II. To the Question

129. To the question then [n.108] I say in brief that no object of our intellect natural to it can be posited on the basis of the above sort of virtual adequacy, for the reason touched on against the primacy of a virtual object in God or in substance [nn.127-128]. Either then no first object will be posited, or one must look for a first object that is adequate because of the commonness in it. But if being is posited as equivocal between created and uncreated being, substance and accident, then, since all these are per se knowable to us, no object seems it can be posited to be the first object of our intellect either because of its virtuality or because of its commonness. But by positing the position I set down in the first question of this distinction, about the univocity of being [nn.26-55], the fact that there is some first object of our intellect can in some way be preserved.

130. To understand this I first make clear of what sort the univocity of being is and to what things it extends [nn.131-136, cf. n.45], and second from this I make clear the issue at hand [sc. about being and the first object of the intellect, nn.137-151].

A. Of What Sort the Univocity of Being is and to What Things it Extends.

131. As to the first point I say that being is not a univocal assertion in the ‘what’ of all per se intelligibles, because not of ultimate differences, nor of the proper passions of being. (A difference is called ultimate because it does not have a difference - because it is not resolved into a quidditative and qualitative concept, a determinable and determinate concept; but there is only a qualitative concept of it, just as an ultimate genus has only a quidditative concept.)

132. The first claim, namely about ultimate differences, I prove in two ways. First as follows: if differences include being univocally said of them, and these differences are not altogether the same, then they are diverse entities in some respect the same. Such are differences properly, from Metaphysics 5.9.1018a12-13, 10.3.1054b25-27. Therefore, ultimate differences will be differences properly; therefore they differ in other differences. But if these other differences include being quidditatively, the same follows about them as about the former, and so there would be a regress to infinity in differences; or a stand will be made at some differences that do not include being quidditatively, which is the conclusion intended, because they alone will be ultimates [see also n.136 below].

133. Second as follows: just as a composite being is composed of act and potency in the thing, so a composite concept per se one is composed of a potential and actual concept, or composed of determinable and determining concept. Just as therefore the resolution of composite being stops ultimately at simply simples, namely at ultimate act and ultimate potency, which are diverse primarily, such that nothing of one includes anything of the other (otherwise this one would not be act primarily, and that one would not be potency primarily, for what includes something of potentiality is not act primarily) - so in the case of concepts must it be that every concept that is not simply simple [n.71], and yet is per se one, is resolved into a determinable and determining concept, such that resolution stops at simply simple concepts. That is, it stops at a concept that is determinable only, such that it include nothing determining it, and at a concept that is determining only, which does not include any determinable concept. The concept that is determinable only is the concept of being, and the concept that is determining only is the concept of ultimate difference. Therefore, these will be diverse primarily, such that one never includes the other.

134. The second claim, namely about the properties of being [n.131], I prove in two ways. First as follows: a property per se in the second mode A predication is per se in the second mode when the subject falls into the definition of the predicate, as ‘man is capable of laughter’, since laughter is expulsion of sound on the apprehension of the ridiculous, and only a man, a rational animal, has both a mind to apprehend the ridiculous (which is a sort of incongruity apprehended in things) and a physical mouth to expel sound on that apprehension. Angels, by contrast, can apprehend the ridiculous but do not have mouths to produce sound; their laughter is virtual. Brute animals have mouths to produce sound but no apprehension of the ridiculous (at least qua ridiculous). A predication is per se in the first mode, by contrast, when the predicate falls into the definition of the subject, as precisely in ‘man is a rational animal’. ¹⁹ is predicated of the subject (Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a37-b5); therefore, the subject is put in the definition of the predicate as something added (from ibid. and Metaphysics 7.5.1031a2-14). Being therefore falls into the idea of its property as something added. For being does have its own properties, as is plain from the Philosopher in Metaphysics 4.2.1004b10-17, where he maintains that, just as a line qua line has properties, and number qua number, so there are certain properties of being qua being. But being falls into the idea of them as something added; therefore it is not in their quidditative idea as per se in the first mode. This is also confirmed by the Philosopher in Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a34-b5, ‘On the status of principles’, where he maintains that per se predications are not convertible; because if a predicate is said per se of a subject, the converse is not said per se but per accidens. Therefore if this predication ‘being is one’ is per se in the second mode, the predication ‘one is being’ is not per se in the first mode but per accidens as it were, as this proposition ‘what is capable of laughter is man’.

