Book One. Third Distinction.

First Part. About the Knowability of God

Question One. Whether God is Naturally Knowable by the Intellect of the Wayfarer

1. About the third distinction I ask first about the knowability of God. And I ask first whether God is naturally knowable by the intellect of the wayfarer.a

a.a [Interpolated text] “For the Apostle says” [Lombard, Sent. I d.3 ch.1 nn.35]. About the first part of this distinction, in which the Master deals with the knowability of God, five questions are asked: the first is whether God is naturally knowable by the intellect of the wayfarer [nn.1, 10, 24]; second whether God is the first thing known by us for this state of life [nn.6, 69]; third, whether God is the first natural object, that is, adequate object, with respect to the intellect of the wayfarer [n.108]; fourth, whether anything transcendent other than a being of equal commonness with God could be set down as the first object of our intellect [n.167]; fifth, whether any certain and pure truth can be naturally known by our intellect without special illumination of uncreated light [n.202]. About the first.

I argue that he is not:

The Philosopher On the Soul 3.7.431a14-15 says, “Phantasms are to the intellect as sensibles are to the senses;” but the senses only sense sensible things; therefore the intellect understands only that of which it can, through the senses, apprehend a phantasm. But God is not a phantasm, nor is he anything of which there can be a phantasm; therefore etc.

2. Again, Metaphysics 2.1.993b9-11, “As the eye of an owl to the light of the sun is our intellect to the things that are most manifest in nature;”a but there is an impossibility there; so also here.

a.a [Interpolated text]: which are the first principles or the separate substances, according to the Commentator [Averroes, Metaphysics II, com.1]

3. Again Physics 1.4.187b7-8, “The infinite, insofar as it is infinite, is unknown;” and Metaphysics 2.2.994b22-23, “It is not possible to know infinites,” therefore not an infinite thing either, for there seems to be the same disproportion of a finite intellect to the infinite as to infinite things, because the excess is equal, or not less.

4. Again, Gregory On Ezekiel II hom.2 n.14, “However much our mind has advanced in the contemplation of God, it reaches, not to what he is, but to what is below him.”

5. On the contrary:

Metaphysics 6.2.1026a21-23, “Metaphysics is theology about God and about divine things principally;” therefore etc. And in the act of metaphysics, namely in the actual consideration of separate substances, does the Philosopher locate human happiness, Ethics 10.7.1177a12-17.

Question Two. Whether God is the First Thing Naturally Known by Us in this State of Life

6. Next after this I ask whether God is the first thing naturally known by us in this state of life.

Argument that he is:

“As each thing is disposed to being, so is it disposed to knowledge,” from Metaphysics 2.1.993b30-31; but God is the first being; therefore he is the first known thing.

7. Again, nothing is perfectly known save when it has been perfectly known; therefore, nothing is simply known save when it has been simply known. The consequence is clear, because in the case of things that exist per se, ‘as the greatest is to the greatest, so is the simply so to the simply so’, and conversely; from Topics 5.8.137b20-27.

8. Again the simply first object is the object of a power’s most perfect act; but God is the object of the most perfect act, Ethics 10.7.1177a12-17; therefore, God is the simply first knowable object.

9. On the contrary:

All our knowledge arises from the senses, Metaphysics 1.1.980b28-81a12 and Posterior Analytics 2.19.100a3-b5; therefore God, who is furthest removed from the senses, is not the first thing known by our intellect.

I. Clarification of the First Question

10. In the first question [n.1] a distinction should not be made to the effect that God can be known negatively or affirmatively [Alexander of Hales, ST I q.2 n.1 ch.2], because negation cannot be known save through affirmation, On Interpretation 14.24b3-4, Metaphysics 4.4.1008a17-18.

Plain too is that we do not know any negations about God save through the affirmations that we use to remove, from those affirmations, the things incompossible with them.

Also, we do not supremely love negations.

Likewise too, a negation is conceived either precisely as a negation, or as a negation said of something. If a negation is conceived precisely, such as ‘non-stone’, this belongs as much to nothing as to God, because a pure negation is said of being and of non-being. Therefore, God is no more known in this than nothing is or a chimaera. If the negation is understood as a negation said of something then, about the underlying concept that this negation is understood to be true of, I ask the question: will it be an affirmative concept or a negative one? If negative I ask the question as before: is the negation conceived precisely or as said of something? If in the first way this belongs as much to nothing as to God; if said of something, I ask the question as before. And however far one proceeds with negations, either God would not be understood more than nothing is, or a stand will be made at some affirmative concept that is first.

11. Nor, second, should a distinction be made about knowledge what a thing is and knowledge whether it is [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24 q.3], because in the issue at hand I am asking about a simple concept, the ‘it is’ of which is known by an act of the intellect combining or dividing. For I never know of anything whether it is if I do not have some concept of the term that I know the ‘is’ about; and the question being asked here is about that concept.

12. Nor third should a distinction about ‘whether it is’ be made as this ‘whether it is’ is a question about the truth of a proposition or as it is a question about the being of God [Henry of Ghent, ibid.]. Because if there can be a question about the truth of a proposition in which the ‘is’ serves as predicate of a subject, one must, in order to conceive the truth of the proposition or question, first conceive the terms of the question; and about the simple concept of that subject, whether it is possible, is the question [‘whether it is’] now being asked.

13. Nor, fourth, is it valid to draw a distinction between a natural concept and a supernatural concept [Henry of Ghent, ibid. and q.2], because the question is about the natural concept.

14. Nor, fifth, is it valid to draw a distinction about ‘naturally’ by speaking of nature absolutely or of nature in this present state [Bonaventure, Sent. I d.3 p.1 a.1 q.1; Henry of Ghent, ibid., q.6], because the question is precisely about knowledge in this present state.

15. Nor, sixth, is it of value to draw a distinction about knowledge of God in creatures or knowledge of him in himself [Alexander of Hales, ST I tr. Intro. q.2 m.2 ch.2], because if knowledge be obtained through a creature such that discursive knowledge begin from the creature, I ask in what term does the knowledge come to rest? If in God in himself, I have the intended conclusion, because I am asking for the concept of God in himself. If it does not come to rest in God in himself but in a creature, then the same thing will be the end of the discursive reasoning and the beginning of it, and so no knowledge will be had of God - at any rate the intellect is not in the final term of discursive reasoning as long as it rests in some object that is the beginning of the discourse.

16. About knowledge of ‘whether God is’ and ‘what he is’ (Godfrey of Fontaines in Quodlibet 7.11 rejects Henry of Ghent [ibid., a.22 q.4] on the distinction between ‘whether he is’ and that it is possible for there to be knowledge of ‘what he is’), note: the ‘what’ that is spoken of using the name is the ‘what’ that is the ‘what’ of the thing, and it is inclusive of ‘whether it is’, because Metaphysics 4.7.1012a23-24, “the idea of which the name is the sign is the definition.” However, the ‘what is’ of the name is more common than the ‘is’ and the ‘what’ of the thing, because being signified by the name belongs to more things than ‘is’ does. But where the two go together, they are the same - just as whiteness is not every color, yet the color that whiteness is is the same as whiteness. The example, however, is not altogether similar, because color is taken from some partial perfection. Not so here, but the whole ‘what’ is related to the name as to its sign, because the whole is related to the thing as quiddity to supposit. But I know the first relation about the same ‘what’ before the second. The question ‘what is?’ can be asked about a chimaera, which is not real, or is not an ‘is’, but a fiction. Color and whiteness are similar in that color is said of more things than whiteness is (just as ‘is’ is said of more things than exist, as of chimaeras). But if whiteness is said of the color that whiteness is, ‘whiteness’ and ‘color’ are the same. Of course, whiteness is only part of a white thing, or only a partial perfection or reality of the thing. But the ‘what’ in ‘what is’ is about the whole of that of which the name or word ‘what’ is said, because ‘what’ signifies the quiddity, the ‘whatness’, of whatever it is said of. But to know that the name or word ‘what’ relates to anything whatever, including fictional things (like chimaeras) and partial perfections (like whiteness), precedes knowing that it relates to the whatness of things that are supposits and not qualities (as whiteness) or fictions (as chimaeras). ²

Nor in this alone is there an order to these knowings (knowing of the same simple concept one relation before the other), but also in this, that the simple concept is in some way different in several things, namely definitions, because the first [supra: the ‘what’ that is said by the name] is confused, the second [supra: the ‘what’ that is of the thing] distinct. For the first either does not explain the parts of the concept, or if it does, not distinctly under compossibility or non-compossibility; the second does explain the compossiblity, and in this that the idea is true, and that from this ‘what’ it expresses the ‘what it is’ of a possible thing. ‘What’ said of a chimaera is said of an incompossible, because chimaeras are imaginary beings combining incompatible features, and have no real ‘what’ or quiddity. But this fact is not known in knowing merely the name or word ‘what’; it is known when the ‘what’ is referred to supposits that are really possible and have a real quiddity to describe and define. Dinosaurs, for instance, unlike chimaeras, are possible things, and have a real quiddity, even though they do not exist now. ³

17. Second [sc. second to n.16], note that the subject of the first science is at the same time already known. What is said by the name is both ‘if it is’ and ‘what it is’, because no science asks about its first subject ‘if it is’ or ‘what it is’ [Metaphysics 7.1.1028a36-b2]. A science, strictly speaking, proves properties of its subject through the definition of the subject. The science of geometry proves the properties of a triangle through the definition of triangle, and therefore, qua science, it assumes that there are triangles and what they are. So with any science. Knowing that there is such a subject and what it is (say triangle) is prior to science and belongs rather to intellection. ⁴ Therefore either this is not a question at all, or only in a prior science; there is no science prior to the first science; therefore about its first subject in no way is there a question ‘if it is’ or ‘what it is’. Therefore its concept is simply simple, therefore being is [simply simple]. Therefore (to anticipate), ‘being’ as it is the subject proper of the science of metaphysics is not analogical; for if it were it would not be simply simple. That, nevertheless, being is said in many ways is a truth proved in metaphysics, and proved of something that, in its first apprehension, is simply simple, that is, univocal. ⁵

The fact that a being can per se be put into doubt as to the compossibility of the parts of the concept Any concept can be questioned as to ‘if’ it is and ‘what’ it is, including God, because, as Scotus immediately says, the simply simple concept of being, whose ‘if’ and ‘what’ are beyond question, does not distinguish God (or anything) from anything else. So the concept of God too raises, for us, the questions if God is and what God is. God cannot, therefore, be the first subject of metaphysics, since the first subject of metaphysics is beyond all ‘ifs’ and ‘whats’. ⁶ is for this reason too, that ‘being’ is not God, because no idea simply simple is had of God that distinguishes him from other things. Therefore, about any such thing there is a question ‘if it is’ and a demonstration that the idea of it is not in itself false; therefore according to no concept possible for a wayfarer is God the first subject of metaphysics.

Again, whatever is proved of being is contained virtually in the idea of being, because just as a convertible simple property is included first in the subject, so too is a disjunct property; therefore in the subject is first included that some side of a disjunct property belongs to some being. In the idea of being is included, as convertible with it, the simple properties of good, true, one etc., and the disjunctive properties of actual or potential, first or derivative, finite or infinite, uncaused and caused, etc. ⁷ Therefore being first includes virtually this proposition ‘some being is first’, and therefore both the ‘if it is’ and the ‘what it is’ about this idea. The first being is included first in being; therefore also is included whatever is proved of the first being through the idea of this totality, or through the idea of being. Therefore metaphysics is theology finally and principally, because just as it is more principally about substance than about accident, Metaphysics 7.1.1028a18-19, so (by a further analogy) is it more principally about God; because always what is first in the order of perfection is included in the idea of the first subject - particularly the part of a disjunctive property that is simply more perfect. The disjunctive properties of being, as actual and potential, infinite and finite, caused and uncaused, are divided into the more and less perfect, and while being can be without the less perfect disjunct, it cannot be without the more perfect. So if only God existed and no creatures, there would still be uncaused being but no caused being. ⁸

18. On the contrary: no knowledge simply more perfect is included virtually in less perfect knowledge, but conversely; therefore, no knowledge about God that is naturally knowable to the wayfarer is more perfect than the concept of being, therefore than the speculation in which there is happiness [cf. n.5]. If this reasoning is probative, then also is that which the arguments for the first side [nn.1-4] suppose about a nonsimple concept. It is denied according to Henry; rather, a proper and simple concept of God, through movement from effect [to cause is asserted]. But then being is not common but analogous, and so the first science of being will be about the first being to which everything is attributed.

19. The meaning, then, of the question [n.1] is this, whether the intellect of the wayfarer could naturally have any simple concept, in which simple concept God is conceived.

II. Opinion of Others to Each Question

20. To this a certain doctor [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24]] speaks as follows: when speaking of the knowledge of something, a distinction can be drawn on the part of the object, that it can be known through itself or through an accident, in particular or universally.

God is not known really through an accident, because whatever is known about him is he himself; however, when knowing some attribute of his we know as it were per accidens what he is. Hence Damascene [Orthodox Faith I ch.4] says of the attributes, “They do not state the nature of God but what concerns the nature.”

He is also known universally, namely in a general attribute; not indeed universally according to the predication that is made about him (in which nothing is universal, because the quiddity is of itself singular), but universally as to what is only analogically common to him and creatures; yet it is conceived as if single by us, because of the nearness of the concepts, though they are diverse concepts [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.21 q.2]

In particular is he not known from creatures but a creature is a foreign likeness of him in this way, that a creature is only conformed to God according to certain attributes that are not that nature in particular. Therefore, since nothing leads to the knowledge of another save under the idea of what is similar, it follows etc.

21. Again, he is known universally in three ways: most generally, more generally, generally.

‘Most generally’ has three degrees. For by knowing any being as it is very indistinctly this being, the being is conceived as part of the concept; and this is the first degree. And by removing the ‘this’ and conceiving ‘being’, there is the second degree; for now something as a concept, not as a part, is conceived that is common analogously to God and creatures. But if a distinction is made in the concept of being pertaining to God, namely by conceiving being that is indeterminate negatively (that is, not determinable by a concept of being that belongs to God analogically, which is being indeterminate privatively), there is now the third degree. In the first way [sc. negatively] the indeterminate is abstracted as form from all matter, as subsisting in itself and able to be participated; the indeterminate in the second way [sc. privatively] is a universal abstracted from particulars, which is in them something actually participated.

After these three degrees of conceiving ‘most generally’, God is conceived ‘more generally’ by conceiving any attribute, not simply as before, but with supreme eminence.

And God is conceived ‘generally’ by conceiving any attribute to be the same as his first attribute, namely ‘being’, because of its simplicity.

And God is not known through his proper species, because nothing is more simple than he, but by way of estimation, through some foreign species taken from creatures, and this in the three aforesaid ways.a

a.a [Interpolated text] just as the estimative power in brutes, by digging down below sensed intentions, knows non-sensed intentions, as of the harmful or beneficial, so does the intellect, which digs down, through sharpness of intelligence, below the species of creature (which species only represents the creature), to knowing the things that are and are said of God.

22. As to the second question [n.6], a distinction must, according to this opinion, be drawn between the way of conceiving naturally and the way of conceiving rationally.

In the first way God is the first object intelligible to us from creatures, because natural cognition proceeds from the indeterminate to the determinate. The indeterminate negatively is more indeterminate than the indeterminate privatively, and so is conceived before it; and the indeterminate privatively is prior in our knowledge to the determinate, because “‘being’ and ‘thing’ are impressed by first impression on our intellect,” according to Avicenna Metaphysics I ch.6. Therefore, the indeterminate negatively is altogether first the object for our intellect, according to the mode of conceiving naturally.

Rationally, however, it is known later, after the creature is known according to the three degrees (most generally, then more generally, and last generally), because first is conceived this good, then universal good abstracted by second abstraction, namely what is indeterminate privatively, then good abstracted by first abstraction, which of course is the indeterminate negatively because, in the way of ratiocinative deduction, that from which abstraction is made must be known before what is abstracted is known.

23. An exposition of the first member, namely naturally [n.22], as to how in this way something is known first: because God as he is the first thing known is not distinguished from other things, both because of his simplicity and because he is the first being only as concerns the two first degrees of most generally conceiving [n.21] - neither of which pertains to any idea determining the attribute to God. But how God can be known and not distinguished from other things by our knowing intellect is explained by an example: it is like the way the eye sees light first, but does not, because of the subtlety of it, discern it, as it does discern color through light. Light is the actuality of the transparent; color is the limit of the transparent in a determinate surface. Light is thus not so much what we see as what we see through, but we see it in a sense first, because if there were not first transparency nothing would be seen. ⁹

III. Scotus’ own Response to the First Question

24. I respond differently to the first question [n.1], and on certain points, namely on five [nn.25, 26, 56, 58, 61], I will speak against the aforesaid position. The reasons for my position will show the opposite of this position.a

a.a [Note by Scotus]: Would this procedure really be good: to move this first question [n.1] first; second, because its solution depends on the third [n.108] (for everything in which is found the idea of primary object of vision is visible), to ask at once the third question, namely whether God is the first object of our intellect? And the arguments that are here addressed to the second question are proper enough to it [nn.22-23]. - Hence, as to the second question [n.6], the first thing is to distinguish a triple primacy [nn.69-99], and first about the primacy of adequation: and three opinions there: the first of Thomas Aquinas, an extreme one, ‘that not’ [nn.110-112]; the second of Henry of Ghent, an extreme one, ‘thus’ [n.125], and two reasons for it are touched on for the third question [n.108ff.]; third about the true, there at ‘Having seen these things’ [q.3 III].
     Having got these out of the way, in order to see about the first object in commonness [n.129], it would be necessary to ask whether any real concept is univocally common to all per se intelligibles [n.131]. The extreme opinion is that there is not, save only in things that are of one predicamental genus [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.21 q.2]. In favor of this view are certain things [nn.152-157] that are introduced before the ‘Having seen these things’; against it are the reasons that are against Henry in the solution of the first question [nn.27-44]; and the way they are made clear in the third question, their conclusions are about substance and accident [nn.139-146]. The solution, that it is not by ultimate differences and properties (because of the four reasons in the third question [nn.132-135]), but by all the quidditative concepts [nn.137-146, 150-151]. - With this question solved, either there is no first object of the intellect, or it is first in two ways, because a single primacy, namely of virtuality or commonality to all things, is not found in anything; therefore a double primacy [nn.129, 137] comes together in being. - The distinction about the first object from the nature of the power and for this state of life [nn.185-188]; and there a response is excluded by defect of light [n.188]; hence the solution of this first question [nn.1, 25-26, 56-62], hence about the omitted double primacy [nn.71-98].
     In another way, because the per se object is manifest from the acts of the power; but the first object is deduced from many per se objects. Because the first object is adequate, and so extends itself first virtually to all per se objects, therefore let the extreme opinions be dealt with here: the first of Thomas Aquinas, ‘That it is not’ (it is put below in the third question [nn.110-112]); the second of Henry of Ghent, ‘That it is’ [n.125], in its proper concept (here, in this first question [nn.21, 26]), and against this let force be brought, because of the six reasons to the opposite [nn.27-44]. Let the third opinion be in the middle [of the extremes = Scotus’ own opinion], about a possible proper concept, but not now save in a common concept univocal to God and creatures; and then the whole third question, both as to the univocity of being and as to the idea of the true, etc., lies in what has been set down [sc. at the end of the first paragraph of this note].

A. A Quidditative Concept of God Can be Obtained

25. I say first, therefore, that not only can a concept be naturally had of God, in which God is conceived as it were per accidens, namely in some attribute, but also can some concept be had in which God is conceived per se and quidditatively. My proof: by conceiving ‘wise [sc. God]’ a property is conceived, according to him [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24 q.3], or a quasi property, that perfects nature in second act; therefore by conceiving ‘wise’ I must pre-understand some ‘what’ in which I understand this quasi property to inhere; and so, in advance of the concepts of all the properties or quasi properties, I must look for a quidditative concept to which these properties are understood to be attributed; and this other concept will be a quidditative concept of God, because there can be a stand in nothing else.

B. About a Concept Univocal to God and Creatures

26. Secondly [n.24] I say that not only in a concept analogous to a concept of creatures is God conceived (namely in a concept that is altogether other than that which is said of creatures), but in some concept univocal to him and creatures. And so that there be no dispute about the name of univocity, I mean by a univocal concept a concept that is so one that the unity of it suffices for contradiction, for affirming and denying it of the same thing; suffices too for a syllogistic middle term, so that the extreme terms [sc. major and minor], when united in a middle term thus one, may be deduced, without the fallacy of equivocation, to be united between themselves.

27. [Reasons for univocity]. And univocity thus understood I prove in five ways. The Vatican editors remark that Scotus actually wrote ‘three ways’, but five is necessary because of parts of the text Scotus added later without being able to revise the internal references accordingly. ¹⁰ First as follows: every intellect, certain of one concept and doubtful of diverse ones, has a concept about which it is certain different from the concepts about which it is doubtful; the subject here [‘every intellect.’] includes the predicate [‘has a concept...’]. But the intellect of a wayfarer can be certain that God is a being while in doubt about whether he is finite or infinite, created or uncreated; therefore, the concept of being said of God is different from the former and latter concepts [sc. ‘finite’ ‘infinite’ ‘created’ ‘uncreated’], and so, of itself, it is neither of them and is included in each of them; therefore it is univocal.

28. The proof of the major is that no same concept is certain and doubtful; therefore either it is a different concept, which is the point at issue, or no concept - and then there will not be certitude about any of the concepts.

29. The proof of the minor is that every philosopher was certain that what he posited as first principle was a being, as that one of them was certain about fire that it was a being and another certain about water that it was a being;a but he was not certain that it were a created or an uncreated being, first or not first. For he was not certain that it was first, because then he would have been certain about what is false and the false is not knowable; nor certain that it was not the first being, for then the philosophers would not have posited the opposite [sc. that it was the first being]. There is a confirmation too, for someone seeing the philosophers disagreeing could have been certain that whatever one of them posited as first principle was a being and yet, because of the contrariety of their opinions, could have doubted whether the first principle was this being [sc. fire] or that being [sc. water]. And if a demonstration were given to such doubting person proving or destroying any lower concept (as that fire will not be the first being but will be a being posterior to the first being), the first concept certain to him, the concept he had about being, would not be destroyed but preserved in the particular concept that was proved about fire [sc. that fire is not the first being]; and hereby is proved the point at issue, the point supposed in the ultimate consequence of the reasoning [n.27, end], which was that the certain concept, which of itself is neither of the doubtful ones, is preserved in each of them.

a.a [Interpolated text] and univocally conceived being.

30. And if you do not care about the authority taken from the diversity of philosophizers’ opinions, but you say [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.21 q.2] that everyone has in his intellect two concepts close to each other which, because of the closeness of analogy, seem to be a single concept - against this seems to be that then, by this evasion, the whole way of proving the univocal unity of any concept would be destroyed; for if you say that ‘man’ has one concept as referred to Socrates and Plato, it will be denied you, and it will be said that they are two but seem one because of their close similarity.

31. Besides, the two concepts are simply simple; therefore, not intelligible save distinctly and totally. Therefore, if they are not seen to be two now, not afterwards either.

32. Again, they are conceived either as altogether disparate, and it is a wonder how they seem to be one; or conceived as comparable according to analogy or to likeness or to distinctness, and then they are conceived as distinct at once or in advance. Therefore, they are not seen as one.

33. Again, in positing two concepts you posit two known formal objects. How are they two known formal objects and not objects known as distinct?

34. Further, if the intellect were to understand singulars in their proper idea, then, although the concepts of two things of the same species would be very similar (it is, however, not doubtful that they are much more similar than the two in the issue at hand [finite, infinite, created, uncreated, n.29], because these two differ in species), still the intellect would distinguish well between such concepts of singulars. This response [n.30] is also rejected in d.8 q.3 [d.8 p.1 q.3 n.7], as is one other response [d.8 nn.5-6] that denies the major [nn.27-28].

35. Secondly I argue principally as follows:a no real concept is caused naturally in the intellect of the wayfarer save by things that naturally move our intellect; but these things are phantasms (or an object shining forth in a phantasm) and the agent intellect; therefore no simple concept is naturally brought about now in our intellect unless it can be brought about by virtue of these. But a concept that would not be univocal to an object shining forth in a phantasm (but one altogether different, prior, to which the object would have an analogy) cannot be brought about by virtue of the agent intellect and the phantasm; therefore the sort of different, analogous concept that is posited will never exist naturally in the intellect of a wayfarer; and so a concept of God will not be able to be had naturally, which is false.

a.a [Note by Scotus] This second argument can be confirmed, against Henry, through what is found in d.8 p.1 q.3 n.4; but there is a response there.

Proof of the assumption [sc. “But a concept that would not be univocal to an object shining forth in a phantasm...”]: any object, whether shining forth in the phantasm or in the intelligible species, along with the cooperation of the agent or possible intellect, produces according to the ultimate of its power, as an effect adequate to it, its own proper concept,a and a concept of everything essentially or virtually included in it. But the other concept, which is posited to be an analogous concept, is not essentially or virtually included in this one; nor even is it this one; therefore, this one will not be brought about by any such moving object [sc. by an object that brings about the analogous concept].

a.a [Interpolated text (in place of “its own proper concept, and a concept of everything.. .any such moving object.”)] .its own proper and quidditative concept. For this is the offspring adequate to it in its being as knowable in itself, just as an offspring like it in nature would be adequate in natural being. So, in the understanding of anything that our intellect can operate on, that understanding will be more imperfect than its own [self-understanding], and consequently not per se attributable to it; because the more perfect is not attributed to the less perfect; therefore, in no way is it possible to have any knowledge naturally of God [cf. nn.48-49].

And there is confirmation of the reasoning (that ‘any object, whether.’ [previous paragraph]). Besides its proper concept, adequate to it and included in it in either of the two aforesaid ways [sc. ‘essentially or virtually’ - previous paragraph], nothing else can be known from this object save by discursive reasoning; but discursive reasoning presupposes knowledge of the simple thing to which the discourse leads. Let the reason, therefore, be formed as follows: that no object brings about in this intellect a proper simple concept of another object unless it contain that object essentially or virtually; but a created object does not contain an uncreated object essentially or virtually (and this under the idea under which it is attributed to an uncreated object as something essentially posterior is attributed to something essentially prior; because it is against the idea of the essentially posterior to include its prior virtually); and it is plain that a created object does not essentially contain an uncreated object according to anything altogether proper, and not common, to an uncreated object; therefore it does not bring about a concept that is simple and proper to an uncreated being.

36. There is argument, third, as follows: the concept proper to a subject is an idea sufficient for proving of that subject all the things that can be conceived as necessarily being present in it; but we have no concept of God by which we could sufficiently know all the things conceived by us that are necessarily in him - it is plain about the Trinity and other necessary points of faith; therefore etc.

The proof of the major is that we know any immediate truth to the extent we know the terms; so the major is plain about anything conceivable that is immediately present in the concept of the subject. But if it is present in it mediately, the same argument will be made about a middle term related to the subject; and wherever a stand is made, the proposed thesis about immediates is obtained; and further, through them will the mediates be known.

38. Again, fourth, an argument can be made as follows: either a pure perfection [lit.: a perfection simply] has an idea common to God and creatures, and the thesis is obtained. Or it does not but has only an idea proper to creatures; and then the idea of it will not belong formally to God, which is unacceptable. Or it has an idea that is altogether proper to God, and then it follows that, because God is pure perfection, nothing is to be attributed to him; for this is to say nothing else save that, because its idea as it belongs to God states ‘pure perfection’, therefore is it posited in God; and so will perish Anselm’s doctrine in the Monologion ch.15, where he maintains that ‘passing over relations, in the case of all other things, whatever is simply better it than not it is to be attributed to God, just as whatever is not such is to be removed from God’. According to Anselm, then, first something is known to be such [sc. ‘better it than not it’] and second it is attributed to God; therefore, it is not such precisely as it is in God. This is also confirmed in that then no pure perfection would exist in creatures. The consequence is plain, because of no such perfection does even a concept belong to creatures, save an analogical concept that, from the hypothesis, is of itself such - for an analogical concept is imperfect, and in nothing is its idea better than not it, because otherwise it would be posited, according to that analogical idea, in God.

39. This fourth reason is also confirmed as follows:a every metaphysical inquiry about God proceeds in this way: by considering the formal idea of something and taking away from that formal idea the imperfection that it has in creatures; and by keeping hold of the formal idea and attributing to it an altogether supreme perfection, and attributing it thus to God. An example about the formal idea of wisdom, or intellect or will; for this is considered in itself and by itself, and from the fact that this idea does not include formally any imperfection or limitation, the imperfections that are concomitant with it in creatures are removed from it and, with the same idea of wisdom and of will retained, these are attributed most perfectly to God.b Therefore, all inquiry about God supposes the intellect to have the same univocal concept it has taken from creatures.

a.a In place of the text from the beginning of n.36 up to here, which were clearly added later, are the words, canceled by Scotus, ‘Thirdly it is argued as follows’

b.b [Note by Scotus] For this there are certain middle terms [taken from Augustine, Anselm, Dionysius] in distinction 8 question 3, ‘against the first opinion’ [d.8 p.1 q.3 nn.8-9].

40. But if you say [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.32 q.4] the formal idea of the things that belong to God is different - from this follows something unacceptable, that from no idea proper to them as they are in creatures can they be proved of God, because the idea of the former is altogether different from the idea of the latter. Indeed, from the idea of wisdom that we grasp from creatures, it will no more be proved that God is formally wise than that God is formally a stone. For a concept different from the concept of a created stone can be formed, to which concept of stone, as it is an idea in God, this stone has an [analogous] attribution; and so ‘God is a stone’ would be asserted formally according to this analogous concept [of stone], just as ‘God is wise’ would be asserted formally according to the analogous concept [of wise].

41. An argument for this is also, fifth, made as follows: a more perfect creature can move [the intellect] to a more perfect concept of God. Therefore, since some vision of God, for example the lowest, does not differ from any given abstractive intellection of him as much as the highest creature differs from the lowest, it seems to follow that, if the lowest can move [the intellect] to some abstractive intellection, that the highest creature, or any creature below it, will be able to move [the intellect] to an intuitive intellection, which is impossible.

42. But if you say [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24 q.6] that there are as many degrees in abstractive intellection of God as there are created species, though the intellects at the extremes are not as distant from each other as are the species at the extremes, which is very possible, because any degree in intellections is less distant from the degree next to it than the created species moving [the intellect] to that one is distant from the species moving it to another one - on the contrary: the difference of abstractive intellections is not merely numerical, because they are caused by causes of different species and through the proper ideas of those species, not insofar as they include something common as the way about univocity says. Therefore it follows that between the lowest abstractive intellection and the lowest intuitive intellection there are more intermediates than between the lowest species of being and the highest, or there are as many. But if the consequent is unacceptable, then, through the consequent, the antecedent too. Therefore, the species of abstractive intellection are fewer than those of beings. Therefore, by beginning from the lowest from this side and that, a species of being is left that is higher than the one that causes the highest abstractive knowledge. Therefore, that higher one will cause intuitive knowledge of God.

43. Again, why are so many species of intellections of the same object posited, if the object moves [the intellect] to a proper concept?

44. Again, as to the principal conclusion [the univocity of being, n.26], it seems to be that every multitude is reduced to unity [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.21 q.2 ad 2]. Therefore the same holds of concepts.a

a.a [Note added by Scotus] Note, about the second point [n.26], there are ten arguments: first about certain and doubtful concept [n.27], second about the impossibility as wayfarer of understanding God [n.35], third that we do not know all the things that necessarily inhere in God [n.36], fourth that some pure perfection is common [n.38], fifth about the order of intellection alongside the order of creatures moving [the intellect] to them [n.41], sixth can be next to it, that there would be infinite abstractive intellections if the species are infinite. These reasons are specific [to the question]. Common reasons are: coming to a stand at unity [n.44], number and otherness [Ord. I d.8 p.1 q.3 n.12], comparison [ibid.], and ‘truest etc.’ in Metaphysics 2.993b24-27.
     As to the first argument, in Ord. I d.8 nn.5-8, are the three responses of Henry; the two first are attacked there, and the second here [n.30; for the third see n.46]. - To the second argument, Henry infra in Ord. I d.8 nn.4-5 and the rejection of him there; and here below the argument is dealt with so as to be a common difficulty against both sides, but by way of giving an exposition of the opinion about the analogy of concepts for those very concepts [n.54]. - To the third it is said [by Henry] that some proper concept can be had of a subject, a confused non-definitive concept, by which nothing, even what is most immediately inherent in a subject, is evident about it (an example: one does not know through a confused concept of man that he is capable of laughter); and every concept of ours, though a proper concept, is yet not perfect as a concept definitive of a creature is. There is a confirmation because in Ord. II d.3 p.2 q.2 [nn.7, 11] the article concedes that an angel has in natural things a proper concept of God, and yet in the prologue [Ord. prol. nn.152] theology is set down as naturally known to God alone. - To the fourth, that is said to be a pure perfection [by Henry, Summa a.32 q.4, a.42 q.1 ad 1] which is of a nature to possess concepts that have an analogy of the imperfect to the perfect, so that the idea of ‘pure perfection’ is not attributed to something that is simply one even in concept. But the deduction of the saints and the masters seems to confirm that [cf. Ord. I. d.8 nn.8-9]. - To the confirmation there [n.40], that ‘God is a stone’, response is given in I d.8 n.9. - The fifth [nn.42-43] is solved here, where the argument is [n.41]. But to the point against the response [n.42], I reply: one must state it by holding to the specific difference of intellections. One must concede that there are as many species of abstractive conceptions of God as there are species of objects moving [the intellect]. The same is against you, Henry, because the words proper to creatures are as many in species as there are creatures (it could be argued there that, if the species of words for creatures are fewer than the things named, then some creature can cause an intellection more perfect than any word for a creature, and so cause the vision of God). In the way the response is made here [above, first paragraph of this note], it is made to the abstractive intellections of God through creatures, because on both sides there are as many intellections as there are objects moving [the intellect]. - The sixth argument [first paragraph of this note] is likewise against you, Henry, because it is necessary to concede an infinity of words, each of which is lower than the vision of God, if the hypothesis is retained about infinite, necessity, eternity, as they are precisely modes [n.55], because thus are they simply simple concepts.
     Therefore, you should care about the first reason and the fourth alone, both because they are not equally difficult for both sides, and because they do not go too far in proof beyond the proposed conclusion [n.26]. For they do not prove that no concept proper to God can be had, but that some concept cannot be. And the first negation [sc. no concept proper to God can be had] seems false.
     But really, will many quidditative concepts come through the different creatures moving the intellect, and are they of different species or the same, and will several concepts or one always be intended at the same time when several creatures are moving the intellect? - Again, you deny intelligible species [n.251].

45. But of what sort the univocity of being is, how many and what things it extends to, will be spoken of rather in the question about the first object of the intellect [nn.130-151].

46. [Objections against the aforesaid reasons] - Against these reasons is objection made. Against the first reason about the total disjunct [n.27], and the response is set down in d.8 p.1 q.3 n.68, and is more weakly refuted than others are [supra, second paragraph of added note to n.44].

47. As to the second (as it is briefly stated [n.35]), the major is denied, because, on account of their connection, the effect can produce some concept of the cause, though not as perfect as the cause can about itself. For it is conceded that the conclusion produces knowledge of the principle in a demonstration of the ‘that’ [sc. as opposed to a demonstration of the ‘why’]; but that is not the most perfect knowledge of a principle; rather that knowledge is by which the conclusion is known through terms perfectly known. For why (unlike in the case of concepts) will an effect simply apprehended cause some simple habitual knowledge of the cause?

48. To the proof of the major [n.35, third paragraph], I say that although an equivocal effect has no power over the existing equivocal cause, nor over anything of the same idea as the cause [sc. to produce a concept of them], yet it does have power over some knowledge of it, which knowledge is more imperfect not only than the very cause in itself, but also than the cause in the very equivocal effect of the cause, namely than a perfect concept of it. But let the major be taken in this way: “no object has power for a concept of anything unless it contain that concept virtually or essentially.” This seems manifest from the idea of cause and equivocal effect [infra n.429], and although action be attributed to the intellect, according to some (I care not), the object, in whatever way it is required, has no power for a concept more perfect than a concept adequate to itself; such is the proper quidditative concept; therefore etc. The proof of the minor [“such is the proper quidditative concept”] is that, in the case of equivocal effects of the same cause, that effect is most perfect which is most like the cause; such is the intellectual offspring, or the perfect word, of this object. The proof of the major [“the object.. .has no power for a concept more perfect.”] because then [sc. if the major were false] the perfection of intelligence would exceed the whole power of the memory.

49. It seems one must absolutely concede that, by the action of a created object, no concept of God could come to be in us that is more perfect than the perfect concept proper to that object, nor consequently [could there come to be in us] a concept to which this concept, proper to the moving object, may be attributed [sc. analogically]; indeed further, the concept of God is more imperfect than this word, because an equivocal effect is less like the cause. It is necessary, therefore, to depart from the opinion of Henry if he posit that the concept of a stone is attributed [sc. by analogy] to the concept that the stone causes of God. It is possible to preserve the attribution precisely of the object conceived to the object, but not the attribution of the concept to the concept. And this is possible enough, for it is about a more perfect concept that a more imperfect concept is obtained rather than about a more imperfect concept. And how is it reasonable that, in the same intellect, a proper concept of God is simply more imperfect than a concept of stone or white? And how will natural beatitude exist in the knowledge of God (from Ethics 10.7.1177a12-17)?

50. But there seems to be the same difficulty against the univocity of being [sc. as against analogy, n.49], because every concept of God will be less perfect than the perfect proper concept of white, since every such concept is contained in whiteness as a common concept is contained in a special one, and the common concept is simply less perfect, because it is a potential and partial one with respect to the special concept. How then, according to univocity, will beatitude exist in natural knowledge of God?

