b. Objections or Rejection of the Opinion

α. Against the Responses to the Objections

134. Response against the first [n.133]: because then the intended conclusion is obtained, that if the subject cannot be separated from the property, this is because of some necessity in the subject with respect to the property; but this necessity will be reduced to some causality - and not to the causality of material cause, because matter is capable of contradictory predicates;     therefore to that of efficient cause, and then substance will be the efficient cause of some property (unless one goes on infinitely putting property before property).

135. The intended conclusion is got in a second way [n.133], because the objection posed against the major confirms it, for God can supply every causality of an extrinsic cause; the causality of subject with respect to property (which is the reason there is necessity there) is the causality of an extrinsic cause; therefore etc     .

136. The confirmation they give for this response, that the subject falls into the definition of the property [n.133], is of no validity, because then no accident could be separated from its subject, for according to the Philosopher the idea of the substance must fall into the idea of any accident.

137. This objection about subject and accident can also be rejected in another way, for it would follow that the substance of bread could not be without quantity and vice versa; for whatever is per se and first present in a superior is per se, though not first, present in the inferior (an example about triangle and isosceles triangle and having angles equal to two right angles); but being continuous is per se and first present in corporeal substance; therefore it is per se, though not first, present in bread, and consequently the bread cannot remain without the same continuity nor the same continuity without the bread, for an accident does not pass over from subject to subject. And then neither the quantity nor the Eucharist could remain without the substance of bead - which they and the general school deny.

β. Against the Objection’s and the Opinion’s Conclusion

138. Against the conclusion of this opinion, namely that a substantial form, according to them, cannot be the immediate principle of acting, argument was given above in d.12 nn.188-193, and let it suffice briefly to repeat it now:

139. Because the principle of acting is that wherein the producer assimilates the produced to itself; but the form of the producer does not assimilate the produced to itself in a more perfect form; rather it assimilates the produced to itself in the substantial form;     therefore etc     .

140. Secondly as follows: an instrument, according to them, only acts as a moved mover; therefore in order for it to move, it is moved immediately by the principal agent; and so, in order for it to move as instrument of a substance, it will be moved immediately by the substance. But this is not valid according to what seems to me to be true about the order of causes; for I do not believe that the second cause, which is sometimes called the instrument, receives a special motion from the first cause but only has some subordination of its active form to the active form of the other, by some subordination: for when the prior cause actually is in existence and in its order of causing, the second cause is of a nature to proceed to act in its order of causing; and thus is the second cause called a ‘moved mover’, not because it receives a motion from the first by which it may move, but because it depends in its moving on the other first naturally moving.

141. The response to the second objection [n.133], namely about quiddity moving the intellect, is that it is not valid; for although substance has intentional being there, yet understanding itself is a real form; therefore one must with respect to it give some real active principle and give it as real. Nor is it valid to have recourse to phantasms, because according to them [Ord. 2 d.3 nn.263-65] the essence of an angel moves the intellect of the angel to an angel’s proper understanding, and one cannot imagine any phantasm there.

γ. To the Arguments for the Objection

142. To the arguments for the objection (or opinion [n.131]), which is about the instrumental causality of an accident with respect to substance: To the first, about the order of essence, being, and power, I say that it is simply false that being is other than essence. And this is proved by their own statements [n.141], for it is impossible for the generated as generated to have being per se, but the generated as generated or as first term of generation is per se one. Let it also be the case that there is the sort of order of being and power that they imagine - I say that power would precede being, for in whatever instant of nature or duration the essence is perfect, in that same instant the principle for performing the operations proper to the power is perfect, and so the power is perfect - and then, if being is other than essence, power precedes being.

143. To the second [n.132] I say that the major proposition is universally false of first and second act, because thus one would prove that nothing is an active principle in creatures; for form must give act to the thing it forms, and if the thing is active it must have reference to that in which it causes second act; but these are distinct, because one of them can be separated from the other without contradiction.

144. I reply therefore that the major is not true of ordered first and second acts but is universally false, for a form that gives second act gives also first act and vice versa, and in this way does it apply to ‘making alive’ and ‘understanding’; and therefore the major is of no validity for the intended conclusion.

145. But if the major is true of disparate second acts and of a finite active principle, in the way the place adduced from the Philosopher should be understood On the Soul 2.4.415a16-20 [n.132] - this is nothing to the purpose, because ‘to make alive’ and ‘to understand’ are not two such acts.