135. Second as follows: being seems to be sufficiently divided (as regard division into the things that include it quidditatively) into uncreated being and into the ten categories and the essential parts of the ten categories. At least it does not seem to have more things quidditatively dividing it, however it may be with these divisions. Therefore if ‘one’ and ‘true’ include being quidditatively, being will be contained under some one of them. But being is not one of the ten categories, as is plain; nor is it of itself uncreated being, because it belongs to created beings. So it would be a species in some genus, or an essential principle of some genus. But this is false, because every essential part in any genus, and all the species of any genus, include some limitation, and so any transcendental would be of itself finite, and consequently would be repugnant to infinite being, and could not be said of infinite being formally - which is false, because all transcendentals state perfections simply and belong to God supremely.

136. Thirdly it can be argued (and herein is confirmed the first argument [n.132] for this conclusion [n.131]), that if ‘one’ includes being quidditatively, it does not include precisely being, because then that being would be its own property. Therefore it includes being and something else. Let that something else be a; either then a includes being or it does not. If it does, ‘one’ would include being twice, and there would be an infinite regress. Or, wherever a stop will be made, let that last thing, which belongs to the idea of ‘one’ and does not include being, be called a: the ‘one’, by reason of the included ‘being’, is not a property [of being], because the same thing is not a property of itself, and consequently that other included thing, which is a, is primarily the property, and is such that it does not include being quidditatively. And so, whatever is primarily a property of being does, thereby, not include being quidditatively. The term ‘one’ states a property of being (it states being as undivided). So if ‘being’ belonged to the quiddity of ‘one’, and if therefore the predication ‘one is being’ were per se in the first mode with ‘being’ falling into the definition of ‘one’, then the ‘being’ which falls into the definition of ‘one’ would be the definition of a property of being, and being would be a property of itself. So if, to avoid this, ‘one’ is said to include being and something else in its definition, as in ‘one is undivided being’, then the something else, namely ‘undivided’, either includes being in its definition or it does not. If it does, then ‘undivided’ is defined as ‘undivided being’ and wherever ‘undivided’ appears one can replace it with the definition ‘undivided being’. Consequently, to say ‘one is undivided being’ is to say ‘one is undivided being being’, and then to say ‘one is undivided being being being’, and so on ad infinitum. So if, alternatively, one makes a stop at ‘undivided’ and does not define ‘undivided’ as ‘undivided being’, and if therefore in the definition of one as ‘undivided being’ the ‘being’ is excluded from the definition of ‘undivided’ but is still included in the definition of ‘one’, then this ‘one’ is, after all, not the relevant property of being but rather the ‘undivided’ is, and this ‘undivided’ cannot now, ex hypothesi, include ‘being’ in its definition. ²⁰

B. About the First Object of the Intellect

137. As to the second article [n.130] I say that it follows from these four reasons [nn.132-135 - with n.136 as a fifth complementing the first] that, since nothing can be more common than being and since being cannot be a common univocal term asserted in the ‘what’ of all per se intelligibles (because not so asserted of ultimate differences, nor of the properties of them) - it follows that nothing is a first object of our intellect on account of its commonness in the ‘what’ as to every per se intelligible. And yet this notwithstanding, I do say that the first object of our intellect is being, for in being there comes together a double primacy, namely of commonness and virtuality; because every per se intelligible either essentially includes the idea of being, or is contained virtually or essentially in something that essentially includes the idea of being. For all genera and species and individuals, and all the essential parts of genera, and uncreated being, include being quidditatively; but all ultimate differences are included in some of these essentially, and all the properties of being are included virtually in being and in what falls under being. Therefore, the things for which being is not a univocal term asserted in their ‘what’ are included in those for which being is thus univocal. And thus is it plain that being has a primacy of commonness in respect of the first intelligibles, that is, in respect of the quidditative concepts of genera and species and individuals, and of the essential parts of all of them, and of uncreated being. And being has a primacy of virtuality in respect of all intelligibles included in the first intelligibles, that is, in respect of the qualitative concepts of ultimate differences and of proper properties.