51. Response. Any concept simply simple [n.71], namely of univocity, is more imperfect positively than the word [sc. the intelligible word, or the concept] of white, that is, it does not posit as much perfection; however it is more perfect permissively, because it abstracts from limitation and so is conceivable under [the idea of] infinity; and then the concept, simple indeed but not simply simple, namely ‘infinite being’, will be more perfect than the [intelligible] word of white, and it will be proper to God, but not the prior one that is common and abstracted from whiteness. Hence the way of univocity holds that every concept proper to God is more perfect than the word of any created thing, but the other way not so.

52. But there is a twofold objection against this response: first by arguing that the difficulty remains against the way of univocity, because from two concepts, each of which is more imperfect than the word [concept] of white, there does not seem to come to be a concept more perfect than that word. But the concept of being, as is conceded [n.51], is more imperfect than the concept of white or of line. And the concept of the infinite likewise; the proof is that the infinite is conceived by us through something finite, the finite conceived through a line, or some such object, moving us to a concept of the property [of finitude]. Therefore, the concept of the infinite is more imperfect than the concept of line. There is a confirmation of the argument, that a concept that includes affirmation and negation is not more perfect because of the negation, or at least is not more perfect than by conceiving the affirmation of the negation; here [in the way of univocity] infinite being is not a concept of something positive besides being; therefore infinity does not make the concept perfect, or at any rate there will not be a more perfect concept of infinite being than of finite being.

53. A second objection in favor of Henry is made in a similar way: that although a simply simple concept is more imperfect than the word or concept of a creature, as the argument says, [n.51], yet many such concepts can be put together, and one will determine the other, and the whole concept will be more perfect. And there is no greater difficulty here [in the way of analogy] than there [the way of univocity] save on two points: first that here any concept [‘infinite’, ‘being’], whether determining or determinable, is posited as proper to God, and there one is common [‘being’ as univocal] and the other proper [‘infinite’ as proper to God]; second: that here some concept proper to God is conceded to be more imperfect than the word of a creature [n.52], there that none is [n.51, end]. Now the first of these points is not unacceptable, because the property does indeed determine the subject (as in ‘man’ and ‘capable of laughter’), and yet both terms [‘man’ ‘capable of laughter’ - and similarly ‘being’, ‘infinite’] are equally common [sc. in what they are predicated of]. The second point one should altogether concede, because of this second argument here [n.53] - when speaking of the concept, that is, of the act of conceiving, but not of the object conceived.

54. As concerns these objections [nn.52-53], it seems that a response sufficiently fitting is that each opinion [sc. the opinions of analogy and of univocity] posits a simply simple concept more perfect than the word of that which moves to a part [of that simply simple concept; n.51 end, n.53 beginning]. But the objection made in the arguing [sc. for Henry, nn.52-53] seems to be against both opinions, because however many things are put together, each of the concepts is impressed [on the intellect] by a creature moving [the intellect]. Therefore, each is more imperfect than the word of the creature. How will an aggregation of more imperfect concepts make a concept that is intensively more perfect? The confirmation too [n.52] objects well against the point about the infinite. Not for this reason, then, must the opinion [of the univocity of being] be rejected, because the difficulty is common to both, and equally so, if the analogy of concepts be expounded about concepts.

55. Perhaps the objections [nn.52-53] do well prove that an act [of the intellect] about God is not the most perfect intensively; and this is not required for natural beatitude to exist there, but [it is enough] that there be union with the most perfect object (Parts of Animals 1.5.644b31-33). And perhaps some creature is more intensely loved than God, and yet it does not, when loved, beatify as God does (about this in Ord. IV d.49 p.1 qq.1-2 [nn.1-4 19-32], ‘how we are beatified in the object’). This point about the infinite being [sc. ‘an act about God is not the most perfect intensively’] would be true if ‘infinite’ were precisely the mode under which the object were conceived, and not a part of the concept, or were the mode such that the concept in itself is conceived - the way the distinction was drawn [Ord. I d.2 n.183] in the question of the unity of God, about singularity as conceived and as the mode precisely under which something is conceived; the way too that a certain degree of intensity is precisely the mode under which this whiteness is seen. But we do not understand ‘infinite being’ thus, but as including two concepts, albeit one of them [‘infinite’] determine the other [‘being’]. And perhaps the privative concept of the infinite [sc. the infinite conceived as the privation or negation of finitude, from Henry of Ghent n.35] does not posit anything, although it does give a positive understanding, such that, if we do have a positive concept of the necessary, God, the simply necessary being, is more perfectly understood in it positively. But perhaps we conceive neither the necessary nor the eternal except as negation of imperfection: for example, of the potency to be differently disposed or of ability to be in flux, of beginning or end - the eternal states an infinite of a sort, for an infinity in duration is not at all more perfect than one in quantity of perfection, just as an infinite magnitude would be more perfect than an infinite time.

C. God Cannot be Known under his Proper Idea

56. I say third [n.24] that God is not known naturally in particular and properly by the wayfarer, that is, under the idea of this essence as this and in itself. But the reason set down for this in the preceding opinion [n.20] is not probative. For when the argument is made that a thing is only known through a likeness, it either understands by ‘likeness’ the likeness of univocity or that of imitation. If in the first way then nothing is known of God according to that opinion, because in nothing does God have a likeness of univocity in that way [n.20]. If in the second way, and creatures not only imitate the essence under the idea of general attribute but also imitate this essence as this essence, or as it is existent bare in itself, according to him [Henry], for thus is it rather an idea or exemplar than taken under the idea of a general attribute - then the creature could, because of this likeness, be a principle for knowing the divine essence in itself and in particular.

57. There is, then, another reason for this conclusion, namely that God as this essence in himself is not known naturally by us, because under the idea of such a knowable he is a voluntary object, not a natural one, save only in respect of his own intellect. And so by no created intellect can he be naturally known under the idea of this essence as it is this, nor does any essence naturally knowable by us sufficiently display this essence as it is this, not by likeness of univocity nor by likeness of imitation. For univocity only exists in general ideas; imitation too is deficient, because imperfect, for a creature imperfectly imitates God.

Now whether there be another reason for this impossibility, namely because of the idea of first object, as others posit [Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia q.88 a.3] - about this in the question about the first object [nn.110-119, 185-187].

D. About the Concept of Infinite Being

58. Fourth [n.24] I say that we can reach many concepts proper to God that do not belong to creatures, of which sort are the concepts of all perfections simply in their sum totality. And the most perfect concept (in which we most perfectly, in a certain quasi description, know God) is by conceiving all perfections simply and in their sum. However, a concept possible for us that is more perfect, and at the same time more simple, is the concept of ‘infinite being’. For this is more simple than the concept ‘good being’, or any similar concept, because ‘infinite’ is not a quasi-attribute, or property, of being, or of what it is said of, but it states a mode intrinsic to that entity, such that when I say ‘infinite being’ I do not have a concept composed, as it were, per accidens of subject and property, but a concept that is of the subject per se in a certain degree of perfection, namely of infinity -just as an intense whiteness does not state a concept per accidents, as ‘visible whiteness’; rather intensity states a degree intrinsic in itself to whiteness. And so the simplicity of this concept ‘infinite being’ is plain.

59. The proof of the perfection of this concept is, first, that, among all the concepts conceivable to us, this concept includes virtually more things - for just as being includes virtually in itself the true and the good, so infinite being includes the infinite true and the infinite good and every perfection simply under the idea of the infinite; second, that by a demonstration-that, the existence of an infinite being is what is ultimately proved, as appears from the first question of the second distinction [Ord. I d.2 nn.74, 111-136, 147]. And those things are more perfect that are known from creatures last of all by a demonstration-that, for to prove them from creatures is difficult, on account of their distance from creatures.

60. If you say of supreme good or supreme being that this states a mode intrinsic to being, and includes virtually the other concepts - I say that if ‘supreme’ is understood comparatively [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.41 q.2], in this way it states a respect to something outside it; but ‘the infinite’ states a concept in respect of itself. But if you understand the supreme absolutely, that is, that the perfection of it could not, from the nature of the thing, be exceeded, this is conceived more expressly in the idea of infinite being, for ‘supreme good’ does not in itself indicate whether the thing is infinite or finite. - From this the rejection becomes clear of what was said [n.20] in the preceding opinion, that it is most perfect to know the attributes by reducing them, on account of the divine simplicity, to the divine existence - for knowledge of the divine existence under the idea of the infinite is more perfect than knowledge of it under the idea of simplicity, because simplicity is shared in common with creatures, and infinity (in the way it belongs to God) is not.

E. God is Known through the Species of Creatures

61. Fifth [n.24] I say that the things known about God are known through species of creatures, because either the more and the less universal are known through the same species of the less universal, or each has its own intelligible species proper to it; at any rate, what can impress a species of the less universal on the intellect can also cause in it a species of anything more universal; and thus can creatures, which impress their proper species on the intellect, also impress species of the transcendentals that belong in common to them and to God. And then the intellect can, by its own proper virtue, use many species together to form a joint concept of that of which these are the species, as for example by the species of ‘good’ and the species of ‘supreme’ and the species of ‘act’ to conceive a ‘supreme and most actual good’. This is plain through an argument a minori: for the imaginative power [sc. which is lesser than the intellectual power] can use the species of diverse sensible things to imagine something composed of those diverse things, as is plain when imagining a golden mountain.a

a.a [Interpolated note] I say that our intellect knows God to be a being infinite, supremely good and the like, in this way: For the concept of being is included in the concept of creature; therefore our intellect, in conceiving this being, as white or stone, can, by ascending and abstracting from it, know the conceptual content of being, and stop at it; likewise it can abstract supremeness from this supremeness and that, and can thus know what supreme is, and can conjoin the conceptual content of supremeness with that of being or of good and can thus know supreme being and supreme good, and so on as to infinite being - in the same way does the imaginative power imagine a golden mountain, where only the extreme terms exist in reality and not the conjunction itself of them. In this way, then, by abstracting common conceptual contents from creatures and conjoining them, we can know God in universal terms, and even the concept asserted of God that most belongs to him as he is known by us.

62. From this is evident a refutation of what is said in the preceding opinion [n.21, interpolated text] about [cognitive] ‘digging down’; for never through digging is what is not under the dig found by the dig. But never does there exist under the concept of a creature a concept or species representing something proper to God that is of an altogether different idea from what belongs to a creature - as was proved by the second argument in the second article [n.35]. Therefore, by digging down no such concept is found there. -And as to what is added about a similarity with the estimative power [n.21, interpolated text], I say that it seems one falsehood is being used to confirm another falsehood. For, if a sheep remain in the same nature and with the same natural affection for the lamb and yet it were changed, by a miracle, to be like a wolf in all sensible accidents, as color, shape, and sound and the rest, the lamb would flee a sheep thus altered as it would flee a wolf. And yet in the sheep thus altered there would be no conceptual idea of the harmful but of the agreeable. Therefore, the estimative power of the lamb would not dig down to discover under the sensible species the conceptual content of the agreeable, but would be precisely moved by its sense appetite in the way the sensible accidents would move it. If you say that the conceptual idea in it of the agreeable does not reduplicate itself, because there are no accidents present of the sort to be agreeable to such an idea, and the idea of the agreeable is not reduplicated without agreeable accidents - this is nothing, because if a lamb were to flee a wolf because of the perception of something harmful conceived by its estimative power, and if the perception is not reduplicated along with the sensible accidents (because it is not reduplicated with them in this supposed case), then either there is here a digging down of the lamb to an idea of the harmful that is null [because not reduplicated], or if the lamb does not flee here because of digging down to it, then not in the other case either.

IV. To the Arguments of the First Question

63. [To the initial arguments] To the arguments for this question [nn.1-4]. As to the first [n.1], I say that the comparison must be understood with respect to the first activation of the intellect by the object; for the phantasm there has, along with the agent intellect, the office of being the activating first object. But it must not be understood as to every act that follows on the first activation; for the intellect can abstract any object that is included in the activating first object, and can consider what is abstracted without considering that from which it abstracts. And, when considering what it has abstracted, it in this way considers what is common to the sensible and to the non-sensible, because what is non-sensible is, just like what is sensible, considered in the universal. And the intellect can consider this abstraction and that other abstraction in respect of what is proper to that other one, namely to the non-sensible. But the senses do not abstract, and therefore in any act, both first and second, they require some proper object to move them, and the phantasm is not related to the intellect in this way.

64. To the second [n.2] I say that the Commentator [n.2, interpolated text] expounds the Philosopher’s simile of the difficult and not of the impossible. And his reason is that then it would be otiose for nature to make those abstract substances intelligible and impossible to understand by any intellect. But this reason of his is not valid: first because the goal of those substances, insofar as they are intelligible, is not that they be understood by our intellect (and so, if this did not belong to them, they would not for this reason be intelligible in vain); second because the inference ‘they are not intelligible by our intellect, therefore not by any intellect’ does not hold, for they could be understood by themselves. And so there is a fallacy of the consequent here. Hence, although the authority of the Philosopher could be expounded in many ways, I say that the eye of an owl has only intuitive and natural knowledge, and that, as to these two conditions, the Philosopher’s authority can be expounded as being about impossibility, because just as it is impossible for the eye to consider that object [=the sun] intuitively, so it is impossible for our intellect to know God naturally as well as intuitively.

65. To the third [n.3] I say that the potential infinite is unknown, because each thing is knowable insofar as it is actual. However, the infinite is not so unknown that it is repugnant for it to be understood by an infinite intellect; but the infinite cannot be known by any intellect knowing it according to the manner of its own infinity. For the manner of its own infinity is by taking one thing after another, and an intellect that would in this way know one thing after another would always know the finite and never the infinite. However, an infinite intellect can know the whole simultaneously, not part after part. -Also, when argument is drawn from Metaphysics 2.2.994b22-23 about infinites and the infinite, I say that the case is not alike, because knowledge of objects numerically infinite would prove the infinity of the knowing power (as was plain in the first question of the second distinction, article 2, relating to infinity [Ord. I d.2 n.127]), namely because an increase in number on the part of the object would prove an increase in size of virtue in the intellect. But the understanding of some infinite does not prove infinity, because it is not necessary for the act to have the sort of real mode that the object has; for an act under the idea of the finite can relate to an object under the idea of the infinite, unless the act were comprehensive of it; and I concede that we do not have such an act about an infinite object, nor can we have it.

66. As to Gregory [n.4], I say that he must not be taken to mean that contemplation stops at some creature under God (because this would be to enjoy things that should be used, which would be extreme perversity, according to Augustine 83 Questions q.30). But the concept of that essence [of God] under the idea of being is more imperfect than the concept of that essence as it is this essence; and because it is more imperfect therefore is it inferior in intelligibility. But contemplation, by general law, stops at such a common concept, and therefore it stops at some concept that is of lesser intelligibility than God is in himself as he is this essence. And therefore it must be understood with reference to something that is under God, that is, to something under the idea of intelligibility whose intelligibility is inferior to the intelligibility of God in himself, as this singular essence.

67. [To the other arguments]. To the arguments for the first opinion [of Henry, n.20]. When it is argued that God cannot be understood in any concept common univocally to him and creatures, because he is a certain singularity, the consequence is not valid. For Socrates is singular insofar as he is Socrates, and yet many predicates can be abstracted from Socrates. And so the singularity of a thing does not make it impossible for some common concept to be abstracted from that which is singular. And although whatever is there in the thing is, in existing, singular of itself, such that nothing contracts anything else to singularity, yet that same thing can be conceived as a this in reality, or indistinctly in some way, and thus as singular or common.

68. What Henry says about knowledge per accidens in favor of that opinion [n.20] does not need to be refuted, because [God] is known quasi per accidens, but not precisely, in an attribute, as was proved [n.25].

V. Scotus’ own Response to the Second Question

69. To the second question [n.6] I say that there is, in the issue at hand, a triple ordering of intelligibles: one is the order of origin (or order in accord with generation); another is the order of perfection; third is the order of adequacy or precise causality.

70. Of the two first primacies there is discussion in Metaphysics 9.8.1050a4-5, “Things prior in generation are posterior in substance.” Of the third primacy there is discussion in Posterior Analytics I.4.73b32-33, in the definition of ‘universal’, that first there does it state precision or adequacy.

A. About the Order of Origin of Intelligibles

71. Speaking first, then, of the order of origin, one must look first at actual cognition, second at habitual cognition.

[About actual cognition]. As to the first I premise two things, the first of which is that a concept simply simple is a concept that is not resoluble into more concepts, as the concept of being or of ultimate difference. Now I call a simple concept, but not a simply simple concept, whatever can be conceived by the intellect in an act of simple intelligence, though it could be resolved into further concepts that are separately conceivable.

72. I premise, second, that it is one thing to understand something confused and another to understand confusedly. For the confused is the same as the indistinct, and just as there are two possible distinguishings relative to the issue at hand (namely of the essential whole into its essential parts and of the universal whole into its subjective parts), so there are two non-distinguishings, namely of the two aforesaid wholes relative to their parts. A thing confused, then, is understood when something is understood that is not distinct in either of the aforesaid ways. But something is said to be understood confusedly when it is conceived as it is expressed by the name, distinctly when it is conceived as it is expressed by the definition.

73. Taking these points as understood to begin with, I set down first the order of origin, in actual knowledge, of things understood confusedly. And thereon I say that the first thing actually known confusedly is the most specific species, a singular instance of which moves the senses more effectively and more strongly first,a and this on the supposition that the instance is present to the senses in the proportion due. Hence if you posit some case in which the senses do not sense first the specific nature (as that it is not at once apparent whether a color is reddish or green), and consequently a case in which the intellect would not, by that sensation, immediately apprehend the specific nature, I always posit an undue proportion of the singular to the senses - either because of an imperfection in the sense power, which this visibility exceeds (the visibility of a nature of this sort as it is a nature), or because of a defect in the medium (of light or something of the sort), or because the thing is too far distant.

a.a [Interpolated text, from Lectura I d.3 n.70] whether it is audible or visible or tangible. For the species of whatever individual moves the senses more strongly is known first with confused knowledge.

74. Hereby is plain an answer to the following objection: ‘two eyes are at the same distance from something red, one of which immediately perceives the redness, the other confusedly; therefore the specific nature is not at once sensed when there is the right proportion - Response: the right proportion for one eye is not the right proportion for the other eye, because of a lack of proportion in the eye acted on.

75. On the contrary: if [the object] generates a species of red up to point a, and beyond point a generates a species of color or a color confusedly representing red, then, if the eyes are beyond a, neither eye will see the red distinctly. - Response: whatever holds of the medium (whether the proper species is in it everywhere or a confused species beyond a certain distance), at least in a less well disposed eye, other things being equal, the species will be more confused, at any rate beyond a determinate distance.a

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] in place of ‘whatever holds.. .determinate distance’: whatever singular could not be understood under its proper idea (about which elsewhere [Ord. II d.3 p.1 aa.5-6, n.17, p.2 q.1 n.15, q.2 n.9]), for the present I am speaking about those things that, according to the common opinion, it is certain can be understood [n.348].

76. I prove the proposed conclusion as follows [n.73]: a natural cause, when it is not impeded, acts for its effect according to the utmost of its power; therefore it acts first for the most perfect act that it can first produce. All the things that come together for this first act of the intellect are natural causes merely, because they precede all act of the will -and they are not impeded, as is plain. Therefore they produce first the most perfect concept they are capable of; but that concept is only the species of the most specific produced thing. But if some other concept, namely the concept of something more common, were the most perfect that they were capable of, then, since a concept of what is more common is more imperfect than the concept of the most specific species (as a part is more imperfect than the whole), it would follow that they would not be capable of a concept of the species, and so they would never cause that concept.

77. Second as follows, because (Avicenna, Metaphysics 1 ch.3) metaphysics is last in the order of teaching. Therefore, the principles of all other sciences, and their terms, can be conceived before the principles of metaphysics. But this would not be the case if it were necessary for the more common concepts to be conceived first before the concepts of the most specific species; for then being and the like would have to be conceived first, and so it would follow rather that metaphysics was first in the order of teaching; therefore etc.

78. Third, because if it were necessary to conceive the more universal concepts first before the concept of such and such species, then, since the senses are posited to be in act about the singular that moves the senses, and the intellect is free of this, a long time would have to be posited before the species of this sort of first sensed singular was conceived; for it would first be necessary to understand, in order, all the common predicates said of the ‘what’ of the species.a

a.a [Interpolated text, from Lectura I d.3 n.74] From this is evident the reason why the intellect understands one concept before another, although the species of several of them are present to it. For this does not come from the will (since then the intellect would not possess its [own] act of understanding), but the reason is of this sort, that the singular of one moves the senses more strongly than the singular of another. - This about confused knowledge.

79. As to the first of these three reasons [n.76], note that the order in the case of generations that proceed through the imperfect as intermediary is here the response -otherwise a definitive concept would be caused by the object first of all (for the object is capable of that), or there will never be a cause of it.

Why is a definitive concept not caused first? What perfection does any cause of that concept acquire through discursive reasoning, through division, etc.? - Response: a definitive concept is a concept explicative of several partial concepts, so each of these must be understood first - first in nature at least, and for us first in time, because a single concept is made known to us through its parts.

80. I speak, secondly [n.69], about the actual knowledge of things distinctly conceived - and I say that this is the converse of the general concept, because the first thing thus conceived is the most common, and those closer to it are prior and those further away are posterior.

I prove this as follows: because from the second premise [n.72] nothing is distinctly conceived except when everything is conceived that is present in its essential idea; being is included in all lower quidditative concepts; therefore no lower concept is distinctly conceived unless being is conceived. Now being can only be distinctly conceived because it has a simply simple concept. It can therefore be distinctly conceived without the others, and the others not distinctly conceived without it having been distinctly conceived. Therefore being is the first concept that is conceivable distinctly. From this follows that what is closer to being is prior, because knowing distinctly is obtained through the definition, and the definition is acquired by way of division, starting from being and proceeding to the concept of the defined thing. Now, in the case of division, the prior concepts occur first, as genus and difference, wherein a more common concept is distinctly conceived.

81. Second I prove that metaphysics (according to Avicenna as cited before [n.77]) is first in the order of knowing distinctly, because it has to certify the principles of the other sciences; therefore its knowables are the first distinctly knowable things. Nor does Avicenna contradict himself in the fact that he makes it last in the order of teaching and first in knowing distinctly. For (as was plain from the question about propositions known self-evidently through themselves [Ord.1 d.2 n.19]) the principles of the other sciences are known self-evidently on the basis of a confused concept of the terms; but when metaphysics is known, there is afterwards the possibility of investigating the quiddity of the terms distinctly. And in this way are the terms of the special sciences not conceived, and their principles not understood, prior to metaphysics. Thus, too, can many things be clear to metaphysico-geometry that were not known to geometry previously from its confused concept. An example: a geometer qua geometer uses for his self-evident principles only those that are evident at once from the sort of confused concept of the terms that comes from sensibles, as that ‘a line is a length’ etc., without caring what genus line belongs to, as whether it is substance or quantity. But now, after geometry and the other special sciences are known, metaphysics about the common concepts follows, and from these common concepts a return can be made, by way of division, to an investigating of the quiddities of the terms in the (already known) special sciences. And then, from the quiddities thus known, the principles of the special sciences are known more distinctly than before. Also known are many principles that were not known before from the confusedly known terms. And in this way is it plain how metaphysics is first and how it is not first.

82. But, when comparing the order of conceiving confusedly with the order of conceiving distinctly, I say that the whole order of conceiving confusedly is prior, and therefore what is first in that order [n.73] is simply first, and the proof of this is the aforesaid authority of Avicenna [n.77] about the order that metaphysics has to the other sciences.

83. Against this is the objection made that in Physics 1.1.184a21-22 it is said “confused things” (that is, the more universal things) “are known first”, which is plain because “children first call all men ‘father’, and later discern them individually.” Therefore, the child knows its father first under the idea of man before under the idea of this man.

84. This same fact does Avicenna prove about something seen in the distance, because someone is known first under the idea of body before that of animal, and under the idea of animal before under the idea of man, and under the idea of man before under the idea of this man.

85. This is seen too from the fact that, in the case of arguing, the way of composition is prior to the way of resolution. Therefore, so is it in the case of simple conceptions.

86. To the first [n.83] of these points [nn.83-85] I say that, as the confused is twofold, namely the ‘universal whole’ and the ‘essential whole’, so each is first in its own order. But that is simply first which is first in the order of knowing confusedly, because the natural process is from imperfect to perfect through a middle. Now knowing confusedly is a sort of middle between not knowing and knowing distinctly; and therefore knowing confusedly comes before knowing anything distinctly. - And as to what is said about the child [n.83], I concede that the species is understood first before the singular (I did say that the species is the first intelligible [nn.73-78]); but the argument does not hold of genus and species, for whiteness is conceived actually before color is in the order of confused knowledge, because color under the idea of color is not known save under the idea of a greater abstraction than the abstraction of whiteness from this whiteness; and this greater abstraction is more difficult, because from things less alike.

87. To the next point [n.84], from Avicenna, I say that when an object is not nearby in the required way it does not move [the senses] to knowing it under its most perfect idea but under an imperfect one. And then the intellection, which follows the sensing of such an object, needs to be of the sort of universal that, under the idea of the singular, the senses were of. But when the object is in the right proportion for being able to move the senses under its own proper and perfect idea, then the intellect, following such senses, has knowledge of such an object under its specific idea confusedly first before under the idea of its genus confusedly - not that the more imperfect real idea, from which the genus is taken, is the reason for moving [the senses] when the object is at a greater distance, and the more perfect idea, from which the difference is taken, is the reason for moving [the senses] when it is at a lesser distance (rather the reason for acting from a greater distance is a more effective active idea), but the specific form is the reason for its imperfectly assimilating [the senses to itself] at a great distance and for perfectly assimilating [them] at a proportionate distance. It does not follow then that the color generates no species of itself, but that it does not do so then, but only this whiteness does or this blackness - not the ‘this’ but the nature.

88. How will it be, then, with the intelligible species of the more universal and the less universal [n.61]?

It can be said that both are generated by the same phantasm.

89. Or in another way: the more universal, as it is virtually contained in a lower universal [n.365 infra], is generative of the intelligible species, because it is thus per se intelligible, not of the sensible species, because it is thus not sensible - for the senses are of the existent as it is existent.

90. Against this [n.89]: for you [sc. Scotus] the senses are not of the singular but of the nature in the singular [n.87]. Again, even if one posits a proper sensible species and a proper phantasm of whiteness and another proper to color, yet one cannot posit one proper to quality or to being, because these, in their indifference [to this or that particular], surpass the genus of sensible things, and cannot as such shine forth in a phantasm - and yet are the proper intelligible species of them caused [in the intellect]. Not caused therefore by diverse phantasms, nor by themselves as they are distinct, existing virtually there [sc. in the singular], because under these ideas they are not there in a way that represents them, nor in a way that does not represent them, as is plain [sc. because then they would not cause any idea of the more and less universal]. Therefore, the other way [sc. both are generated by the same phantasm, n.88].

91. To the third [n.85] I say that on both sides, in the case of simples [= concepts] as in that of complexes [= propositions], there is a process from what includes to what is included -. But in the case of sensibles what includes is lower, in the case of complexes what includes is the principle in respect of the conclusion.

92. [About habitual and virtual knowledge] As to habitual or virtual knowledge [n.71] I first explain what I understand by the terms.

I call knowledge ‘habitual’ when the object is present to the intellect in the idea of an intelligible in act in such a way that the intellect can immediately have an elicited act about it. I call knowledge ‘virtual’ when something is understood in a thing as a part of the thing understood first, but not as the thing understood first - as for example when ‘man’ is understood, ‘animal’ is understood in ‘man’ as part of the thing understood, but not as the thing understood first, the totality, which is the term of the act of intellection. This is properly enough called ‘the thing virtually understood’ because it is close enough to the thing actually understood; for it could not be more actually understood unless it were understood in an intellection proper to it, which would be an intellection of it as it is the first and total term.

93. As to this habitual and virtual knowledge I say that the things known first by way of generation are more common.

The proof is that just as diverse forms, which perfect the same perfectible in a certain order, are of a nature to perfect it more mediately or more immediately, so, if the same form contain virtually in itself the perfection of the ordered forms, it will perfect the perfectible in, as it were, a like order of nature - just as if the form of body, of substance, and of the rest were different forms, and if the form of substance were to inform the thing first and then the form of body etc., An implicit reference to the famous Tree of Porphyry, where the branches, after substance, are: material substance or body, then living body, animal, man, and finally these and those individual men. ¹¹ so, if one form virtually include all of them, it will, as it were, perfect matter first under the idea of substance before it does so under the idea of body, and always in this way of generation the more imperfect will be prior because process is made from potency to act. Therefore, just as several concepts, more common and less common, habitual or virtual, are of a nature to perfect the intellect by way of generation, so the more imperfect concept is always prior - so if one concept virtually include all of these concepts, it will perfect under the idea of the more common and universal concept first before under the idea of a particular concept. - This as to the idea of origin or generation.

94. On the contrary: why is it not similar in the case of actual knowledge? - Reply: here [in the case of habitual knowledge, n.93] such concepts have, in their moving [of the intellect], a natural ordering, but in duration they are simultaneous; not so there [in the case of actual knowledge], but the concepts move successively and the more potent concept moves [the intellect] more strongly and prevents the others from then moving it there; not so here. When one is actually knowing an insect, like an entomologist actually studying an insect, one is knowing it under the idea of this kind of living sensitive body, for this is the more potent concept, the concept that is driving one’s actual knowing. So one is not actually knowing it under the idea of sensitive body (for then it would not be distinct from a bird) or of living body (for then it would not be distinct from a plant) or of material body (for then it would not be distinct from a stone), though of course one is not denying, whether actually or habitually, any of these realities. But when one knows an insect virtually, then included simultaneously in the concept of insect thus virtually known (though according to a certain order) are the concepts of sensitive, living, material, substance. ¹²

B. About the Order of Perfection (and of Adequacy) in Intelligibles

95. Now about the order of perfection [n.69]. And I make the distinction that a thing more perfectly intelligible for us can be understood in two ways, either simply or according to proportion. An example: the eye of an eagle is simply more perfect with respect to the sun than is my vision with respect to a candle, and yet my vision is more perfect proportionally, that is, it has more of the idea of vision in proportion to the visibility of the candle than the vision of an eagle may have in respect of the visibility of the sun.

96. This distinction is obtained from the Philosopher, Parts of Animals I.5.644b31-33, where he maintains that, although we have least knowledge of immaterial things (‘least’ is to be understood as to proportion), yet this knowledge is more desirable than the considerable knowledge that can be had of material things, which is considerable in relation to those knowables.

97. Speaking, therefore, of the order of the knowledge that is more perfect simply, I say that the most perfect thing knowable by us, even naturally, is God (hence the Philosopher places happiness herein, Ethics 10.7.1177a12-17), and, after him, the most specific species that is more perfect in the universe, and then the species next to it, and so as far as the ultimate species; and after all the most specific species comes the proximate genus abstracted from the most perfect species, and so on by always making resolution [sc, to the next proximate genus]. And the reason for all these is that the attainment of a more actual and more perfect object is a simply more perfect intellection, because this intellection has an essential perfection on the part of the intellect equal to any other intellection, or not less, and a perfection much greater on the part of the object, both of which, namely the perfection of the power and the perfection of the object, are cause of the most perfect intellection.

98. If we speak of perfection or of a knowledge more perfect in proportion to the knowable thing, I say that sensibles from more perfect senses, and sensibles that move them more effectively, are, according to proportion, knowable more perfectly, in that our intellect reaches them more according to the degree of their knowability; and the sensibles that are more remote from them are less knowable, according to proportion to their knowability.

99. The third primacy, namely of adequacy [n.69], will be spoken of in the next question [nn.108-201], or elsewhere [in the Ordinatio].

VI. To the Arguments for the Second Question

100. [To the initial arguments] To the arguments of this question [nn.6-8]. As to the first [n.6], I say that the consequence ‘it is the first being, therefore it is the first known’ is not valid, although it does follow that it is the first knowable as far as concerns it in itself. And in this way must the truth be understood that the Philosopher speaks of in Metaphysics 2 [n.6], that [this truth] stands for the evidence of the thing in itself, or for its intelligibility on the part of itself. And it is not necessary that, as a thing is disposed to being, so is it disposed to being known, save as to its being known by the intellect that has regard to all intelligibles according to the proper degree of their knowability. Our intellect is not of this sort but knows sensibles most of all.

101. To the second [n.7] I say that the consequence is not valid, save in the case of precise causes. The point is plain in an example: if an eclipse is knowable by a double cause through two powers, namely by the senses and by the intellect possessing the demonstration, it is never most perfectly known unless the principle of demonstration is known. But it does not follow that therefore it is never known save when the principle of demonstration is known, for an eclipse has another cause by which it can be known, because the first cause is not [by itself] the precise cause. However, it cannot be known by the other cause as perfectly as by this cause, because this cause, namely the demonstration whereby it is known by the intellect, is a more perfect cause of the knowledge of it than the other cause by which it can be known, namely by the senses. An eclipse of the moon is the interposition of the earth between the moon and the sun blocking the sun’s light on the moon [cf. n.236], and an eclipse of the sun is the interposition of the moon between the sun and the earth blocking the sun’s light on the earth. These definitions are the principle of demonstration, as in: ‘there is an eclipse of the moon; an eclipse of the moon is the interposition of the earth between the moon and the sun blocking the sun’s light on the moon; therefore, there is an interposition of the earth between the moon and the sun blocking the sun’s light on the moon’. An eclipse seen without knowledge of the cause is knowledge of the eclipse but not perfect knowledge (primitive peoples, for instance, saw eclipses but are said to have thought the reason was some god or a dragon or the like). The intellect’s knowledge of the cause is thus necessary for the most perfect knowledge of an eclipse. Of course, until we perceive an eclipse with our eyes, we do not know that the cause is in place. So the two powers, intellect and senses, are necessary to know an actual eclipse (they together are the precise cause of knowing the eclipse). But the intellect provides a more perfect knowledge than the senses do, for the senses know only the fact, while the intellect knows the reason for the fact. ¹³

102. So it is in the issue at hand. Any creature has, besides the cause of the knowledge of it, which is the divine essence, another cause of that knowledge, namely its own essence, which is of a nature to generate knowledge of it. But never is a thing through its own motion [on the intellect] as perfectly known as it is through the divine essence. Therefore, when arguing from effect to cause, this does not follow: ‘if most perfectly then most perfectly, therefore if simply then simply’. For the ‘most perfectly’ that is taken can be the precise cause, which is the ‘most perfectly’ in genus; but the ‘simply’ that is taken is not the precise cause of the effect in genus.

103. To the third [n.8] I say that the major is true when speaking of the primacy of perfection but not of the primacy of adequacy. An example: vision of something is never under the idea of color so precisely that it is not under the idea of this color or that color, as of white or black, save in the case of what is seen from a remote distance, or imperfectly. Now vision of something under the idea of color is precisely not the most perfect vision but the most imperfect [sc. because while color is discerned, the precise particular color is not]. That therefore the most perfect operation of a power is about its first object is true - not of the object first in adequacy but first in perfection, namely because it is the most perfect of the things contained under the first adequate object. And therefore does the Philosopher say, Ethics 10.7.1178a5-6, that perfect delight is in an operation about the best of the objects that fall under the power, that is, about the best object contained under the object adequate to the power. This reason, therefore, proves that God is the first object, that is, the most perfect object (which I concede), but not the most adequate object - about which in the next question [nn.108-121].

104. [To the other arguments] As to what the opinion, then, [n.22] says in the first member in response to the first question (about the indeterminate negatively and privatively), if the understanding is about the primacy of origin, I contradicted it in the first member of the second question [nn.73-78].

105. And when it is argued that ‘the indeterminate negatively is more indeterminate than the indeterminate privatively’ [nn.80-81] I deny it, when speaking of indeterminacy relative to the issue at hand (namely the issue of what sort it is in first understanding), because the ‘indeterminate negatively’ is the singular, and such is not more indeterminate than the indeterminate privatively. Now negative indetermination, namely repugnance to being determined, although it is in some way greater than privative indetermination, is however not the sort of indeterminate that first occurs to the intellect, because it is the sort that is not a confused but a most distinct knowable, as was said before [n.80].

106. Also, what [Henry] argues in the second member [n.22], that God is the last thing known by rational knowledge, because the first known is that from which the abstraction is made - this is not true save by positing that abstraction is a sort of discursive reasoning from one known thing to another, such that that from which the abstraction is made is something known and the other [sc. what is abstracted from it] is something known through it. And if Henry does so understand abstraction, such knowledge by abstraction is not the first knowledge of the abstracted thing. For if God is thus known through a creature, it is necessary first to have some concept of God to which the discourse proceeds, because discursive reasoning presupposes some concept of the term to which it goes. Either then the proposition that Henry takes is false, or, if it is true, it proves that God is known first before he is known through reason, which perhaps he would concede [Henry, Summa a.21 q.2].

107. Now as to what he adds, that God as he the first thing naturally known is not distinct from other things, because he is not conceived in anything where he is discriminate from the creature [n.23] - in this he seems to contradict himself. For he first said that the first thing known naturally by the intellect is the negatively indeterminate [n.22], and he says that in this concept he is distinct from the creature, because this does not belong to the creature [n.21].

Question Three Whether God is the Natural First Object that is Adequate Relative to the Intellect of the Wayfarer

108. Next after what was touched on in third article of the second question [nn.70, 99], about the first object of the intellect, that is, the adequate and precise object, the question is asked whether God is the natural first object that is adequate relative to the intellect of the wayfarer.

Argument that he is:

Because, from the preceding question [nn.97, 103], God is first, that is, most perfect among all intelligibles; and the first in any genus is cause of the other things in that genus being such, Metaphysics 2.1.993b24-26, as is plain: the first hot thing is cause of heat in all other things; therefore God is the reason for knowing all other things; therefore he is the first object of the intellect.

