I. To the Question

182. In this question all who hold that beatitude consists in operation agree in holding that it consists only in some operation of the intellective part [of the soul] as distinguished from the sensitive part, because only an immaterial power can by its operation attain the perfect good, in which alone (as in its object) is beatitude. But as to the operation of which of these powers alone it consist in (if it consists in a single one), or principally consist in (if it consists in both), opinions arise.

A. Opinion of Thomas Aquinas

1. Exposition of the Opinion

183. One opinion [Aquinas, Sent. IV d.49 q.1 a.1] posits that beatitude consists in an act of intellect principally and essentially, and in act of will as in a certain perfection extrinsic to and supervening on vision - in which vision is the substance of beatitude.

184. The reason for this is of the following sort: beatitude either is the ultimate extrinsic end, which a thing attains by its operation, or is the ultimate intrinsic end, and is that operation alone which conjoins first with the exterior end; an act of will is the ultimate end in neither way; therefore beatitude too does not consist, in this way or that, in the will as an act of it - though it is in the will as object, because the idea of good is the object of the will, and beatitude, as it is the ultimate end, has most of all the idea of good.

185. Proof of the minor [n.184]:

As to its first part [‘an act of will is not the ultimate extrinsic end’]: first because the object of the will is the end, so every willing is a certain being ordered to the end; second because willing cannot be the first thing willed (for it presupposes that something other than willing is willed first, because a reflected act presupposes a direct act that has its term in something other than an act of the power, otherwise there would be an infinite regress). Something like this appears in the intellect, because [an act of] understanding cannot be the first thing understood, but something other than the very [act of] understanding is the object first of a direct act of understanding.

186. Proof of the second part of the minor [n.184, ‘an act of will is not the ultimate intrinsic end’], because the operation that first conjoins with the exterior end is the operation by which the attainment of the exterior end first comes about; an act of will is not of such sort, because there is one act of will before attainment of the end, namely desire, which is a sort of motion toward something not possessed, and another act of will is a sort of resting in the end. It is plain that the will does not first attain the end through the first act, because it lacks the end when it has that act. Nor does it do so through the second act; the proof is that the second act follows attainment; for the will is only now at rest in the thing it was tending to before because it is disposed differently now to the thing than before, or conversely. Therefore, what makes the will to be thus disposed to the end, so as to be (in it or through it) at rest in that which before it was tending toward, is the ultimate attainment of the end; such is the act of vision, because through this a certain contact of God with the intellect comes about (for the thing known is in the knower). Through this contact the object is so disposed to the will that the will can now be at rest in what before it could not.

187. This is confirmed by an example in the sense appetite, that if the sensible object is the extrinsic end, sensation is the intrinsic end, because the sensible object is first possessed through the sensation in such a way that the sense appetite can be at rest in it.

188. This is plain too in another example, that if money is the extrinsic end, possession of money is the intrinsic end, which intrinsic end is followed by the resting of the will in the loved money.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

189. Against this:

The extrinsic end is simply best and supremely to be willed, therefore, among the things that are for it, what is more immediate to it is more to be willed; but willing is more immediate to it, because it immediately tends to it as to ultimate end, since the ultimate end, as such, is the proper object of the willing.

190. Proof of the major:

That is more to be willed by a free will which is naturally more to be desired by natural appetite; of this sort is what is closer to the ultimate, because it is simply more desired naturally.

191. Again, the will can will its own act just as the intellect can understand its own act; either then it wills its willing on account of understanding, or conversely, or it wills neither on account of the other (and I am speaking of ordered willing). Not the first because, according to Anselm Why God Man 2.1, it would be a perverse order to will to love in order to understand;Anselm, “For this purpose has man received the power of discriminating, so that he might hate and avoid the bad and love and choose the good... For otherwise in vain would God have given this power of discriminating, because man would discriminate in vain if.he did not love the good and hate the bad.” ⁴⁶ nor the third, because, in the case of things ordered per se to the same end, there is some order among them as if to an end under the end; therefore the second - and this is what Anselm maintains in the above cited place.