138. But as to my supposing [n.137] that there is a commonness to being said in the ‘what’ as to all the aforesaid quidditative predicates [n.137] - the proof of it as to all of them is the two arguments set down in the first question of this distinction [nn.27, 35], to prove being’s commonness to created and to uncreated being. To make the point clear I go through them in some fashion:

The first as follows: for, as to any of the aforesaid quidditative concepts [n.137], it is possible for the intellect to be certain that it is being while in doubt as to the differences that contract being to such a concept;a and so the concept of being as it belongs to that concept is other than the concepts under being which the intellect is doubtful of, and other in the way it is included in each of the concepts under it, for the differences that contract them presuppose a same common concept of being that they are contracting. In other words, the intellect is certain that all the stated concepts of being are beings but in doubt as to how or what differentiates or contracts them. So the intellect has a concept of being common to, and undifferentiated from, all the kinds and categories of being whose differences it is doubtful of. So the concept of being it has is, as far as it goes, the same for them all, that is, univocal. ²¹

a.a [Interpolated text] whether it be such a being or not, it is another concept of quidditative being and of the differences that the intellect is doubtful about.

139. The second reason I treat of as follows: just as the argument was also made [n.35] that God is knowable to us naturally only if being is univocal to what is created and what is uncreated, so can the argument be made about substance and accident. For if substance does not immediately move our intellect to an intellection of itself but only the sensible accident does, it follows that we will be able to have no quidditative concept of substance unless some such concept can be abstracted from the concept of an accident; but no such quidditative concept is abstractable from the concept of an accident save the concept of being.

140. And as to the supposition made about substance [n.139], that it does not move our intellect immediately to an act about itself, the proof of this is that whatever by its presence affects the intellect,a the absence of it can naturally be known by the intellect when it is not being affected - as is plain from On the Soul 2.2.425b21, that sight has perception of darkness, namely when light is not present and when therefore the sight is then not being affected. Therefore, if the intellect is naturally moved by substance immediately to an act about that substance, the consequence would be that when substance was not present it could be naturally known not to be present, and so it could naturally be known that the substance of bread is not in the consecrated host on the altar, which is manifestly false.

a.a [Interpolated text] “.. .in its absence it cannot be thus affected:” such is true of the senses, which are not moved in the absence of the object; but what is added ‘it can be known in its absence’ is true indeed of the intellect, which reflects on its own act when the act is present, and on the absence of the act when it is not present; but then the example about sight needs explicating. The first major [“whatever by its presence affects the intellect, its absence can naturally be known by the intellect when it is not being affected”] suffices for the point at issue; the second [ “.in its absence it cannot be thus affected” supra here] is more manifestly probative. It is indeed true, but not proved by the example [of sight].

141. Response [to the above]: the proof [n.140] disproves intuitive knowledge of substance, because of that knowledge is the major true [sc. “the intellect perceives absence when it is not being affected”]; but it does not disprove abstractive knowledge, which does not fail because of a real absence of the object; neither then is its absence perceived.

142. Again, what is assumed about the senses [n.140] is dubious; since the senses do not retain the species of the object in the absence of the object and do not receive the species of darkness, how will they know darkness?

143. Against the first [n.141]: abstractive cognition necessarily presupposes that, at some point, the real presence was obtained of the thing that abstractive cognition, or the species, remains over from - the species being the principle of abstractive cognition. He who has only seen the eucharist never had the real presence of the object that is the cause, intermediately, of the abstractive intellection. Someone else who did see some other bread did have [that real presence]. Therefore, the first will not have abstractive cognition of bread, the second will - which is flatly against experience, because each can have a like act in himself of understanding that he is experiencing bread.

If it be said, in shameless denial, ‘suppose the first one afterwards saw another bread, then he will afterwards be capable of the abstractive knowledge of bread that he was not capable of before’ - he experiences the opposite in himself, for he is disposed now in like way as before. Again, he who can know an absent object abstractively can know it intuitively when it is present in existence; and if you know the substance of something known abstractively, then you know it intuitively when it is present; and then the absence etc. [n.140: “when substance was not present it could be naturally known not to be present, and so it could naturally be known that the substance of bread is not in the consecrated host on the altar, which is manifestly false”].