109. Further, as each thing is disposed to being, so is it disposed to knowledge [n.6, Metaphysics 2.1.993b30-31]; but nothing is a being by participation save from unparticipating being; The Latin word here ‘imparticipato’ is from a deponent verb ‘imparticipor’; so it means ‘un-participating’ and not, as might first appear, ‘un-participated’. ¹⁴ therefore neither is anything known unless un-participating being is first known. There is proof of this is from Augustine, On the Trinity 8 ch.3 n.4, “We would not, when telling the truth, judge one thing to be better than another unless knowledge of the good were impressed on us.” And it seems he is speaking there about the negatively indeterminate good, about which he has said in the same chapter, “look at the good itself, if you can, and you will surely see God;” and this does not seem to be true save of the negatively indeterminate good, namely the good that is not determinable; of which sort is the first good.a

a.a [Interpolated text] On the contrary: the object that is first in primacy of adequacy receives the predication of everything contained under it; but God does not receive this sort of predication; therefore etc.

I. Opinion of Others

A. First Opinion

110. In this question there is an opinion which says that the first object of our intellect is the quiddity of a material thing, because a power is proportioned to its object [Thomas Aquinas, ST Ia q.84 a.7].

111. Now there is a triple cognitive power: one is altogether separate from matter both in being and in operating, as the separate intellect; another is conjoined to matter both in being and in operating, as an organic power which in its being perfects matter and only operates through the medium of an organ, from which it is not separate in operating as neither in being; another is conjoined to matter in being only but it does not use a material organ in operating, as our intellect.

112. To these powers there correspond proportionate absolute objects. For to the altogether separate power, namely the first power, a quiddity altogether separate from matter ought to correspond; to the second an altogether material singular; so to the third corresponds the quiddity of a material thing that, although it be in matter, is yet not knowable as it exists in singular matter.

113. On the contrary: this cannot be sustained by a theologian, for the intellect, while existing as the same power in its nature, will per se know the quiddity of an immaterial substance, as is plain according to the faith about a blessed soul. But a power cannot, while remaining the same, have an act about anything that is not contained under its first object.

114. But if you say [Aquinas, ST Ia q.12 a.5] that it will be raised by the light of glory to the fact of knowing the immaterial substances - on the contrary: the first object of a habit is contained under the first object of the power, or at any does not go beyond it, because if the habit has regard to some object that is not contained under the first object of the power but goes beyond it, then the habit would not be the habit of that power, but would make it to be not that power but another one. There is a confirmation of this argument, that since a power, in the first moment of nature in which it is the power, has such and such object as first, then by nothing posterior in nature that presupposes the idea of the power can any other object become the first object of it. But every habit naturally presupposes the power.

115. Also, if this opinion [n.1] were posited by the Philosopher [On the Soul III.7.431a16-17, 8.432a7-9, Scotus, Ord. Prol. n.33], namely if he posited that our intellect, because of its infirmity among other intellects (namely the divine and the angelic), and because of its conjunction with the imaginative power in its knowing, has an immediate ordering to the phantasm [Aquinas, ST. Ia 1.89 a.1] just as phantasms have an immediate ordering to the common sense, and that therefore, just like imagination, it is not moved by anything save by what is an object of the common sense (although it know the same object in a different way) - then he would thus be saying that our intellect, not only because of some state it is in but by the nature of the power, could not understand anything save what can be abstracted from a phantasm [Aquinas, ST. Ia 1.88 a.1].

116. Against this there is a threefold argument. First that in an intellect knowing an effect there is a natural desire to knowing the cause, and that in an intellect knowing the cause universally there is a natural desire to knowing it in particular and distinctly; but a natural desire is not a desire for something that, by the nature of the desirer, is impossible for the desirer, because then the desire would be vain; therefore it is not impossible for the intellect, on the part of the intellect, to know an immaterial substance in the particular from the fact it knows the material substance that is the effect of it [cf. Aquinas, ibid. q.88 a.2], and so the immaterial substance does not go beyond the first object of the intellect.

117. Besides, no power can know any object under an idea more common than is the idea of its first object. This is plain first by reason, because then the idea of the first object would not be adequate. It is also plain from an example, for sight does not know anything through an idea more common than is the idea of color or light, which is its first object; but the intellect does know a thing under an idea more common than is the idea of something imaginable [cf. n.115], because it knows a thing under the idea of being in general, otherwise metaphysics would not be a science for our intellect; therefore etc.

118. Besides, third [n.116] (and it returns as it were to the same as the second [n.117]): whatever is per se known by a cognitive power is either its first object or is contained under its first object; being as being is more common than what is sensible; it is per se understood by us, otherwise metaphysics would not be a science more transcendent than physics; therefore nothing can be the first object of our intellect which is more particular than being, because then being in itself would in no way be understood by us.

119. Therefore, it seems that what is supposed in the stated opinion [n.110] about the first object (and this when speaking of the power from the power’s nature) is false. And this is apparent because, if the first question [n.1] be solved by way of this opinion, saying that the sensible quiddity is the first object of the intellect, not God or being [nn.125, 137; Aquinas, ibid. q.88 a.3], the solution is resting on a false foundation.

120. The congruity too that is adduced for the opinion [nn.110, 112] is no congruity. For power and object should not be assimilated together in their way of being, for they are related as mover and movable and these are related as dissimilar, because related as act and power. They are, however, proportionate, because this proportion requires dissimilarity in the things proportioned, as is commonly the case with a proportion - as is apparent in matter and form, part and whole, cause and caused, and other proportions. So, from such a mode of being of the power cannot be concluded a similar mode of being in the object.

121. An objection against this [n.120; Aquinas ST Ia q.85 a.2] is that, although a making agent can be dissimilar from its object (which is a passive object there), yet an operating agent should, in its knowing operation, be assimilated to the object it operates about, because the object is not passive there but is rather an agent and an assimilating agent. For everyone was agreed on this point, that knowledge comes to be through assimilation, nor did Aristotle contradict them about this [On the Soul 1.2.404b7-5b17, 3.8.431b29-2a1]. Therefore, required here is not only proportion but also likeness.

122. Response. It is one thing to speak of the mode of being of the power in itself, and another thing to speak of it insofar as it is under second act, or in proximate disposition to second act, which is different from the nature of the power. But now [sc. in this life] it is the case that the knowing power is assimilated to the known object. This is true through its act of knowing, which is a certain likeness of the object, or through the species, which disposes it proximately for knowing. But to conclude from this that the very intellect in itself naturally has a mode of being similar to the mode of being of the object, or conversely, is to commit the fallacy of the accident and of figure of speech - in just the way this inference does not hold: ‘the copper coin is assimilated to Caesar because it is assimilated to him through the image impressed on the coin, therefore the copper coin in itself has a like mode of being to the mode of being of Caesar’. Or more to the issue at hand, ‘an eye seeing through the species of the object is assimilated to the object, therefore sight has a mode of being similar to the mode of being of the object’. And so further, just as ‘certain visible things have matter (which is the cause of corruption and is in potency to contradictory opposites as mixed things are), certain lack such matter, as the heavenly bodies, therefore a certain sort of vision will exist in such matter, another without such matter, or a certain sort of organ is such, and another not such’. Until modern times material bodies were typically explained (at least by those who, unlike the ancient atomists, followed the elaborations of Aristotle) in terms of elements that were not parcels of matter or energy (like protons, electrons, quarks etc.), but the realized sense qualities of the hot, the cold, the wet, and the dry. All material bodies were various mixtures of these realized sense qualities, as water was a mixture of the wet and cold, fire a mixture of the hot and dry etc. All other bodies, including living bodies, were various mixtures of these first mixtures. But since such mixed bodies, however good their mixing may be, are composed ultimately of contraries (hot/cold, wet/dry), and since contraries act against each other, these bodies have a natural tendency to dissolve into their elements, or they are corruptible. The heavenly bodies, by contrast, are not corruptible, because they are not composed of contraries but of a distinct and single element without a contrary (sometimes called ‘ether’), which was a fifth element beyond the previous four, or in Latin a ‘quint-essence’. ¹⁵ Or still more to the issue at hand, ‘an idea in the divine mind, which is a likeness of the object, is immaterial, therefore the stone too of which it is the idea, is immaterial’. Because of this congruity, then, it does not seem congruous to narrow down the intellect, from the nature of its power, to the sensible object, so that it not go beyond the senses save only in mode of knowing.

123. In agreement here are Aristotle [n.115] and the article [nn.186-187] that the quiddity of a sensible thing is now [sc. in this present life] the adequate object, understanding ‘sensible’- properly, or that it is included essentially or virtually in the sensible thing;-16 in another way, understanding quiddity as specific quiddity (whether remote or included virtually, they both reduce to the same thing). It is not now, therefore, because it is the object of the highest sense, the intellect’s adequate object, because the intellect understands everything included essentially in the sensible thing, right up to being (under which difference in no way do the senses know it), and also up to what is included virtually, as relations (which the senses do not know). Nor is it necessary here to make the distinction that only the sensible thing is the object doing the moving; the terminating entity, because included in the sensible thing in some way or other, is not only the term but also a mover, at least it moves the intelligence through the proper species in the memory, whether generated by itself or something else.

124. In disagreement: the object that is adequate, from the nature of the power, to the intellect [nn.186-187] is nothing under being. This, the article [nn.186-187], is against Aristotle. And the first reason here well opposes Thomas [n.113]. But does natural reason really show this? If so, it is much more in contradiction with Aristotle [n.115]; if not I reply to the ‘Against this there is a threefold argument’ [n.116].

To the first [n.116]: every antecedent about [there being a] natural desire for a is more obscure than is a plurality [of natural desires; Metaphysics 10.3.1054a28-29, “multitude is prior in idea to what is indivisible, on account of the senses”], unless it be proved a posteriori. And if there is a proof it is in us (from promptness toward the act of desire), it is not valid unless it be shown that true apprehension precedes the act, that the act immediately follows a true apprehension. To the second [n.117]: being, as it is a certain single intelligible, is contained under the sensible quiddity above expounded.-17 The other argument [n.118], about metaphysics, proves that being as ‘this intelligible’ is understood by us; but if it were the first object, this would be according to its whole indifference to everything in which it is preserved, not as a single intelligible thing in itself - and anything you like of that indifference could be understood [cf. Ord. Prol. n.33]. Therefore, it is not the adequate object now [for this present life].

There still remains the major of the second argument and the major of the third [nn.117, 118, first lines, that only the first object, or what falls under it, is known]. They seem evident at this sort of sign0. For these two occurrences of the symbol - inserted by Scotus, see n.124, second paragraph ¹⁶, At the same symbol above in n.123. See previous footnote. ¹⁷, The Vatican editors report that a like symbol, corresponding to this one, is not found in Scotus’ manuscripts. ¹⁸ For being, insofar as it is being, is more common than any other concept of first intention (a second intention is not the first object), and it is understood thus without any contraction at all being understood along with it, or a relation to sensibles or any relation.

B. Second Opinion

125. There is another opinion [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.24, q.8], which posits that God is the first object of the intellect, and the fundamental reasons for it are those that were adduced for the first part of the question [nn.108-109], arguing to the main point. And for the same reasons it posits that God is the first object of the will, because God is the reason for willing everything else - the way the opinion adduced the authority from Augustine On The Trinity VIII ch.6 n9, “Why then do we love another whom we believe to be just, and not the form itself where we see what a just mind is, so that we too can be just? Or is it that, unless we loved this form, we would in no way love him we believe to be just, whom we love because of this form? But while we are not just, we do not love it enough to have strength to be just.”

126. Against this opinion I argue as follows: the natural first object of any power has a natural order to that power; God does not have a natural order to our intellect under the idea of moving it, save perhaps under the idea of some general attribute, as that opinion supposes; therefore God is only the first object under the idea of that attribute, and so that general attribute will be the first object - or, according to the opinion that I held before [n.19] (that God is only understood under the idea of being [nn.56-60]), he will not have a natural order save under such universal concept. But a particular that is only understood in something common is not the first object of the intellect, but rather that common thing is. Therefore etc.

127. Further, it is certain that God does not have a primacy of adequacy because of being common, so as to be asserted of any object per se intelligible to us. Therefore, if he has some primacy of adequacy this will be because of virtuality, namely that he contains virtually in himself everything per se intelligible. But not for this reason will he be the object adequate to our intellect, because other beings move our intellect by their own virtue, so that the divine essence is not moving our intellect to knowing him and all other knowables. And as was said before in the question about the subject of theology [Ord. Prol. nn.152, 200-201], the essence of God is for this reason the first object of the divine intellect that it alone moves the divine intellect to knowing itself and all the things knowable by that intellect.

128. Through the same reasons [nn.126-127] is it proved that substance could not, on the ground that all accidents are attributed to it, be posited to be the first object of our intellect, for accidents have their own power to move the intellect. Therefore, substance does not move to knowledge of itself and of all other things.

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

III. About the Other Transcendentals

167. Now that these points about being have been seen [nn.129-166], a further doubt remains: whether any other transcendental that seems to have an equal commonness with being could be posited as the first object of the intellect.

And it is posited that there is, and this is that true is the first object of the intellect, and not being. There is a threefold proof.

168. First as follows [Henry, Summa 48 q.1]: distinct powers have distinct formal objects, from On the Soul 2.4.415a17-22, 6.418a10-17; intellect and will are distinct powers; therefore, they have distinct formal objects, which does not seem possible to sustain if being is posited as the first object of the intellect; but if true is so posited, distinct objects can well be assigned.

169. Second as follows [Henry, ibid., a.34 q.3]: being is of itself common to the sensible and the non-sensible; but the proper object of any power is the object of it under some proper idea; therefore, in order for being to be the proper object of the intellect, it must be determined and contracted to intelligible being by something by which sensible being is excluded. But such contracting thing seems to be the true, which asserts of itself the idea of what manifests or is intelligible.

170. Again, third as follows [Henry, ibid.]: an object is not the proper object of a power save according as it is the proper mover of the power; but something only moves a power as it has some relationship to it; therefore being, according as it is something absolute and not possessed of any relation to the intellect, is not the proximate and immediate object. But that according to which being has formally a relation to the intellect is truth because, according to Anselm On Truth ch.11, “truth is correctness perceptible only to the mind.”

171. But against this conclusion about truth I argue as follows: the first, that is, the adequate object [of a power] is adequated to it either in commonness or in virtuality or in both primacies run together; the true is in none of these ways adequated to the intellect; being is so adequated, as was made plain [n.137]; therefore etc.

Proof of the first part of the minor [“the true is not adequated to the intellect in commonness.”]: the true is not asserted in the ‘what’ of all per se intelligibles, because it is not asserted in the ‘what’ of being, nor of anything per se under being.

The second part of the minor [“the true is not adequated to the intellect in virtuality”] is proved along with the third [“there is a double primacy in being, of commonness and virtuality”], because things under the true, although they include it essentially, do not include all intelligibles virtually or essentially, because this trueness, which is in a stone, does not essentially or virtually include stone but, conversely, the being that is stone includes truth - and so on about any other beings and their truths.

172. Again, true is a property of being and of anything under being; therefore, when being or anything under being is understood precisely under the idea of the true, it is only understood per accidens and not in its quidditative idea. But knowledge of anything according to its quidditative idea is the first and most perfect knowledge of it, from Metaphysics 7.1.1028a31-b2. Therefore, no knowledge of anything precisely under the idea of true is the first knowledge of an object, and so neither is truth the first idea, precisely, of knowing an object.

173. The argument [n.172] is confirmed from Prior Analytics 2.21.67a33-36, since knowledge of a mule as mule stands along with ignorance of this mule as this mule. For just as, when making comparison with a habit, an inferior element is extraneous to its superior, about which superior that habit first is, so much more will the object be extraneous to its property, in comparison either with the habit or the power. The habit or science of physics, which is a habit in the power of the intellect, has for first object being as movable or changeable (what today we might call the elemental energies of things). Living beings are movable or changeable things under that general heading, but they are extraneous as such to the first object of physics. Similarly, the property of living objects that is their character (as tame or wild) is extraneous to the first object of physics. ³³

174. Again, the object of a habit does not naturally precede the object of the power; but the first object of metaphysics, which is a habit of the intellect, is being, which is prior naturally to the true (and it is not true that what is a property of being is first the subject of metaphysics); therefore etc. The science of metaphysics is a habit in the intellect, the power of knowing. The first object of metaphysics is being. Being is prior to the true, for the true, like one, is a property of being, and a property of the first object of a science cannot be the subject that that science first deals with. So, if the first object of the power of the intellect were the true, the first object of the habit of metaphysics would precede the first object of the power. The consequent is false; therefore etc. [NB. The punctuation of the translation of this paragraph does not entirely follow the punctuation of the Latin text printed by the Vatican editors.] ³⁴

175. I reply to the arguments for the opposite, reducing them to the opposite side.

To the first as follows: that, just as the will cannot have an act about something unknown, so it cannot have an act about an object under some formal idea of the object which idea is thoroughly unknown. Therefore any idea according to which something is an object for the will is knowable by the intellect; and so the first idea of the object of the intellect cannot be an idea that is distinguished from the idea of what can be willed, if in any way there be such [cf. canceled note to n.151].a

a.a [Interpolated text] Again, the intellect sets down a difference, and an agreement, between the good and the true; therefore etc.

176. This is also plain about any properties of being whatever of which there is distinct knowledge - of good under the idea of good just as of true under the idea of true -because, according to Avicenna Metaphysics VI ch.5, “if some science were about all causes, that would be noblest which was about the final cause,” the idea of which cause, according to many, is goodness [cf. Ord. Prol. n.195].

177. As to what, therefore, is taken in the argument [n.168] about the distinction of objects, I reply: distinct powers are disposed to each other in three ways - either they are altogether disparate or they are ordered, and then either in the same genus (as the higher and lower cognitive power), or in another genus of powers, as the cognitive power in relation to its appetitive power.

178. In the first way powers that are distinct have objects altogether distinct, because none of them (from the fact they are disparate) operates per se about the object that the other operates per se about. Such are the exterior senses, as sight and hearing.

179. In the second way distinct powers have subordinate objects, such that, just as the superior power can have per se an act about anything that the inferior power can have per se an act about, so the first object of the superior power contains under itself the first object of the inferior power - otherwise that object would not be adequate to the superior power. Hence the first object of sight is, in its commonness, contained as inferior under the first object of the common sense.

180. In the third way powers are so disposed to each other that if the appetitive power is adequate to the cognitive power in operating about certain objects, the same thing would be the first object of each power, and under the same formal idea on the part of the object. But if the appetitive power have an act about some knowable things and not others, then the object of the appetitive power will be inferior to the object of the cognitive power.

181. To the issue in hand. Intellect and will fall into the third member [n.177], and if the will be posited to have an act about everything intelligible (whatever idea it is understood under), the same thing will be posited as the object both of the will and of the intellect and under the same formal idea. If not, but it is case that the will only has an act about intelligibles that are an end, or beings for an end, and not about things able merely to be speculated about, then the object of the will would be posited as in some way a particular with respect to the object of the intellect; but it will always be the case that being is the object of the intellect

182. The second reason [n.189] I bring to the opposite side, because an object proportioned to the superior power is common to the object proper to the inferior power (from the aforesaid distinction [nn.177, 179]) - and so being, according as it is something that abstracts from the sensible and non-sensible, is truly the proper object of the intellect, because the intellect, as the superior power, can have an act about the sensible as about the non-sensible. Hence this abstraction, which seems to be a non-appropriation [sc. of the sensible and non-sensible], is sufficiently an appropriation as to the superior power.

Herewith do I reply to the argument, because the commonness of being to the sensible and the non-sensible is the reason for appropriating it to the power that is operative about each object per se, of which sort is the intellect. And although the sensible is contained under being as thus common, yet it is not sensible, that is, not the object of sense, in common, but an intelligible, adequate to the intellect, for a respect proper to an inferior does not have to be proper to a superior. That which the sensible is states such a respect [proper to an inferior], a respect that belongs to some quality, to all and only it [sc. sensible quality]. But the intelligible, although it belongs to some being in a way that the sensible does not, yet not to all and only it; rather, it belongs to nothing only but to being in common; not as being is ‘this something’, as a certain intelligible singular, but as it is common to every intelligible, and this according to a mode of commonness stated before [n.137].

183. The third argument [n.170] I bring to the opposite side, because I say that the idea of an object is that according to which it is mover of a power, just as the idea of what is active or acts is said to be the form according to which the agent acts. Now such idea of an object cannot be a respect to a power; and the Philosopher speaks in this way in On the Soul 2.7.418a26-30. Where he assigns the first object of sight, he says that “that of which sight is as of its object is the visible,” not in the first mode per se but in the second, so that it is put in the idea of the visible. But if the formal idea of the object of a power were the relation to such power, then the first object of sight would be the visible per se in the first mode, because visibility itself would the formal idea of the object. And then it would be easy to assign first objects, because the first object of any power would be the correlative of such power - as visible the correlative of sight, audible the correlative of hearing. In the second mode per se the subject falls into the definition of the predicate, and in the first mode per se the predicate falls into the definition of the subject. So, in the statement ‘the object of sight is the visible’, if it is per se in the second mode, the term ‘visible’ is being defined by ‘object of sight’ and not ‘object of sight’ by ‘visible’. But if the statement is meant per se in the first mode, as it will be if the formal idea of the object of a power is a relation to that power (which is the claim of the third argument, n.170. being rejected here), then ‘object of sight’ is being defined by ‘visible’, and defining objects of powers becomes easy, in fact, directly verbal, as ‘the object of seeing is the seeable’ etc. But things are the other way round, and the object of a power precedes and is understood before the power is, as Scotus shows from Aristotle. ³⁵ And in this way did the Philosopher not assign first objects of powers, but he assigned certain absolutes [sc. not relations], for example color of sight, sound of hearing etc. [ibid. 6.418a10-17]. Hence if ‘true’ state a formal respect to the intellect (about which elsewhere [Scotus, Quodlibet q.8 nn.13-14, and infra n.323]), the consequence is the opposite of what is proposed on this point [sc. by Henry, n.170]. From this follows that that idea is not the formal idea of the object, but things other than it.

184. It is plain, then, from what has been said [from the beginning of the question, n.129, onwards], that nothing can be as fittingly posited to be the first object of the intellect as being - neither some virtual first, nor some other transcendental; because about any other transcendental there is proof through the same means as there was about the true [nn.171-183].

IV. Doubt about the First Object of the Intellect for this Present State

185. But there remains a doubt why, if being according to its most common idea is the first object of the intellect, anything contained under being cannot naturally move the intellect, as was argued in the first argument for the first question [n.25]; and in that case it seems that God, and all immaterial substances, could be naturally known by us, which has been denied [nn.56-57]. Indeed, this has been denied about all substances and all essential parts of substances, because it has been said [n.137] that they are not conceived in any quidditative concept save in the concept of being.

186. I reply. That is assigned to be the first object of a power which is adequate to the power by reason of the power, but not that which is adequate to the power in any state, just as the first object of sight is not posited to be what is adequate to sight existing in a medium that is illuminated by a candle precisely, but what is of a nature to be adequate to sight of itself, as far as concerns the nature of sight. But now, as was proved before [nn.113-119] (against the first opinion about the first, that is, adequate object of the intellect, which opinion posits the quiddity of a material thing to be the first object), nothing can, in idea of first object, be made adequate to our intellect by the nature of the power save the most common object; however what is adequate to the intellect in idea of what moves it for this present state is the quiddity of a material thing, and therefore the intellect for this present state will not understand other things that are not contained under this first mover of it.

187. But what is the idea of this state? I reply: a ‘state’ seems to be nothing but a ‘stable permanence’ secured by laws of wisdom. Now it has been secured by those laws that our intellect for this present state understands only the things whose species shine forth in a phantasm - and this either because of penalty for original sin, or because of the natural concord of the powers of the soul in operating, according as we see a superior power operate on the same thing that an inferior power operates on, if each is going to have perfect operation. And so in fact it is in our case, that, as to whatever universal we understand, we have a phantasm actually of a singular instance of it. However, this concordance, which is in fact for this present state, does not belong to the nature of the intellect from the fact it is an intellect; nor even from the fact it is in a body, because then it would have a like concordance in a glorious body, which is false. Wherever this present state comes from, then, whether from the pure will of God, or from punitive justice (which cause Augustine points to On the Trinity 15 n.50, “What is the cause,” he says, “why you cannot see the light with a fixed gaze unless, to be sure, it is infirmity? And who made it for you save, to be sure, iniquity?”) - whether, I say, this is the total cause, or there is some other one, at any rate there is, from the fact the intellect is a power and a nature, no first object of it save something common to all intelligibles, even though the first object, adequate to it in moving it, be for this present state the quiddity of a sensible thing.

188. And if you say, granted that being in common would be the adequate common object for this present state, yet separate substances would not move the intellect save in a greater light than is the natural light of the agent intellect - this reason seems no reason. First, because if such light is required, there is no reason on the part of the intellect, from the fact it is such a power, why it could not now have such light; for it is of itself receptive of such light, otherwise it could, while remaining the same, never receive it. Second, because when a pair of agents run together for some effect, the more that one of them can supply the place of the other, the more is a lesser perfection required in the other - and sometimes no perfection at all if it supply the whole place of the other; but the object and light run together for acting on the possible intellect; therefore, the more the object is more perfect and more able to supply the place of light, the more does a lesser light suffice, or at any rate a greater light is not required. But the first intelligible is light maximally and able maximally to supply the place of intellectual light; therefore if, as far as concerns its own part, it be conceived under the first object adequate to our intellect for this present state, there would not be any defect on the part of the light without its being able to move our intellect.

V. To the Initial Arguments

189. Reply to the main arguments of this question [nn.108-109]. As to the first [n.108] I say that not always is the most perfect thing cause with respect to imperfect things, when comparing imperfect things to any third thing (just as a perfect white thing is not cause of visibility for all visibles). Or if it is the cause, yet not the precise and adequate cause; and if it is the most moving cause, yet not the precise and adequate cause. But the first object of the intellect that we are speaking of in this question has to be the first thing adequate to the power.

190. To the second argument [n.109] I say that, if it be rightly argued, the inference should be ‘no participated being can be known unless it is from un-participating being’, and the inference should not be that ‘it cannot be known save by reason of a known un-participating being’; for then there are four terms [in the syllogism], because what is put in the conclusion is that ‘it is known through un-participating being’, which term was not in the second proposition. The syllogism being criticized is (to put it schematically): each thing is disposed to knowledge as it is disposed to being; a being by participation is from un-participating being; therefore a being by participation is known from un-participating being’s being known. The error is the addition of ‘being known’ to ‘un-participating being’ in the conclusion, which was not in the second premise and so gives four terms to the syllogism whereas a syllogism is only valid with three. Remove that addition (which addition is what produces the fourth term) and a revised conclusion follows: therefore a being by participation is known from un-participating being. But this conclusion no longer supports the thesis, namely that God is the first object of the intellect’s knowing. ³⁶ And the real reason for this defect indicated in the form of the argumentation was stated before in replying to the first argument of the second question of this distinction [n.100]; because although knowability does proportionally follow being, yet it does not follow it in being known save in relation to ‘the intellect that knows each thing according to the degree of its knowability’ [n.100]. So I say here that, although participating being necessarily concludes to un-participating knowability (and thus does it have participating knowability because of the unparticipating knowable), yet it is not known through the un-participating knowable as this latter is known, but as it is the cause that gives being to the former. And this was touched on in a certain argument about enjoyment in the fourth question of the first distinction [Ord. I d.1 n.148].

191. As to the remark [n.109] from Augustine On the Trinity 8 ch.3 n.4, I say that he is speaking about the knowledge of good in general that is impressed in us, that is, which is easily impressed in the intellect by singulars, because universal intentions [concepts] arise in anyone rather easily.

I prove this from the same Augustine in the same book, On the Trinity 8 ch.4 n.7, where he says, “We have knowledge of human nature implanted in us as a matter of rule, according to which knowledge we know that whatever we see of this sort is man or the form of man.” And just as according to this knowledge of man (which he says is “implanted as a matter of rule,” that is, easily abstracted from sensible objects) we judge about anything at all whether it is a man or not, so also could we by the same fact judge eminence in humanity, if it were present in what is in front of us,a which fact is clear from the impressed knowledge of whiteness whereby we judge not only that this thing in front of us is white but that this one is whiter than another. So I say here: this good thing that Augustine is speaking about in ibid. ch. 4 (knowledge of which is naturally impressed in the intellect) is good in common, and thereby do we judge, about the things in front us, that this one is better.

a.a [Interpolated text] just as about the things in front of us we judge that this is better than something else.

192. And that he is speaking [n.109] about the good that is ‘indeterminate privatively’, and not about the good ‘indeterminate negatively’ (in which latter good God is understood), is seen from this, that there, after he has enumerated the many particular goods, he says, “As to this good and that good, take away the ‘this’ and take away the ‘that’ and see the good itself, if you can” - that is: “take away the things that contract the idea of good to creatures and see the idea of good in common,” and in this “you have seen God,” as if in a first common concept wherein he can be naturally seen by us, and not in a particular one as he is “this essence.”

193. In like manner must be understood what Augustine prefaces in ibid. ch.2 n.3 at ‘God is truth’ there: “Do not ask what truth is; phantasms will immediately put themselves in the way.” I understand this as follows: when a universal concept is abstracted from a singular, the more universal it is the more difficulty the intellect has in resting in such a concept because, as was said before [n.187], “whatever universal we understand, we have a phantasm of a singular instance of it;” and that universal which is more similar to the singular shining forth in the phantasm we can understand more easily and for a longer time. Also the most universal concepts are more remote from the singular, and so it is very difficult to rest in the concept of the most universal ones. Therefore, when conceiving God in the most universal concept, “do not ask what it is,” do not descend to a particular concept in which that more universal concept is preserved, which more particular concept is closer to the phantasm. For, by descending to the sort of concept that shines forth more in the phantasms that confront us, “at once the serenity of truth, in which God was being understood, is lost to us” [ibid. ch.2], because at once is a contracted truth understood that does not belong to God - to whom belonged the noncontracted truth conceived in common.

194. To the contrary: ibid. ch.3 n.5, “If you could have per se gazed at the good, you would have gazed at God; and if you have inhered therein with love, you will be perpetually blessed.” Blessedness is not in universal good and the privatively indeterminate.

Again, ibid. ch.6 n.9, “Whence could men be just save by inhering in the form they look upon, so that thence they may be formed?” To be formed by the form of justice is not to be formed by an understood universal.

195. From the same chapter I too reply to ibid. ch.3 n.5, about the good and will [n.194 first paragraph]: “Since other things are only loved because they are good, let it be a shameful thing not to love, when clinging to them, the good itself whereby they are good.”

The argument [n.194] does well prove that the supreme good itself is more to be loved than the goods that participate in it, yet it does not prove that it is the first thing loved with the primacy of adequacy; because too, even if it be the reason of the goodness in other things, and so the reason of their lovability, yet it as loved is not the reason of the others as loved, for something can be deeply loved when it is not loved, as is plain when using what should be enjoyed or enjoying what should be used [Augustine, 83 Questions q.30].

196. And this meaning of Augustine’s is gathered from On the Trinity 9 ch.6 n.11, where in treating of the love of someone who is believed to be just, if afterwards he be found not to be just, “at once,” he says, “the love whereby I was being drawn to him, repelled and as it were thrust back, remains in the form it was when such I had loved him;” that is, if I loved justice, and loved him because I believed that in him was justice, if I find him unjust, my will springs back from him, but the love of justice itself, as of its object, still stands. This remark is not about any un-participating justice, but about the common idea of justice, which is loved for its own sake, and anything it is in is loved because of it.

197. On the contrary: the will is not of universals, both because it tends to the thing in itself, and because the love both of friendship and of concupiscence is love of something in its real existence, present or possible.

198. I reply [to n.197]. To the practical first principles in the intellect there corresponds some volition that is the principle of moral goodness, just as those principles are principles of practical truth in the intellect. It is plain too that any idea of the good and appetible can be understood in universal terms, and if it be thus shown to the will, why cannot the will have an act about its displayed proper object? Third, the appetitive singular, as singular only, does not have proper to itself a cognitive [power] for the universal.

199. To the metaphor of the motion of the soul to the thing [n.197 “the will tends to the thing in itself”], this is meant causally, because the will gives command for being joined to the desired thing in itself (but not formally save because the will is the active power of its own act). But it does not give command about the thing under a greater idea of existing than is apprehended by the intellect. On the contrary, desire and abstractive intellection are of the thing under the idea of it as existing just as much as under the idea of it as object (thus vision and enjoyment are of what is present); but desire moves effectively to the thing because it is a command; not so abstractive intellection.

200. To the second point [n.197, “the love both of friendship and of concupiscence is of something in its real existence”] I say that man shown in the universal is loved with love of friendship, and on that account is ‘this man’ loved; for thus is justice in the universal loved with love of concupiscence, and therefore is ‘this justice’ loved with love of concupiscence for ‘this man’.

201. So also [to n.194 second paragraph] is the exposition plain of the authority of Augustine On The Trinity VIII ch.6 n.9, “Why then do we love another whom we believe to be just and not the form itself where we see what a just mind is etc.” [n.125]. In that authority the form “where we see what a just mind is” must be understood to be justice itself in general; just as the form of man in general is that by which we see what is required to be a man, and by which form we judge that which is in front of us to be or not to be a man, according to him [n.191] in the same place [ibid. 8 ch.4 n.7]. Unless then we were to love the form in general we would not love him whom we believe to be just, whom by this form we love; just as, if you do not love the form of man in general, never will you love him, when he is front of you, because of the loved form of man. And, as long as we are not just, we love justice in general less than we should, because we love with a certain simple volition or a being pleased; and this is not sufficient to be just, but it is necessary to love justice with efficacious volition, namely a volition whereby he who wills would choose to observe justice in itself as the rule of his life. The justice here, then, is privatively indeterminate, and in accord with it do we judge of a just mind, and because of it do we love the mind we believe to be just.

Question Four. Whether any Certain and Sincere Truth could Naturally be Known by the Intellect of the Wayfarer without a Special Illumining of Uncreated Light

202. Finally, as concerns this matter of knowability, I ask whether any certain and sincere truth can naturally be known by the intellect of the wayfarer without a special illumining of uncreated light.

I argue that it cannot:

Augustine On the Trinity 9 ch.6 n.9, “Let us gaze on the inviolable truth from which we may define what sort of mind of man is due to eternal reasons.” And ibid. n.10, “When we approve or disapprove something rightly or not rightly, we are convicted into approving or disapproving by other rules abiding above us.” And ibid. n.11, “We grasp by simple intelligence an art ineffably beautiful above the acuity of the mind.” And in the same place, ch.7 n.12, “In that truth do we perceive the form by which all temporal things are made, and from it do we obtain true knowledge conceived as a word in us” [cf. Henry of Ghent, Summa a.1 q.2].

203. Again On the Trinity 12 ch.2 n.3, “It belongs to a sublimer reason to judge of these bodies according to eternal reasons.”

204. Again, ibid. ch.14 n.23, “Not only of sensible things located in their places are there abiding unchangeable reasons etc.” And that he means there eternal reasons truly in God is proved by this, that in the same place he says, “it belongs to few to reach them;” but if he meant first principles, to reach those does not belong to few but to many, because they are known and common to all.

205. Again ibid. 14 ch.15 n.21, when speaking of the unjust man who “rightly praises and blames many things in human morals,” he says, “By what rules does he judge etc.?” And at the end he says, “Where are those rules written, save in the book of light?” That book of light is the divine intellect. Therefore he maintains that in that light the unjust sees what is to be justly done, and that the light is seen in some impressed book or something impressed by the book, as he says ibid., “hence every just law is transmitted to the heart of man not by departing its origin but as it were by impression, as the image from a ring both passes into the wax and does not leave the wax.” The Vatican Editors note that ‘ .. .leave the wax’ is in the text of Scotus but ‘leave the ring’ in Augustine’s original. ³⁷ Therefore we see in the light by which justice is impressed on the heart of man. But that light is the uncreated light.

206. Again Augustine Confessions 12 ch.15 n.35, “If we both see the true, neither do you see it in me nor I in you, but both of us in that which is above the mind, the unchangeable truth.” And there are many other authorities from Augustine, in many places, for proving this conclusion [several collected by Henry of Ghent, Summa a.1 q.2].

207. To the opposite:

Romans 1.20, “The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are seen through the things that have been made, once they are understood.” These eternal reasons [nn.202-204] are the invisible things of God; therefore, they are known from creatures; so before they are seen, a knowledge of creatures is possessed that is certain.

I. Opinion of Henry

208. In this question there is an opinion of the following sort [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.1 q.2], that general intentions [concepts] have a natural ordering among themselves. Let us speak about the two intentions that relate to the issue at hand, namely the intention of being and of true.

The first intention is that of being, as is proved by what is said in the fourth proposition of On Causes, “The first of created things is ‘to be’,” and in the commentary on the first proposition, “‘To be’ is of greater inherence [sc. than truth];” and the reason is that being is absolute, truth states relation to an exemplar. From this follows that being can be known under the idea of being, even though not under the idea of truth.a

This conclusion is proved also on the part of the intellect: because being can be conceived in a simple intellection and then is that which is true conceived; but the idea of truth can only be conceived by an intellection that combines and divides [sc. terms in a proposition]; simple intellection precedes composition and division.

a.a [Interpolated text] and consequently that which is true can be known before truth itself is known [cf. Scotus, Lectura I d.3 n.153]

209. And if a question be asked about the knowledge of being, or of that which is true, it is said [sc. by Henry] that the intellect can, of its pure natural powers, thus understand the true, of which the proof is that it is unacceptable for “nature to be without is proper operation,” according to Damascene Orthodox Faith III ch.15 n.234. And this is more unacceptable in a more perfect nature, according to the Philosopher, On the Heavens 2.8.290a29-35, about the stars [Henry, Summa a.24 q.1, Scotus Ord. Prol. n.76].a Therefore, since the proper operation of the intellect is to understand the true, it seems unacceptable that nature would not have granted the intellect the things that are sufficient for this operation.

a.a [Interpolated text] because it would be very unacceptable for the stars to have power for progression and not have instruments for progression.