192. Again, if extrinsic beatitude were simply supremely to be willed, then that most of all is intrinsic beatitude, which, among things intrinsic, is supremely to be willed; of this sort is some willing; for the will more desires its own perfection in the ultimate end than the perfection of the intellect (and this, when speaking of correct free appetite, it does rightly), just as it naturally more desires it by natural appetite.

193. To the reasoning [n.184-85], then, I concede the first part of the minor and the first part of the conclusion, namely that the act of will is not the ultimate end altogether.

194. But neither so is the act of the intellect (according to them [n.185]); however, the act of will does approach more to the simply ultimate end - just as the first reason [n.184] proves about attaining, through this act, the end as proper object, and the third [n.184] about the greater wantability of this act, and the second about the idea of end in this act in respect of the act of intellect [n.184].

195. Nor do the proofs for the first part [n.185] prove more than is given:

For the act of will is ordered or orderable thus to the end simply because it is more immediate to it in the order of the things that are for the end; but the act of intellect, if it is not ordered, is yet orderable and mediately so, and for this reason it participates less of the idea of end.

196. The second proof [n.185] shows that something is willed prior to the willing itself; and I concede this, because the object is extrinsic; but the object is not intellection, at least when speaking of what is willed first in perfection, whatever may be true of firstness in generation; for that firstness does not prove anything for the proposed conclusion, namely that what is first willed is more an end.

The second part of the minor [n.184] I deny.

As to the proof [n.186] I concede that through an act of desire, which is for something absent, there is no attainment of the end; but through another act, which namely is the love of the thing present, there is attainment of the end first, speaking of the firstness of perfection, though through an act of intellect there is some sort of prior attaining of the end by priority of generation. But now, according to the Philosopher, Metaphysics 9.8.1050a4-5, “things posterior in generation are prior in perfection,” which is true of the posterior that is simply more immediate to the ultimate, which ultimate is what is simply perfect. So it is here.

197. When the proposed conclusion is proved about second act, that it is a resting in the end and consequently posterior to the attaining of the end [n.186], I say that resting can be understood either for delight properly speaking (which is a perfection supervenient to operation, as beauty to youth), and thus do some [Richard of Middleton] understand this reasoning, as if this opinion [of Thomas, nn.183-188] posit that with respect to the present object the will have only a delight consequent to the vision of the intellect; and if resting be thus taken for delight, I concede that it follows the attainment of the end, and the attainment first not only in generation but in perfection, because it follows the act of loving or enjoying the end seen, which is truly an elicited act of the will. But it is false that the will not elicit any act but have only passive delight about the lovable object present. Therefore does Augustine say On the Trinity 9.12 n.18, “The appetite of the seeker becomes the love of the enjoyer.”

198. Now this appetite or desire is not passion only: first because “we are not praised or blamed for our passions,” Ethics 2.4.1105b31-32 (but the greatest part of the merit and laudability of the just wayfarer consists in holy desires), second because for an object presented in the same way the will elicits desire sometimes more intensely, sometimes more laxly, according as it elicits it with greater or lesser effort.

199. It is also reasonable that if the will in desiring elicit an act, as is said in Lectura II d.25 n.36 (for which there is the authority of Augustine, City of God 14.6, about two similarly affected people,“For if two people, equally affected in mind and body, see the beauty of a single body and, when it is seen, one of them is moved to illicit enjoyment, the other perseveres settled in chaste will, what do we think is the cause that a bad will come to be in the former and not in the latter?” ⁴⁷ and of Anselm Virginal Conception 1“God has subjected us and what is in us to the will, so that on its command we not be able not to move and do what it wills. Indeed, it moves us as its instruments and does the deeds that we are seen to do. Nor are we able to resist it by ourselves, nor can the works that it does not come to be. The mistress, which God has given us, we neither should, nor can we, not obey.” ⁴⁸), that it also elicit an act about the end present, because if by acting it move itself toward a thing not possessed, it is reasonable that by acting it give itself rest in the thing present.