144. To the objection about the senses [n. 142]. Darkness is known by argument -not by the sight but by the power that argues thus, ‘the eye is looking, and it is not blind, and it is not seeing; so there is darkness’. The fact is plain: if one of the three premises is passed over the conclusion does not follow. None of the three propositions is known to sight as knowing that proposition, or the union [‘is’] or separation [‘is not’] of the extreme terms, because neither is the third one known (which there would more seem to be knowledge of). Because sight does not know its own act when it is present; This act of seeing is known to be sure, but by the interior common sense, not by the exterior sense of the eyes, which see the visible object but not themselves. ²² therefore it does not know the privation when the act is not present.

There is an explanation for Aristotle’s remark that there is sight of darkness [n.140]; because darkness is privation of sight’s object; therefore darkness is cause of sight’s not being affected, and thus is darkness perceived, not by sight but by another power, which takes privation of act in the sight for presence [sc. of privation].

145. No quidditative concept, then, of substance is possessed naturally that is caused by substance immediately, but only one that is first caused by or abstracted from accident; and it is a concept only of being.

146. By the same fact is also proved the proposed thesis [n.139] about the essential parts of substance. For if matter does not move the intellect to an act about matter, and if the substantial form does not either, I ask what simple concept of matter or form will be had in the intellect. If you say that it is some relative concept (as of a part), or a concept per accidens (as of some property or matter or form), I ask what the quidditative concept is to which this per accidens or relative concept is attributed. But no quidditative concept can be had save one that is impressed by or abstracted from what moves the intellect, namely by or from an accident; and it will be a concept of being. And so nothing will be known of the essential parts of substance unless being is something common univocal to them and to accidents.

147. These arguments [nn.27-44, 138-139] do not include the univocity of being that is said in the ‘what’ as to ultimate differences and properties [nn.132-136].

This is shown about the first argument [nn.27, 138], because: Either the intellect is, as to some such [ultimate difference or property], certain that it is a being (doubting whether it is this one or that one), yet not certain that it is a being by quiddity instead of by a sort of predication per accidens. Or in another way, and better, any such concept is simply simple [n.71], and so cannot be conceived in some respect and be unknown in another respect, as is plain from the Philosopher, Metaphysics 10.10.1051b25-28, about concepts simply simple; for it is not possible to be deceived about them as it is about the quiddity of complex ones. But this is not to be understood as if a simple understanding may be formally deceived in intellection of a quiddity, because there is no true or false in simple intellection. But as to a composite quiddity it is possible for a simple understanding to be deceived virtually. For if the idea is in itself false, then it includes a false proposition virtually. But what is simply simple does not include virtually, proximately, or formally a false proposition, and so there is no deception about it; for either it is attained totally, or it is not attained, and then it is altogether unknown. Error or deception is possible in two ways in general. Either terms are combined in a statement in a way they are not combined in fact, as when the cat is said to be in the garden although it is in the house. Or a single but complex term combines in itself what is not or cannot be combined in fact, as a round square or the thirty third day of June. The first kind are actually false or deceptive because they actually state what is not the case. The second kind are virtually false or deceptive because, while they actually state nothing (they are terms, not combinations of terms), they imply a false statement, as that some square is round or that a certain day is the thirty third of June. However, if there are concepts that are simply simple, and do not combine several elements and are not placed with other terms in a statement, then these can in no way be false or deceptive; for they neither state anything nor combine anything. Such concepts are either known fully or not known at all. ²³ About no simply simple concept then can there be certitude as to something of it and doubt as to something else of it.

148. Through this are things plain as to the second argument set down above [n.35], because such a simply simple concept is altogether unknown unless the whole of it in itself be conceived.

149. In a third way can response be made [sc. to objections] as to the first argument [sc. in addition to the two, the ‘Either.. .Or’, in n. 147, about the argument in n.27]. For the concept about which there is certitude is different from those about which there is doubt. And if that certain same concept is preserved with either of two doubtful ones, it is truly univocal in the way it is taken with either of the two of them. But it is not necessary that it be present in the ‘what’ in both of them. But either it is so, or it is univocal to them as a determinable to what determine it [as ‘being’ is determinable by the ‘in itself’ or ‘in another’ that determine it to substance or accident] or as a denominable to what denominate it [sc. as ‘being’ is denominable by the ‘undivided’ or ‘divided’ that denominate it as ‘one’ or ‘many’; cf. n.133].