210. But if we speak about knowledge of truth, the response is made that, just as there is a double exemplar, created and uncreated (according to Plato in the Timaeus 2829, namely the made and non-made, created and non-created, exemplar; the created exemplar is the universal species created by the thing, the uncreated exemplar is the idea in the divine mind), so there is a double conformity to an exemplar and a double truth.

One is conformity to the created exemplar, and in this way did Aristotle [Metaphysics 1.1.981a5-7, Posterior Analytics 2.18.100a3-8; also Henry, ibid., a.1 q.1 ad 4] posit that the truths of things are known through their conformity to the intelligible species. And so does Augustine seems to posit in On the Trinity 8.4 n.7, where he maintains that we get the knowledge, general and special, of things collected from sensibles, according to which knowledge we judge about each thing that confronts us that it is this sort or that sort.

211. But that through such acquired exemplar in us an altogether certain and infallible knowledge of truth is obtained about a thing - this seems altogether impossible. And it is proved by a threefold reason, according to them [Henry, ibid., a.1 q.2]. The first is taken form the side of the thing of which an exemplar is abstracted; the second from the side of the subject in which it is; the third from the side of the exemplar in itself.

The first reason is of this sort: the object from which the exemplar is abstracted is changeable; therefore, it cannot be the cause of anything unchangeable; but the certain knowledge that anyone has about anything under the idea of truth is held in him through an unchangeable reason; therefore it is not held through such an exemplar. This reason is said to be Augustine’s in 83 Questions q.9, where he says that “truth is not to be expected from sensibles,” because “sensibles ceaselessly change.”

212. The second reason is of this sort: the soul is of itself changeable and subject to error; therefore by nothing changeable can it be set right or ruled over so as not to err; but such an exemplar in the soul is more changeable than is the soul itself; therefore the exemplar does not perfectly rule over the soul so that it not err.a This reason is said to be Augustine’s in On True Religion ch.30 n.56, “The law of all arts etc.”

a.a [Interpolated text] so a special higher influence is required [cf. Scotus Lectura I d.3 n.158; infra n.216]

213. The third reason: no one has a certain and infallible knowledge of truth unless he have whereby he could discriminate the true from the likely true; because if he cannot discriminate the true from the false or from the likely true he can be in doubt whether he is being deceived; but through the aforesaid created exemplar he cannot discriminate the true from the likely true; therefore etc. Proof of the minor: such a species can represent itself as itself or, in another way, as the object, as is the case in dreams. If it represent itself as the object, there is falsity; if it represent itself as itself, there is truth. Therefore, through such species, nothing is obtained that sufficiently distinguishes between when it represents itself as itself or when as the object, and so nothing is obtained either that sufficiently distinguishes the true from the false.

214. From these the conclusion is drawn that, if it do happen that man have knowledge of certain science and infallible truth, this does not happen to him by looking at an exemplar taken from the thing through the senses, however much this is purified and made universal; but what is required is that he look back at the uncreated exemplar. And then the mode of positing it is as follows: not as something known does God have the idea of exemplar by which, when being looked at, genuine truth is known, for he is known in a general attribute; but God is the reason for knowing as he is bare exemplar and proper reason of created essence.

215. As to how he can be the reason for knowing and not be something known, an example is posited, that it is just as a ray of the sun sometimes arrives in an oblique line, as it were, from its source and sometimes in a direct line; because although the reason for seeing what is seen in a ray that arrives in the first way is the sun, yet not as seen in itself; but for knowing what is seen in the ray in the second way the sun is the reason because it is also known. When therefore this uncreated light illumines the intellect in, as it were, a direct line, then it is, as seen, the idea of seeing other things in itself. But the uncreated light illumines our intellect for this state of life in, as it were, an oblique line, and therefore is it for our intellect an unseen reason for seeing.

216. And a way is posited how [the uncreated light] may possess a threefold idea in respect of the act of seeing, the idea namely of the light that stimulates, of the species that affects, of the character or exemplar that configures. And from this the conclusion is further drawn that a special influence is required, because just as that essence is not seen naturally by us in itself, so is that essence as it is exemplar with respect to a creature not naturally seen (according to Augustine On Seeing God [Epistle 147 to Paulina ch.6 n.18]), for that it is seen is in God’s power: “if he wants, it is seen; if he does not, it is not seen.”

217. Finally it is added that perfect knowledge of the truth is when two exemplar species come together in the mind: one inherent in it, namely the created one, the other flowing into it, namely the uncreated one; and thus do we attain the word of perfect truth.a

a.a [Interpolated text, in place of ‘and thus do we attain...’] shining in the mind. And after a single idea has from these two species been put together for understanding the thing whose idea it is, the mind conceives it [Henry, Summa a.1 q.3].

II. Attack on Henry’s Opinion and Solution of the Question

218. Against this opinion I show first [nn.219-228] that these reasons [nn.211-213] are not fundamental reasons for any true opinion, and that they are not in accord with Augustine’s intention, but favor the opinion of the Academic [sceptics]; second [nn.229-245] I show how the opinion of the Academics [n.227], which seems proved by these reasons, is false, and third [nn.246-257] I reply to the reasons insofar as they are not as probative; fourth [nn.258-260] I argue against the conclusion of this opinion [nn.214-217]; fifth [nn.261-279] I solve the question [n.202]; sixth [n.280] I show how the reasons, insofar as they are Augustine’s, prove the intention of Augustine, not the one for which they are here adduced.a

a.a [Note by Scotus] I argue against this opinion [nn.214-217] in itself, second against the fundamental reasons [n.211-213] that are adduced, or conversely [sc. against the reasons first and then the opinion]. The first includes the fourth article [n. 218] (which is a question directed at the man), and the second [n.218] (which is directed at the thing); the second article includes the first (here) and the third and sixth; the fifth [n.218] article, therefore, is the solution of the question.

A. Against the Fundamental Reasons Adduced

219. First. These reasons [nn.211-213] seem to prove the impossibility of natural certain knowledge.

The first because if the object is ceaselessly changing, neither is it possible for any certitude to be had of it under the idea of the changeless, indeed nor could certitude be had of it in any light whatever, because there is no certitude when the object is known in a way other than it is. Therefore, neither is there certitude in knowing the changeable as unchangeable. It is plain too that the antecedent of this reason, namely that sensibles are ceaselessly moving, is false; for this is the option that is imputed to Heraclitus in Metaphysics 4.5.1010a7-11.

220. Likewise if, because of the changeableness of the exemplar, what is in our soul could not be certitude [n.212], then since whatever is put subjectively in the soul is changeable, the very act of understanding as well, it follows that by nothing in the soul is the soul put right so as not to err.a

a.a [Interpolated text] It follows too that the very act of understanding, since it is more changeable than the soul itself in which it is, will never be true, nor contain truth [cf. Scotus, Lectura I d.3 n169].

221. Similarly, according to this opinion, the inhering created species combines with the inflowing species [n.217]. But when something is combined that is repugnant to certitude, certitude cannot be obtained. For just as from a necessary proposition and a contingent proposition only a contingent proposition follows, so from something certain and something uncertain combining together for some knowledge no certain knowledge follows.

222. The same is plain also about the third reason [n.213], because if the very species abstracted from the thing combines with all knowing, and if no judgement can be made as to when the species represents itself as itself and when it represents itself as the object, then, whatever else combines with it, no certitude can be obtained by which the true may be discriminated from the likely true. These reasons, therefore, seem to conclude to the complete lack of certitude and opinion of the Academic [sceptics].

223. And I give proof that this conclusion [n.222] is not Augustine’s intention:

Augustine Soliloquies 1.8 n.15, “Everyone admits without any doubt the proofs of the learned sciences to be most true.” And Boethius On the Hebdomads, “A common conception of the mind is what each approves when he hears it.” And the Philosopher in Metaphysics 2.1.993b4-5, “First principles are known to everyone like a door to a house, because as a door to a house is open to view, though the interior of the house is not, so are the first principles known to everyone.”

224. From these three authorities [n.223] the argument goes as follows. What belongs to everything of some species follows the specific nature. Therefore, when each has infallible certitude of the first principles, and further when the form of a perfect syllogism is naturally evident to each (from the definition of a perfect syllogism in Prior Analytics 1.1.24b22-24), and the science of the conclusions depends only on the evidence of the principle and the evidence of the syllogistic inference for each - any conclusion, therefore, demonstrable from the self-evident principles, can be naturally known to everyone.

225. Second, it is clear that Augustine allows certainty of things known by sense experience; hence he says On the Trinity 15.12 n.21, “Far be it that we should doubt the things to be true that we have learnt through the senses of the body, for indeed through them we have learnt heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.” If we do not doubt of the truth of them, and we are not deceived, as is plain, then we are certain of the things we know through the senses; for certitude is had when doubt and deception are excluded.

226. It is also plain, third, that Augustine allows certitude of our acts, ibid., “Whether one sleeps or awake, one lives, because both to sleep and to see in dreams belong to one who is alive.”

227. But if you say that ‘to live’ is not second act but first act, there follows ibid., “If someone say I know that I know I am alive, he cannot be deceived,” even when reflecting back however often on the first ‘I know’. And ibid., “If someone say ‘I want to be blessed’, how is it not impudent to reply, ‘perhaps you are deceived?’,” and by reflecting there the ‘I know I want’ “endlessly etc.” Ibid., “If anyone say, ‘I do not wish to err’, will it not surely be true that he does not want to err?” “And other things,” he says, “are found that are valid against the academics, who contend that nothing can be known by man.” There follows ibid., about the three books Against the Academics, “he who has understood those books will be moved not at all by their many arguments against the perception of truth.”

228. Again, ibid. ch.15 n.25, “Things that are so known they could never be lost also belong to the nature of the soul itself, of which sort is that we know we live.”a So the first point is plain [n.218].b

a.a [Note by Scotus] One must note that there are four cognitive awarenesses [cf. nn.224-227, 240245], wherein for us is necessary certitude, namely: of things knowable simply [nn.230-234], things knowable through experience [nn.235-237], our own acts [nn.238-239], and things known by us, through the senses, as they now are [nn.240-245]. The first is manifest [n.230]; the third is concluded to be known per se, otherwise there would be no judgment as to what was known per se [cf. n.238]; the second and fourth contain infinite propositions known per se [nn.235, 241], to which they join others from the several senses. Example: a triangle has three [angles equal to two right angles, cf. Ord. I d.2 n.27], the moon is being eclipsed, I am awake, that is white - the first and the third need the senses only as occasion, because, were all the senses to err, there exists certitude simply [cf. nn.234, 238-239]. The second and fourth hold through this principle, namely that what eventuates frequently from something not free has that something as its per se natural cause [cf. nn.235, 240]; from this does the proposed conclusion follow. In the second and the fourth a necessary proposition is sometimes added [as in nn.236, 242, 244]. So you may put off Augustine’s authorities [nn.225-228] to the second article [cf. n.229], which deals with the matter, or which is the solution [sc. about the above four infallible certitudes].

b.b [Interpolated text] as to how his [Henry’s] reasons are not probative, and [the conclusion] false and against Augustine.

B. Against the Opinion in Itself

229. As to the second article [n.218], in order for the error of the academics to have no place in any knowables, one needs to see how one should speak about the three aforesaid knowables [nn.224-228] - namely about principles known per se and conclusions, and second about things known through experience, and third about our own acts - whether it be possible for infallible certitude of them to be possessed.

230. [About the knowledge of principles and conclusions] - As to certitude about principles, then, I say as follows: the terms of principles known per se have such an identity that the one includes the other with evident necessity, and so the intellect, combining the terms from the fact it apprehends them, has in itself the necessary cause of the conformity of the act of combining with the terms themselves of which it is the combining, and has also the evident cause of such conformity; and so to it is necessarily plain the conformity whose evident cause it apprehends in the terms. Therefore, the intellect cannot have an apprehension of the terms, and a combining of them, without there being a conformity of that combining with the terms, just as a white thing and a white thing cannot be without a likeness being between them. Now this conformity of the combining with the terms is the truth of the combining; therefore, the combining of such terms cannot be without being true, and so the perception of the combining and the perception of the terms cannot be without perception of the conformity of the combining with the terms, and so without perception of the truth, because the first perceived things evidently include the perception of this truth.

231. This reason is confirmed through a likeness, from the Philosopher Metaphysics 4.3.1005b29-32, where he maintains that the opposite of a first principle cannot arrive in anyone’s intellect, namely the opposite of this principle ‘it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be’, “because then contrary opinions would exist in the mind together;” because it is, of course, true of contrary opinions, that is, of opinions formally repugnant, that an opinion opinining ‘it is’ of something and an opinion opining ‘it is not’ of the same thing are formally repugnant.

232. So I assert, in the issue at hand, some repugnance of understandings in the mind, though not formal repugnance. For if knowledge of whole and part stands in the intellect, and the combining together of them, then, since these include, as by necessary cause, the conformity of the combining with the terms, if the opinion stand in the intellect that this combining is false, cognitions will stand that are repugnant, not formally, but one cognition will stand with another and yet it will be the necessary cause of a cognition opposite to it, which is impossible. For just as it is impossible for white and black to stand together (because they are contraries formally), so is it impossible for white to stand together with what is precisely cause of black, thus necessarily cause, because unable, without contradiction, to be without it [sc. black].

233. When certitude about first principles is possessed [nn.230-232], it is plain how it will be possessed about conclusions inferred from them, on account of the evidence of the form of a perfect syllogism; for the certitude of the conclusion depends only on the certitude of the principles and on the evidence of the inference.

234. But will the intellect really not err in this knowledge of principles and conclusions, if all the senses are deceived about the terms?

I reply that, as far as concerns this knowledge, the intellect does not have the senses as cause but only as occasion. For the intellect can have of simples only knowledge received from the senses, but, once the knowledge is received, it can by its own virtue combine the simples together. And if by reason of such simples the combination of them is evidently true, the intellect will by its own virtue and by virtue of the terms assent to the combination - not by virtue of the senses from which it exteriorly gets the terms. An example: if the idea of ‘whole’ and the idea of ‘being greater’ is received from the senses, and if the intellect put together this proposition, ‘every whole is greater than its part’, the intellect will by its own virtue and by that of these terms assent indubitably to this combination, and will not just do so because it saw the terms conjoined in reality (the way it assents to this complex, ‘Socrates is white’, because it sees that these are united in reality). Indeed, I say that if all the senses from which such terms are received were false, or if (and this counts more for deception) some senses were false and some were true, the intellect would not be deceived about such principles, because it would always have in itself the terms that were cause of the truth; as suppose that on someone born blind were miraculously impressed in a dream the species of white and black, and suppose these species remained afterwards when he was awake, his intellect by abstracting would combine from them this proposition, ‘white is not black’, and about it his intellect would not be deceived although the terms were received from erring sense; for the formal idea of the terms, which has been reached, is the necessary cause of the truth of this negative proposition.

235. [About knowledge through experience] - About the second knowables, namely things known through experience [n.229], I say that although experience not be of all singulars but of many, nor always but often, yet someone with experience does infallibly know that so it is both always and in all things, and this through this proposition residing in the soul, ‘whatever comes about for the most part from a non-free cause is the natural effect of that cause’. This proposition is known to the intellect even had it taken its terms from erring sense, because a non-free cause cannot produce non-freely an effect for the most part, the opposite of which it is ordered to, or which it is not ordered to by its form. But a chance cause is ordered to producing the opposite of a chance effect or to not producing it; therefore nothing is a chance cause of an effect that is frequently produced by it, and so, if it is not free, it will be the natural cause.a And this effect comes about from the cause for the most part; this is taken from experience. For, after finding such a nature now with this sort of accident now with that, what is found is that, however great the diversity of accidents, always was such effect consequent to this nature. Therefore, the effect did not follow some accident of this nature, but from the nature itself in itself did such effect follow.

a.a [Interpolated text - in place of “therefore nothing.. .natural cause”] therefore it is a natural cause of an effect frequently produced by it, because it is not a chance cause.

236. But further to be noted is that sometimes experience is had of a conclusion, as that the moon is frequently eclipsed, and then, on the supposition of the conclusion that so things are, a cause of this conclusion is looked for by way of division. And sometimes from experiencing the conclusion one reaches principles known from the terms. And then, from such a principle known from the terms can the conclusion, known previously only by experience, be known more certainly, namely with the first kind of knowledge, because known as deduced from a principle known per se [nn.229-230] - the way this is per se known, that ‘a dark body interposed between a manifest body and the light is preventing the multiplication of the light to such manifest body’. And if it has been found by division that the earth is such a body interposed between the sun and the moon, this will be known most certainly by a demonstration ‘because of which’ (because through the cause), and not only by experience in the way this conclusion was known before the finding of the principle.

237. Now sometimes there is experience of a principle, so that it is not possible to find by way of division a further principle known from the terms, but a stand is made in something true for the most part, whose extreme terms are known by experience to be frequently united, for example that this plant of this sort of species is hot. And there is no prior middle term found whereby the property may be proved of the subject by a demonstration ‘because of which’, but a stand is made in this as in something that is on account of experiences a first known. Although then uncertainty and fallibility may be removed by this proposition, ‘an effect for the most part of a non-free cause is the natural effect of it’, yet this is the last degree of scientific knowledge. And perhaps in that case actual knowledge is not had of the union of the extreme terms, but aptitudinal knowledge. For if the property is some absolute thing other than the subject, it could be separated from the subject without contradiction, and the experienced person would not have knowledge that it is so, but that it is apt to be so.

238. [About our acts] - About the third knowables, namely our own acts [n.229], I say that there is certitude about many of them, as there is of things known first and per se, as is plain from Metaphysics 4.6.1011a3-9, where the Philosopher says of the arguments of those who say that all appearances are true, because those arguments ask “whether we are now awake or sleeping; and all such doubts have the same effect; for they make it an axiom that there is a reason for everything.” And he adds, “they are asking for a reason for things of which there is no reason, for there is no demonstration of a principle of demonstration.” So, for Aristotle there, ‘we are awake’ is known per se like a principle of demonstration; nor is it an objection that it is contingent because, as was said elsewhere [Ord. Prol. n.169], there is an order in contingent things, for some of them are first and immediate, else there would be a process to infinity in contingent things, or something contingent would follow from a necessary cause, both of which are impossible.

239. And just as there is certitude about being awake as about something known per se, so also about many other acts that are in our power (as that I understand or I am hearing), and about others that are perfect acts. For although there is no certitude that I am seeing a white thing located outside, or in such a subject or at such a distance, because an illusion can occur in the medium or in the organ and in many other ways, yet there is certitude that I am seeing, even if there is illusion in the organ. And this seems most of all to be an illusion, namely when, without an object being present, an act in the organ arises of the sort that is of a nature to arise in the presence of an object. And so if the power had its own action when such a condition is posited, that which would be called vision would truly be there, whether it be an action or a passion or both. But if an illusion were to happen, not in the organ proper, but in something close to it that the organ seems to be -as that if an illusion were not to occur in the bundle of the nerves, but that in the eye itself an impression were to arise of the sort of species that is of a nature to arise from a white thing - still the eye would be seeing, because such a species, or what is of a nature to be seen in it, would be seen. For it has distance enough as regard the organ of sight that is in the bundle of the nerves, as appears in Augustine On the Trinity 11.3 n.4, that the reliquies of things seen remaining in the eye are seen with the eyes closed; and in the Philosopher On Sense and Sensed Object 2.437a23-26, it appears that the fire [the ‘flash’] which is generated from a violent upward raising of the eye and reduplicated is seen until the eyelids are shut. These are true seeings, though not the most perfect ones, because there are here sufficient distances from the species to the principal organ of sight.

240. But how is certitude had of things that are subject to the acts of sense, as that something outside is the sort of white or hot that appears?

I reply:

Either the same things about such an object appear opposite to diverse senses, or they do not, but all the senses that know it have the same judgment about it.

241. If in the second way, then certitude of the truth is had of this sort of thing known through the senses and through this proposition from before [n.235], that ‘what is brought about for the most part by something, that something is the natural cause of it, provided it not be a free cause’. Therefore, when this something is present and from it this sort of change arises in the senses for the most part, it follows that the change, or the generated species, is the natural effect of such a cause; and so such thing outside will be white or hot, or some other such thing as is of a nature to be presented through the species that is for the most part generated by it.

242. But if diverse senses have diverse judgments about something seen outside, as that sight says a stick part of which is in water and part in the air is broken, that sight always says the sun is of less size than it is, and that everything seen from a distance is smaller than it is - in such things there is certitude about what is true, and about which sense is erring, through a proposition resting in the soul that is more certain than any judgment of the senses, and through the acts coming together of several senses; so that always some proposition sets the intellect right about the acts of the senses, about which is true and which is false; and in this proposition the intellect does not depend on the senses as on a cause, but as on an occasion.

243. An example. The intellect has this proposition resting in it, ‘no thing that is rather hard is broken by touching something soft that yields to it’. This is so per se known from the terms that, even if the terms were taken from the senses, the intellect cannot doubt of it; indeed, the opposite includes a contradiction. But that the stick is harder than water and that water yields to it, this each sense states, both sight and touch. It follows, therefore, that the stick is not broken as the senses judge it broken; and so which sense errs and which does not about the breaking of the stick, the intellect judges through something more certain than every act of the senses.

244. Similarly, on the other part [sc. the size of the sun, n.242], the fact that a quantity placed altogether against a quantity is equal to it, this is known to the intellect however much the knowledge of the terms be taken from an erring sense; but that the same quantity could be placed against something seen near at hand and far off, this both sight and touch say; therefore the quantity is equal whether seen near at hand or far off; therefore the sight when saying it is smaller is in error.

245. This conclusion [n.244] is proved from principles known per se, and from the acts of two senses that know that so things are for the most part. And so, whenever reason judges the senses to be erring, it judges this not through any knowledge precisely acquired from the senses as from the cause, but through some knowledge occasioned by the senses, in which it is not deceived even if all the senses are deceived [n.234], and by some other knowledge, acquired from a sense or senses, that is ‘for the most part’, and these are known to be true by the proposition often cited [nn.235, 237, 241, added note to n.228], namely that ‘what is brought about for the most part etc.’a

a.a [Interpolated note] - But note that if all the senses erred about all sensible objects common to all the senses [cf. Ord. Prol. n.33] (for example about figure, quantity, or about this figure or this quantity, or that one thing was two, or that this one thing, as a head, was two heads), then the intellect could not have any certitude about it from the senses, by the fact all the senses are erring -or because each sense is erring about its own proper object; and this happens in two ways, either about this color or that, or about a white or black thing. In the first way the sense is not in error about its first object, and so neither is the intellect; but if the sense is deceived about a secondary object, as sight [about a white or black thing], Sensibles are typically divided into proper sensibles, which belong to one sense only (color proper to the eyes, sound to the ears, etc.), common sensibles, which are common to more than one sense (as shape, size, number), and accidental sensibles, which are perceived immediately with the proper or common sensibles but are not as such sensible (as that this black thing is Cuddles the cat, or that white thing is Snowy the poodle). Senses cannot be deceived about proper sensibles but can be about common and accidental sensibles. The ‘secondary object’ mentioned here, about which deception is possible, is primarily, one assumes, a reference to the accidental sensibles, since the common sensibles have just been discussed earlier in this note. The point, then, seems to be that if someone is deceived as to all accidental sensibles, as to whether this black or white thing (or anything with any color between the extremes of white and black or, by extension, anything identified by any sensible proper to any of the five senses) is a cat or a dog or is this cat or some other cat, then the intellect will have no certainty. If it has certainty it will only be in some other person who is not so deceived. ³⁸and then either all sight is deceived about such secondary object, and then there can be no certain knowledge in the intellect, or some sight is deceived and some not, and then [the intellect] can have certitude in another individual, though not in this one.

C. Against the Fundamental Reasons insofar as they are Less Probative

246. As to the third article [n.218], a response must be made from the preceding [nn.230-245] to the three reasons [of Henry, nn.211-213].a

To the first argument [n.211], as to the point about the change of the object, the antecedent is false;b nor is it the opinion of Augustine but the error of Heraclitus and of his disciple Cratylus, who did not want to speak but to move his finger, as is said in Metaphysics 4.5.1010a7-15. And the consequence, given the antecedent were true, is not valid, because, according to Aristotle, certain knowledge could still be had of this fact, that all things would be continually moving. Also, it does not follow that, if the object is changeable, then what is produced by it is not representative of anything under the idea of the unchangeable [n.211]; for the changeability in the object is not the reason for generating [knowledge], but the nature of the object itself that is changeable. The thing generated by it, therefore, represents the nature per se. If, therefore, the nature, whereby it is nature, have some unchangeable relationship to something else, that something else through its exemplar, and the nature itself through its exemplar, are represented as unchangeably united; and thus, through two exemplars, generated by two changeable things - not insofar as they changeable but insofar as they are natures - knowledge of the unchangeability of their union can be had.

a.a [Note by Scotus] Note that knowledge of a principle cannot be changed from truth to falsity [n.250], nor the other way around, because it is simply incorruptible. The intelligible species, not the phantasm, can in this way be destroyed, but it cannot be changed from a true representation to a false one [n.251]. But the object, although corruptible, yet cannot be changed from a true entity to a false one [n.246]; and so it conforms knowledge to itself or causes knowledge of itself by its truth in existing, because a true entity, unchangeable into a false one, virtually contains true knowledge, that is, knowledge in conformity with a true entity.
     Note, according to Augustine that a necessary or unchangeable truth is “above the mind” [n.206], meaning ‘in idea of evident truth’, because it causes evident truth about itself in the mind [n.230]. But it is not, according to the evidence of it, subject to the mind so that it could appear true or false, in the way a probable truth is subject to the mind so that the mind, by seeking reasons here or there through which it may be proved or disproved [n.202], could make it appear true or false [n.250]. Thus must it be understood that the mind does not judge about the immutable truth [n.203], but of other things; because a declaration that ‘this is true’, which is an act of judging, is in the power of the mind with respect to what is probable, but not with respect to what is necessary; nor yet does it less perfectly assert of the necessary that it is ‘true’ - and this assertion in Aristotle can be said to be a judgment [sc. ‘the same thing cannot both be and not be’, n.231], but Augustine maintains [n.203] that judgment is in the power of the judger, not something that at once may be necessarily determined by something else.
     In this way is it plain how the mind judges of a necessary conclusion [n.233]. Since the conclusion is not of itself at once evident, therefore does it not of itself give determination to the mind itself as to the evidence for itself; also the mind can bring forward sophistical arguments against it, by which the mind may dissent from it - not so against what is a first known, Metaphysics 4.3.1005a29-6a18 (“comes into the mind etc.” [n.255]).

b.b [Interpolated text] for sensibles are not in continuous motion, rather they remain the same for some time [cf. Scotus, Lectura I d.3 n.182].

247. Although it not generate insofar as it is changeable, yet, if it is changeable, how is its relation to something else unchangeable?

I reply: the relation is unchangeable in this way, that there cannot be an opposite relation between the extremes, neither can this relation not exist, given the extremes, but it is destroyed by the destruction of the extreme or the extremes.

248. On the contrary: how is a necessary proposition affirmed if the identity of the extremes can be destroyed?

I reply: when the thing does not exist, there is no real identity of it. But then, if it is in the intellect, there is identity as it is an understood object, and it is in a certain respect necessary, because in such existence the extremes cannot be without such identity. However, it is able not to be, just as the extreme is able to be non-understood. Therefore, a proposition is necessary in a certain respect in our intellect, because it cannot be changed to the false; but it is not simply necessary save in the divine intellect, just as neither do the extremes have an identity simply necessarily in any being save in understood being.

249. It is plain too that something representative that is changeable in itself can represent something under the idea of the unchangeable, because the essence of God will, under the idea of the unchangeable, be represented to the intellect through something altogether changeable, whether it be a species or an act; this is plain through a likeness, because through the finite can something under the idea of the infinite be represented.

250. To the second argument [of Henry, n.212] I say that in the soul a twofold changeability can be understood, one from affirmation to negation and conversely (as from ignorance to knowledge or from non-intellection to intellection), another from, as it were, contrary to contrary, as from rectitude to deception or conversely.

Now the soul is changeable as to all objects in the first way, and by nothing formally existing in it is such changeability taken away from it. But it is not changeable with the second changeableness save as to the complexes [propositions] that are not evident from the terms. But about those that are evident from the terms the soul cannot be changed with the second changeableness, because, once the terms themselves are understood, they are a necessary and evident cause of the conformity with the terms themselves of the composition that has been made [n.230]. Therefore, if the soul is changeable from rightness to error, absolutely, it does not follow that by nothing can it be set right other than itself; at least as regard the objects about which the intellect cannot err it can be set right by the terms once they have been apprehended.

251. To the third argument [of Henry, n.213] I say that if it had any appearance [of truth], it would conclude more against [Henry’s] opinion that denies intelligible species,a because a species that can represent something sensible as an object in dreams would be a phantasm, not an intelligible species. Therefore, if the intellect use only a phantasm by which the object is present to it and not any intelligible species, it does not seem it could discriminate the true from the likely true through anything in which the object shines out for it. But if one posits a species in the intellect, [Henry’s] reasoning is not valid, for the intellect cannot use the species [sc. as opposed to a phantasm] as object for itself, because it cannot use it when sleeping.

a.a [Note by Scotus] which is the opinion of him who posits this opinion here [nn.211-213].

252. If you object that, if the phantasm can represent itself as the object, then the intellect, through that error of the imaginative power, can err, or at any rate it can be so bound that it cannot operate, as is plain in dreams and the mad - it can be said [in reply] that, though the intellect be bound when there is such error in the imaginative power, yet it does not err, because it does not then have an act.

253. But how will the intellect know, or how then will it be certain, when the imaginative power is erring, but its not being in error is required for the intellect not to be in error?

I reply. This truth rests in the intellect, that a power does not err about an object proportioned to it unless it is indisposed. And it is known to the intellect that the power of imagination is not, when awake, indisposed with any such indisposition as makes a phantasm represent itself as an object; for it is per se known to the intellect that, when thinking, it is awake, such that the power of imagination is not, as it is in dreams, bound during wakefulness.

254. But an objection against the stated certitude about acts is still made in this way: ‘it seems to me that I am seeing or hearing, when however I am not seeing or hearing; so there is no certitude about this’.

255. I reply.

It is one thing to show against someone who denies a proposition that the proposition is true; it is another thing to show to someone who accepts it how it is true. An example from Metaphysics 4.3.1005a29-6a18: the Philosopher does not introduce, against someone who denies the first principle [sc. the principle of non-contradiction], the unacceptable result that contrary opinions would simultaneously exist in the soul [n.231] (the deniers would concede this themselves as presupposed); rather he brings in other unacceptable results, more manifest to them, though not in themselves. But to those who accept the first principle he shows how it is known, that it is such that its opposite could not come into the mind; which he proves by the fact that then contrary opinions could stand simultaneously. Such conclusion is more unacceptable in that case than the hypothesis [sc. that ‘its opposite could not come into the mind’].

256. So here. If you allow that no proposition is known per se, I refuse to dispute with you, because it is clear that you are impudent, and are not persuaded [sc. that what you allow is true], as is plain in your actions, as the Philosopher objects, Metaphysics 4.3.100535-6a18: for, when dreaming about getting something that is sort of close by and waking up afterwards, you do not pursue it as you would pursue it if, being awake, you were close to obtaining it. But if you allow that some proposition is known per se, and that about anything an indisposed power can err (as is plain in dreams), then, so that some proposition may be known to be known per se, there must be a possibility of knowing when the power is disposed and when not, and consequently it is possible for knowledge about our acts to be had that the power is thus disposed, because that is known per se which appears known per se to it.

257. I say then to the form of this caviling [n.254] that, just as it appears to a dreamer that he sees, so could the opposite appear to him of a principle of speculation that is known per se; and yet it does not follow that that principle is not per se known. And so it does not follow that it is not per se known to a hearer that he is hearing, for an indisposed power can err about anything, but not a disposed power. And when it is disposed and when it is not disposed is per se known - otherwise it could not be known that anything else was per se known, because it could not be known what will be per se known, whether what the intellect assents to when disposed in this way, or what it assents to when disposed in that way.

D. Against the Conclusion itself of the Opinion

258. About the fourth article [n.218], against the conclusion of the opinion, I argue as follows: I ask, what does he understand by certain and sincere truth [n.214]? Either infallible truth, namely truth without doubt and deception; and it was proved and made clear above, in the second and third articles [nn.229-257], that that can be had by pure natural powers. Or he understands by truth that which is a property of being, and then, since being can be naturally understood, so also can true be, as it is a property of being; and if the true then, by way of abstraction, truth too, because any form that can be understood as it is in its subject can be understood as it is in itself and in abstraction from the subject. Or he understands by truth, in another way, conformity to the exemplar; and if to the created exemplar, then the proposed conclusion is plain [sc. n.202, that truth can be known without the aid of uncreated light]. But if to the uncreated exemplar, conformity to that cannot be understood save in the exemplar as known, because a relation is not known if the extreme is not known. So what is posited, that the eternal exemplar is the reason for knowing and is not known [n.214], is false.

259. Further, second as follows: everything that simple understanding can understood confusedly it can know definitively, by inquiring into the definition of the known thing by way of division. This definitive knowledge seems to be most perfect knowledge belonging to simple understanding. Now from such most perfect knowledge of the terms can the intellect most perfectly understand a principle, and from a principle the conclusion; and in this does intellectual knowledge seem to be so completed that there does not seem to be necessary knowledge of truth beyond the aforesaid truths [above here, n.259].

260. Again, third: either the eternal light, which you say is necessary for having sincere truth [n.215], causes something naturally prior to the act or it does not. If it does, then either in the object or in the intellect. Not in the object, because the object, insofar as it has being in the intellect, does not have real being but only intentional being; therefore it is not capable of any real accident. If in the intellect, then the uncreated light does not move the intellect to knowing sincere truth save by means of its own effect; and then the common view [Alexander of Hales, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure] seems, as much as this position does, to posit knowledge in the uncreated light, because it posits it to be seen in the agent intellect which is an effect of the uncreated light and more perfect than that created accidental light would be. But if the uncreated light causes nothing prior to the act, then either the light alone causes the act, or the light along with the intellect and object does. If the light alone, then the agent intellect has no operation in the knowledge of sincere truth, which seems unacceptable. For this operation is the most noble in our intellect, so the agent intellect, which is the noblest intellect in the soul, should in some way come together in this action [cf. Ord. Prol. n.52].a And also is this unacceptable result, which is inferred there, proved in another way from the preceding opinion [n.260 init.], because, according to him who thinks thus [Henry, Summa a.3 q.4], an agent using an instrument cannot have an action surpassing the action of the instrument; therefore since the virtue of the agent intellect is not capable of knowledge of sincere truth, it follows that the eternal light, when using the agent intellect, will not be capable of the action of this knowledge of sincere truth, such that the agent intellect have the idea there of instrument [cf. Ord. Prol. n.51]. If you say that the uncreated light along with the intellect and the object cause this sincere truth, this is the common opinion, which posits that the eternal light causes, as remote cause, all certain truth. Either then this opinion will be unacceptable or will not disagree with the common opinion.

a.a [Interpolated text; cf. Lectura I d.3 n.188] And again, the act of understanding would not be said to belong more to one man than to another; and in this way the agent intellect would be superfluous, which is not something to say, since it belongs to the agent intellect to make all things, as it belongs to the possible intellect to become all things [On the Soul 3.5.430a14-15]. Likewise, according to the Philosopher, ibid. 430a10-14, the agent intellect corresponds [to the possible intellect] under the idea of being active, the possible intellect [corresponds to the agent intellect] under the idea of being passive; so, whatever the possible intellect receives, to that is the agent intellect in some way actively disposed.

E. Solution of the Question

261. To the question [n.218], therefore, I say that, because of the words of Augustine, one must concede that infallible truths are seen in eternal rules, where the ‘in’ is taken objectively, and this in four ways: either as in the proximate object, or as in what contains the proximate object, or as in that by virtue of which the proximate object moves [the intellect], or as in the remote object.

262. To understand the first [n.261] I say that all intelligibles have intelligible being in the act of the divine intellect, and in them do all truths about them shine forth, such that the intellect understanding them, and understanding by virtue of them the necessary truths about them, sees these necessary truths in them as in their objects. And they, insofar as they are secondary objects of the divine intellect, are truths because in conformity with their exemplar, namely the divine intellect; and they are light because manifest; and they are unchangeable there and necessary. But they are eternal in a certain respect, because eternity is a condition of what exists, and they do not have existence save in a certain respect. So we can first, then, be said to see in eternal light, that is, in a secondary object of the divine intellect, which is the truth and eternal light, in the way explained.

263. The second way [n.261] is likewise plain, because the divine intellect contains them as a book, just as the authority of Augustine says, On the Trinity 14.15, that “these rules are written in the book of eternal light” [n.205], that is, in the divine intellect insofar as it contains these truths. And though the book not be seen, yet the truths are seen that are written in that first book. And to that extent could our intellect be said to see truths in the eternal light, that is, in the book as in what contains the object.a And either of these two ways [n.262-263] seems to be of the meaning of Augustine in On the Trinity 12.14 n.23, that “the idea of a square body remains incorruptible and unchangeable etc.” But it does not remain such save as it is a secondary object of the divine intellect.

a.a [Cancelled text by Scotus] and this according to the second way [n.263], or in the truths that are the eternal light in a certain respect, just as, according to the first way, we see in their objects [n.262].