200. If then ‘resting’ is taken in another way for the quietening act elicited by the will, which act namely conjoins immediately with the ultimate end, in the way ultimate rest is in it, I concede that the resting is a second act of the will [n.197]. But I deny that it follows the first attainment of the end, I mean first in firstness of perfection; rather, in this way is it the first attainment, though it does follow some attainment, that is, the presence of this enjoyable object, which presence is by act of intellect.

201. But when speaking of first attainment in this way, namely the first presence of the object so that the will might be able, through its own act, to rest itself in it, I deny that this operation is the ultimate intrinsic end, through which is the first attainment of the extrinsic end; because the operation that is in this way first in attaining does not conjoin with the extrinsic end immediately, to the exclusion of all mediation of anything else nearer to the end.

202. If against this be adduced the proof that the will can now, not before, be at rest, therefore ‘it is disposed differently now to the end than before, or conversely’ [n.186], I reply that the consequence does not hold, but it is enough that some power, prior to the will in operating, be differently disposed to the object, by the positing, namely, of whose different disposition the will has power for the act for which it did not have power before, not by alteration of itself but of what was previous to it in acting.

203. Briefly then: the first part of the deduction [n.185] is not against any opinion, because no one posits that the act of the created will is God; nor is the second part [n.186] about the first act of will, namely desire, doubtful to anyone. The force then [of the deduction] rests in this: whether any act of will, other than desire, could be first in reaching the ultimate end.

204. And the proof adduced there about resting [nn.197, 186] is a failure of equivocation. For if resting is taken for the delight consequent to perfect operation, I concede that perfect reaching of the end precedes that resting; but if resting is taken for the act of resting in the end, I say that the act of loving, which naturally precedes delight, gives rest in this way, because an operative power only rests in an object through the perfect operation through which it attains the object. And then the proposition ‘the first, that is, the perfect, attainment of the object precedes resting in the object’ is false, though having an appearance of truth from comparison with the motion by which a movable thing attains the term and attains rest in that term, since movement to the term precedes rest in the term.

205. But this comparison with the proposed conclusion is not valid, because the same operation is here perfectly attaining, and perfectly giving, rest, because the resting is in the perfect attainment of the object. And universally, when applying such likenesses taken from motions to operations, one must give up what, because it is a mark of imperfection, is therefore proper to motion. But so is here its distinction from rest; and, by opposition to it, the following are in operation in a unitive way: attainment of the object (as if by motion, or rather by tendency toward it), and resting in the object (since indeed such tendency toward it gives rest in it).

206. But if every operation of the will about a present object be denied other than delight - this is irrational, because if the will is operative about an absent object, but an object known imperfectly because obscurely, much more perfectly will it be able to operate about an object present perfectly, because seen.

207. If it is argued that the will can be at rest in the object now, not before, therefore it is differently disposed to the object (or conversely) than before [n.186] - I reply: the consequence is not valid, but it is enough that some power, a different one prior in operating, be disposed differently to the object than before [cf. n.202, repetition]; nor is it a wonder that a power, which in operating requires another operating power, is not altogether in proximate potency to operating save when the other is operating.

208. If it is argued that at any rate through that new thing, through which as new the will can be at rest now, the will was not able to be so then, therefore the attaining of the end is through that and is prior to the resting of the will (as is plain), therefore the first attainment of the end will be in that other act - I reply: first by firstness of generation, not by firstness of perfection; but beatitude is first attainment by firstness of perfection.

209. But if you argue that altogether, before any resting of the power, the possession or attainment of the end precedes, namely because the power can operate now and was not able to before, because it is not without some change, which change is only to possessing of the object - it follows that in no operation, even of the intellect, could there be a first attainment of the object, and so not beatitude either. And then the reasoning goes to the other opinion, that beatitude is not in operation but in some possessing of the object preceding all operation, which was spoken about in the first question [n.121].

B. Scotus’ own Response to Each Part of the Question

210. As to this question, argument from a number of middle terms is made for each part.

1. Argumentation from the First Middle Term, namely from the Object, and the Weighing of it

211. One middle term is from the object.

On behalf of the understanding, as follows: the true is nearer to being than the good is.