150. Hence in brief: being is univocal in everything. But it is univocal in non-simply simple concepts when said of them in the ‘what’. In simply simple concepts it is univocal but as determinable or denominable, and not as said of them in the ‘what’, because this includes a contradiction [nn.132-136].

151. From these points [nn.129-150] is apparent how a double primacy comes together in being, namely the primacy of commonness in the ‘what’ as to all non-simply simple concepts, and the primacy of virtuality (in itself or in what is under it) as to all simply simple concepts. And that this double concurrent primacy suffice for being to be the first object of the intellect (though being have neither of the primacies precisely as to all per se intelligibles) - I make this clear through an example: because if sight were per se cognitive of all properties and differences of color in general and of all species and individuals, and yet color were not included quidditatively in the differences and properties of colors, sight would still have the same first object that it now has, because, by running through them all, nothing else would be adequate to it. So the first object would not then be included in all its per se objects, but every per se object would either include it essentially or would be included in something essentially or virtually including it. And thus would a double primacy come together in it, namely primacy of commonness on its own part and primacy of virtuality in itself or in what falls under it. And this double primacy would suffice for the idea of the first object of this power.a

a.a [Cancelled note by Scotus] If good be posited to be the first object of the will, how is truth per se wantable, since truth does not have good for first or for virtual predicable with respect to itself, or even with respect to what has a subordinate concept that contains it essentially or virtually?

C. Arguments against the Univocity of Being and their Solution

152. Argument is made against this univocity of being [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.28 q.3, a26 q.2, a.21 q.2 ad 2]:

From the Philosopher Metaphysics 3.10.998b22-24, that according to him in that place being is not a genus, because then, according to him, difference would not be a per se being; but if being were a common assertion in the ‘what’ of several things different in species, it would seem to be a genus. A genus is asserted of a species through the difference proper to each species, as the genus ‘animal’ is said of the species ‘man’ through the difference ‘rational’. Accordingly, the difference cannot already be included in the genus, because then the genus would be the genus only of things with that difference. For if ‘animal’ included ‘rational’, then ‘animal’ could only be the genus of man and of no other animal. If ‘being’, therefore, is a genus, and differences are outside the genus, then differences cannot be being, which would mean they could hardly differentiate anything. To avoid this result and to allow differences also to be being, the solution seems to be to deny that being is a genus. But if being is a common term predicated in the ‘what’ of the things that fall under it (as ‘animal’ is a common term predicated in the ‘what’ of the several species of animal), then being does seem to be a genus. Therefore, being cannot be such a common or univocal term. ²⁴

153. The same Aristotle also, in Metaphysics 4.2.1003a23-35, b11-14, maintains that being is said of beings as healthy is said of things healthy, and that metaphysics is one science, not because everything it is about is said according to one thing, but because it is said in relation to one thing, namely not univocally but analogically. Therefore, the subject of metaphysics is not univocal but analogical.

154. The same Aristotle also, Metaphysics 7.1.. .18-20, 4.1030a23-27, b2-3, says that accidents are only beings because they are of being, as logicians say that ‘not-being is’ and ‘the not-knowable is knowable’, and as a vase is said to be ‘healthy’. In all these examples there is no univocity to the term said of many things.

155. And Porphyry, Book of Predicables 3, “If one call all things beings, one will,” he says, “be naming them equivocally.”

156. Again, Physics 1.2.185a20-21 [Henry, Summa a.21 q.2 ad 3], against Parmenides and Melissus, “The beginning is that being is said in many ways.” And he [Aristotle] argues that if all things are one being, then they are either this one being or that one being, which would not follow if being were univocal, just as this does not follow: every man is one man, therefore he is this one man or that one man. If ‘being’ were univocal to all beings, as ‘man’ is univocal to all men, then the statement that being is one would no more be to say that being is this one being or that one being than the statement that man is one would be to say that man is either this one man or that one man. Rather, it would be to say that being is one species as man is one species. ²⁵