264. But against the first way [n.262] there is a doubt. For if we do not see these truths as they are in the divine intellect (because we do not see the divine intellect), how are we said to see in the uncreated light by the fact we see in a sort of eternal light in a certain respect, which light has being in the uncreated light as in the knowing intellect?

265. To this the third way [n.261] responds, which is as follows: they, as they are the secondary object of the divine intellect, only have being in a certain respect; and a true, real operation does not belong to anything that is, by virtue of itself, precisely a being in a certain respect; but if in some way it does belong to it, this has to be by virtue of something that has being simply. Therefore, it does not belong to these secondary objects precisely to move the intellect save by virtue of the being of the divine intellect, which is being simply and by which these [secondary objects] have being in a certain respect. So, therefore, we see in eternal light in a certain respect, as in a proximate object [n.262]; but in the uncreated eternal light we see in the third way, as in the proximate cause by whose virtue the proximate object moves [the intellect].

266. Following on from this, it can also be said that, as concerns the third way [n.265], we see in eternal light as in the cause of the object in itself; for the divine intellect produces them, by its own act, in intelligible being, and by its own act it gives being of this sort to this object and being of that sort to that object, and consequently it gives to them the relevant sort of idea of being an object, by which ideas they afterwards move the intellect to certain knowledge. And that it could properly be said that our intellect, because the light is the cause of the object, sees in the light, is apparent through a likeness; for we are properly said to understand in the light of the agent intellect, although however that light is only the active cause or what in its own act makes the object, or by virtue of which the object moves, or both.

267. This double causality, therefore, of the divine intellect (because it is the uncreated true light that produces secondary objects in intelligible being, and because it is that by virtue of which the secondary produced objects also actually move the intellect) can as it were make whole the third member [nn.261265], by which we are said truly to see in the eternal light.

268. And if it be objected against these two ways, which make whole the third one about the cause [n.267], that then it seems rather that we would be said to see in God as willing, or in God as he is will, than in God as he is light, because the divine will is the immediate principle of any act that is directed externally - I reply: the divine intellect, insofar as it is in some way prior to an act of the divine will, produces these objects in intelligible being and so seems, with respect to them, to be a merely natural cause; for God is a not free cause with respect to anything save that which, in some way prior to itself, presupposes the will according as it is an act of will. And just as the intellect, as prior to an act of will, produces objects in intelligible being, so it seems to cooperate with the intelligibles for their natural effect as a prior cause, so that, namely, the intelligibles may, as apprehended and combined, cause the apprehension’s conformity with them. A contradiction therefore seems to be involved in some intellect’s forming such a composition and the composition’s not being in conformity with the terms (though not composing the terms is possible); for although God voluntarily cooperates with the intellect in its composing or not composing terms, yet when the intellect has composed them, that the composition be in conformity with the terms, this seems necessarily to follow the idea of the terms that the terms have from God’s intellect, which causes the terms naturally in their intelligible being.

269. And herefrom appears how no special illumining is necessary for seeing things in eternal rules, because Augustine does not posit that truths are seen in them save those that are necessary by the force of the terms. And in such truths there is the greatest naturalness as regards the effect of both the remote and the proximate cause, namely of both the divine intellect as to the objects moving the intellect and of the objects as to the truth of the complex, the proposition, about them And also, although naturalness as regard perceiving the truth that ‘the opposite includes a contradiction’ is not as great, yet there is naturalness on the part of the proximate cause when the remote cause is assisting with it, because the terms when apprehended and composed are of a nature to cause the evidence of the conformity of the composition with the terms naturally. And if it be posited that God acts along with the terms with a general influence for this effect not, however, with natural necessity - still, whether there is a general influence or, what is more, a natural necessity influencing the terms toward this effect, it is plain that no special illumining is required.

270. The assumption about what Augustine means is plain from what he says in On the Trinity 4.35 n.20 (he is speaking about the philosophers), “Some of them were able to raise their mind’s gaze beyond all creatures and to attain, in however little a part, the light of unchangeable truth, and they mock the fact that many Christians, who live by faith alone, are not yet able to.” Therefore, he maintains that Christians do not see the things of faith in the eternal rules, while the philosophers do see many necessary things in them.

271. Also ibid. 9.6 n.9, “Not just any man’s sort of mind etc.” [cf. n.202], as if he were to say that contingent things are not seen there but necessary ones.

272. And ibid. 4.16 n.21 he argues against these philosophers: “Is it because they contend most truly that all things come to be by eternal ideas that they were able, for that reason, to espy in those very ideas how many kinds of animals, how many seeds of individuals, there are in the origin?” etc. “Surely it was not by unchangeable science that they searched all these things out, but through the history of places and times, and they believed what was experienced and written down by others?” Therefore, he means that it is not through eternal rules that they know the contingent facts that are known only through the senses or believed through histories; and yet a special illumining is more required in things believed than in necessities known; indeed in the latter most of all is a special illumining taken away, and a general illumining alone enough.

273. On the contrary: what then is Augustine saying in ibid. 12.14 n.23, that “it belongs to few to reach the intelligible ideas by the mind’s gaze” [cf. n.204], and in 83 Questions q.46 n.2, “only pure souls attain to them”?

274. I reply: this purity must not be understood as purity from vices, because in On the Trinity 14.15 n.21 he maintains that the unjust sees in eternal rules what is the just thing to be done; and in chapter 15 from ibid. 4 already cited [n.270] he maintains that philosophers see the truth in eternal rules without faith; and in the same question [83 Questions q.46 n.1] he maintains that no one can be wise without knowledge of the ideas (in the way they would perhaps concede that Plato was wise). Rather must this purity be understood to be by elevation of the intellect to a consideration of truths as they shine forth in themselves, not just as they shine forth in a phantasm.

275. One needs to consider here that the external sensible thing causes in the imaginative power a phantasm that is confused and one per accidens, namely a phantasm that represents a thing according to quantity, according to figure and color and other sensible accidents. And just as a phantasm represents only confusedly and per accidens, so do many perceive only a being per accidens. Now the first truths are precisely first by the proper idea of their terms, in that the terms are abstracted from everything conjoined to them per accidens. For this proposition, ‘the whole is greater than its part’, is not first a truth as ‘whole’ is in stone or wood, but as ‘whole’ is abstracted from everything to which it is per accidens conjoined. And an intellect, therefore, that never understands a totality save in a per accidens concept, that is, in a totality of stone or wood, never understands the genuine truth of the above principle, because it never understands the precise idea of the term by which the principle is true.

276. It therefore belongs to few to reach eternal ideas, because it belongs to few to have understandings per se, and it belongs to many to have such per accidens concepts. But these few are not said to be distinguished from the others on account of a special illumining, but either on account of better natural endowments (because they have an intellect that abstracts more and is more perceptive), or on account of a greater investigation whereby someone equally endowed reaches to a knowledge of the quiddities that another, who does not investigate, does not know. And in this way is understood Augustine’s comment, On the Trinity 9.6. n.11, about someone seeing from the top of a mountain, who sees the clouds below and the clear air above. For he who only ever understands per accidens concepts in the way a phantasm represents objects of the sort that are, as it were, per accidens beings - he is, as it were, in the valley, surrounded by clouds. But he who separates out quiddities, understanding them precisely in a per se concept, which quiddities, however, in the phantasm shine forth with many other accidents adjoined - he has the phantasm beneath him, like the clouds, and is himself on the mountain top, to the extent he knows the truth and sees the true up above, as a higher truth, in virtue of the uncreated intellect that is the eternal light.

277. In the last way [sc. the fourth, n.261] it can be conceded that pure truths are known in the eternal light as in a known remote object, because the uncreated light is the first principle of speculative things and the ultimate end of practical things; and therefore are from it the first principles taken, both the speculative and the practical. And for this reason is the knowledge of all things (both speculative and practical), taken through principles from the eternal light as known, more perfect and purer than the knowledge taken through principles in their proper genus. And in this way does knowledge of all things pertain to the theologian, as was said in the question about the subject of theology [Ord. Prol. n.206]; and it is more eminent than any other knowledge whatever. In this way is the pure truth said to be known, because through it is known what is truth only, not having anything of non-truth mixed in; for it is from the first being, from which as known the principles of knowing in this way are taken. But anything else whatever, from which the principles of knowing in general are taken, is defective truth. Only God knows in this way all things in their purity alone, because, as was said in the question about theology [Ord. Prol. nn.200-201], only he knows all things precisely through his essence; every other intellect, in virtue of him, can be moved by something else to know a truth [Ord. Prol. nn.202, 206]. For to know that a triangle has three angles [equal to two right angles] as this is a certain participation of God and possesses such sort of order in the universe, because it, as it were, expresses more perfectly the perfection of God - this is to know that a triangle has three angles etc. in a nobler way than to know it through the idea of a triangle [sc. a plane figure bound by three straight lines, Ord. I d.2 n.27]. And to know in this way that one should live temperately for attaining ultimate beatitude, which is by reaching God’s essence in itself, is to know this practical knowable more perfectly than to know it through some principle in the genus of morals, as for example through the principle that one should live honorably.

278. And in this way does Augustine speak of the uncreated light as known, On the Trinity 15.27 n.50 where, speaking to himself, he says, “Many truths have you seen, and truths that you discerned by this light which, as shining on you, you saw by. Raise up your eyes to the light itself, and fix them on it if you can; for thus will you see how distant the birth of God’s Word is from the procession of God’s Gift.” And a little later, “These and other things this light has shown to your interior eyes. What then is the cause why, with gaze fixed, you will not be able to see it, save surely your infirmity?” etc. [cf. n.187].

279. From what has been said [nn.262-278] the answer is plain to all the authorities of Augustine for the opposite side [nn.202-206]; and according to one or other of the stated ways of seeing ‘in’ [n.261] can the authorities of Augustine that occur on this matter be expounded.

F. Once More Against the Fundamental Reasons Adduced

280. About the sixth article [n.218] one must see how the three reasons given for the first opinion [nn.211-213] prove something true insofar as they are taken from Augustine, although they do not prove the false conclusion they are introduced for [nn.214-217].

Here one needs to know.. ,a, b

a.a After this Scotus stopped writing on this question.

b.b [Interpolated text] .. .that from sensibles, as from a per se cause and principle, genuine truth is not to be expected, because the knowledge of the senses is truly something per accidens, as was said [nn.234, 245] (although some acts of the senses be certain and true). But by virtue of the agent intellect, which is a participation in the uncreated light that shines on the phantasm, the quiddity of the thing is known, and from this is true genuineness obtained. And hereby is the first argument of Henry solved [n.211], and it does not, according to Augustine’s intention, prove anything further.
     To Henry’s second reason [n.212] I say that the soul can be changed from one disparate act to another, according to the diversity of the objects and the soul’s lack of limitation and immateriality, because it has relation to any being at all; and finally from act to non-act, because it is not always in act. But with respect to first principles, whose truth is known from the terms, and with respect to conclusions evidently deduced from the terms, it is not changeable from contrary to contrary, from true to false. For the rules, in the light of the agent intellect, set the intellect right, and the intelligible species of the terms, though in being the species be changeable, yet by representing in the light of the agent intellect it represents unchangeably. And through these two intelligible species are the terms of the first principle known; and so the union is true and certain evidently.
     To the third [n.213] one must say that its conclusion is against him [Henry], because it posits only an intelligible species or a phantasm, and it does not prove a conclusion about the intelligible species representing the quiddity. But one must say that, if the sense powers are not impeded, the species of the sensible truly represent the thing. But in sleep the powers of the exterior senses are bound; therefore, the imaginative power, in conserving the sensible species according to the diversity of the flow of humors in the head, apprehends them as the things of which they are the likenesses, because they have the force of things, according to the Philosopher Motion of Animals 7.701b18-22. The third reason does not prove more.

Third Distinction. Second Part. About the Footprint (or Vestige)

Single Question

Whether in Every Creature there is a Footprint of the Trinity

281. About the footprint I aska whether in every creature there is a footprint of the Trinity.

That there is not:

Because through a footprint can that of which it is the footprint be investigated; therefore the Trinity could naturally be investigated through a creature, which is false, because it surpasses natural reason.

a.a [Interpolated text] ‘Now it remains to show etc.’ [Lombard, Sent. I d.3 n.37]. About the second part of the distinction, where the Master deals with the knowability of God through the footprint, one question is asked.

282. Again, in intellectual nature there is an image of the Trinity, so there is no footprint. The consequence is plain, because these have opposite ideas of representing; therefore, they do not come together in the same thing.

283. Again, intellectual nature has, because it is nobler, a different idea of representing than lower natures have, namely the idea of an image; but below intellectual nature there are many other natures that have an order in perfection, as living things above non-living things and mixed things See footnote to n.122. ³⁹ above simple things; so there will in them be a different idea of representing, such that the idea of the footprint will not be common to all.a

a.a [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.73]. Further, an effect does not represent its cause save as it is from the cause; but every creature is from God insofar as God is one, not insofar as God is three, because all God’s exterior action is essential, belonging to the three persons; therefore the effect represents God as he is one, not as he is three.

284. To the contrary is Augustine On the Trinity 6.10 n.12,a “It is necessary that when we look at the creator ‘through the things that are made’ we understand the Trinity, a footprint of whom, in the way that is worthy, appears in the creature.”

a.a [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.74] where he says that number, species, and order are found in every created thing, wherein the first origin of beauty is represented; these words there. Or as follows:

I. To the Question

285. In this question three things need looking at. First (because according to the Philosopher [Topics 6.2.140a10-11] “All those who use terms in transferred sense, transfer them according to some likeness”), one must look at the idea of footprint in bodily things, whence the name has been transferred to the issue in hand. Second one must look at what the idea of footprint is that the transference to the issue in hand is made in accord with, and what it consists in, and in respect of what in God there is an idea of footprint in the creature. Third one must look at what things the relation of footprint, or of creature to God,a whose footprint it is said to be, is founded on.

a.a [Interpolated text] or of God to creature.

A. On the Idea of Footprint

1. Opinion of Others

286. As to the first point [n.285] it is said [Giles of Rome, Thomas Aquinas] that a footprint is an impression left behind from the passage of something over a vacuum or a plenum, which impression imperfectly represents it; and it represents ‘imperfectly’ for this reason, that a footprint represents something confusedly and under the idea of the species. An image does so perfectly because under the idea of the individual; just as, by its footprint a horse is distinguished from an ox, or that it is a horse passing not an ox, and not as this horse is distinguished from that one; but an image does make this distinction [sc. between individuals], because an image of Jove does not represent Caesar.

287. As to the second [n.285], it is said [cf. Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 9.1] that the creature has a triple relation to God as to a triple cause, and this according to the three modes of relatives that the Philosopher posits, Metaphysics 5.15.1020b26-32]. As to the first mode, the creature is referred to God by a relation founded on ‘one’, namely by a relation of likeness, and this insofar as the creature is patterned after and referred to God insofar as God is the exemplar cause. As to the second mode, namely of power, the creature is referred to God as produced to producer. As to the third mode, namely the mode of measure, the creature is referred to God as being ordered to him as to final cause [Henry of Ghent, ibid., Summa a.63 q.1]. These three relations, then, complete the idea of footprint, because one is not enough without the others, as is gathered from Augustine 83 Questions q.74, the remark “about two sheep etc.” [n.575 infra].

288. What the footprint in creatures, therefore, consists in is obtained. But in respect of what is it on the part of God [n.285]? Response: in respect of what is appropriated to the three persons; for by the first respect (namely of likeness) the creature represents the exemplar art, which is appropriated to the Son; by the second the creature represents the power of the producer, which is appropriated to the Father; by the third the creature represents the goodness of the finisher, which is appropriated to the Holy Spirit [Henry of Ghent, Giles of Rome].

2. Against this Opinion.

289. Against what is said in the first member [n.286].

If there were only one animal such that another in the universe would not be possible, the footprint of it would still not be the image of it, because a footprint would still not be a likeness of the whole but of a part, and an image is a likeness of the whole. Yet, also, it would not then represent [the animal] confusedly, that is, according to an idea common to itself and others.

290. It will be said that it does [represent confusedly], just as now the sun is a universal, though it would be impossible for there to be many suns [cf. Algazel, Logic ch.3]. And the science that is about the sun is about it under the idea of a universal, and not about this sun; and so the intelligible species does represent the universal, not this particular, even though the universal can only exist in this particular.

291. Against this [n.290]: If it is in respect of something insofar as it is a ‘this’ that the footprint is not an image, the proposed conclusion is obtained [n.289], and this when supposing, by whatever supposition, that nothing could be abstracted from ‘this’. But still, supposing [that nothing could be abstracted], something could represent this whole as ‘this’ and something represent a part of this as ‘of this’.

292. Again, if the parts of animals diverse in species, which parts make an impression on soft thing yielding to them, were alike in quantity and figure, the footprint too would not lead to knowledge of them under the idea of species, but only under the idea of genus. If in the same species there were such parts that were unlike in quantity and figure, the footprint would lead to knowledge of the individual as a ‘this’, though not to knowledge of the whole as represented wholly. Therefore, species or not species is an accidental difference.

293. Concerning this point then [n.285], I say that a footprint is the likeness of a part of an animal, by which part the footprint is impressed on something yielding to it. But a likeness, when expressed, of a part is not a likeness, when expressed, of a whole. For [it is a likeness] neither according to the idea of the whole in itself, nor even according to the idea by which the whole is immediately known. But [it is a likeness] only by inference, and from the fact that the thing represented is known to be some part of the whole. And therefore, if this supposition is false - for example, because the impressing thing was separate from the whole (as if a foot amputated from the body were impressing the footprint) - the soul would be in error about the whole to which the sort of part that impresses the footprint naturally belongs. It is plain too that, if the whole body were thus impressed on the dust, just as the foot was impressed on it, this left-behind impression would truly be the image and likeness of the whole, just as now the footprint is the likeness of a part.

294. Applying this also to the issue at hand [n.281], it does not seem that the first distinction set down between footprint and image [n.286] is true, because no creature represents God save according to common concepts, and not according to special concepts, namely, of the most specific species. So there is no difference between creature and creature in representing God in a common and non-common idea.

295. Also what is said in the second member, that the footprint consists in the three relations [n.287], does not seem true. For although the idea of footprint states a respect, in the way in which a likeness is really a respect, yet, just as a likeness is not said to exist in a respect precisely but in something absolute in which the idea of likeness is founded, so too the idea of footprint seems not to exist in a respect precisely but in something on which the respect is founded. And the proof of this is as follows, that the footprint is like the thing of which it is the footprint, from which footprint, when known, the thing is known. Therefore, the footprint can be known naturally before that of which it is the footprint; but a relation cannot be known naturally before the term; therefore etc.

296. Again, as to the statement that the three respects belong to the three modes of relatives [n.287], this seems false. For the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5.15.1021a26-30, when setting down the difference of the two modes relative to the third, maintains that in the first two modes the relation is mutual, in the third not, but one thing is said to be related to another thing because the other thing belongs to it; and every relation of creature to God is non-mutual, but God is only said to be related to the creature because the creature is related to him; therefore every respect of a creature to God is according to the third mode.

297. Also, what he brings forward about the first mode of likeness [n.287] is not valid, because the likeness (which is of the thing exemplified to what exemplifies it) does not belong to the first mode, because it is not a likeness of univocity. Rather it belongs to the third mode, as appears manifestly from the Philosopher [Metaphysics 5.15.1020b30-32], who puts the relation of knowledge to knowable, and the relation, universally, of measured to measure, in the third mode; and the exemplar has the idea of measure with respect to what it is the exemplar of; therefore etc.

3. Scotus’ own Opinion

298. As concerns the second article, then [n.285], I concede that every respect of a creature to God belongs to the third mode of relatives [n.296]. And not in relations alone does the vestige consist, but in some absolutes [n.295], and perhaps in some respect as in the third part of itself, according to what Augustine assigns as part of the footprint in On the Trinity 6.10 n.12, where he says of creatures, “All these things that are made by divine art also display a certain unity in themselves and species and order.” Now unity is an absolute perfection, as is plain from his examples there, “something one is something, as are the natures of bodies etc.’ Species too, or form, is something absolute, as is plain from his examples in the same place, “just as of bodies there are qualities, so also of souls there are teachings.” But order states a certain respect, not to the ultimate end but to operation; hence he says, “[operation] retains an ordering, as are weights, arrangements of bodies, and loves and delights of souls.” These three [sc. unity, species, order], thus taken, represent, under the idea of likeness, three things in God corresponding to them. For unity represents the supreme unity of the first principle, whence the origin is; and as to this Augustine says there, “In the Trinity is the supreme origin of all things.” Species in the creature represents supreme beauty, hence he adds [the Trinity] is “the supreme beauty.” Order or operation in the creature represents the most perfect operation in God, and as to this he adds, “and most blessed delight.”

299. Many other things too can be assigned in creatures which represent, as being alike, something in divine reality appropriated to the persons, as one, true, and good. One in creatures represents the unity appropriated to the Father; true represents the truth appropriated to the Son; good represents the goodness appropriated to the Holy Spirit. And all these perfections are disposed in an absolute way, and represent absolute perfections of God, appropriated to the Persons.

300. In another way is the footprint multiply assigned, either in things that represent through the idea of likeness what is appropriated to the Persons, or that do so through the idea of what is proportional. Now I say that they ‘represent proportionally’ when the idea of the representing thing does not formally exist in God but something does that is proportional to the idea, as in the case of the assignment ‘mode and species and order’, with which the assignment in Wisdom 11.21, “in number, weight, and measure,”a seems to be the same. For mode is taken for limitation, and for the same thing is measure taken in Wisdom 11, and weight is there taken for order and number for species. Number or species, and weight or order, are expounded as they were in the first exposition or assignment [nn.298-299]. But measure (which here is the same as mode) does not represent anything under the idea of the like but of the proportional, because the limitation of what has been produced represents the lack of limitation in the producer. And thus is plain in what the vestige consists in creatures, and in respect of what in divine reality, because in respect of things appropriated to the Divine Persons [nn.293-300].

a.a [Interpolated text] Augustine, Literal Commentary on Genesis 4.3 n7, “Measure prefixes the manner for everything; number provides the species for everything; and weight draws to rest and stability.” And later [ch.5 n.12], “Let us admit, therefore, that it is said [Wisdom 11.21], “all things are disposed in measure and number and weight,” as if it were said that they are so disposed as to have their own proper measures and proper numbers and proper weight, which would change in them in proportion to the changeableness of each genus - in increase and decrease, in manyness and fewness, in lightness and heaviness.”

301. But how is the idea of footprint, which is a likeness of a part [n.293], now taken in divine reality, since in divine reality there are no parts?

Response. The Trinity is, as it were, a certain numerical whole, at least in a concept of the intellect, and a Person there is, as it were, a part of this whole; thus too what is appropriated to a Person, insofar as it is appropriated to a Person, is there as it were a part of the same, because it is taken for the Person to whom it is appropriated. And not only this, but what can be appropriated, though it is not taken as appropriated, is still a part there, as it were, of the same; for the idea of it, as it is and as it is taken, is completely preserved in one Person, and consequently its idea does not posit the Trinity but does posit concomitantly the unity of any Person in whom it is. Although, therefore, the creature commonly represents neither a Person as a Person (who in our intellect is as it were a part of the Trinity), nor what is appropriated as appropriated (for thus is it not known unless what it is appropriated to is known), yet it does represent what can be appropriated, in which the idea of a part is as it were preserved (in the way already stated [here supra]) with respect to the Trinity.

B. About Ratification and Somethingness

1. Opinion of Others

302. As to the third article [n.285], it is said [cf. Henry of Ghent infra], according to Boethius On the Hebdomads, that “what a thing is by and what it is are diverse,” because that which a thing is ‘by’ is called its ‘ratification’, and that which it is ‘what it is’ by is called its ‘somethingness’ [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 11 q.3]. On this understanding it is said that the respect of footprint in a creature is not founded on the ratification of the thing, but only on its somethingness, and it [sc. the respect of footprint] is formally the ratification of it [ibid., 5 q.6, 11 q.3].a

a.a [Note by Scotus, cf. Ord. II d.1 qq.4-5, n.17] This is important in the second book, in the question about the relation of a creature to God.

303. The way of positing it is this: according to Avicenna Metaphysics 5 ch.1, “humanity is only humanity;” therefore the idea of humanity is not the ratified thing; therefore, humanity must be a ratified thing by something else outside the formal idea of humanity.

304. The argument is also made that what its ratification is formally by is the footprint relation, and this first as follows: whatever is included in the per se understanding of something, insofar as that something is of the sort it is, is that by which it is of that sort, or is the same formally as what it is insofar as it is of that sort; but the respect of footprint is included in the idea of any ratified being; therefore etc. Proof of the minor: there is a being that is ‘to be’ itself, as is God; there is a being that ‘to be’ belongs to, as is every other being besides God, which is not of itself ‘to be’ but only a being to which ‘to be’ belongs [cf. Henry, Quodlibet 5 a.2, Summa a.2 q.6]. From this the argument goes as follows: any being that is not of itself ‘to be’, but is that to which ‘to be’ belongs, is not a ratified being save by participating that very ‘to be’, or insofar as it does participate that very ‘to be’ [cf. n.109]; everything other than God is that to which ‘to be’ belongs and is not ‘to be’ itself; therefore it is not ratified save to the extent it participates ‘to be’; therefore by that participation is it formally ratified.

305. Secondly [cf. n.304] as follows: nothing other than God can be perfectly known without knowledge of all the intrinsic and extrinsic causes, Physics 1.1.184.14-17, “Then each thing etc.” [Henry, Summa a.1 q.5]; but if the essence of anything of this sort were absolute and were not to include a respect essentially to an extrinsic cause, it could be perfectly known without knowledge of the extrinsic cause; therefore it is necessary that it include such a respect [ibid., a.27 q.1].

306. Augustine On the Trinity 8.3 n.4 is brought in here [“you will see God, not good with another good, but the good of every good.” Cf. Henry, ibid. a.24 q.8].

307. Again, Boethius On Hebdomads , “If little by little you take away, through the intellect, the good itself, then, though there may be good things, yet they will not be good by the fact that they are.” Therefore, the idea of good is taken away from them when the first good is, through the intellect, taken away; and consequently goodness in them states a relation to, or participation in, the supreme good.

308. If argument is made against the opinion [n.302] from Averroes Metaphysics 12 com.19, that relation has the weakest being, so there is not and cannot be a ratification formally of ratified being [Henry, Quodlibet 9 q.3 etc.] - the reply is made that relation is double: one accidental, one substantial. And this distinction of relation is taken from Simplicius On the Categories (‘When’), where he maintains that some cases of ‘in’ do not constitute categories as other things do, because of the fact that some respects are essential or substantial, some are not but accidental [Henry, ibid. Henry, Quodlibet 9 q.3, “The reason why ‘being in’ does sometimes constitute a proper category is because, namely, that which is in another is not completive of that in which it is, and because it could subsist as separate without something else in which it is. For when either of these is lacking ‘being in’ does not constitute a proper category.” ⁴⁰]. They say, therefore, that the statement of the commentator [Averroes] is true of accidental relation, not of substantial relation.

309. And if it is objected that every relation presupposes a foundation in ratified being, therefore it is not itself the ratification of the foundation [nn.295, 323] - the reply is made that this is true of a relation that comes to a foundation, but not of a relation that constitutes a foundation.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

a. A First Rejection of the Opinion

310. Against these points.

So that these words may be understood, I distinguish three things according to the doctor [Henry of Ghent] on whose statements this opinion seems to be based. For, according to him ‘thing’, res, is in one way said to be from reor, reris, which means to ‘think’; in a second way ‘thing’ is said to be from ratification. In place of these words I take plainer words: for ‘thing’ as said from ‘think’ I take ‘thinkable reality’, which is common, according to him, to figments and non-figments; for ‘thing’ as said from ‘ratification’ I take, according to his intention, quidditative reality, because he posits that a quidditative thing is ratified by the fact it has an exemplar, which does not belong to figments. Beyond these two there only remains the reality of actual existence. We have, therefore, three things in order: thinkable reality, quidditative reality, and reality of existence.

311. I ask, then, what he means by ‘somethingness’? [n.302].

For if he means thinkable reality, since that is common to something and to nothing, it is of itself nothing. Therefore. if ratification be founded on somethingness taken in this way [n.302], it is founded on nothing; therefore it is nothing, because what is nothing relative to itself is nothing relative to another thing, On the Trinity 7.1 n.2 [“Wherefore if the Father is not something in relation to himself, he is altogether not one who may be said in relation to anything”]; therefore ratification is nothing; therefore, the total thing, composed of ratification and somethingness, is two nothings.

312. If somethingness be called quidditative reality, I ask what he means by ratification, either quidditative reality or reality of existence. If quidditative reality, then to say that ratification is founded on somethingness [n.302] is to say that quidditative reality is founded on quidditative reality, which is to say nothing, because then the same thing would be founded on itself according to the same being. If he means reality of existence -on the contrary: then ratification is presupposed to it, because a thing, according to this opinion, has ratified being truly before being of existence, and so the first ratification of it cannot be the being of existence.a

a.a [Interpolated text] Or better:
If by ratification you mean the reality of actual existence - on the contrary according to you: presupposed to that reality of actual existence is, according to you [n.302], somethingness, on which ratification. or the reality of actual existence, has to be founded, as on a foundation, so that it may be this sort of ratified somethingness. If, therefore, somethingness is presupposed as foundation for ratification (and so somethingness will, as such, have being of existence and ratified being before ratification gives it ratified being), then it follows that ratification, taken for the reality of actual existence, cannot give to somethingness itself first ratified being, or first being of existence, since it would have that from itself, just as a foundation has ratified being and being of existence before what is founded on it does. So neither does the respect give ratified being to anything, for it presupposes a subject in ratified being and in being of existence on which it is founded.

313. If you say that the somethingness that is opinable reality is a ‘what’ common to something and nothing, but there is another somethingness that is proper to a thing that is able to be and that does not belong to figments (from which somethingness, and from being as from its own ratification, a thing having somethingness is composed) - on the contrary: this is to say that there is a double somethingness, one of something and nothing, and another of something only, just as if it were said there is a double whiteness, one of white and black, another of white only. And in addition to this, as to the somethingness proper to possible being, I ask: either it is a respect only and is founded on the somethingness that is common (because that alone precedes it), and then it will be founded on nothing, as was said [n.311], and then it will be nothing; or the somethingness that is proper is an absolute, and thereby, for you, the thing that has it is distinguished from fictions; so this is the first ratification of a thing and is an absolute, and thus a respect will not be the first ratification of a thing.

314. Further, second [n.313], as follows: humanity has of itself a concept to which it is not repugnant that something falls under it in fact, or to which it is repugnant of itself that something falls under it in fact, or to which of itself something does fall under it in fact. Not in the third way, according to every opinion, for the reason that this is proper to God alone.

If it be granted that it is repugnant of itself to the concept that something falls under it, then by no respect that comes to it from without can belong to it that something could fall under it; for what is repugnant to something by some part of it cannot not be repugnant to it while its nature remains, and so cannot become non-repugnant to it by any respect that comes to it from without. Therefore, the concept of humanity is such that to it of itself is not repugnant that something in fact falls under it; but such concept is a concept of a ratified thing, according to the opinion of this master [Henry of Ghent], because to be in fact is repugnant to the concept of a figment [cf. n.310].

315. Besides, third: the Philosopher, Metaphysics 4.6.1011a19-20, infers from the opinion of those who say that all appearances are true this impossibility, that everything will be relative to something. And he does not mean this only by way of denomination, because in that way is it true that everything is relative to something, at least every other than God; therefore he means to infer it as something maximally unacceptable that everything is essentially relative to something. But this opinion posits that everything is essentially relative to something; therefore, this conclusion, namely that all things are relative to something, is more unacceptable than that all appearances are true.

316. If you say that the Philosopher is saying that all things will be relative to another, surely “relative to opinion and sense” - on the contrary: in an argument a conclusion leading to something impossible must be equally or more impossible than the premises; the inferred conclusion here, insofar as it is inferred, does not differ from the premise that posits all things to be true on account of their appearing to sense or to opinion - save in this that it infers ‘everything is relative to something’ [cf. n.307]; therefore if in anything it has a greater impossibility than the premises, it is this impossibility, that all things are relative to something simply.

317. Fourth as follows: humanity, insofar as it is humanity, either has only the ‘what’ of the name or it has the ‘what’ of the real thing that is repugnant to figments [cf. Henry, Summa a.24 q.3]. If in the first way, then there is knowledge of humanity, as it is humanity, no more than there is of a chimaera, and consequently metaphysics, which is about quiddities, will no more be a science than if it were about figments that are unintelligible because of the contradiction included in them. But if humanity, as it is humanity, has the ‘what’ of a real thing that is repugnant to figments, then humanity, whence it is humanity, is a ratified thing [cf. n.303].

318. The reply is made that humanity, whence it is humanity, has a definition, but the definition does not indicate a ratified being because figments can have genus and difference; but, in order to get the complete idea of a ratified being, one must add a respect to unparticipating being [cf. n.304].

319. This [n.318] does not make reply to the argument [n.317] without making metaphysics to be a non-science. Likewise too, what it says about figments (that they have genus and difference) is false, because all such things have an idea that is in itself false, because including a contradiction, because one part contradicts the other; but such parts are never a genus and difference, for a difference is per se determinative of a genus and is, consequently, not repugnant to it.

b. Another Rejection of the Opinion

320. Second, argument is made against the opinion [n.302] from his own statements [n.310].

First as follows: each thing is active formally by its ratification,a the proof of which is that by ratification is it formally in act; but nothing is in itself formally active by a relation, because a relation is not a principle of acting [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.39 qq.3,4]; therefore ratification is not a relation.

a.a [Interpolated text] But according to him [Henry] God is ratification only and yet supremely active; therefore, a thing is active by its ratification, not by its somethingness.

321. Again, according to him no creature, insofar as ratified, differs in species from the being that is God [Henry, Quodlibet 7 qq.1-2]; but the very being that is God, according to every opinion, is absolute; how then does that which is formally a relation differ from that which is absolute?

322. Again, according to him, a being of reason participates ratified being or first being, but is not formally a ratified being [ibid., 5 q.2]. Therefore, this sort of participation is formally ratification itself [n.304].

3. Scotus’ own Opinion

323. As concerns this article [n.285] I say that no respect is a ratification, or what a thing is a firm or true or certain being by, in the case of any entity at all. For every respect has something that it is founded on, which something is not in itself related to another thing; and if in that first something, where it is essentially for itself, there is not essentially a being that is certain, that is firm, it is not capable of any respect by which it may become a ratified being, because if a non-ratified thing become ratified, either it will become ratified from itself, which includes a contradiction (for whatever is of itself a somethingness is necessarily such), or it will become ratified by something causing it so; and if this latter, something absolute can be the term of the action naturally before a relation can be, because the formal idea of whatever is the first term of something produced is not, necessarily, a respect.

4. To the Reasons for the Rejected Opinion

324. To the reasons for the opposite opinion [n.302-307] as concerns this third article.

To the remark of Avicenna about humanity [n.303] I say that, through the statement he makes that “horseness is only horseness,” he does not exclude things that belong per se to the idea of horseness (of which sort is ratified being), but he excludes things that are properties of being, as ‘one’, ‘act’ etc., as is plain there from his text.

325. To the second [n.304], both the major and the minor are false; the major because animal is in man formally or per se or essentially, insofar as he is man, yet animality or animal is not formally man; but if it were added in the major ‘whatever is per se included in the understanding of something as being ultimate in it’, the major is true, and the minor false in this way is false.

326. When proof is given [n.304] through the other prosyllogism, “what ‘to be’ belongs to,” I say that the major of this prosyllogism is false, if by the ‘insofar as’ is understood that something is redoubled ‘per se in the first mode’, or if ‘participating’ in the major is taken as a gerundive. The major of the prosyllogism (a syllogism used to prove another syllogism) is “any being that is not of itself ‘to be’, but to which ‘to be’ belongs, is not a ratified being save by participating that very ‘to be’, or insofar as it participates that very ‘to be’.” This major, says Scotus, is false if, first, what the ‘insofar as’ doubles, namely the participating (“save...insofar as it participates that very ‘to be’”), is taken as falling into the definition of the subject, because the subject is not defined by that fact, though the fact be true. The major is also false, second, if the ‘participating’, or the Latin ‘participando’, is taken to be a gerundive, for then the predicate would become something like ‘save by that very ‘to be’ needing to be participated’, which commits the same error, because the ‘needing to be’ makes the participation part of the definition of the subject when it is not. ⁴¹ And, insofar it is explained by a ‘because’, the major (if a causality pertaining to the first mode per se is understood) is in the same way false, because participation itself in the first mode per se is not that by which a being is ratified formally. But if by the ‘insofar as’ be understood causality pertaining to the second mode per se (of the sort that is in a subject with respect to its proper property), I concede that in this way ‘such a being insofar as it is such a being’ (for example a stone insofar as it is a stone) does participate ‘to be’ itself. However, the proposition is not true conversely, namely that ‘insofar as it participates it is a being’. An example: this is false properly speaking, ‘man insofar as capable of laughter is man’, understanding this both in the second mode per se, and much more in the first mode per se; but this is true ‘man insofar as he is man is capable of laughter’ in the second mode. And yet the other, the first, can be conceded in some way, because a stone insofar as it is a stone participates ‘to be’ itself, such that a stone, posited in ratified being, has by necessity and in the second mode per se the respect of participation, without which the ‘to be’ includes a contradiction - just as does being a subject without its proper property, or being the foundation necessary for a relation without the relation when the term of the relation has been posited. Then I understand it thus, that in the first instant of nature there is a being which is its ‘to be’, namely God. In the second moment, a stone is a ratified being, an absolute, which is understood as then neither participating nor non-participating. In the third moment, there is the participation itself, a certain respect, consequent to the stone.