212. On behalf of the will, as follows: the idea of good is nobler because it is good by its essence, the true is good by participation; likewise, the universal good is nobler than a particular good, the true is a particular good because the good is an object of the intellect.

213. This middle term seems efficacious for neither opinion, because the major in both cases seems false, for the true and good are not really distinct, and consequently neither is one really nobler than the other.

214. But if one of them is said to be nobler than the other in idea (understanding ‘idea’ for something caused by the intellect), this is a relation of reason arising from the intellect comparing these things to others - this nobility does not make for the proposed conclusion, because a relation of reason is not the formal idea of the first object of intellect or will.

215. Likewise, to what will the comparison be made? If to the divine persons (to the Son, namely, to whom true corresponds in being, and to the Holy Spirit, to whom good corresponds), the divine persons are not different in nobility. But if they [the true and good] be compared to things posterior to them, namely to the acts of which they are the objects, there is now a circle in the reasoning.

216. And if they are posited to differ in real idea, as was said of the attributes in Ord. I d.8 nn.192-193, then some nobility in one of them (according to the proper idea of it) with respect to the other can well be preserved, and this before an act of intellect; because just as there is a distinction between things of a different idea, so is there inequality between them, especially if the distinction is quidditative, not hypostatic, and between absolutes. But perhaps neither true nor good assert absolute ideas beyond being.

217. The minor, too, of each reason is dubious as to the part that says ‘the good is the object of the will’ and false as to the part that says ‘the true is the object of the intellect’, as was said in Ord. I d.3 nn.171-174.

218. Both the major, then, and the minor require a lengthier discussion than may concern the present question.

219. Giving weight, then, to this middle term [sc. ‘from the object’] in favor of neither side, I respond to the reasons taken from this middle term:

As to the first [n.211] the inference is to the opposite effect, because just as being is potential with respect to any particular idea so what is more potential will be closer to it.

220. But against this: the idea of being precisely taken is nobler than any idea superadded to it precisely taken, just as the idea of the subject is nobler than the idea of the accident; therefore, what is closer to it as it is most perfect will be more perfect. Hence it is false that being is disposed to other things as matter is to form, but rather it is as it were an active potency (as subject to property).

221. In another way it is said that something can be closer in one order to what is most perfect and another thing closer in another order; just as quantity is more immediate to substance than quality in one order, and yet quality is a more perfect thing and consequently closer [to substance] in another order. But that is simply more perfect which is in a nobler order, or according to a nobler condition, closer to what is most perfect, as good is closer to being in the order of communicating perfections or being the term and completing the perfection of another (because of which good is said, in one way, to be communicative, according to Augustine Christian Doctrine 1 ch.31-32, in another way to be the end, Physics 2.3. 24-25, Metaphysics 5.2.1013b25-27, Ethics 1.4.1097a33-34) -though true be nearer to being in its order to powers operative about the whole of being.

222. As to the reason to the contrary [n.212], a first objection is that one could argue similarly about the true. For the true is true by essence, but the good is true by participation; therefore, the true is truer, therefore also greater, because thus does Augustine negatively argue On the Trinity 8.1 n.2, “if not truer, not greater,” where the context is only about things convertible.

223.     Therefore I reply that all these transcendentals [sc. good, true] denominate each other mutually, and for this reason ‘being essentially true’ is of equal perfection as ‘being essentially good’, unless it be proved that the idea of true is nobler than the idea of good, and conversely.

224. Another response is realer, because the ‘more’ [sc. in ‘nobler’, ‘closer’ etc     .] can be referred to the inherence or to the predicate; inherence follows the identity of the extremes. Therefore, what is essentially present is more present to the extent it determines inherence or identity, but not to the extent it determines the inhering extreme (an example: a white animal is not a more white thing than a man who is white).The term ‘white’ in the phrase ‘a white animal’ inheres in the term ‘animal’ more than ‘white’ in the phrase ‘a man who is white’ inheres in the term ‘man’ (for in the first the noun is directly qualified and in the second only by apposition); but the white animal is not thereby said to be a whiter thing than the man. ⁴⁹

2. Argumentation from the Second Middle Term, namely from the Habit, and the Weighing of it

225. Argument is made, second, from habit, because an act is nobler that a nobler habit disposes to. Some habit of the intellect is nobler than any habit of the will because, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 1.2.983a4-7, wisdom is the noblest habit and the same is expressly said in Ethics 6.7.1141a16-20 and 10.7.1177a22-25. But no habit [of the will] is nobler, in the Philosopher, than justice or at any rate than friendship, about which it is plain that they are, according to him, far below wisdom.