157. Again by reason [Henry, Summa a.28 q.3, a.26 q.2]: if being were univocal as to the ten categories, then it would divide into them through differences. So let a and b be two such differences: therefore either these two include being, and then in the concept of any most general genus there would be trifling repetition; or these are not beings, and then non-being would belong to the understanding of being. A genus is divided into species through the addition of a difference, as animal, say, is divided through the differences ‘winged’ and ‘footed’ into winged animals (birds etc.) and footed animal (horses etc.). So if being is a genus divided into the categories of substance and accidents by differences in the same way, and if these differences include being (as the differences ‘in-itself being’ and ‘in-another being’), then substance will have to be defined, say, as ‘in-itself being being’, and accidents as ‘in-another being being’, and so on, which is trifling repetition. Alternatively, if the differences are not beings, then substance and accidents will be defined by differences that are not beings, or by things that do not exist. ²⁶

158. To the first argument [n.152]. It is not necessary that the arguments of Metaphysics 3 assert what they conclude, because the Philosopher is intending there to argue to opposite sides of the questions he is disputing (as he himself says by way of preface in the introduction, 3.1.995a24-b4), yet two opposite conclusions cannot be reached unless one or other argument is sophistical (hence the Commentator on the Metaphysics [Averroes, Metaphysics 3 com.3] says of the first argument there for the first question disputed that it is a fallacy of the consequent: ‘if contraries belong to the same science, then non-contraries do not belong to the same science’ The argument is of the form, ‘if contrary, then same science; but not contrary; therefore not the same science’, which is to infer a denial of the consequent from a denial of the antecedent. The inference is fallacious, as is clear in this example of Rover the dog: if Rover is a cat, Rover is an animal; Rover is not a cat; therefore Rover is not an animal. ²⁷). Also, this argument specifically [n.152] should not be held to be conclusive. For he argues there, “wherefore if ‘one’ or ‘being’ is a genus, no difference will be either ‘one’ or ‘being’,” and my question is: Either he intends to infer that the difference ‘one’ or ‘being’ will not be per se in the first mode, and in this way the conclusion is not unacceptable as far as ‘one’ is concerned. Or he intends to infer the negative absolutely, and then the consequence is not valid; for it is not the case that, if ‘rational’ is a difference with respect to ‘animal’, therefore ‘rational is not animal’ but that ‘it is not per se animal in the first mode’.

[Although the above about the argument be true], yet if one holds that this argument [n.152] is valid, it proves rather the opposite than the conclusion intended. For not because of equivocation does it remove from being the idea of genus (on the contrary, if being were equivocal as to the ten genera, there would be ten genera, because the same concept, by whatever name it be signified, has the idea of genus the same); rather does it remove the idea of genus from being because of being’s excessive commonness, The Vatican editors helpfully refer to Topics 4.6.127a28-30: “If then we assign being as a genus, it will plainly be the genus of everything by the fact it is predicated of them; for of nothing is a genus predicated save of its species.” ²⁸ namely because it is predicated of difference in the first mode per se, and from this could it be concluded that being is not a genus.

159. And to see how this is be true [sc. “it removes the idea of genus from being because of being’s excessive commonness”] - although however it was said before [nn.131-133] that being is not predicated of ultimate differences in the first mode per se -I draw a distinction in the case of differences, that some difference can be taken from the ultimate essential part, which is a different thing and a different nature from that from which the concept of genus is taken; it is as if a plurality of forms is posited and genus is said to be taken from the prior essential part and the specific difference from the ultimate form. Then, just as being is said in the ‘what’ of the essential part from which such specific difference is taken, so is it said in the ‘what’ of such difference in the abstract, such that, just as ‘the intellective soul is a being’ is said in the ‘what’ (taking the same concept of being as is said of man or of whiteness), so is ‘rationality is a being’ said in the ‘what’, if ‘rationality’ is such a difference.

But no such difference is ultimate, because contained in such a difference are many realities in some way distinct (with the sort of distinction or non-identity that in the first question of the second distinction I said existed between essence and personal property [Ord. I d.2 nn.388-410] - or a greater distinction, as will be explained elsewhere [Ord. II d.1 q.4 n.25, a.6 n.5, IV d.11 p.1 a.2 q.1 n.54]). And then such a nature can be conceived in a certain respect, that is, in respect of some reality and perfection, and in a certain respect not known - and therefore a concept of such a nature is not simply simple [n.147]. But the ultimate reality or real perfection of such a nature (from which reality the ultimate difference is taken) is simply simple; this reality does not include being quidditatively but has a concept simply simple. Hence if such a reality be a, this statement ‘a is a being’ is not said in the ‘what’, but is per accidens, and this whether a state that reality or state the difference in the abstract that is taken from such reality.