327. To the next argument from the Physics, about causes [n.305], I say that it is one thing to be a relation prior to knowledge of the caused through the cause, and another thing for the cause itself to be included in the knowledge of the thing caused. For although the stone has a respect to God before the stone is known (and so it is not known if God is not known, perfectly [cf. n.277]), yet the stone is known when the respect to God is not known; and from this follows that the respect is not of the essence of the stone, because nothing is known unless that is known which is of its essence.

328. To Augustine [n.306]: I concede that every other good is good by participation, but the authority does not maintain that participation is of the essence of that good.

329. As to Boethius [n.307] it must be said that the authority proves the opposite, because in it he posits a removal of the first good by the intellect and, speaking about creatures with that in place, he says that when speaking of the ‘to be’ of them, “although they are and are good, yet they are not good insofar as they are.” So he himself, when, as to the intellect, he removes the first good, speaks of creatures according the ‘to be’ of creatures. But if the ‘to be’ of creatures were a respect to the supreme good, it would not only be a contradiction to remove the first good and to speak of the ‘to be’ of creatures, but it would not be intelligible; for it is not intelligible to posit a respect by removing the term of the respect. Therefore he understands that the ‘to be’ of creatures be absolute. But goodness, for him, states a certain ‘flow’ from the first good, and it is true that this term states a respect, and so it cannot belong absolutely to a thing. Therefore, if things in their ‘to be’ were not from the first good, they would not be good insofar as they are, because insofar as they are they did not flow from the first good. They would, however, be good per accidens, if they were to flow from the first good according to another ‘to be’ - just as a stone, if it did not exist by the will of the first good according to itsself but according to its hardness, it would be good insofar as it is hard (because by the will of the first good), though not insofar as it is a stone or insofar as it is a being. It is plain, therefore, that

Boethius is taking ‘good’ for the respect of flowing from the first good, and in this way too is the goodness in other beings not from God save because they are from the will of the first good. But this is not the absolute and intrinsic perfection of a creature, and therefore goodness, according to another absolute idea, does not state a respect to the creator, although goodness as Boethius takes it there does state a respect to the creator.

II. To the Initial Arguments

330. To the first main argument [n.281] I say that that of which there is an image, namely part of the whole, is distinctly investigated through a footprint, but the whole is investigated only indistinctly in the way a whole is known from a part. Thus it is in the issue at hand. Through the creature is that investigated which is appropriated [sc. to the Persons of the Trinity] - not however insofar as it is what is appropriated but as what can be appropriated to each Person; and therefore is the Trinity, the concept of which in the intellect is a sort of total concept, investigated through the likeness as it were of a part [n.301].a

a.a [Interpolated text (in place of “not however insofar as^of a part”)] but not things that are proper to the Persons - and therefore not the Trinity, the concept of which in the intellect is a sort of total concept.

331. To the second [n.282] I say that any created essence, insofar as it is such a created essence, accords with a determinate exemplar, and therefore any of them represents God under the idea of a footprint. But intellectual nature, insofar as it has in itself a single essence and many operations which there is an order of origin between, represents the Trinity by reason of all the things that come together in such nature, so that intellectual nature is not in the same way footprint and image, as will appear more in the question about the image [nn.575-580].

332. To the last argument [n.283] I say that there is not in the essences of creaturesa an idea of representing other than the idea of footprint. But because in some nature many things come together that represent a unity and a trinity, therefore does such nature have the idea of image, as intellectual nature does. But in some nature, a nature inferior to intellectual nature, such a coming together does not exist; and therefore all other inferior natures have the idea precisely of footprint.b

a.a [Interpolated text] because of the order of creatures.

b.b [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 nn.82-83] As to the argument in the lecture [see interpolated note to n.283], it is said that the Trinity is, as it were, a certain whole having parts. A perfection that can be appropriated [to a Person] as a sort of part is a certain unity of this Trinity, and in this regard it has the idea of a part and does not lead to knowledge of another part. Hereby is it plain that the following inference does not hold: ‘a creature leads to knowledge of God insofar as he is one; therefore a creature is not a footprint of the Trinity.’ For a footprint does not lead perfectly to knowledge of what it is a footprint of, but to knowledge of something that can be appropriated to what it is a footprint of.

Third Distinction. Third Part. About the Image

Question One Whether in the Intellective Part Properly Taken there is a Memory that has an Intelligible Species Naturally Prior to the Act of Understanding

333. About the third part of this distinction, namely about the image, I ask whether in the intellective part properly taken there is a memory that has an intelligible species naturally prior to the act of understanding.a

a.a [Interpolated text, in place of n.333]. “And now to him etc.” [Lombard, Sent. I ch. 2 n.39]. About the third part of this distinction, where the Master deals with the image, four questions are asked. The first is whether in the intellective part properly taken there is a memory that has an intelligible species naturally prior to the act of understanding. The second is about generated knowledge, what the cause is of generating it or the reason for generating it [n.401], namely whether the intellective part properly taken or some element of it is the total cause that generates actual knowledge, or is the reason for generating it. The third is whether the more principal cause of generated knowledge is the object present in itself or in the species, or a part itself of the intellective soul [n.554]. The fourth is whether in the mind there is an image distinctly of the Trinity [n.569]. About the first.

Argument that there is not:

Because [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 5 q.14] every species impressed by the object represents that object under the idea under which the species is impressed by it; and if the species is impressed by something else, it still represents under the same idea under which it would represent if it were impressed by the object, otherwise it would not be a true species of it. But when a species is impressed by an object, it is impressed by the object as the object is a singular, because action belongs to the singular. Therefore, the species, by whatever it is impressed, cannot represent the universal, but only a universal of the sort that is represented to the intellect can do so. Therefore, no impressed species represents the intelligible under the idea of the intelligible.

334. Again [Henry of Ghent, ibid.], the presence of the object is the cause of the presence of the species, and not conversely. For not because the species is in the eye is the white thing therefore present, but conversely. Therefore, the first representation of the object is not through the species. Therefore the species, because of the presence of the object, is posited superfluously.

335. Again [Henry of Ghent, ibid.], any species at all would, if it were in the intellect, be a form naturally acting for intellection; but many species can, if one species be posited, be together in the intellect; therefore all of them would naturally act for the intellections corresponding to them; therefore there would be several intellections in the intellect corresponding to those several species. For if one of them were to act naturally and yet there were no intellection according to it, the consequence would be that there could never be an intellection according to it, because when a cause naturally acting acts according to the ultimate of its power, then, if it cannot have an effect, it will never have it. - And [not by Henry, cf. Scotus, Lectura I d.3 n.251], this plurality too of species, which follows from the hypothesis, is disproved by the argument of Algazel in his Metaphysics [I tr.3 sent.4] that “just as one body cannot be shaped at the same time with many shapes, so does it not seem that the same intellect can be shaped at the same time with diverse objects,” which however would follow if one posits several intelligible species at the same time.

336. Again, fourth [Henry, ibid.], it seems to follow that the intellect will not be acted on by an intelligible insofar as it is intelligible, but it will be acted on by a real passion, by receiving a certain form that is as if the real perfection of it; for it receives the species as a subject receives a real accident, and therefore the intellect is not acted on by the intelligible insofar as it is intelligible. From this, too, it follows that ‘to understand’ will not be a motion of the thing to the soul [Aristotle, Metaphysics 12.7.1072a30, On the Soul 3.4.429a13-15], but rather every intellection will be an absolute action of it, as a form standing in itself not having any term externally.

337. Again [Henry, ibid.], the species could be conserved without an act, and so conversion to a phantasm would not be necessary [n.343, n.554 Scotus’ note].

338. Again, the will has an object present to itself sufficiently so as to be able to act about it, though it receive in itself nothing from the object. Therefore, so can it be in the issue at hand, insofar as the object is the term of the act. There is a confirmation: just as [the object] is present to the will because it is in the intellect, why is this not so about the intellect and phantasm [n.340]?

339. To the opposite:

The intellect, which before was in essential and remote potency to understanding, sometimes is in proximate and accidental potency to it. This is only in the intellect through some change; but not a change of the object, as is plain; therefore of the intellect itself. This change, which takes place toward proximate potency, seems to be toward some form, through which the intelligible object is present to the intellect. And this form is prior to the act of understanding, because the proximate power that someone is capable of understanding by is naturally prior to the act of understanding; the form by which the object is present in this way is called the species; therefore etc.a [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.1 qq.5, 10].

a.a [Interpolated text; Scotus, Rep IA d.3 n.88] The argument [n.339] is deduced in another way as follows: the intellect is disposed in one way when it is in essential potency prior to learning, and disposed in another way when it is in accidental potency prior to understanding; now the object is not disposed in a different way but in the same way; the intellect is disposed in a different way, then, by the fact it has been changed. But every change terminates in some form; therefore, some form precedes the act of intellection, and to that I give no name but species.

I. To the Question

A. The Opinion of Others

340. On this question there are many ways of speaking.

[First opinion] - In one way is every intelligible species denied naturally preceding the act of understanding, because of the reasons set down for the first side of the question [nn.333-338]. The way of setting it down is this: once the impression of the sensible species on the organ of sense, and the whole process as far as the imaginative power, have been achieved, the agent intellect abstracts from the object in a phantasm and moves the possible intellect to a simple apprehension of the essence - but in such a way that neither does the possible intellect receive an impressed species from the phantasm, nor is the object present to the intellect save because it is present in imagination.

341. And this is proved from the following deduction: for the sense receives a species that is other than the act, either because the organ is of the same idea as the medium, or because the species received is a disposition proximate to receiving the action of sensing. Neither of these occurs in the intellect; for the intellect is a non-organic power and is of itself supremely disposed to act of understanding; therefore etc.

342. This is said to be Aristotle’s intention in On the Soul 3.4.429a27-28, where he commends the ancients who say that “the soul is the place of species, not the whole soul but the intellective soul.” Now this distinction does not seem true if one means that the other parts do not have species (for there are species in the sensitive part), but [it is true] because the other parts do not, as they are places, have species but do, as they are subjects, have accidents; and the intellect does, as a place, have them, because it has them as they are an expressed form, not as they are an impressed one.

343. This [n.340] is also taken from On the Soul 3.8.432a8-9, because, according to Aristotle, “we contemplate the ‘what it is’ in phantasms,” and “phantasms are disposed to the intellect as sensibles are to the senses,” and “we understand nothing without phantasms,” and many like things does he say. From these is the conclusion drawn that he does not posit an intelligible species, because if an intelligible species were posited the intellect would not contemplate the ‘what it is’ in phantasms but in the intelligible species. Likewise it would not need to be turned toward phantasms, but the intelligible species would suffice, and in that would it have present to it the object it would be turned toward.

344. If it be argued against this from the Philosopher there [n.343[,“it is necessary that either the things are in the soul or the species of things; the things are not there, so the species are,” he replies [Henry, ibid.] that on the part of the intellect, that is, in the intellect, there is an impressed species (which is the habit or the act), or an expressed species (which is the species in the phantasm), or a quiddity (which quiddity, shining forth [in the phantasm], is the species with respect to the singular - for ‘this stone’ is not in the soul but the quiddity, which is the species with respect to such stone).

345. This is also posited to be the intention of Augustine, who maintains that the word is not generated from the intelligible species but from the habit. For Augustine says, On the Trinity 15.10 n.19, that, “the word is born from the knowledge itself that we hold in memory,” and ibid. ch.11 n.20, “the word is generated from the knowledge that abides in the soul.”

346. [Second opinion]. Another doctor [Godfrey of Fontaines, Quodlibet 9 q.19, also 1.9] posits the same thing, denying an intelligible species; and he deals with the argument about the organ [n.341] that was touched on in the above opinion [n.340].

347. He posits another argument as well, of this sort:a that any power that is in potency to some act is first perfected in such act by the presence of an agent proportioned to it; but the power of apprehension is a power first ordered to this act, namely to apprehension; therefore by an agent first proportioned to it is it perfected in this act, which is the act ‘to apprehend’.b

a.a [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.92] what something is in potency to first and per se, that and nothing else does it receive from an object that is proportionable to itself; the cognitive power is in potency per se and first with respect to its own knowledge; therefore, it receives knowledge and not a species from a proportioned object.

b.b [Note by Scotus] The same conclusion as the stated opinion [n.340] is held by Godfrey, Quodlibet 9 q.19, “what something is per se in potency to, has in it per se being and nothing else from a proportional agent; the apprehending power is only per se in potency to knowledge.”
“Augustine On the Trinity 11.2 n.2, ‘the very form that is imposed on sight is called vision’.” “The organ in its changing agrees with the medium.”

B. Scotus’ Response and his own Opinion

348. My argument against this position [n.340]: Whether a singular is understood or not I do not care now [cf. canceled note to n.75]; for it is certain that the universal can be understood by the intellect, and the intellect is posited by philosophers as a power distinct from the sensitive powers because of its understanding of the universal, and because of composition and division [sc. in propositions], and because of syllogizing, rather than because of knowledge of the singular - if it be possible to understand the singular [cf. Henry of Ghent, Summa a40 qq.1, 4]/

349. From this manifest point, then, namely that the intellect can understand the universal, I take this proposition, ‘the intellect can have an object actually universal,a per se present to it in idea of object, naturally prior to its understanding it’. From this follows the proposed conclusion, that in that prior stage the intellect has an object present [to it] in an intelligible species, and so it has an intelligible species prior to act.

a.a [Note by Scotus] ‘universal’: therefore although a species of the nature [of a thing] be posited, ‘because we can understand a nature not present in itself, and different from the species of the universal (because it does not display [the nature] indifferently in this way), and through the action of the agent intellect (because the possible intellect does not make present its own object)’ - yet that is not a premise in this question [n.333] but a conclusion, for from this solution [nn.348-370] the conclusion is: there is an intelligible species for everything understood that is absent; therefore the reasons that are drawn from universality prove the necessity of a species [nn.352, 357, 359, 363-365]; but the arguments from the presence [of the object, nn.336-338] prove the possibility [of a species] from the nobility of the intellect in the genus of created cognitive powers.

350. The assumed premise [n .249, ‘the intellect can understand the universal’] seems manifest enough, because the object is naturally prior to the act; therefore universality, which is the proper condition of an object insofar as it is object, precedes the act of the intellect or of understanding; therefore under that idea too [of universality] must the object be present, because the presence of the object precedes the act.a

a.a [Note by Scotus] Note that an object is understood in a determinate organ, and although what is thus understood not be received in an organ, yet it will be determined to an organ as to that in which the object precisely is as object.

351. I prove the consequence [‘From this follows^’ n.249] first on the part of the universality of the object [nn.352-365], second on the part of presence [of the object, nn.366-369]. On the part of the universality of the object I argue in three ways, one of which is taken from the side of the phantasm representing it, and one from the side of the agent intellect, and one The Vatican Editors note that in place of the (here) italicized three Scotus put ‘six’, and in place of the first italicized one he put ‘first two’, and in place of the second and third italicized one he put ‘two’, in each case. The reason the Vatican Editors give for their correction is that there are in fact only three ways that Scotus gives, but the three ways together have six arguments, two each. Scotus’ numbering seems thus not so much wrong as less perspicuous perhaps than it is on the numbering of the Vatican Editors. ⁴² from the side of the more and less common.

1. Reasons on the Part of the Universality of the Object

352. [Reasons on the part of the representing phantasm] - First I argue as follows: a species has the sort of idea of representing it has from the fact it is the sort of species it is, and that in respect of the object under the sort of idea the object has of being something represented. Therefore, while the same species remains, it does not have two representative ideas, nor is it representative with respect to two ideas in the representable thing. But to understand an object under the idea of universal and singular requires a double representative idea or idea of representing, and in respect of a double idea of what is formally representable. Therefore, while the same thing remains the same, it does not represent in this way and that; therefore the phantasm, which of itself represents the object under the idea of a singular, cannot represent it under the idea of a universal.a

a.a [Interpolated text, cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.97] Or the argument can be formed in this way: a species the same and of the same idea is not per se representative of an object under opposite ideas of representable thing. The idea of singular and the idea of universal are opposite ideas in a knowable and representable thing. Therefore, no species the same and of one idea can be representative of an object under the idea of universal and of singular. A species in a phantasm represents a singular object under the idea of singular. Therefore, it cannot represent that object under the idea of a universal. - Proof of the major [the first proposition in this interpolation] is that a species under the idea by which it represents the object is measured by the object. But the same thing cannot be measured by two opposite measures, or conversely; for then the same thing would be said twice, according to the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5.15.1021a31-b3. Therefore the same species cannot represent two opposite objects, or the same object under opposite objective ideas.

353. Response [Henry of Ghent, Summa a58 a.2 ad 3]: the same representative in different lights represents an object under different ideas, just as phosphorescent things represent themselves in daylight under the idea of things colored, in light at night under the idea of things luminous.

354. To the contrary: This representative thing is naturally something in itself first before it represents [anything] in this or that sort of light; for because it is the sort of species it is, therefore does a light agree with it in which it may represent one thing and not another. Otherwise, one would posit, or could posit, that the same species would represent color and sound (though the species as it is in vibrating air represents sound, and as it is in illumed air it represents color), and thus no distinction between the representative things could be shown. Therefore, in the prior stage one must understand a unity of the species in itself before a unity of the representation (and of the object represented) follows on insofar as it is represented in it or through it. And so something that is the same in that prior stage cannot have a diverse idea of representing, nor can it represent the object under different ideas of the object’s being representable. There is a confirmation, that light does not represent formally, nor is it the formal idea of what is representative, but is only that in which something is represented. Also it seems that the more perfect the light, the more precisely and distinctly does that shine forth in it which the representative thing represents.a

a.a [Interpolated text; in place of ‘There is a confirmation.. .representative thing represents’. Cf. Scotus, Rep. IA d.3 nn.99-101]. Or form the argument like this:
     Light does not represent but is that in which the representative represents, because the light in the medium is of the same idea whether I see white or black; for light does not distinguish representative essentially from representative. However, there is a different species and representative of white and black, and consequently the distinction of light does not cause a distinct idea of representing or of representative, but, while the same nature of the representative remains, it always represents the same representable and a representable of the same idea; therefore, not under diverse ideas.
The argument is confirmed, because a representative in more perfect light does not represent a different thing, but represents the same thing more clearly than in more imperfect light; the fact is plain about the species of white and black in sunlight and moonlight. Therefore, although the species in the organ of imagination may, in the light of the agent intellect, represent the singular more clearly (so that the intellect can understand it better than in [the species’] proper light, namely the light of imagination), yet it never represents, in any light whatever, the universal object under a universal idea.
     Their example about phosphorescent things [nn.353, 355] is not valid, for I ask whether they represent with the same representative differently by day and by night, or with different representatives. Not with the same, because then they would represent by day as they do by night, because the representative is something in itself before it represents in such or such light. If it represents in different representatives diverse elements in phosphorescent things, the conclusion is gained, whether the light is the same or diverse.

355. Nor is the example [n.353, of phosphorescent things] of any worth for the issue at hand. Rather it is to the opposite, because either two qualities are in such a body, as light and color, one of which reduplicates itself in a greater present light, the other in a lesser one, when no other thing moves [the senses] more efficaciously; or each at the same time reduplicates itself in a greater light, but what moves more efficaciously is perceived and what moves less efficaciously is not perceived (just as the stars reduplicate their rays by day and yet are not seen, because something else brighter moves sight more efficaciously); or if there is a single sensible quality in such a body, it causes diverse representatives in different light, namely one in greater light, another in a lesser light. And so it is always the case that there is not the same representative of the object under diverse idea of being representable, however much one and another light come together.

356. If you reply [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.34 q.5] that the same thing according to the same quality can be similar to diverse things, as one white thing according to the same whiteness is similar to diverse white things - this is nothing to the purpose, because in relations of an essential order there cannot be different things in something that are dependent on two things in the same order; as, for example, of the same measured thing on two measures in the same order, or of the same participating thing on two participated things in the same order, or of the same effect on two total causes in the same order (as was proved in the question about the unity of God previously [Ord. I d.2 n.73]). Therefore, in this relation, where there is not only likeness but imitation and passive exemplification, it is impossible for the same absolute to be referred to diverse things, and thus there cannot be the same species in idea of representing for diverse things under the idea of diverse things.

357. Second as to the first way Instead of ‘first way’, Scotus wrote ‘first member’; see footnote to n.351. ⁴³ I argue as follows, that something representative that represents, according to its whole power, something under one idea cannot at the same time represent the same thing or another thing under another idea of object. But the phantasm, in which the universal is understood [cf. n.349], represents, according to its whole power, the object as a singular to the imaginative power, because then there is actual imagination of the object in the singular. And it is plain that this is according to the whole power of the phantasm, because otherwise the imaginative power could not, through the phantasm, have as perfect an act about the object as the object has a nature for being represented by the phantasm; therefore, the phantasm cannot then represent the object under another idea of the representable.

358. Again, why cannot there be in the imaginative power an act in respect of an object universal in act if there can be a species there in respect of such an object, since the act is a certain species?

359. [Reasons on the part of the agent intellect]. In the second way Instead of ‘second way’, Scotus wrote ‘second member’; see footnote to n.351. ⁴⁴ I argue as follows: the agent intellect is a purely active power, according to the Philosopher On the Soul [3.5.430a11-15], both because it is “by what making all things is” and because it is compared to the possible intellect also “as art is to matter;” therefore it can have a real action. Every real action has some real term. That real term is not received in a phantasm, because the thing received would be extended, and so the agent intellect would not transfer it from order to order, and [the thing received] would not be more proportioned to the possible intellect than the phantasm is.a Nor either does the agent intellect cause anything in phantasms, because [a phantasm] is not its passive object, according to the aforesaid authorities [the Philosopher, ibid.]; therefore it [the agent intellect’s real term] is only received in the possible intellect, for the agent intellect is receptive of nothing. That first caused thing cannot be posited to be an act of understanding, because the first term of the action of the agent intellect is the universal in act, because it transfers from order to order; but the universal in act precedes the act of understanding (as was assumed already in the antecedent [n.349]), because an object under the idea of object precedes the act [n.350].b The argument here is not that the phantasm together with the agent intellect cannot cause an intellection, but that it cannot cause an intellection of a universal unless it first causes a species - because the universal too in act precedes by nature the intellection of itself, and the universal is the first term of intellection.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus; replaced by ‘the thing received would be extended.. .phantasm is’] whatever is there is extended, and not able to be in proportion to moving the possible intellect.

b.b [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 nn.104-105] It will be said [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.58 q.2, supra n.340] that the term of the action of the agent intellect is the universal object, under the idea of a universal, shining forth in the phantasm.
     On the contrary: the universal object, under the idea of a universal, only has diminished being as known being (just as Hercules in a statue has only diminished being, because he has, in the image, represented being). But if it does have some real being, this is insofar as it exists in something as what represents it under this idea, namely such that the agent intellect (as was said) makes something that represents a universal out of what was representing a singular. Therefore, since the term of real action is not an object having diminished being, as known being or represented being, but something real, it follows that such action of the agent intellect terminates at a real form in existence, by which a universal is formally represented as a universal, and which real form is accompanied by an intentional term, as by a universal object, according to the representative being it has in the species.

360. And there is a confirmation of the reason, because it is [universally] posited that the agent intellect makes a universal from a non-universal, or makes understanding in act from understanding in potency, as is said by the authorities of the Philosopher [On the Soul 3.5.430a14-17] and of the Commentator [Averroes, On the Soul III com.18]. Since the universal as universal is not anything in existence, but is only in something as representing it under such an idea, these words [‘makes a universal from a non-universal etc.’] will only have meaning because the agent intellect makes something to be representative of the universal out of that which was representative of the singular, however much the ‘out of’ be materially or virtually understood. Real action is only terminated at something that represents the object under the idea of the universal; therefore the real action of the agent intellect is terminated at some real form in existence that formally represents the universal as universal, because otherwise its action could not be terminated at the universal under the idea of the universal.

361. Here, about the action of the agent intellect, Godfrey of Fontaines [Quodlibet 5 q.10] removes what gets in the way of it by separating the quiddity from singularity, not in its being but in its acting on [the agent intellect]. And it does not act on the phantasm, nor on the possible intellect, but touches virtually on the phantasm. This is explained as follows: in the phantasm there is a ‘what’ [sc. its quiddity] and a ‘this’ [sc. its singularity]; in the light, co-created with the possible intellect, the ‘what’ is the mover of the power so moved, the ‘this’ is not. An example: if white and sweet are together, the white moves the illumined medium, the sweet does not; therefore, the light abstracts the color from the sweet and separates it as far as moving [the sense] is concerned, and moves aside what gets in the way [sc. the sweet] into something that does not move [the sense].

362. On the contrary. Either the ‘what’ as it is in the phantasm has sufficient active power to move the possible intellect to an intellection of the universal, and the result is that the universal is not the term of action of the agent intellect. Or it does not [have sufficient power], and another agent is required properly acting in that way, the way that properly active power is lacking to the ‘what’.

Again, the ‘this’ conjoined to the ‘what’ is not an obstacle - just as it is neither an obstacle to the being of the ‘what’, so is it neither an obstacle to [the ‘what’] being a mover of the intellect.

Again, what removes an obstacle has an action prior to the action of the thing from which the obstacle is removed; grant that [prior] action here, and on what [does it act]? And toward what term? - But this argument is solved by the ‘This is explained as follows’ [n.361], because the argument [here n.362] is against what properly removes [an obstacle], not against what disposes a passive subject for receiving.

363. Again second, according to this way [the second way, n.351], because the agent intellect in idea of active element does not exceed the possible intellect in idea of passive element; therefore, whatever is caused by the agent intellect is received in the possible intellect. Therefore, the first term of action of the agent intellect is received in the possible intellect, and so since the first action of the agent intellect is to the universal in act, this universal, or that by which it has such being, is received in the possible intellect.

364. [Reasons on the part of the more and less common] - According to the third way [n.351] I argue as follows: a less universal habit and a more universal habit are distinct proper habits, otherwise metaphysics as metaphysics would not be a habit of the intellect because it would be about the most universal object for all the other objects. But it is possible to use a more universal habit without using any less universal habit, just as it is possible to have an act of understanding about what is more universal (in the way it is considered by the habit) without having an act about what is less universal. But an act about what is more universal is not had unless it is present to the intellect under that sort of idea. Therefore, what is more universal can be present to the intellect through something other than that through which there is in the intellect the presence of something less universal. But if an object were precisely understood in the phantasm, the more universal would never be present save in the less universal, because never present save in some imaginable singular. Therefore etc.

365. Again lastly according to this way [n.351]: the more universal, when it is apprehended in its inferior,a is never apprehended according to its total indifference. For the total indifference of the more universal accords with the fact that, as conceived, it is the same as each one of its inferiors; and never is the more common as conceived in some inferior the same as each inferior but precisely the same as the inferior in which it is conceived. Therefore, any universal conceived in a singular, or anything more common conceived in something less common, is not conceived according to its total indifference; but the intellect can conceive it according to its total indifference; therefore, the more common is not precisely conceived in the less common, or the universal in the singular, and so not the universal precisely in the phantasm. For a phantasm is only properly of the singular, and this insofar as it is a singular of the most specific species - and this if the phantasm is impressed by something duly close to it [cf. n.73].

a.a [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.106] The more universal cannot, according to its total indifference, be understood or represented in what represents the less universal; but the imaginable species per se and first represents an individual as it is a ‘this’; therefore, in it the universal cannot be represented according to the total indifference that it has relative to all its individuals.
The proof of the major is that never is the more universal known according to its total indifference save when it is known as one knowable the same as all its inferiors; but, as it has being and is known in one singular, it is impossible for it to be the same as all other singulars, but [it is] precisely the same as the singular in which it is. Therefore, it is not known, in the representative of one singular, according to its total indifference; so there would not be any universal categories, nor definitions, nor species, nor genera, nor anything of the sort, precisely. Therefore, the universal is not known in the phantasm; for the phantasm is only properly of the singular.

2. Reasons on the Part of the Presence of the Object

366. From the second membera [n.351], namely from the presence of the object, is proof given for the first consequence [n.349]. First as follows: Either the intellect can have an object present to it in idea of intelligible object without the fact it is to any inferior power, or it cannot. If it cannot, then, it cannot have any operation without the inferior powers (because it cannot have an object present without them), and if it cannot have an operation without them, then it cannot be without them, according to the Philosopher in his preface to On the Soul [1.1.403a3-10]. But if it can have an object present without the object’s presence to an inferior power, then it has [sc. an operation without the inferior powers]. The proof of the consequence is that the agents of such presence of the object, namely the phantasm and the agent intellect, are close enough to the possible intellect, and they act by way of nature and so they necessarily cause in it that of which it is itself receptive.b

a.a [Note by Scotus] The second way [n.349], three reasons against Henry; note the first with the third.

b.b [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.107] Now the intellect, as it is distinguished from the sensitive part, can have an object present in its proper presentiality or it cannot. If it can, the intended conclusion is gained, that the object is not present in abstractive cognition before an elicited act is save through some representative that I call a species. If it cannot, then it cannot have any operation proper to itself without the sensitive part, and consequently neither can it be without it, according to the argument of the Philosopher On the Soul 1 [n.366], “if the intellect cannot have an operation proper to itself, it cannot be separated;” and so it could not have an operation proper to itself in which it would not depend on the sensitive part.

367. Second as follows: the other cognitive powers have an object present to them, not merely secondarily (namely because these objects are present to other inferior powers), but in its proper presentiality, just as the common sense has color present to it, not only insofar as color is present to sight, but because it has the species of color present in the organ of the common sense. Therefore, since this is a mark of perfection in the cognitive power (to have an object present to it under the idea in which it is an object of this sort of power), it follows that not only can this power have an object present to it because it is present to the imaginative power, but can have it in its proper presentiality, insofar, of course, as it shines forth for the intellect through something that is in the intellect.

368. Again third; if a power, which is not able to have an act save about an object present to it, cannot have that object present save through another power with which it is contingently conjoined, it depends in its operation on such power as is contingently conjoined with it, and so it is imperfect. But the intellect cannot have an act save about an object present to it and, for you, it cannot have an object present save in the virtue of imagination [n.340]. But the virtue of imagination is contingently conjoined to the intellect insofar as it is a power; therefore, the intellect in its operation depends on another power that is contingently conjoined with it, and so this puts an imperfection of cognitive power in it [cf. Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 4 q.7]; but no imperfection is to be posited in any nature unless a necessity appear in such nature; therefore such imperfection is not to be posited in the intellect.

369. If you object that plurality is only to be posited where there is necessity, here there is no necessity, therefore etc. - I reply: there is necessity when the perfection of nature requires it. Now although the supposit that a man is can have, because he is a man, an object present to him in the phantasm, yet the intellectual nature of man, as it is intellectual, does not have an object sufficiently present to it if it has it only in a presence begged from the imaginative power. This therefore much cheapens intellective nature as it is intellective, because that is removed from it which is a mark of perfection in a cognitive power, and which is found in the sensitive power, as in the imaginative power. Therefore, plurality is being posited here on account of necessity, because on account of saving the perfection of a more perfect nature, a perfection which is greater than that of a more imperfect nature, or at least equal to it.

3. Scotus’ Concluding Opinion

370. To the question therefore [n.333], I say that it is necessary to posit in the intellect, as the intellect has the idea of memory, an intelligible species,a which species represents the universal as universal, prior naturally to the act of understanding - for the reasons already set down on the part of the object: insofar as the object is universal and insofar as it is present to the intellect [nn.352-369], which two conditions, namely universality and presence, naturally precede intellection.

a.a [Note by Scotus] There is a proper species of anything that is per se and primarily understood -Parisian Collations 4. [“The quiddity of an accident more truly has being in the intellect through a species than the quiddity of a substance has, because perhaps the substance is not understood through its proper species, by the fact it does not act on the intellect, as neither on the senses, through its proper species. Similarly, the quiddity of a material substance more truly has being in the intelligible species than the quiddity of an immaterial substance has, which immaterial substance does not have a proper phantasm, not even the phantasm of an accident.”]

4. To the Reasons from the Authorities

371. This also which I have proved above [nn.352-370] seems to be the express intention of Aristotle in On the Soul [3.8.431b21-23] where, maintaining that the soul is “in some way everything,” he expounds himself by as it were proving that the soul is “sensible things through the senses and knowable things through science.”

372. Others expound this statement of the Philosopher by saying that Aristotle is not speaking uniformly in this case and that, because about the senses he means it as to impressed species and about the intellect as to the habit of science.

373. This exposition [n.372] does not seem to be to the intention of the Philosopher because, just as the ancients posited the soul to be everything really in order that it might know everything, so does the Philosopher posit that it is everything not really, but by a certain likeness [n.121]. Now if it were sensibles through the senses because of the impressed [sensible] species or likenesses, and were intelligibles through the intellect, then either this would be because of the science that is in the intellect, and in this way the soul would not be knowables by a likeness, for science in itself (setting aside the species representing the object) is not a likeness of the intelligible; or it would be because of something else representing the intelligible object, and then the intellect would not be intelligibles by the intelligible species but the soul would be through phantasms; for nothing would be there representing the intelligible save the phantasm alone, according to this sort of position.

374. Again Aristotle in Physics [8.4.255a33-5b5], and in com.30 according to the Commentator, posits that by acquired science the intellect is reduced from essential potency to accidental potency. I ask what does he understand by ‘science’? Not a habit following the act, because when the intellect performed the act it was not in essential potency. Therefore, a form following the act; therefore, an intelligible species. Proof: both because a phantasm does not reduce the intellect to accidental potency, and because then all science that is said to be a habit of the quiddity of the first object [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 9 q.4; Scotus, Ord. Prol. n.145] would be in a phantasm; therefore every habit about the same thing would be there, because according to the Philosopher [Posterior Analytics, 2.3.90b20-21] intellect and science are the same habit.

375. More expressly to this effect is the intention of Augustine. I prove this as follows: for nothing has a nature sufficient to generate actual knowledge unless it have an object naturally prior to the act, an object that is present to it in itself or in something that represents it. But, if one denies intelligible species, the whole intellective part does not have an object present to it before the act of understanding; and so nothing in the intellective part will be sufficiently a memory with respect to such intellection. Augustine denies this in On the Trinity 12.4 n.4 and 15.10 n.17

376. If you reply that the memory is in the intellective part properly taken, by the fact the intellect has come to be in first act of understanding, and thus is it active with respect to second act of understanding, such that, possessing a confused first knowledge. it is active in respect of a second distinct knowledge - this is against him [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.58 q.2, a.59 q.2; also Scotus, Ord. I d.2 nn.273-280] who thinks this opinion and against Augustine. Against him who thinks this because he posits [Henry, Quodlibet 5 q.25; cf. infra n.450] that the universal as it is in the phantasm is there as if in the memory; but as moving to an act of understanding it is present there as if in the intelligence. Therefore, by that opinion, to be sure, no act of understanding is an act of memory but of the intelligence [cf. Scotus, Ord. I d.2 nn.290-291]. This appears from Augustine On the Trinity 15 ch.21 n.40, “those who attribute to intelligence everything that is thought etc.”

377. This point is likewise proved by reason, because then: Either the act by which the memory is in first act will be the same as the act of intelligence, and then the same thing will be the idea of generating itself. Or it will be different from it, and then it will either be simultaneous with the act of intelligence (and then two acts are simultaneous), or it will not be simultaneous, and then memory will formally generate when it will not exist. For memory formally exists by that which, for you [n.376; cf. Scotus, Ord. I d.2 n.299], does not exist when the second act is generated.

378. If you also say [Henry, Quodlibet 5 q.25] that memory exists through the habit of science, this does not stand along with the opinion, because it says that by the habit the object is only present in a phantasm, and so someone who has the habit must have recourse to a phantasm in order actually to understand. Therefore, the object is not present precisely through a habit but through a phantasm, which is not in the intellective part. And this will be plainer in the response to the authorities of Augustine [nn.345, 393397], where he posits science to be in the memory and not a species impressed on the intellect, as is argued [by Henry, n.345] from his words.a

a.a [Several interpolated texts] But note first that he (Scotus) speaks differently in the Parisian Reportationes [Rep. IA d.3 nn.108-114] in the body of the question. For he speaks as follows:
     To the question then I say that it is necessary to posit in the intellect, as it has the idea of memory, an intelligible species representing the universal prior to an act of understanding naturally. And the necessity for this is double: one from the condition per se of the object, which is ‘universality’, and which, as the per se idea of the object, always precedes the act, which act would not be unless a species were impressed on the intellect; the other is the condition and dignity of the superior power, so that it not be cheapened [cf. n.370] (but how it would be cheapened is stated in the present question; cf. supra nn.368-369).
     As to evidence, then, for the question, one needs to know that memory, or the intellect under the idea of memory, can be taken in three ways. In one way as it is preservative of past species as they are past [supra n.331], and in this way does the Philosopher speak in On Memory [1.449b24-25, 451a14-17]. In another way as it is preservative of species representing objects in themselves, whether really or not; and in this way are we speaking here [cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.84: ‘whether memory has distinct intelligible species’; cf. supra n.333;] and I say that it does [sc. have distinct intelligible species], both because of universality and because of the dignity of the power. In a third way as memory has a principle of eliciting some actual knowledge (which however does not remain without a second act, in the way Avicenna [On the Soul p.3 ch.6; cf. supra n.331] posited a species in our intellect; and this will be spoken of in the next question [Rep. IA d.3 n.126; cf. infra n.401]). The things I proved above [Rep. IA d.3 nn.95-107; supra nn.352-369] seem to be the Philosopher’s intention in On the Soul 3, where he says that the soul is in some way all intelligibles through the intellect, as it is all sensibles through the senses [cf. supra n.371] - which cannot be meant ‘through a habit’, for a habit is not a likeness representative of an object, because a habit follows an act.
     And there is a confirmation of this, because the habit of science - through which the intellect is reduced from essential potency to accidental potency in respect of the acts of which the Philosopher speaks in On the Soul 2 and Physics 8 [cf. infra n.396] - necessarily precedes the act of understanding. Now the science that is a habit follows an act, because it is generated from acts; hence this science, which reduces the intellect from essential potency to accidental potency, is a species that is truly a habit, because it is of a nature to be rooted and fixed in the intellect. But yet not every habit is a species, because a habit actually rooted and fixed is not the species that precedes an act and that is of a nature to be rooted and fixed, because this is fixed afterwards by an act [cf. supra n.374, infra. n.396].
     Again, according to them [Henry of Ghent], it does not seem that any habit is to be posited in our intellect but only in the imaginative power [supra n.378], because with whatever mode of being the object in a power accords, with that same mode of being does everything virtually contained in the object accord. Therefore, if a universal object is, through its representative, not in the intellect but in the imaginative power, everything that must and can be explained about that power will be in the same imaginative power. And so there will only be an imaginative power (especially if phantasms combine in ordered fashion), which explains all the truths knowable about the object. And every science will be in imagination and will be a perfection of it, and will not be a perfection of the intellect (against the Philosopher). And so, since the species in imagination virtually contains the act of the intellect, therefore will the act be in imagination [cf. infra n.397].
     Again, Augustine in On the Trinity 12 and 15 [supra n.375] is investigating the Trinity, where he says that it is impossible to take from our soul or in our mind an image of the Trinity save by the fact that something is in the memory which something else is expressed from. I then argue as follows: if in the mind there is something that is parent of a word, it is necessary that this be through something intrinsic to or existing in memory. But there is no parent of a word save the memory possessing within itself an object present to the mind; otherwise it will not be a parent. Therefore, since the object is not quidditatively or really in memory, and since it is not a phantasm, the memory will necessarily through the intelligible species be a parent.