226. To the contrary, I Corinthians 13.13, “But the greater of these is love;” and Augustine On the Trinity 15.18 n.37, “Among the gifts of God no gift is greater than charity, nor equal to it” (plainly speaking about a gift of a different idea).

227. The response [Aquinas, Sent. IV d.49 q.1 a.1] made to the Apostle and Augustine is that their understanding holds for the state of this life, but for the state of the fatherland the light of glory is nobler. The proof is that that to which, because of its perfection, belonging to something imperfect is repugnant is more perfect than that to which this is not repugnant; the light of glory, because of its perfection, is repugnant to being present in a wayfarer but not to being present in charity.

A confirmation: what distinguishes the perfect from the imperfect is more perfect than what is common to both; the light of glory distinguishes the comprehender [in heaven] from the wayfarer; charity is common.

228. Argument against this response:

First from the authority of Hugh [of St. Victor] On the Celestial Hierarchy 6.7 [supra n.21], about the “acute, super-fervent, hot,” says “love is supreme over knowledge;” hence the supreme order [of angels] is denominated from its ardor, the next to it from its knowledge.

229. Again, by reason:

The most perfect habit of will on the way [for the wayfarer] perfects the will according to the capacity that it has at that time; therefore, if it is nobler than any habit of intellect [as the response to the Apostle and Augustine conceded, nn.226-227], the capacity of the will on the way is greater (or for something greater) than the capacity of the intellect; therefore it is greater in the fatherland too, because either there is the same capacity here as there (speaking of remote capacity, which is according to the rank of the nature with the capacity), or the capacity there will correspond proportionally to the capacity here (speaking of proximate capacity); for the first capacity [capacity on the way] can only be totally satisfied by something proportionally perfecting it, so only by something more noble than it; but it is for something more noble [sc. than the intellect is for, as was conceded, nn.226-227].

230. This middle term [n.225] seems rather to conclude in favor of the will, especially when speaking of infused habits, which dispose to the true beatitude that the theologians speak of.

231. As to the authority of the Philosopher [n.225], it could be said that, although wisdom were a nobler acquired habit, it does not follow that it dispose to a nobler act, speaking of supernatural act, of which sort is beatitude.

232. But to the contrary [sc. to the concession, n.231, that wisdom is a nobler acquired habit]: the will is a power able to be habituated by an acquired habit just as the intellect is; therefore, the supreme acquired habit of the will can exceed wisdom just as its supreme infused habit exceeds the supreme habit infused in the intellect.

233. It could also be said that the Philosopher commonly did not distinguish intellect from will in idea of operative principle, or operative in extrinsic operation; hence he holds this principle, as it is distinct from nature, to be the same, now art or intellect, now intention [Ord. I d.2 n.351]. Likewise, neither does he distinguish the principle in its intrinsic operation in regard to the end; hence too he does not distinguish wisdom’s speculation from love, but rather its speculation includes love - or at any rate he does not assert that intellection suffices without volition, because, as intellection is distinguished from this other act (which act [of volition] is less manifest), he neither affirms nor denies it.

3. Argumentation from the Third Middle Term, namely from the Comparison of Act with Act, and the Weighing of it

234. The third middle term is from comparison of act with act.

First as follows: an equivocal efficient cause is nobler than the effect; an act of intellect in respect of an end is cause of an act in respect of the will, because when the former is posited the latter is, and when the former is removed the latter is - and it is plainly an equivocal cause.

235. To the contrary, from the same middle term [n.234]: the will gives commands to the intellect; therefore, an act of will is an equivocal efficient cause in respect of intellection.