160. Therefore did I say before [nn.133, 150] that no difference simply ultimate includes being quidditatively, because it is simply simple. But some difference, taken from an essential part (which part is the nature in the real thing, different from the nature from which genus is taken) - that difference is not simply simple and it does include being in its ‘what’. And from this fact, that such a difference is being in its ‘what’, it follows that being, because of the excessive commonness of being, is not a genus. For no genus is said in the ‘what’ of any difference under it, neither of the difference that is taken from the form, nor of the difference that is taken from the ultimate reality of the form (as will be plain in Ord. d.8 p.1 q.3 nn.16, 14); for always that from which the concept of genus is taken is in itself potential with respect to the reality from which the concept of the difference is taken - or with respect to the form if the difference is taken from the form.

161. And if you argue against this [Averroes, Metaphysics IV com.3] that, if ‘rational’ includes being quidditatively, and if any like difference does (namely any difference that is taken from an essential part, not from its ultimate reality), then, by adding such difference to the genus, there will be trifling repetition because ‘being’ will be said twice If the difference ‘rational’ includes being in its whatness then ‘rational’ is equivalent to ‘rational-being’, and the genus ‘animal’ (which also includes being in its whatness on this view) is equivalent to ‘animal-being’, and then to say ‘man is a rational animal’ will be equivalent to the trifling repetition, ‘man is a rational-being animalbeing’. Also and incidentally (as in the earlier footnote to n.136), if ‘rational’ means ‘rational-being’, then to say ‘man is a rational animal’ amounts to saying ‘man is a rational-being animal’ and then, by repeated substitution of ‘rational-being’ for ‘rational’, to saying ‘man is a rational-being-being animal’, and so on ad infinitum. ²⁹ - I reply that when two things inferior to a third are so related that one denominates the other [e.g. ‘white animal’], the term common to them in particular [‘being’] denominates itself. Just as ‘whiteness’, which is inferior to being, denominates ‘animal’, which is inferior to being, and therefore, just as this statement ‘the animal is white’ is denominative [‘white’ denominated from ‘whiteness’], so ‘being’, which is superior to ‘white’, can denominate ‘animal’ [sc. as in ‘the animal is beingal’ ‘Beingal’ is a made-up adjective from ‘being’ and the suffix ‘-al’, mimicking Scotus’ own made up adjective ‘ent-ale’ from ‘ens’. ³⁰], or denominate being taken particularly for animal [sc. as in ‘the animal-being is beingal’]. For example, if the denominative were ‘beingal’, this proposition would be true ‘some being is beingal’. And just as I concede an accidental denomination there without trifling repetition - nor yet does the altogether same thing, conceived in the same way, denominate itself [‘being is beingal’ is not trifling repetition nor is ‘being’ altogether the same, or conceived in the same way, as ‘beingal’] - so here with ‘rational animal’. For in ‘animal’ being is included quidditatively [sc. ‘animal-being’] and in ‘rational’ being is included denominatively [sc. ‘rational-beingal’]; and just as rationality is being so rational is denominated by being. There would be trifling repetition here in ‘rationality animal’ [= ‘rational-being animal-being’], not here in ‘rational animal’ [= ‘rational-beingal animalbeing’]; just as there would be here in ‘whiteness animal’ [= ‘white-being animal-being’], not here in ‘white animal’ [‘white-beingal animal-being’].

162. To the next argument [n.153], which is said about Metaphysics 4, I say that the Philosopher in Metaphysics 10.2.1054a9-11 concedes that there is an essential order between species of the same genus, because he maintains there that in a genus there is one first that is the measure of the others. Now things measured have an essential order to the measure, and yet, notwithstanding such attribution, everyone would concede that the concept of a genus is one, otherwise the genus would not be predicated in the ‘what’ of several things differing in species. For if the genus did not have one concept, different from the concepts of the species, no concept would be said in the ‘what’ of many things, but each concept would only be said of itself, and then nothing would be predicated as genus of species, but as the same of the same.