II. To the Initial Arguments

379. To the first argument for the opposite side [n.333]. First it is apparent that the argument is not cogent, because if it were valid it would, against every opinion, prove that a universal can in no way be understood [n.348]. For whatever that be by which the universal is represented, it will represent in a way similar to the way it would if it had been impressed by an object; but if it were impressed by an object, it would be impressed by a singular, because an act is of a singular, as argued [n.333].

380. Therefore I reply that there can be an idea of the acting and an idea of the agent. Singularity is the condition of an agent, not the idea of acting; but the idea of acting is the form itself in the singular, according to which the singular acts. When, therefore, the proposition is taken that ‘any species that is generated by something represents that something according to the idea according to which it is generated by it’, if this is understood about the idea of the what generates [sc. the agent] it is false, if about the idea of generating [sc. the act] it can be conceded; and then it does not follow that it represents it under the idea of a singular, but under the idea of nature, because the idea of nature is the idea of generating.

381. But this response is not sufficient, because thus does it seem that the species in the senses would represent the universal, not the singular, because the idea of generating species in the senses is not singularity but the idea of nature [n.90]. Therefore, I respond generally that when a species is generated by something as by a total cause, it represents it under the idea under which it is generated when speaking of the idea of generating; and it also concomitantly represents it under the idea of what generates. Therefore, the species in the senses does not represent the object under the idea of the universal (which is a condition opposite to the idea of a singular that generates). But the object is not the total generating cause with respect to the intelligible species, because the intellect acts along with it as the other partial cause; and therefore the thing generated by these two can represent the object under the opposite idea of singularity, which is the idea of [the agent] that generates.

382. To the second [n.334], about presence,a I reply that the object has, with respect to the power, first a real presence, namely a closeness of the sort that could generate such a species in the intellect (which species is the formal idea of intellection); second, through the species generated, which is the image of what generates, the object is present under the idea of the knowable or of the represented. The first presence naturally precedes the second, because it precedes the impression of the species through which the second presence formally is. When, therefore, the proposition is taken that ‘the species in the intellect is not the cause of the presence of the object’, I say that it is false of presence under the idea of the knowable, at least in abstractive intellection which we are now speaking about. And when it is proved that ‘the object is present first before the species’, that is true of the real presence by which the agent is present to the thing acted on. And I understand this as follows, that in the first moment of nature the object is in itself, or in a phantasm, present to the agent intellect; in the second moment, in which these [sc. object and agent intellect] are present to the possible intellect as agents to what they act on, a species is generated in the possible intellect; and then, through the species, the object is present under the idea of the knowable.

a.a [Interpolated text; cf. Rep. IA d.3 n.118] I say that there is equivocation over ‘presentiality’. For one kind is the real presentiality of the object and of the power, or the active element, to the passive element; and another kind is the presentiality of the knowable object of the power, and it does not require the real presentiality of the object in itself but it requires something in which the object shines forth. I say, therefore, that the real presence of the object is the real cause of the species, and in it is the object present. From there the object in its first presence is the efficient cause, but in its second presence it is the formal presence of the species; for the species is of this sort of nature because in it the knowable object is present, not effectively or really, but by way of what shines forth.

383. As to the third [n.335], Augustine On the Trinity 14.6 n.8 “Just like someone skilled in many disciplines, the things he knows are contained in his memory, and there is not anything from it in the grasp or his mind save what he is thinking from it; the others are hidden in a certain secret knowledge which is called memory. Therefore, the trinity we were thus commending, as that from which is formed the gaze of the thinker, we would locate in the memory.” ⁴⁵ posits that memory is habitually of many known things together, as is plain there about someone skilled in many disciplines or sciences etc.; therefore it is necessary, according to every opinion, to posit many known things habitually in the memory; and these things, as they are there, are in a way the cause with respect to generated knowledge, according to Augustine - and a natural cause only, as far as they precede act of the will. Therefore, if the argument were valid it would, according to every opinion, prove actual knowledge of many things at once.

384. Therefore I respond the way it was said about the first thing known in the second question of this third distinction [n.73] that whatever species a singular of moves the senses more strongly first, its phantasm is impressed more efficaciously and moves the intellect first. And as to that first act, what we understand is not in our power (for according to Augustine On Free Choice 3.25 n.74, it is not in our power what things, when seen, we are touched by); but once the act is in place, actual knowledge of whatever is habitually known is in our power (this will be spoken about in Ord. I d.6 nn.6-7). When, therefore, it is said that this species can either move to intellection or cannot, I say that it can; but if another species moves more strongly, this one is impeded so that it does not now move. Afterwards, however, the species of whatever is habitually known can, by command of the commanding will, move to knowledge.

385. To Algazel [n.335] I say that the likeness is not valid, because taken away here is the reason for incompossibility there. This is proved by Aristotle Metaphysics 7.7.1032a32-b3, and by the Commentator Metaphysics 7 com.23, where they maintain that the ideas of opposites are not opposites in the intellect.

386. To the fourth [n.336] I say that the intellect is not only acted on really by the real object that imprints a real such species, but also acted on by the object by way of intentionality as it shines forth in the species. And this second being acted on is reception of intellection, which is from the intelligible insofar as it is intelligible, shining forth in the intelligible species; and that ‘to be acted on’ is ‘to understand’, as will be plain in the next question [nn.401, 537].

387. When you deduce further that intellection is not a motion of the thing to the soul, this does not follow, because the impression of the species is a certain motion of the thing toward the soul insofar as the thing has being in that species. The intellection too that follows the impressed species is a motion of the thing toward the soul, insofar as the object, through the intellection, has actually known being in the soul, when before it had only being in it habitually.

III. To the Arguments for the Opinion of Others

388. [To the arguments for the first opinion, that of Henry of Ghent] When it is argued [n.341] in the first opinion that to receive a species belongs to sense precisely because sense is an organic power, I say this is false because that is not the precise cause. But the precise cause of any power that has a species representing its object, as it is its object, is the following: that it is a cognitive power, and nature has given it the ability to have an object naturally present to it first before it knows. But what nature has given to an organic power is that an object be present to it, not in the power itself, but in an organ, that is, in the part of the body that the organic power perfects. And this presence suffices, because the organ is the whole made up of the appropriately mixed46 part of the body and the power. To this whole is the object sufficiently present when the species is in that part of the body. Since therefore nothing of perfection is taken away from the intellect, insofar as it is a cognitive power, by the fact it is not organic, indeed by this fact is perfection rather added to it, the result is that an object can be present to it before an act, just as in the case of the other cognitive powers. But the presence will not be through something impressed on the organ, for it does not have an organ. Therefore, it will be through something impressed on the power itself. Such an impressed representing thing, when it precedes the act of understanding in the intellective power, I call an intelligible species.

389. Briefly, then: the sense has an organ present in the part of the body that is called the organ of that sense. But the intellect has both that prior presence actually and the act itself, by reason of being the same recipient [for them].

390. And so it is false to take it that such a species only exists precisely because of the organ. For nature causes such part, thus mixed,47 of such body to be perfectible by such power of the soul and to be in agreement with the operation of it, because “matter is for the sake of form” and conversely, Averroes Physics 2 com.26, and in On the Soul 1 com.53, “for the bodily members of a lion only differ from those of a deer because soul differs from soul.” Form then is not for the sake of matter but conversely. And therefore is such part made receptive of such species, so that through such species the object may be present to such composite, which is the whole organ. Hence the first cause of the presence of the object in the species is not such disposition of the body, but there is a prior cause, so that the apprehensive power may have an object actually knowable present to it, whether in itself or in something that is part of the organ in such operation.

391. As to the next argument [n.342] from the Philosopher, that the intellect is the place of species, the exposition can be that the intellect is called the place of species because it is the preserver of them (the way it is said that it belongs to a place to preserve the thing placed in it), and other powers are not ‘places’ because they do not thus preserve them. The intelligible species, to be sure, does not seem to be destroyed as the sensible species is, because a sensible species is thus in an organ that is corrupted formally by a contrary, or by a disposition in the organ that does not fit such form - as is plain according to the Philosopher in On Memory 2.433a23-24, 453b4-7, that old men and young men and children are bad at reminiscence because of a too great abundance of humors, and even because of damage or indisposition in the organ. The intelligible species is not in the intellect in either of these ways so as to be per se destroyed by anything contrary to it, or by indisposition in what is susceptive of it. Many other areas of agreement could be assigned as regard this word ‘place’, which it is not necessary now to delay over.

392. As to what is added from the Philosopher [n.343], that “we contemplate the ‘what it is’ in phantasms etc.,” I say on behalf of all these sort of authorities that such is how, for this present state, the connection is between these powers of imagination and intellect, for we understand nothing in a universal save what we have a phantasm of a singular of. Nor is the turn toward phantasms other than that he who understands a universal is imagining a singular instance of it. Nor does the intellect see the ‘what it is’ in phantasms as if in idea of ‘seeing’ it; rather, he who understands the ‘what it is’ shining forth in the intelligible species, as it shines forth in the intelligible species, sees it in its own singular instance seen, through the imaginative power, in the phantasm.

393. As to what is adduced from Augustine [n.345], ‘who does not posit in the memory a sensible species but knowledge’, I reply: when he posits knowledge he at once posits something that includes an intelligible species, though he does not use this word. For since in On the Trinity 15.10 n.19 he had premised that “from the knowledge itself that we hold in the memory a word is born,” he adds that “the cognition formed by the thing that we know is a word.” And since, ibid. 11 n.20, he had premised, “the seeing of thinking is very like the seeing of knowledge,” he adds, “when a thing that is in knowledge is this thing in a word, then is it a true word.” And ibid. 12 n.22, “a word is most like the thing known from which it is generated; and from the seeing of science the seeing of thinking arises,” he adds, “Nor does it matter when he who speaks what he knows learnt what he knows.” Likewise ibid. 22 n.42, “When I turn the eye of my thinking to my memory, it is as if I am saying to myself that I know etc.” Again, On the Trinity 15.27 n.50, when he is speaking of the light in which truths are seen, “It itself,” he says, “shows you that a true word is in you when it is born from your knowledge, that is, when we say what we know.” So his words.

394. From all these is it plain that what Augustine has attributed to memory, as to the idea of knowledge as to the generator of it, explains itself always of the object present in memory. And it is not the case that the object is present in memory, as memory is intellective, through knowledge as knowledge is a habit distinct from the species. Therefore, it must be that he understands this presence to be through the intelligible species, and under the idea under which it is also distinguished from the habit of knowledge properly taken.

395. And in this way [n.394] too must be taken the word of the Philosopher On the Soul 3.8.431b21-23, who, since he had premised that the soul is “in some way everything,” adds that “through the senses it is sensibles, through knowledge it is knowables” [n.371]. Knowledge, of course, is taken, both in Aristotle and in Augustine in the aforesaid places [nn.371, 345, 393], for the very habitual presence of the object in intellective memory, which habitual presence is knowledge about such object virtually, because in the object thus present is contained virtually all knowledge about such object.

396. This species [n.393] is the knowledge that reduces the intellect from essential potency to accidental potency [n.374] (according to Aristotle Physics 8.4.255a32-5b5 and On the Soul 2.5.417a21-b2), but not that which is properly called knowledge [n.394], which of course is the facility left over from acts because, before that facility, it is requisite that, for the first act of considering, the intellect have been reduced already from essential potency to accidental potency, otherwise it would not be operating. Nor is the species in which the quiddity shines forth unfittingly called knowledge [n.392]; not only virtually, because it contains the whole [nn.392, 395], but formally can it be called the cognitive habit, because the quality that remains in the intellect is dispositive of it as concerns act [cf. Scotus, Ord. Prol. n.145].

397. And from this, namely from the first condition [sc. virtually containing knowledge] is argument obtained for an intelligible species, because it does not appear how any total science could be said, by reason of its first object, to be one science save insofar as the knowledge is contained virtually in the first intelligible object. For a total science is not called one by an object insofar as the object containing that science shines forth in a phantasm, because that would not be the oneness of an intellectual habit but of an imagination.

398. [To the arguments for the other opinion, that of Godfrey of Fontaines]. As for what is argued after for the second opinion, that ‘a potency that is for some act is first made actual in accord with that act’ [n.347], I say that any apprehensive power at all, as it is apprehensive, is in potency to apprehending first with firstness of perfection, though not with firstness in the way of generation [nn.69, 71, 95]. And sometimes it is first with the firstness of generation, namely when the object in itself is present to such potency as actually knowable by it. For then there is no need, before the act, for anything else to come to be in it in which it may be present; but the first thing that comes to be from it is the act. But when the object is not of a nature to be in itself present under the idea of what is actually knowable by such potency, then any apprehensive potency is in potency toward apprehension and toward that in which the knowable will be present, and it is in potency first to having the presence, in order of origin, than to having the act. So is it in the issue at hand. Sensibles are not of a nature to be present in themselves to the intellect under the idea of being actual intelligibles, but they can only be thus present in the intelligible species - and this as to abstractive understanding, which the discussion in the issue at hand is about. And therefore is the apprehensive power with respect to such things in potency to a double act, and the prior act will it receive from the agent close to it first, in the order of origin, before the later one.

399. And yet I do not mean these acts to be so ordered that the prior is the receptive idea with respect to the posterior, in the way, namely, that a surface is the idea of receiving whiteness. For then the intellect could, with respect to no intelligible, receive the second act (which is the act of understanding), unless it had the first act (as the species of the same object) before; but I mean that the intellect of itself is the immediate reason for receiving both acts. However these acts have an order between them when the object is not of a nature to be present in itself, because then the act in which the object is present as intelligible must come naturally first before the act which is elicited about the intelligible object as it is present,a - and this is only preserved in the intelligible species.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] If it be objected against this solution [n.397] that a plurality is never to be posited save because of necessity (Physics 1.4.188a17-18), and here there does not seem to be necessity, because the object seems to be present sufficiently in the phantasm, therefore etc. - I reply: there is always a necessity to dignify a noble nature when there does not appear to be anything that is manifestly repugnant. But it seems a considerable cheapening of the intellective power, as it is intellective, that it cannot have an object present to it in itself without a presence begged from inferior powers (with which it is contingently joined in idea of power), and yet that the other inferior powers can have an object thus present in itself. Although the intellect could have an object present to it in an inferior power, yet not in the highest presentiality able to precede the act of understanding. But just as for the other cognitive powers, so much more for this power must it be conceded that the object is supremely present, to the extent it can be present, and this before an act of knowing [nn.368-369].

400. Also the highest perfection possible of the cognitive power is not posited if is not posited that it can preserve the intelligible species beyond the act, and thus that it can have its object, preserved without an act, present to it, for this is allowed to the sensitive power [sc. in imagination or sense memory]. And perfection in the intellective cognitive power is that it not depend on something else in its cognition, but that it can have an object present to it without dependence on another power.

Question Two. Whether the Intellective Part Properly Taken or Something of it is the Total Cause Generating Actual Knowledge, or the Idea of Generating it

401. Second about generated knowledge I ask what its generating cause is, or the reason for generating it. And I ask whether the intellective part properly taken, or something of it, is the total cause generating actual knowledge, or the reason for generating it.

Argument that it is not:

Because in On the Soul 2.5.416b33-35, 417a6-9 the Philosopher proves that sense is passive, not active, by the fact that, if it were active, it would always be acting, just as if the combustible were combustive the combustible would always be burning. So do I argue in the issue at hand: if the intellective part were active with respect to intellection, it would always be understanding, even without an object - which is false.

402. There is confirmation because, from On the Soul [3.2.425b25-28], “sensible and sense are the same act,” for example, sounding and hearing are the same act. Therefore, by similarity, the active motion of the object and the passive motion of the intellect (which is intellection) are the same act; therefore, intellection is from the object.

403. Again, On the Soul 3.5.430a14-15, the possible intellect is “that by which there is a becoming everything” just as the agent intellect is “that by which there is a making everything.” Therefore, the possible intellect at least will not be the active cause with respect to cognition, just as also the agent intellect is not passively disposed with respect to act.

404. Again, third: actions are distinguished through distinction of active principles [cf. On the Soul 2.4.415a17-20]. If therefore the intellect, which is without distinction, is the active principle of all intellection, then all intellections would be of the same species; and if all intellections then also all the subsequent habits, and so all the sciences.

405. To the opposite is Avicenna Metaphysics 9.4: immateriality is the idea of being intellective just as it is of being intelligible; therefore the intellect or the intellective part is, of its immateriality, by itself alone active with respect to intellection, just as it is receptive.

406. Again, if the object, or something of it, were the formal idea of acting, then the intellections of objects diverse in species would be diverse in species, which is false. The proof of the consequence is that effects which are from causes diverse in species are different in species. The proof of the falsity of the consequent is that then there would be a proper science of every most specific species, and so there could not be one science of several most specific species. This is also proved, namely the falsity of the consequent, from the Philosopher Ethics 1.7.1098a3-4, where he maintains that ‘to understand’ is the proper operation of man according as he is man; but of one species there is one operation according to species.

I. Six Opinions of Others are Expounded and Rejected

A. About the First Opinion

1. Exposition of the Opinion

407. In this question there is an opinion [Peter Olivi, Sent. II q.58] which attributes to the soul all activity in respect of intellection, and it is imputed to Augustine, who says in Literal Commentary On Genesis 12.16 n.32-33, “Because the image of the body is in the spirit, which is more outstanding than the body, therefore is the image of the body more outstanding in the spirit than the body itself is in its own substance;” and there follows [ch.29], “Nor should one think that the body does something in the spirit, as if the spirit be subject, like matter, to the action of the body. For the thing that acts is in every way more outstanding than the thing about which it acts, and in no way is the body more outstanding than the spirit; rather the spirit is more outstanding than the body. So although the image begins to be in the spirit, yet it is not the body that makes that same image in the spirit, but the spirit makes it in itself with marvelous quickness;” and there follows, “for the image, as soon as it is seen by the eyes, is formed in the spirit of the seer without alteration.”

408. Again, On the Trinity 10.5 n.7, “The soul turns over and seizes images of bodies made in itself and by itself; for it gives them, in forming them, something of its own substance; and it keeps in itself something free, whereby it may judge of such species; and this is the mind, that is, rational intelligence, which is preserved so that it may judge; for the parts of the soul that are informed with likenesses of the body we feel we have in common even with the beasts.” Therefore, the soul itself forms in itself images of things known, as this cited authority says even more expressly.

409. Argument on behalf of this opinion is made with reasons as follows: An effect does not exceed its cause in perfection; “every living thing is better than a nonliving thing,” according to Augustine City of God [9.6, 11.16, 7.3 n.1]; therefore a living operation can only come from a living or live principle of action. These operations of thinking are living operations; therefore, they are from the soul itself as from the reason for acting.

410. Again the more perfect a form is the more actual and consequently the more active it is, because to be active belongs to something insofar as it is in act; but the intellective soul is, among all forms, the most actual; therefore it is most active; therefore it has the power by itself alone for its own operation, since more imperfect forms have power for this, as is plain of the forms of the elements and of certain mixed bodies.48

411. Again, third, the Philosopher in Ethics 1 [1.1.1094a3-6] and Metaphysics 9[9.8.1050a21-b1] and Physics 3 [3.3.202a22-24], distinguishes between acting and making, and he maintains that action properly speaking abides in the agent, as he illustrates about speculation there [Metaphysics 9]. Intellection, therefore, is properly an operation that abides in the agent; but it abides in the intellective part, therefore it will come from that part as from its agent.

412. Fourth, and it is the same, because action properly speaking, and as it is distinguished from making, denominates the agent; but ‘to understand’ denominates man as to his intellective part, therefore etc. [sc. therefore man’s intellective part or intellect is the agent of the action of understanding].

2. Rejection of the Opinion

413. Against this opinion:

That it is not the opinion of Augustine appears from the last chapter of On the Trinity 9.12 n.18 (or chapter 30 of the smaller version): “It must be clearly held that everything we know co-generates in us knowledge of itself; for knowledge is born of both, namely of the knower and the known etc.”a

Again, ibid. 11.2 n.3, “Vision is generated from the seeable and the seer etc.”

Again, ibid. 15.10 n.9 (as was said before [n.393]), “The knowledge formed by the thing that we know is a word.” Therefore, he intends to attribute some causality to the object.

a.a [Interpolated text]. [Augustine cont.] “Therefore, when the mind knows itself it is the sole parent of its own knowledge, for it is both known and knower. And it was knowable to itself even before it knew itself, but knowledge of itself was not in it when it did not know itself.”

414. There is an argument by reason in favor of this, becausea when two causes prior to the thing itself, namely the efficient cause and the matter, are perfect in themselves and proximate and not impeded, the effect follows or can follow. Therefore if the soul is the active total cause of generated knowledge, and if it is the disposed matter, or receptive subject, with respect to the same knowledge, and if it is always actually present to itself, then, since it is a natural cause, there will always be in it every actual intellection of which it is itself the cause - of which, moreover, it is by itself the cause; or at least there will be an intellection that it most strongly has the power for.b

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] there are only four kinds of per se causes, as appears in Physics 2.3.194b23-5a3 and Metaphysics 5.2 1013a24-b4. So, when they exist perfect in themselves and are not impeded and are sufficiently close by, the effect comes from them if they are natural causes, or it will be possible for it to come from them if any of the causes is a freely acting cause. And because a form in some way has being through being produced, and the end follows the production in being of the thing (or if it precedes, this is insofar as it moves the efficient cause to act), therefore the major follows [sc. about the soul as active total cause, n.414].

b.b [Text canceled by Scotus] For the imperfection of a second cause in itself cannot be posited if the hypothesis is retained [sc. that the soul is active total cause], nor can non-proximity be posited, nor can impediment, because nothing would seem to be an impediment. And to take flight to a cause ‘sine qua non’ and to say that it is required for this, that knowledge be generated, this is to say that all per se causes are not sufficient causes, but that something else is required on which the thing to be caused essentially depends. So there will not only be four kinds of causes but more, or something will essentially depend on something that is not the cause of it. [Text interpolated in this canceled text] Again, all causes besides the said four are accidental to the thing; therefore, the thing does not simply depend on them, either in being or in becoming. The antecedent is expressly stated by the Commentator Physics 2 com.30-31; again, he proves that of anything whatever there are only four causes, or some of the four, in Physics 2 com. 67-70 through a sufficiency of demonstration.

415. By this are disproved the diverse ways that those, who posit this opinion [n.407], have of maintaining it. For if there be posited an object necessary in idea of sine qua non cause, or in idea of term or of stimulant [e.g. Olivi, ibid. q.58, 72] - if there not be given it some per se causality (since the soul is always perfect in itself and proximate to what it acts on) and if any new impediment not be removed - how will be preserved the fact that it [the object] is necessarily required save by positing five kinds of causes?

416. Specifically, too, the point about ‘stimulating’ does not seem valid. For I ask what it is ‘to stimulate’? If it is to cause something in the intellective power, then the object causes something before the intellective power of itself acts. Therefore, the intellective power is not the total active first cause in respect of anything caused in it, but the object is as well. If ‘to stimulate’ not be to cause something in the intellective power, then the intellective power is not differently disposed in itself after the stimulation than it was before, and so it is not more stimulated now than it was before.

417. This argument [n.414] would, however, work in like manner, as it seems, against action of the will. Hence response can be given that when forms have an essential order as they are received, either in the same nature or in the same power (and this whether by the same agent or by another), and given also that neither be the reason for receiving the other - never can the second be induced by the agent in the receptive subject of it unless the first has been induced already. An example about volition and delight: when positing that these are diverse really, never is the second received unless the first is received already; since however the second has a natural active cause [sc. the object] present to it before there is volition, in these sorts of ordered things is the major premise [n.414 init.] denied. The like holds of the intelligible species in relation to intellection, when positing the intelligible species not to be cause or receptive subject of intellection; the like holds of light in the medium [nn.471-473], if it does not act on or receive the species of color.

418. Note: it is said in another way [Olivi, ibid. qq.72, 58, 57, 23] that whenever the receiving of some form in its potential subject pre-requires of necessity the receiving of another form in its receptive subject, the major,a that ‘a perfect agent proximate to its passive subject and not impeded is able to act’ [n.414], is false, understanding this of proximate power - and this whether the recipient of the prior form is the same power as the recipient of the later form (example: volition and delight in the will), or is the same nature (example: intellection and volition in the soul, when positing the will to be totally active with respect to willing), or both forms are received in the same supposit, not in a single nature or power (example: about phantasm and intellection, if an intelligible species be denied and the total action be given to the intellect), or the prior and later form are received in different supposits (example: light from the sun in air and in water).

a.a Above the word ‘major’ the sign a was placed by Scotus. See n.421.

419. There is not here preserved the proposition [n.418] that the prior form is active with respect to the later one, or is the reason for receiving it, as with light in the medium in respect of the species of color. For if this [example of light] be instanced in such cases [sc. the four listed in n.418], the instance is of no value, because the proximate active or passive principle would in such cases be lacking. In the four instances already set down [n.418] neither condition [sc. lack of active and of passive principle] is met, for neither is volition the active cause of delight but the object is, nor is it the receptive subject, but the will is. So in the other instances [n.418], The Vatican Editors helpfully explain the same point about the remaining three cases in n.418 as follows: “Intellection is not the active cause of volition but the will is, nor is it the receptive subject but the soul is. The phantasm is not the active cause of intellection but the intellect is, nor is it the receptive subject but the supposit is. Light in the air is not the active cause of light in water but the sun is, nor is it the receptive subject but water is.” Hence, to complete the criticism, the claim in n.418, that the major ‘a perfect agent proximate to its passive subject and not impeded is able to act’ is sometimes false, is itself false. And the four examples given to illustrate it fail, because they are misdescribed; when they are correctly described the relevant major is seen to remain true. ⁴⁶ according to those opinions.

420. Nor should it be said that the major [n.418] is true unless two effects are necessarily producible in an ordered way by the same agent; because this is also not true if there is necessarily an order between forms that can be introduced by different agents, as is plain in the instances set down [n.418].

421. Universally, then, any form that, in order to be received in its passive subject, requires another form to be first received in any subject and by any agent, never is the active principle of the second form in accidental potency for acting on the receptive subject of the second form, unless the prior form has already been induced. Therefore the later [second] form depends, as to its coming to be, essentially on something different from the per se causes of it in its own coming to be, which per se causes are agent and matter.a This conclusion [sc. the previous sentence] can be conceded, because ‘first essentially’ does not belong only to the cause (the fact is plain in the treatise [by Scotus himself], On the First Principle ch. 1 nn.2-4), yet itb is not with probability denied unless the priority of the other form be shown - either as it is active with respect to the second form, or as it is the reason for the receiving, or as it is the effect of a cause nearer to a common cause, or to a cause that necessarily causes first.

a.a [Note by Scotus] It can be said that the later form does not, in the instant in which it is causable, depend on others. It is not causable save naturally after the other cause that is pre-required for it.

b.b Above ‘it’ the sign a was put by Scotus. See n.418.

B. About the Second Opinion

1. Exposition of the opinion

422. There is another opinion that is to the opposite extreme entirely. As is gathered from diverse places in him who thinks this way [Godfrey of Fontaines, Quodlibet 8 q.2, 1 q.7, 14 q.5, 6 q.7], it says that the intellective soul, as it is intellective, has nothing of activity in respect of intellection.

For it does not have the possible intellect’s sort of acting (whether informed with an intelligible species, which they deny [nn.346-347], or bare), because, according to them, the same thing cannot act on itself. They prove this because, since the agent in act is of the sort the patient is in potency (from Physics 3.2.202a8-12, On Generation 1.5.321b35-2a8), it then follows that the same thing would be in potency and act, which seems, first, to be opposite to the first principle of metaphysics known through the idea of act and potency; then also the same thing would be efficient cause and matter, which seems against the Philosopher (Physics 2.7.198a22-27), that matter and efficient cause do not coincide; then again the same thing would be referred to itself by a real relation, which seems impossible (Metaphysics 5.15.1021a26-b3), because of the opposition of such relations; then, finally, anything at all would be posited as acting on itself and moving itself (as that the air would illuminate itself in the presence of the sun and not the sun, and that wood would heat itself in the presence of fire and not the fire). For there would be no source whence anything might be proved that would be thus causative of anything new at all existing in it, notwithstanding the fact that nothing would be naturally causative of anything new in existence.

From these proofs they say that agent and patient are distinct in subject. And there is added, for confirmation, that whatever difficulties may arise in any matter, not on their account must these metaphysical principles be denied, for then all investigation of truth through such principles would be taken away. For a reason for denying them in one matter is a reason for denying them in another.

423. On the same ground they say that the agent intellect cannot effectively cause anything in the possible intellect, because it is not distinguished in subject from it but, by as it were perfecting it formally with its own light, it causes this sort of illumining - just as [Godfrey, ibid. 6 q.15] “when some luminous body is produced (in which are these two perfections, namely transparency and light itself), it is said that this sort of light makes a transparent body luminous, not by changing it from a potency preceding the act toward such act, but the whole together is, according to idea of efficient cause, made by an extrinsic agent” producing such body in such existence. But for this reason is light said to make the body luminous, that it is formally a perfecter of that body. So is it in the issue at hand. The agent intellect, in idea of efficient cause, does nothing to the possible intellect, but “he who created the soul by way of efficient cause, has himself caused this illumination in it, creating or producing these powers at the same time in the same substance.”

424. Similarly they posit that the agent intellect has no operation with respect to intellection save insofar as it has action about the intelligible object, namely insofar as it acts for this, so that it possess the idea of mover and of object in the act. Therefore, as to intellection, the agent intellect will, for these two reasons, have no activity immediately.

425. What then will effectively cause intellection?

They reply that the same real object effects intellection and volition, and this insofar as it shines forth in the phantasm - the agent intellect having been illumined, not effectively but by concurring formally, as it were, in regard to the intelligible.

426. And as to how it may be possible for a phantasm to move the possible intellect, although however the imaginative power and the possible intellect are in the same substance of the soul (and the phantasm is not distinguished in subject from the possible intellect) - they say [Godfrey of Fontaines, Quodlibet 6 q.7] that the soul can be considered in two ways, either in essence or in powers. In the first way, it is whole in each part and is not a principle of any second operation. In the second way, some power determines for itself some part of the body, as an organic power, some power does not, as the intellective power, because “it under the idea of such a power” is not “in this part of the body nor in that, for it is in no part,” because it is “per se neither in the whole nor in any part, just as neither are the operations that are exercised through it. Just as, therefore, a power that would be in a different part of the body than is the phantasm could be changed by what is in imagination, so a power that is determinate to a part in which there is a phantasm but that is outside it (in this way, that it is no more there than in a foot) will be able to be changed by what is in imagination. So is it in the issue at hand [n.425], because the powers [of intellect and will] are not tied to and immersed in matter as the other powers are.”

2. Rejection of the Opinion

427. Against this opinion.

According to it, the agent intellect causes nothing that may be formally in a phantasm, but all that happens is that, through some spiritual contact of this sort of light with the phantasm, there is removal of an obstacle, and when this removal has been carried out by virtue of the agent intellect, the informing of the possible intellect takes place [cf. supra n.361, Godfrey, ibid. 5 q.10].

428. From this it follows that nothing in the intellective part (and this as the intellective part embraces the agent and possible intellects) will have in any way the idea of something active, whether as agent or as idea of acting, with respect to any intellection at all or with respect to the object of intellection, and thus only a phantasm is disposed to intellection as effective of it. Or if there is another effectivity there, by which an irradiating or illumining of phantasms may take place, that effectivity will be precisely form God himself, who has created such light in the possible intellect. Other than God, therefore, nothing is actively disposed in regard to any intellection at all save only a phantasm.

429. This seems unacceptable, because it very much cheapens the nature of the soul. For a phantasm does not seem able to cause any perfection in the intellect that surpasses the nobility of a phantasm, because an effect does not exceed its cause but falls short of it, especially an equivocal effect. Therefore, as this opinion’s position goes, nothing is caused in the intellect precisely by a phantasm, for every intellection is either more perfect than a phantasm or in man there will be no intellection.a

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus; replaced by the passage from n.428, last sentence, to the end of n.429. See also the canceled text to n.443, which is effectively the same as n.429 here] Either then God will operate immediately for any intellection, or only the phantasm will be the cause of all actions of the intellective part, both intellections and volitions.

430. Again, second, from this position it follows that an angel (in whom such distinction in subject cannot be posited), could have no new intellection, however much an angel have many objects habitually present to him. Indeed, an angel can have no intellection effectively save from God, because if the opposite is posited the intellect will be moved by itself, or agent and patient will not be distinct in subject.b

b.b [Note by Scotus] Along with the second argument against Godfrey [n.430], it seems to be against him how an animal has a phantasm without exterior sensation. For what moves the organ there to act? Nothing seems distinct there in subject, unless he posit a sense memory in an organ different from a phantasma or imagination, and that it moves imagination to imagining.

431. He seems himself to concede this, because he posits that the claim ‘an angel can have a new intellection’ is merely a matter of belief.

432. But this is not a way out. For no matter of belief is repugnant to a conclusion following from true principles. And from this principle, ‘agent and patient are necessarily distinct in subject’, it necessarily follows that an angel cannot have, from himself, any intellection actively. Therefore, if the opposite of this conclusion is a matter of belief, the principle from which the conclusion follows will be false. This is plainer about ‘willing’, for it is clear that an angel did not have his first ‘willing of bad’ from God; so the agent there was not distinct in subject from the thing acted on.

433. Third, it follows that one should not posit any habit in the intellect because, according to this opinion, it is required, and suffices, for ordered understanding that phantasms occur in an ordered way and that, as occurring, they move the intellect in an ordered way. But that they occur in an ordered way cannot come about through a habit in the intellect, because nothing in the thing acted on gives ordered moving to the mover. Or at any rate they can occur in an ordered way through a habit in imagination without any habit in the intellect; therefore etc.

434. There is a confirmation, because, according to them, for this reason is a habit in the will denied, because the will moves easily in conformity with the intellect. Therefore by similarity, since the intellect is moved, according to them, by phantasms in the way the phantasms occur, a habit in imagination will suffice for them to move in an ordered way. These three [nn.428-433] I consider [to be objections against these thinkers].

435. But other arguments are also made against them. First as follows:a if a phantasm causes every intellection effectively, and if a natural cause does nothing save according to the nature by which it is in act, a phantasm will never cause any action in the intellect save one that is conform to the phantasm; and so it will never cause a false composition repugnant to the ideas of the extreme terms which the phantasms are of in the imaginative power. Or if in some way it is possible, as they reply [Godfrey, Quodlibet 10 q.12, 5 q.12], that through one known opposite can its opposite be known, this is only because through one true composition can the intellect know that the opposite is false. But will the phantasm never cause as true a false intellection, or conversely? And if you say it is because a phantasm represents objects falsely that it causes a false intellection in the intellect - the follows that the same phantasm can never cause an opposite assent, and so the intellect will not be able to apprehend the same complex as now true, now false.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus; replaced by the passage from n.432, opening sentence, to “First as follows” here in n.435]. This response does not seem to be that of a Christian but of a purely pagan philosopher, since an angel knows many new things and is blessed in this operation of his. Thirds

436. Again, second, intellection according to the Philosopher is an immanent act [Metaphysics 9.8.1050a14-b1].

437. They reply [Godfrey, Quodlibet 9 q.19] that ‘to understand’, in the grammatical way of signifying, signifies action, and ‘to be understood’ signifies passion; yet in reality ‘to understand’ is a passion and ‘what is understood’ is the agent. But what may ‘to understand’ have of the idea of action? They say [ibid.] that ‘to understand’ does not signify anything as it has being, in itself and absolutely, in the subject, but as it tends to something else as to an object, or as to a term; “and because it is a mark of action to proceed from the agent and to tend to the thing acted on, therefore such perfections” -which are in reality passions, that is, passions abiding by way of action in that which is denominated from them - “are said to be immanent actions.”

438. To the contrary. The philosopher, when distinguishing action from making, Ethics 1.1.1094a3-6, 6.4.1140a1-6, Metaphysics 9.8.1050a21-b1, assigns diverse principles and properties to action and making, which would not be necessary if his meaning were that what he assigns to be an action were a passion; for then it would not be necessary to assign it its own active principle. For it would not be necessary for prudence to be active, in the way art is a habit of making, if action were nothing but a certain form received in something else (as in that which is called an agent).