It is confirmed by Anselm, Virginal Conception 4 [n.199].a

a.a [Interpolation] where he says that the will moves itself against the judgement of the other powers, and that it moves all other powers according to its own command; and Augustine City of God 19.14 [in fact 14.5-6, 28] says that the will uses all the other powers.

236. Similarly, Metaphysics 9.8.1050a4-5, “What is posterior in generation is prior in perfection;” volition is posterior in generation; nor is it this alone, but it has the idea of end with respect to intellection, according to Anselm Why God Man 2.1; and Augustine City of God 19.14, “The rational soul is present in man so that he may contemplate something in his mind and do something accordingly,” and later, “so that he may cognize something useful and manage his life and morals according to that knowledge.”

237. I reply: neither is an act of intellect total cause of an act of will, but a partial cause (if it is any cause), nor conversely is the will total cause of intellection.

238. The major [sc. “an equivocal efficient cause is nobler than the effect,” n.234] is true of a total equivocal efficient cause, but if it is about a partial cause this will be [true] about a cause of a higher order. And in this way is the will, in commanding the intellect, a superior cause of the intellect’s act; but the intellect, if it is a cause of volition, is a cause subservient to the will, as having an action first in the order of generation.

239. And so this middle term concludes probably on behalf of the will, but proves nothing on behalf of the intellect.

240. But that intellection is not the total cause of volition [n.237] is plain, because, since the first intellection is caused by a cause merely natural, intellection too is not free; further, it would cause with like necessity whatever it would cause, and thus, however many circularities may occur in acts of intellect and will, the whole process would merely be by natural necessity - which however is unacceptable. But, in order that freedom in man may be preserved, one must say that, after intellection has been posited, a total cause of volition is not obtained, but the will is more principal with respect to volition - and the will alone is free.

241. As to the proof that “when the former is posited the latter is, and when the former is removed the latter is” [n.234] - the antecedent was rejected in Ord. I d.1. nn.100-146.

242. An argument in another way is given [Thomas Aquinas, Sent. IV d.49 q.1 a.1; cf. Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.49 princ.1 q.7 arg.5]: that is better which, without anything else, would be more choice-worthy; but intellection alone is more choice-worthy than volition alone, because intellection alone would be a perfect act and an act proper to intellectual nature; volition alone would be only a certain inclination (as of a heavy thing to the center [of the earth]).

243. On the contrary, from the same consideration: that by which what has it is simply good is more choice-worthy than that by which what has it is not simply good; but Augustine, On the Trinity 11.28, “neither is a man rightly called good who knows what the good is, but he is who loves the good,” and from this he concludes there that “in the case of men who are rightly loved, the love itself is more loved,” which is the conclusion here intended.

244. Again, in the case of goods that do not include each other, that good is more choice-worthy whose opposite is more to be hated. But prescinding from these things, namely how they do not include each other, the opposite of intellection cannot be as hateful as the opposite of love.

245. Proof of this:

First about the contrary opposite: because no ignorance of God, even the ignorance of infidelity, can be as hateful as hatred of God, if it could be present in the will.

Second about the contradictory opposite: because not to love God is blamable and a sin, when namely it can be had by the proximate power [sc. power of loving]; because he who actually understands God and in no way loves him sins, and he who actually thinks of sin, and does so without any displeasure, sins. But not to understand when, however, one is in proximate power to understanding, is not blamable or a sin.

246. This middle term [n.244] concludes probably in favor of the will.

247 To the argument in favor of the intellect [n.242], I reply: if love were alone it would not only be a natural inclination, as of the heavy to the center of the earth, but it would be an operation proper to intellectual nature; for the fact that it is now operation, and is this sort of operation, it does not have from the intellect formally but concomitantly.

248. An argument is given in another way [Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia q.82 a.3; Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.49 princ. 1 q.7]: that is more perfect which in its perfection is less dependent, because ‘to depend’ is a mark of imperfection; an act of intellect does not depend on the will, but conversely.

249. I reply: things posterior in generation depend on things prior, and yet they are more perfect, Metaphysics 9.8.1050a4-7 [n.236].

