, yet it would not be located there in place. And this is the argument against the other way [Richard of Middleton, Giles of Rome, Godfrey of Fontaines], which posits that for this reason is the quantity of Christ not here as in a place, because it is the second term and not the first -for let it be that it was the first, still it would not necessarily be here in place; for this mode could as much be separated from the first term of the conversion as from the second.

81. [To the third] - To the third [n.56] the answer is made that Augustine and Boethius are speaking by comparison with created potency.

82. But this is nothing, because no created virtue can convert any body whatever into any body whatever.

83. Therefore I say differently that there are as many reasons for impossibility as there are reasons for repugnance, and when some of these are removed there is a possibility that there was not before - not indeed a possibility simply, but from a part of it. For example, sight cannot receive intellection, both because intellection is not extended while sight is extended, and because sight knows something only under the idea of a singular and intellect understands not precisely under the idea of a singular. Take away one impossibility, namely if sight were a power that could have an object under the idea of a universal, and yet another idea of impossibility were to remain, this latter case would be impossible just as the former would be. And yet the latter would be said to be possible in reference to the former, not simply but because the idea of impossibility in the latter is not the idea of impossibility in the former.

84. To the matter at issue: each body has some non-repugnance to being converted into a body, namely because it has a quantum of matter and the like concurring ideas for being convertible; every spirit has opposite reasons to these. Therefore, although it is impossible simply for a celestial body to be converted into an elemental body, in the way it is impossible for a spirit to be converted into fire, because with respect to any created agent both are impossible, yet, with respect to an uncreated agent, just as one is possible so is the other. However, the one is said to be possible and the other impossible, because there is an idea of impossibility here that there is not there.

85. [To the fourth] - To the fourth [n.57] I concede that an absolute could be converted into a relative and conversely, but it does not further follow that there would be a relative without a foundation and term, because a term of conversion receives being through conversion in the way that it can have being; but a relation cannot have being without a foundation and term.

86. Nor does it follow that if the term ‘from which’ was without these therefore the term ‘to which’ can be without them, just as this is not the case in other things where one term requires different things for its being that the other term does not require.

87. I say, therefore, that if an absolute were converted into a relative, the relative would require a foundation and a term - and it would have them, whether the old ones that preceded the conversion or new ones. An example of this response in the case of other things: This inference does not hold: ‘a stone can be converted into knowledge and conversely, and a stone does not inform any intellect, therefore neither does knowledge inform it’. For however much something is converted, the term of the conversion will always have its proper mode of existing, just as the term ‘from which’ of conversion had its own proper mode of existing before the conversion.