163. Similarly, the Philosopher in Physics 7.4.249a22-23 says that ‘equivocations are latent in a genus’, because of which there cannot be comparison according to genus. However, there is no equivocation as far as the logician is concerned, who posits diverse concepts, but there is equivocation as far as the philosopher is concerned, because there is no unity of nature there. Thus all the authorities, therefore, that there might be in the Metaphysics and Physics which would be on this subject, could be given an exposition because of the real diversity of the things that there is an attribution in with which, however, there stands a unity of concept abstractable form them - as was plain in the example [n.162]. I concede then that the whole of what accident is has an essential attribution to substance, and yet from this accident and from that a common concept can be abstracted [n.145].

164. To the points made from Metaphysics 7 [n.154] I reply that the text of the final paragraph on that material solves all the authorities from the Philosopher (the text which begins there ‘But clearly that...’, 4.1030b4-12). For the Philosopher says there that “what is first and simply definition and the ‘what it was to be’ belongs to substances; and not only to them but to other things it belongs simply, yet not first.” And he proves it there, that the idea that signifies the ‘what’ of the name is the definition [n.16], if that of which the idea is per se said is per se one. “But ‘one’ is said as being also is said,” and understand ‘per se being’; and “per se being indeed signifies ‘this’, and ‘this something’, and quantity another, quality another,” which is true of per se being, because in Metaphysics 5.7.1017a22-27 he divided ‘being per se’ into the ten categories; so each of them is per se one, and so the idea of them is a definition. And he concludes this there, “For which reason there will be an idea and definition of man, and differently of white and of substance” - because of substance per se and first, of white simply and per se but not first, of white man in a certain respect and per accidens. Hence in that chapter he treats principally of such ‘being per accidens’, of which sort is ‘white man’, because there is of it no definition. ‘Being’, therefore, and ‘what’ or ‘has a definition’, and any of these, is said simply of accident or of attributes, as also of substance, but not equally first. And notwithstanding the ordering, there can well be univocity.

165. As to Porphyry [n.155], he himself alleges someone else, saying “he speaks equivocally.” Who ‘speaks’? Aristotle, of course, about whom Porphyry is speaking. A place where Aristotle said this is not found in the Logic. In the Metaphysics he says it, as has already been alleged and expounded [n.164]. If someone want to treat of Porphyry’s authority, how his argument from the authority of Aristotle is of value for his purpose, it could be given an exposition, but I do not wish to dwell on it.

166. To what is argued about Physics 1 [n.156], I reply: for destroying the opinion of Parmenides and Melissus [sc. the opinion that everything is one] “the beginning” is to accept that being is said ‘in many ways’, not ‘equivocally’, but ‘in many ways’, that is, ‘about many things’. One must inquire which of these things they mean. Just as, if they were to say ‘everything is one animal’, it would be against them to distinguish ‘animal’ and to ask which animal they mean, either all animals or “one man or one horse” [Physics 1.2.185a24]. Again, when you say the argument of the Philosopher would not be valid against them if being were univocal, I reply that the consequence [‘either this one man or that one man’, n.156], when descent is made under a predicate standing for [its instances] only confusedly, does not hold formally, but there is [a fallacy of] figure of speech and a fallacy of the consequent. In other words, the argument of the Philosopher against Parmenides and Melissus fails regardless of any question of the univocity of being, because it fails by taking the predicate ‘one’ determinately when the argument takes it confusedly (which is to take in one figure of speech what is meant in another figure). If however there is no fallacy of figure of speech but ‘one’ is meant determinately not confusedly (as Parmenides and Melissus did seem to mean it), then the Philosopher’s argument does not fail. In either event, the matter of the univocity of being is irrelevant. ³¹ Yet if they did mean, as the Philosopher imputes to them, that ‘all things are one’ not speaking of ‘one’ confusedly but of some determinate one thing, then on the antecedent so understood [‘if all things are one being’] the consequent that everything is this one or that one does indeed follow. No reply is given by Scotus to the objection of Henry in n.157, but the reason is probably that it was effectively answered in the discussion of the first objection [nn.152-161], that there will be no trifling repetition when the thesis about how being is said of things is properly explained. ³²