250. Similarly, the end depends in its being on that which is for the end and not conversely [n.236]; form also depends on matter and not conversely; bodily quality depends too on quantity insofar as, according to them, ‘being white without a surface’ is a contradiction; and still in all these cases the greater opposite is true, and universally in these generations, where there is dependence on something prior in order of generation. However, it is true that the simply most perfect thing is altogether independent, because as there is first in perfection so also in generation, Metaphysics 9 [nn.249, 236]. Act precedes in time every power, because if there be a circle in the priority of act to power and conversely, yet there is a stand at him who is always moving first; but where two priorities do not come together, the greater opposite is more commonly true.

251. Likewise it could be said that the intellect depends on volition as on a partial but superior cause; conversely volition depends on intellect as on a partial but subservient cause.

252. Another way of arguing is as follows [Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia q.82 a.3]: the act of intellect is purer because it contracts no impurity from the object, because ‘to understand evil’ is not evil; but an act of will contracts impurity, because ‘to will evil’ is evil.

253. Besides this, there is another impurity in the volition [Richard of Middleton, Sent. IV d.49 princ.1 q.7], because it is a movement of the soul to the thing in itself; intellection is not so but is a movement of the thing to the soul or of the thing as it is in the soul, from On the Soul 1.4.408a34-b18 and Metaphysics 6.4.25-31, “True and false are in the soul, good and bad in things outside.”

254. To the contrary: from Topics 2.9.114b20-22, that is purer and better whose corruption is impurer and worse; but the corruption of the will is such, because ‘to will evil’ is evil for you [Thomas, n.252], not so ‘to understand’.

255. Similarly, the reasoning [n.252] is otherwise at fault in two ways:

In one way because it should compare understanding the corrupt thing, which is false [understanding], with willing the corrupt thing, which is evil [willing], and then the proposed conclusion follows through the reason already stated [n.252, sc. the intellect contracts impurity from the object, because it contracts falsity, therefore it is not purer than the will].

256. In another way because the will can have a good act about any object whatever [sc. including an evil object], just as can also the intellect; for the will can hate evil well, just as the intellect can understand well that evil is to be hated.

257. If, finally, this proposition be taken, ‘that act is impurer which is rendered impure by impurity of object’ - I reply: an act of the intellect is such, because it is necessarily false from the fact it is of a false object [a false object is not a thing but a proposition about a thing, and if the intellect has a false proposition for its object it is necessarily false]; but an act of will is not impure and evil because it is of an evil object, save concomitantly [sc. because an evil object is not evil as an object, but as willed in an evil way].

258. But if you say that an act of will is impure from its object, by impurity of malice, not so an act of intellect - the conclusion does not follow, because then an act of sense would be nobler than an act of will, because it is less impure [sc. therefore lack of impurity, as per n.252, is not a good way to prove nobility].

259. The second reason [n.253], namely about tendency to the thing in itself, concludes to the opposite:

First from their own statements [Thomas and Richard], because they concede that an act of will in respect of things superior to the will itself is nobler than an act of intellect. From this follows, ‘therefore this act in genus is nobler than that act in genus’, because, if the best is nobler than the best, the genus too is nobler than the genu and the species than the species, for a whole species together is superior to any other whole species.

260. Second: an act is not perfect unless it conjoins with a perfect object; but an act of will conjoins with the object in itself as it is in itself, and an act of intellect conjoins with it only as the object is in the knower. Now the beatific object is simply nobler in itself than as it is in the knower; therefore, an act of will conjoins with the beatific object simply under a nobler idea.

261. As to the authority of the Philosopher in Metaphysics [n.253], I say that both intuitive knowledge and the love that follows it tend to an object as it is existent in itself; but abstractive knowledge and the consequent love tend to an object that has known being; so in this respect there is no difference between intellect and will, because each power can tend to its object as it is in itself and to the object as it has diminished being in the intellect. However, the Philosopher was speaking in common of abstractive intellection and of will as it is desiderative, how it tends to a thing not now existing but future (and this as to the term or effect of the act of desire). But to the same thing, as to its object, the will only tends as the thing has being in the intellect, because when it is desired the thing has no other being that it could be object by.