439. Again, third, a habit is not posited precisely for undergoing something, and above all in the case of a passive thing that is supremely disposed to form. For what is in itself supremely disposed to receive has no need to be rendered prompt to receive. But the intellect is supremely disposed for any intellection whatever, because it has nothing contrary. Therefore, it would not be necessary to posit any habit in the intellect if it were precisely passive with respect to intellection. Proof of the first proposition [sc. supra n.439, “a habit is not posited precisely for undergoing something”], because a habit is ‘what we use when we want’, and a habit “perfects the haver and renders his work good etc.,” Ethics 2.4.1105b25-26, 1106a15-17.

440. Again, fourth, how would the intellect engage in discursive reasoning, by syllogizing and arguing, if a phantasm cause every intellection? For it does not seem intelligible how phantasms are, by their occurrence, cause of all discourse.

441. Again, fifth, how will logical intentions, or relations of reason, be caused? For, if a phantasm causes every intellection, any intention caused by it will be real, because that is called a real intention which is immediately caused by the thing, or by a species representing the thing in itself. Therefore, no intellection will cause logical intentions or relations of reason, because the intellect will be able, by no act of itself, to compare one object with another, which comparing is what causes a relation of reason, or a second intention, in an object.

442. There is a confirmation, because when the intellect compares a to b according to the sort of relation that there is, from the nature of the thing, between them, it does not cause a relation of reason, as it does for example when it compares them as different or as contrary, or as whole and part, or the like. Therefore, by the comparing alone is a relation of reason caused, which, neither in its being nor in its being known, is consequent to the extremes from the nature of the extremes. Therefore, the extremes are not the cause of the act of comparing.

443. Again, sixth, how does the intellect reflect on its own act,a and how will this be in the capacity of the reflecting power? For if the phantasm causing some intellection naturally has to cause a reflection on that intellection, for the same reason it naturally has to cause a reflection on the reflection, and so on ad infinitum, as Augustine says On the Trinity 15.12 n.21 [cf. n.227]. But if it does not have to cause a reflection but only an absolute act, and if afterwards another phantasm occurs, no reason seems capable of being assigned as to how there could be any reflection on any act.b

a.a [Note added by Scotus] The act is the object of a second act, so it moves the intellect toward it and it is in it, therefore etc. #8 [the argument in n.443 was the eighth in the primitive text].

b.b [Text canceled by Scotus] Again, how does it not cheapen the soul, because every natural action (which is a natural perfection of so perfect a being) is thus effectively caused by a phantasm? For a phantasm seems able to cause no perfection in the intellect that exceeds the nobility of the intellect, because an equivocal effect cannot exceed an equivocal cause but falls short of it. Therefore, nothing precisely caused by a phantasm, as by a total active cause (as that position about intellection posits), can be more perfect than a phantasm, but is more imperfect than it; and so no perfection will be a greater perfection in man than the very phantasm, which is absurd. [This text seems canceled here only because it has been transposed, more or less, to n.429].

444. Of these last six reasons, the first [n.435] is not compelling against them [Godfrey et al.], because it asks about a difficulty common to every opinion. For whether a phantasm is posited to be an active cause of intellection or the intelligible is species or the intellect, one can always ask of them equally (since each of them is a principle of acting naturally, not freely) how opposites in the intellect can be caused, as for example now a true opinion or knowledge about something, and now a false opinion or error about the same.

445. The second reason [nn.436, 438] is not compelling, for prudence is posited to be an active principle because of another act, which is ‘action’, to which its own act is extended as rule is to thing ruled - just as the proper act of an art is extended to a different act, which is ‘making’, although however neither of the habits is a properly active principle in respect of its act.

446. Hereby [n.445] to the third reason [n.439], that a habit inclines the subject acted on the way a prior form inclines to a fitting posterior one, as is said elsewhere about habit [Scotus, Ord. I d.17 p.1 qq.1-3]. For although a passive subject, through removal of the opposite, is of itself supremely disposed, yet not by addition of something fitting. The remark from Ethics 2 [n.439], that [a habit] renders the work good etc., must be understood to mean that it does so not by effecting but by inclining [Scotus, ibid.].

447. The fourth [n.440] coincides with the one considered third [nn.433-434], namely how a habit disposes for phantasms to occur in discursive reasoning in an ordered way, unless the habit is placed in the imaginative power, not in the intellect - which perhaps he would concede.

448. The sixth [n.443] only asks how it is in our power which intellection we have through another, and what the act is known by on which we reflect. The first, to be sure, is because of the will, and the second indeed through the footprint left behind from the act; or otherwise it is through a phantasm, which first displays the object but which, second, is caused by the object. Yet it is not necessary that it in act cause intellection of intellection, except when the will gives command. So it is possible, after the footprint has been left, for a reflex act to be had by being elicited through it, with the will commanding [this intellection]; and it is possible for it not to be had, with the will commanding another intellection.

449. The fifth [nn.441-442] seems it needs pondering if ‘no comparison is a relation of reason that the extremes are of a nature to cause in the intellect’. For if this proposition is true, then although intellections of the simple things that are compared may be caused by the extremes, yet not the comparison that is in the comparing act by which a relation of reason is caused in the extreme term. It could be said that some relation follows the extremes in the thing, and that, when the extremes are known, it follows in knowledge - as in the case of contrariety and the like. And this relation is real. The other relation does not follow the extremes in the thing, and not necessarily in the intellect either. Yet the extremes themselves can cause the act of comparison by eliciting it, when the will gives command. And when the act of comparing has been caused according to the sort of respect that does not follow the extremes in the thing, a relation of reason is caused.

C. About the Third and Fourth Opinion

1. Exposition of the Opinions

450. [Third opinion] The third opinion [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 5.25] posits that the intelligible [object], as present simply to the intellect (not through an intelligible species [n.340], but through a phantasm as it is illumined by the agent intellect), is thus simply present to the possible intellect as in memory. And, as it moves to an act of understanding, it is there as in the intelligence, whose knowledge has its term in the object itself. And as concerns these two the intellect is passive, namely both as it is memory having an object simply present to it, and as it is intelligence moved by the object thus present to the first act of understanding. But the intellect, when brought to be in first act, can by natural insight dig down and run through any ‘what it is’, by conjoining and dividing the appropriate differences with the thing divided, and by thus investigating, as regard simple understanding, the ‘what it is’ and, as regard complex understanding, the ‘because of what’ as regard a knowable conclusion. And in this discursive reasoning the intellect, insofar as it thus reasons, is active; insofar, however, as it conceives, it is passive.

451. [Fourth opinion] This same doctor as to this position (about passiveness with respect to the first simple and confused knowledge, and about activity with respect to investigated distinct knowledge) seems to retract it and to correct it in another place where, asking about the active principle of vital actions (namely actions of sensation and intellection), posits that that principle is something in the animate thing itself and not an object outside it. And in the way he posits in the senses that the species impressed on the organ inclines only, and, by inclining, excites the power and, as it were, calls it forth to its operation, so does [he posit that] the phantasm in the imaginative power inclines the intellect so that the inclined intellect is in ultimate disposition to elicit intellection as its own proper operation - And on behalf of this position he there introduces a reason for these actions, that they are to be vital actions and that no action transcends the perfection of the agent. And he introduces another reason about the action that remains in the agent, and these are actions proper and denominate the agent properly, the way ‘to shine’, but not ‘to illumine’, is related to the ‘shining’ thing. With this agrees the reason of Augustine [On Music 6.5 n.9], that the soul forms in itself images of things known.

These three reasons were introduced before, for the first opinion [nn.409, 412, 408].

2. Rejection of the Opinions

452. Neither of these opinions, neither the one retracted nor the one retracting it, seems to be true. Not the retracted one [n.450], because the intellect, when brought to be in act according to the first confused knowledge, is active with respect to second intellection either by virtue of itself, or by virtue of the first confused knowledge itself. If by virtue of itself, it does not seem reasonable that some cause could be active with respect to a more perfect cause in some species and could in no way be active with respect to a more imperfect cause of the same idea; now the confused and distinct intellection of white seem to be intellections of the same idea, because intellections of the same object; therefore it seems unacceptable that the intellect could of itself be causative with respect to the second intellection, which is the more perfect, and not with respect to the first. And if you say that in respect of the second act it is active by virtue of the first act, on the contrary: an imperfect act cannot be the formal idea of causing a more perfect act, because then, if an effect could surpass in perfection its total cause, there would be no way in which it could be proved that God is the most perfect being; but distinct knowledge is nobler than confused knowledge; therefore the confused knowledge is not the formal reason for eliciting or causing the distinct knowledge.

453. The retracting opinion too [n.451] does not seem to be true, because I ask what is understood by ‘inclination’? Either that there is some form in the intellect by which it is inclined, or that nothing is in the intellect. If nothing, the intellect is not more inclined now than it was before. If some form, either an act of understanding - and then the opposite of their opinion, because the object will cause the act - or something prior to the act of understanding, as a species, which they deny [n.340].

454. Response: it is not a habit nor an act nor a species but some fourth thing. -On the contrary. Although this would seem at once to be unacceptable, yet it is argued as follows: Let that fourth thing be a; either without it there is in the intellect the total active virtue with respect to intellection, or there is not. If there is, then without it the intellect is capable of this intellection, and so of any required determination (because a ‘this’ as ‘this’ is most determinate), and so it will be necessary because of nothing. If there is not, then a gives active virtue, whether total or partial, to the intellect itself, and so such action will not be from the intellect, or from within, as from a total active principle.

455. Again, in ordered causes an inferior does not include a superior but conversely;a and with respect to intellection the intellective part is a cause superior to the species of any object, as will be plain in the following question [nn.559-562]; therefore the object does not incline the intellect.

a.a [Note added by Scotus] But this is false; rather each inclines each. An example: a habit inclines a power [cf. n.446].

D. About the Fifth and Sixth Opinion

1. Exposition of the Opinions

456. [Fifth opinion] The fifth opinion [Giles of Rome, Quodlibet 1 q.3, 3 qq.13-14, 5 q.9; On Angelic Knowledge qq.1, 4-5; Thomas of Sutton, Quaestiones Ordinariae qq.2-3] posits that the species of the object in the intellect, or the object itself present in itself, is what generates, or is the formal idea of generating, actual knowledge in the intellect, and the intellect itself is only disposed as material there, informed by the species or possessing the object that supplies the place of the species.

457. The argument for this is as follows: Averroes On the Soul 3 com.5, the intellect is disposed to universal forms as first matter is to individual forms; and elsewhere [in com.5] the soul is lowest in the genus of intelligibles, as matter is in the genus of beings; and On the Soul 2.5.417a2-28, and Physics 8.4.255a30-255b31, the intellect before habit is in essential potency as matter is before form; and On the Soul 3.4.429a24, the soul is nothing of the things that are before understanding. From all these it is concluded that the power of the intellect with respect to the intelligible is purely potential; but what is purely potential cannot be the active principle of any act unless informed by some form; and then the form will be the formal principle.

458. Argument is also made that the very form that is the principle of acting is the likeness, because just as making is formally through the form by which the maker is assimilated to the thing made, so action seems to be through the form by which the agent is assimilated to the object - so similitude will be the formal reason for acting.

459. For this is also added that an indeterminate agent cannot perform a determinate action, or an action about a determinate object, unless it be determined; the intellect of itself is indeterminate as to every intelligible and every intellection; therefore, in order for it to understand, some determination is required; that determination is only through some species; therefore the intelligible species is the determinative principle.

460. [Sixth opinion] The sixth opinion, which returns to the same as to the conclusion of this question, is that actual knowledge itself, generated whether in the senses or in the intellect, is the species; and then, just as the formal idea of generating an actual species that is called actual knowledge is the idea of the object or the species of the object in memory, so it follows, as concerns the issue at hand, that the formal idea of generating actual knowledge is the object itself or some species in virtue of the object; and this such that when the object is in itself present, a species is generated from it, which is intellection; but when it is not present in itself but through a species in memory, then by this species or by virtue of this species another species is generated, which will be intellection.

461. In favor of this opinion, insofar as it says that the intelligible species is actual knowledge, is adduced Augustine On the Trinity 11.2 n.3, where he maintains that “the informing which is called vision is generated by the body alone that sees;” but what is generated by the body alone is the species; therefore, the species is vision, according to Augustine.

462. This is proved, second, through the Philosopher On the Soul 3.2.425b25-28, who maintains that sounding and hearing are the same, because the act of the active and the passive thing is the same, Physics 3.3.202a13-21; but sounding in act causes a species of sound in the ear; therefore this caused species is the same as hearing, and so the sensible species and the sounding are the same.

2. Rejection of the Opinions

463. The conclusion of these last two opinions is disproved by certain arguments made against the second opinion [nn.422, 427-443]. For an equivocal effect cannot exceed an equivocal cause in perfection, but necessarily falls short of it; intellection would be an equivocal effect of the intelligible species if it were caused by it alone; and so it would be simply more imperfect than the intelligible species, which is not true [n.429].

464. This reason [n.463], which was the first against the second opinion [n.429], is less evident against these opinions [the fifth and sixth], because the intelligible species is nobler than the phantasm. The second and third reason against the second opinion [nn.430-434] are not against these opinions [the fifth and sixth]. Six other reasons, which I did not consider against the second opinion [nn.435-443], can be made here. For first,a a habit does not seem necessary, as was argued there [n.439]. Likewise, second, how would discursive reasoning happen [n.440]? Third, how reflection [n.443]? Fourth, how would relations of reason or logical intentions be caused [nn.441-442]? Fifth, how would a false proposition arise that would be assented to as true if the intelligible species alone, generated by the phantasm, were the formal reason for all intellection [n.435]? Sixth, how will an action be immanent [nn.436, 438]?

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus, in place of “This reason.. .For first”] Likewise ..

465. Three middle terms against these opinions [fifth and sixth] are added, which are also not much to be considered. The first is this:a the species would then be rather the intellective potency than the intellect, and so it would, when separated, have the same act, just as heat, when separated, would make things hot.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus, in place of “Sixth [n.464].is this”] Likewise.

466. Likewise then, ‘to understand’ does not seem to be the proper perfection of the intellect, because nothing seems to be essentially ordered to that operation to which, or to the principle of which, it is disposed in a potentiality for contradiction, as to an accident per accidens - just as ‘to heat something’ does not seem the proper perfection of wood from the fact that wood is disposed to heat something as to an accident per accidens [sc. when it happens to be on fire]. But the intellect would, according to the opinion [sc. the fifth and sixth], be so disposed to the intelligible species that would be the principle of intellection; therefore etc.

467. Likewise, third: both in the senses and in the intellect (positing the same thing doing the representing), greater attention makes for a more perfect act. For the same thing with the same intelligible species or phantasm understands more perfectly that to the understanding of which it gives more effort, and understands it less perfectly when giving less effort. So too in the case of the senses, when the same object is present and in the same light, a thing is more perfectly seen because of greater attention in the seeing. This is plain too from the fact that sometimes sight is, because of greater attention, the more damaged; indeed, ceteris paribus, a more concentrated eye could be greatly affected by the seeing of something which another eye would be less affected by, as is plain from experience. It is plain also from Augustine On the Trinity 11.2 n.4, that in someone attentive the species long after the seeing remain which do not remain in the eye of someone not attentive in that sense.

468. It can be said [to the argument, n.465] that the intellective power is that by which we understand, and we understand by it insofar as it has intellection formally. The species is not of a nature to have it, nor is it the reason for having it. As to what is added, that ‘[the species] would, when separated, have the same act’ [n.465], if the ‘have’ is understood as to the subject, it is plain the argument is not valid; if it is understood as to the effect, my reply is that [the species] does not have the passive object on which to act, especially if it is not of a nature to be the principle of acting on something else, because not the principle of making, but only of an action immanent in the same subject as itself.

469. To the second [n.466] it can be said that the major ‘nothing seems to be essentially ordered etc.’ is false in the case of things that cannot attain, of themselves, the end to which they are ordered, but only by the action of something extrinsic, which gives some accident to them by which they may act and attain their end - and so it is of the intellect.

470. To the third [n.467]: that attention belongs the will by which, through vehement application of oneself to some object, a lower cognitive power is affected by the object more vehemently; and therefore it knows more perfectly, though it does not act for that act.

3. Rejection of the Sixth Opinion Specifically

471. But against the second of these opinions [n.460] (which is sixth overall The six are at nn. 407, 422, 450, 451, 456, 460. ⁴⁷) there is argument specifically that it is false, both in the case of the senses and in that of the intellect. In the case of the senses because, if the species which is vison is a species of the same idea as the one in the medium, then the one in the medium will formally be vision; therefore the medium, in possessing it formally, will be seeing formally. But if, besides the species in sight that is posited to be vision, there is a species of a different idea from it and another species of the same idea as the species in vision, the conclusion is gained. For although that which is vision is called a species, yet there is something else prior to it in the eye, and of a different idea; and it is the species, as it is commonly called, and so the species properly speaking will differ from vision.

472. If you say [Giles of Rome, On the Knowledge of Angels q.1] that the species in the medium differs from the species in the eye because of diversity of receivers - this is nothing because, just as whiteness is of the same idea in a horse and in a stone (and therefore each is white according to the same idea of whiteness), so if that which is called the species is of the same idea in the eye and in the medium, then if it of itself is vision formally, vision formally will be in each; and whatever vision formally is in, that is formally seeing.

473. The principal thing proposed [sc. n.471, that the sixth opinion, that species and vision are the same, is false] is also plain, because in a blind eye that yet remains as physically constituted See footnote to n.122 above. ⁴⁸ as it was before a species is caused; likewise in the eye of someone sleeping, otherwise he would not be woken up by the presence of some surpassing visible thing (nor otherwise too would he be woken up by a surpassing sound if it were not first present in the ear), yet in these cases there is no vision. So too in a well-disposed eye there is received some species of the same idea as that which is in the medium, from the fact that the organ itself is of a similar disposition as the medium, on account of the transparency of each (from On the Soul 2.6.418b26-419a1); and it will not be vision formallya but prior to vision.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] because if in any way it is, it will be different.

474. And that this is false in the case of the intellect [sc. as it has just been shown to be false in the case of the senses, n.473] is plain by putting together some of the things said by those who think thus. For they posit that there is no species different from the divine essence in blessed vision, and that beatitude consists essentially in the vision alone; add this statement, that vision is the species formally, and it follows that our beatitude will be the divine essence formally.b Therefore if this conclusion is unacceptable, let them either deny the premise that vision is the species, or posit that the divine essence has a species other than itself or that beatitude is essentially in something other than in the act of vision.

b.b [Interpolated text] Proof: beatitude formally is vision according to them, and vision formally is the species according to them; therefore, the species is the divine essence formally.

475. A response [sc. on the part of those who hold the sixth opinion]: where there is an intelligible species different from the object, it is intellection; but where there is not a species different from the object, there intellection is not the object; in beatitude, therefore, they would deny that the species is different from the object and the act, but that it is different from the object [sc. by itself, without the act] is not denied

476. On the contrary: no object’s intelligible species is different from it save only intellection, according to them [n.460]; therefore, any object whose intellection is different from it has an intelligible species; therefore a species in the vision of God must be admitted, as in the intellection of any other object.

477. A note about the relation of a science to an object.

Note that insofar as the object moves the intellect, or more properly insofar as it is causative of intellection, there is a relation of intellection to it pertaining to the second mode of relatives [cf. nn.287-288], as of son to father or generated heat to generating heat; the relation too of the intellect as movable to the object as mover pertains to the second mode, as does the relation of the heatable to what is heater of it.

478. But besides these relations of the second mode, there is another relation of intellection to the object, as the relation of that which is termed to that which terms it. For intellection is not only from the object as from efficient cause, total or partial, but it is to it as to what terms it, or as that which it is about.

479. The difference between these relations is plain [nn.477-478], because each is without the other. The first is without the second in the case of generated heat; the second without the first in the intellection of a stone, if it came to be in me immediately from God. The first is not an identical relation, because the same absolute could come to be from a different cause; the second seems to be an identical relation, because no act that is of a nature to arise about an object could be the same and not have its term in the same object. The second is not related to a cause as cause because, when all causes have been posited, there is required in such an act something besides this as the term of it. The fact is plain also by way of division: the term is not a form nor an efficient cause, as is plain; it is not an end, because the object, as it is what first the act is about, is not the loved thing for which the act is elicited; nor is it matter, for it is ‘about’ the object without being ‘in’ and ‘from’ it [cf. Scotus, Ord. Prol. n.188]. The second relation can be posited to be of the third mode of relatives [n.296], not because it is the relation of the thing measured, but because it is like it, for it is not mutual. For universally an act requires that which it is about, not conversely; nor does only the relation of a thing measured belong to the third mode, but every similar relation, namely one that is not mutual; of this sort is the relation of the thing termed (in the way said) to the term of it. However, there also comes in here, between the same absolutes, the relation of measured to measurer; but it can be posited as different from this relation of thing termed.

480. Against the third [“the second is not related to a cause as cause...”] and fourth points [“an act requires that which it is about, not conversely.”]: how is a relation that is not relative to a cause identical with anything unless it depend essentially on a noncause, and so the four causes would not suffice for the being of a thing? Again, it [the object an act is about] is able not to be when the act exists; how then is the relation an identical one?

481. These two questions [n.480] seem to prove that the intellect is an absolute form like whiteness. For it is plain that intellection is causable immediately by God; therefore, it does not depend essentially on it [the object] alone. Also when an object causes, it does not depend by way of identity, because the same intellection could be caused from elsewhere (frequently too it is from a non-being).

482. And if you say it is a being in a species [sc. and not an absolute thing], the argument will be about the species, that is an absolute form (or there is a regress to infinity), and it is not the object that is the term, but that is of which it is the species. How then is the Philosopher to be understood in Physics 8.6.246a28-b27, and how the other things said about habits [sc. that they are not absolutes but relations, Categories 7.6a36-b6, 7b.23-33]? How then is the relation an identical one, since it is able not to be when the act exists, or how is it real, since there is no term [cf. Ord. I d.17 n.7]?

483. Again the difference between these relations is posited [nn.477-479] to be that the intellect is, when understanding, sometimes termed to something by which it is not moved, as the divine intellect in relation to a creature or to intrinsic relations or to attributesa, since however only the essence moves to intellection, otherwise what would be the first object of it [the divine intellect]?

a.a [Note added by Scotus] false, save [when terminating] secondarily.

484. On the contrary: then the intellection of God would have a real relation to a creature or to another object; again, second, why is ‘one’ mover rather than ‘one’ term required for unity of act?

485. To the first of these two [n.484]: why cannot a relation of the third mode be only one of reason, just as is also that of the second, by which the divine essence is said to move the understanding of it, and conversely - and thus there would be no difference in Aristotle’s modes [of relations] as regard real being and being of reason, but as regard mutual and non-mutual? And if mutual, as regard quantity and quality, the substantial or accidental, in first act or second, such that any mode could be sometimes real, sometimes of reason? No reply seems to be given to the second question in n.484. ⁴⁹

II. Scotus’ own Opinion

486. To the question [n.401] I reply that actual intellection is something in us not perpetual but possessing being after non-being, as we experience. For this it is necessary to posit some active cause, and a cause somehow in us, otherwise it would not be in our power to understand when we want, which is against the Philosopher, On the Soul 2.5.417b24.

487. And it appears here that the soul and an object present must come together, and that in an intelligible species, as was said in the preceding question [n.370], because it is in another way not present as actually intelligible, speaking of the sensible and material object.

488. I say then that the object of this intellection is not the total active cause, either in itself or in its species, as appears from the first reason against the second opiniona[n.429], and also because then the image in the mind as it is the mind could not be preserved, because nothing of the mind itself would have the idea of parent.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] Here first reason has replaced an original reasons; and second opinion has replaced fifth and sixth opinion. The fifth and sixth opinions have the same conclusion as the second [n.460].

489. Nor is the total cause of intellection the intellective soul, or anything of it formally - on account of the reason given about the four causesa against the first opinion [n.414], which reason explains the reason of the Philosopher in On the Soul [n.486], that was touched on when arguing for the main point in the first partb [n.401].

For this are added other probabilities as well.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] Here reason given about the four causes replaces an original reasons given.

b.b [Noted added by Scotus] Response: the senses are first, not presupposing anything prior to their being perfected [n.401].

490. First,a because then the act would not be a likeness of the object; second, because then the act would not be distinguished essentially on account of the distinction of the object, because an essential distinction does not come from what is not a cause.

a.a Text canceled by Scotus: Here First replaces an original and also.

491. Third, because neither would the intellection of a more perfect intelligible be simply more perfect (on the supposition of equal effort on the part of the intellect on this side and that), which is not true; because when a total cause operating more efficaciously is posited, a more perfect action follows; and also, if the soul were total cause, whenever it were to act on its own part more perfectly and with greater effort, it would produce a more perfect intellection, and so an intellection of God would not be more perfect than an intellection of a fly, which is against the Philosopher in Ethics 10.8.1178b7-32, who locates happiness in contemplation of the most perfect object.

492. It seems also, fourth, that then there would be an infinite activity in the intellect, insofar as the intellect is active with respect to all intellections. Because for one intellection is required some perfection in the cause of the intellection, and for another intellection of another idea is required as much perfection, or greater, because containing virtually two perfections of its proper causes, in this case and that. Therefore, what has this and that intellection will be more perfect than what has that one alone, and so what as total cause [of all intellections] has infinite such intellections is infinite in perfection.a

a.a [Note added by Scotus] The like can be argued about partial causality with respect to infinites; look in the Parisian Collations [collation 2].

493. Likewise, fifth, it would not be apparent how any total science might be contained virtually in the object if the intellective soul alone would have causality with respect to the act and the habit.a Of these five probabilities [nn.490-493], the third and fourth [nn.491-492] can be considered.

a.a [Note added by Scotus] For the activity of the intellect, at least its partial activity, note the first three arguments. Otherwise, how an image is in the mind [n.488]; the intellect is cheaper than the other cause [n.488, 429]; attention would not help [nn.467, 470]; how there is reflection, how relations of reason, how discursive reasoning [n.464]. That [the intellect] is not the total active cause [of intellection]; the argument from On the Soul 2 [nn.489, 401], and also there the remark of On the Soul 2 [n.402], ‘sounding and hearing are the same act’; the more perfect belongs to the more perfect [n.491]; infinity [n.492].
     Among these six: three of them prove that not the object only is cause [nn.486, 488], another three prove that not the soul alone is cause [nn.489, 491-492]. Two are considered especially: namely for the first part, that an equivocal cause is nobler than the effect; for the other side, about the four causes. Put on the scales, the first seems weaker than the second; also the two that are collateral to the first, which are taken from Augustine about the image and about attention (which attention he speaks about On the Trinity 11 ch.2 n.5, and elsewhere he joins the parent with the offspring), these collaterals, I say, seem weaker than those collateral to the second, namely about the difference of perfection of acts [ n.491], and about the infinity of activity in the intellective power [n.492]; therefore the second is a more certain conclusion.

494. From these points [nn.486-493] the question is solved as follows: so if neither the soul by itself nor the object by itself is the total cause of actual intellection (and they alone seem required for intellection), it follows that these two are one integral cause with respect to generated knowledge. And this is the opinion of Augustine, On the Trinity, 9.12 n.18, as cited when arguing against the first opinion, “It must be clearly held” [n.413].

495. But as to how this is to be understood, I draw a distinction about when several causes come together for the same effect.

496. For some causes come together on an equality, as when two people are pulling one and the same body. Some are not on an equality but possess an essential order, and this in two ways. Either thus, that a superior move an inferior such that the inferior does not act save because moved by the superior, and sometimes such inferior cause has from the superior the virtue or form by which it moves, sometimes it does not but has the form from something else, and from the superior cause only actual motion to produce the effect. On the other hand, sometimes the superior does not move the inferior, nor give it the power by which it moves, but the superior has of itself a more perfect power of acting and the inferior a more imperfect power of acting.

An example of the first member of this division: from the motive power that is in the hand and in a stick and a ball. An example of the second: if the mother is posited to have active virtue in the generation of offspring, she and the active power of the father come together as two partial causes, ordered causes indeed, because one is more perfect than the other; but the inferior does not receive its causality from the more perfect cause, nor is the total causality eminently in the more perfect cause, but the more imperfect cause adds something insofar as the effect can be more perfect from a more perfect and more imperfect cause than from a more perfect cause alone.

497. To the point at issue. An intelligible object (present in itself or in an intelligible species) and the intellective part do not come together for intellection as causes on an equality, for then one would have an imperfect sort of causality and the other would be the supplement for it. And if one were perfect, it could have in itself singly the total causality of both, just as, if the motive power of one were perfect, it would supply the virtue of the other; and then the species would be as it were a certain degree of intellective-ness, supplying the degree of intellective-ness lacking to the intellect; and then, if the intellect were to become to such a degree more perfect, it could have an act of understanding without a species and without an object, which is false.

498. Therefore, these two come together as having an essential order. Not however in the first way [n.496], because neither does the intellect give to the object or the species the idea of their own causality (for the object is not of a nature, in itself or in its species, to cause intellection through something that it receives from the intellect but from its own nature), nor does the intellect receive its causality from the object or from the species of the object, as was proved in the first argument against the seconda opinion [nn.429, 488]. They are, therefore, causes essentially ordered, and in the last way [n.496], namely because one is simply more perfect than the other, such that each is perfect in its own causality not depending on the other.

a.a ‘against the fifth and sixth opinion’ in the original text before the later revision [nn.463-467].

499. If argument is made against this [n.498], that in such essentially ordered causes neither of them is the perfection of the other, therefore the intelligible species will not be the form of the intellect itself.

Similarly, to the same point, if the species is the perfection of the intellect and the whole is the reason for acting, then a single operation (namely intellection) will not have a single formal idea of acting; and, likewise, from a being per accidens (of which sort is this whole of intellect possessing a species) there will be one per se operation, which is unacceptable, for what is not a being per se one is not the formal idea of acting.

Response:

500. To the first [of these, n.499]: it is accidental to a species (insofar as it is a partial cause with respect to the act of understanding concurring with the intellect as the other partial cause) that it perfect the intellect; because although it does perfect it, yet it does not give it any activity pertaining to the causality of the intellect.

An example: the motive power in the hand can use a knife, insofar as the knife is sharp, for dividing up some body. If this sharpness were in the hand as in a subject, the hand could use it for the same operation and yet it would be an accident in the hand (insofar as there is motive power in the hand) that there was sharpness in it, and conversely, because sharpness would give no perfection to the hand pertaining to the hand’s motive power. The point is plain, because the [hand’s] motive power is equally perfect without such sharpness and, when the sharpness is in something else joined to the hand (as a knife), the hand uses the sharpness in the same way as it would if it were in the hand.

So is it in the matter at issue. If the species could exist within the intellect without inhering in it after the manner of a form - if it existed within it in that way or could be sufficiently conjoined with the intellect - these two partial causes, intellect and species, conjoined with each other, would be capable of the same operation that they are now capable of when the species informs the intellect. This is also apparent when positinga some intelligible object without a species. For the object is a partial cause and does not inform the intellect, which is the other partial cause; but these two causes, when proximate to each other without the informing of one by the other, cause, by their proximity alone, one common effect.

a.a [Note added by Scotus] ‘positing’; note that it is not necessary that the object, or what supplies the place of the object, will necessarily be a principle of action immanent in that in which the object, or what supplies it, is present.

501. If this second case is posited, not without cause is it perhaps impossible for an accidenta that is the principle of something immanent and not transitive to be sufficiently joined to a passive subject, unless it be in it subjectively - which is why it is called an accident.b Surely the divine essence in the intellect of the blessed is a principle of intuition, which is not immanent in the essence, nor in anything of which it is a form? Likewise, charity in the fatherland is a principle of its own intuition, and yet it is not in the intellect intuiting it. Therefore is intellection an immanent action, taking ‘action’ for ‘operation’.

a.a Above ‘accident’ Scotus placed the symbol a

b.b Above ‘accident’ Scotus placed the symbol a

502. On the contrary: there is not thus one action immanent and another transient. I reply, then, and say that there is a division of the term into the things signified. In one way is act in the genus of action immanent in the other cause, namely in the intellect, and with respect to it is it immanent, but not so with respect to the one that is left, namely the object.

503. From the same argument [n.500] is plain the answer to the second objection [n.499], that in any single order of cause it is necessary to posit one per se cause with respect to one effect, and one idea of per se causing (thus the intellect in its order of causality is one, and has one formal idea of causing; and the species or object in its order of causing is one special cause, and has one idea of causing). But it is not necessary that a total cause, as it embraces all the partial causes, have one idea of causing save in unity of order. Because if with a unity of order there come together a unity per accidens, this is accidental; but a unity of order is per se. An example: the sun in its order of causing has one idea of causing with respect to offspring, and a father in his order of causing is one cause of one idea; but the total cause that embraces sun and father does not have any single formal idea of causing (just as it is not one cause) save by unity of order. And if it happen that causes thus ordered have, besides unity of order, a unity per accidens (insofar namely as one is accident to the other), this does not belong to them per se insofar as they are ordered causes.

III. To the Arguments for the Opinions

A. To the Arguments for the First Opinion

504. To the arguments for the opinions, in order.

First to the authorities of Augustine [nn.407-408] I say that the image which is posited by him to exist in the spirit needs to be understood to exist in the soul or in something of the soul as in a subject, and not precisely in a body physically thus mixed See fn. to n.120. ⁵⁰ - otherwise the conclusion would not follow that the image is nobler than every body, which however he himself says in Literal Commentary on Genesis 12.16 nn.32-33. Now what is in the soul or in something of the soul as in a subject is not the species which is commonly called ‘species’; that, rather, is received in an organ’s part [sc. the receptive part of the bodily senses] that is a body physically thus mixed [n.471]. See fn. to n.120. ⁵¹ But what is received in the soul or a power of the soul is the act of knowing; therefore by image Augustine himself means such sort of act.

505. This gloss [n.504] is proved from his remark On the Trinity 11.2 n.3, where he maintains that the informing of the sense, which is done by the body alone, is called vision. And the informing is the species proper which is received in a part of the organ, namely in such physically mixed body; this is plain from what he says [ibid.] that “it is generated by the body alone that is seen” [n.461]. Just as therefore what is properly an image is called vision, so conversely can vision be called an image, and much more truly, for vision, in truth, is a certain quality, and the sort of quality that is a certain likeness of the object, and is perhaps more perfect than the preceding likeness which is usually called a species.

506. On this understanding, the response to his authority [nn.407-408] is easily made clear. For I concede that the body does not, as total cause, cause in the spirit the image that a sensation is, but the soul causes it in itself with marvelous speed - not however as total cause, but it together with the object. Hence he says there that “as soon as it is seen etc.”, indicating that the presence of the object in idea of being visible is required for the soul to cause vision in itself; and it is required only as in some way partial cause, as he himself expresses it in On the Trinity 11 ch.2 n.3 [n.413] that “vision is generated by the seer and the visible.”

507. This conclusion [n.506], thus understood, is proved by his first cited reason [n.407], because this conclusion, that “the agent is more outstanding than the effect,” is not an immediate one but depends on these three statements, ‘the agent is more outstanding than the effect’ and ‘the effect of the agent is the form and act of what undergoes it’ and ‘act is nobler than potency’. Where these propositions are true, there the proposition that Augustine takes is true [n.407]; but that the agent is more outstanding than the effect is only true of an equivocal and total cause. And some cause can be partially an agent for a more noble effect than itself, as an element in virtue of the heavenly bodies can act for the generation of a mixed body, which is nobler than the element acting as partial cause [cf. Scotus, Ord. I d.2 nn.333, 331].

508. From this [n.506] is clear the response to the second authority of Augustine On the Trinity 10.5 [n.408]. For the soul forms an image in itself, that is, sensation; and forms it from itself, that is, it itself is in natural potency to sensation and not in neutral potency, as a surface is in neutral and not natural potency to whiteness; and he points to this naturality, because he says ‘from itself’. And he is speaking there only of sensations, as is apparent, because he says there that “the parts of the soul that are informed by likenesses of bodies we have in common with the beasts.” This is true of those parts that are informed by images, that is, sensations, extending the name ‘image’ to sensation.

509. As to the first argument for the [first] opinion [n.409]: it concludes for me, because thinking, since it is a living operation, does not come from a non-living thing as from a total cause; but a non-living thing can be a partial cause of something living or of a living effect, just as the non-living sun is a partial cause, along with the father, for generating a living son; and much more is this possible in the issue at hand, because here the more principal cause is life, as will be clear in the following question [nn.559-562].

510. When argument is made next about perfect form [n.410], this argument concludes that it [the soul] has some activity with respect to its proper operation. But as to its seeming to prove total causality in it [the soul] with respect to its own operation - I reply that that form, by its own perfection, is ordered to having an operation about the whole of being, as is said in the third question of this distinction [nn.185-187]. But since it is not simply perfect, because it is not infinite, therefore does it not have the whole of being in itself. From its perfection, therefore, along with its imperfection, is concluded that it does have some activity, and yet not a sufficient activity, for it could not have total causality with respect to the whole of being unless it had the whole of being in itself. And therefore I say that more imperfect forms can well be total causes with respect to their own operations, because their operations are limited as to certain things, and having total activity with respect to these things does not prove any active perfection save a limited one. But in that perfect form, which is ordered to the whole of being, there cannot be posited such a causality with respect to knowledge of the whole of being (for then an unlimited active virtue would be posited in it). But a partial causality can be posited in it, and a partial causality in the object, so that it itself could thus cooperate with its own perfection about any object whatever, and also any object whatever could cooperate with it - a great object for a great perfection of it, and a little object for a little perfection of it.

511. The other two arguments, namely about action as distinguished from making, and that action denominates the agent [nn.411-412], I concede. For I posit that the act of understanding truly remains in the agent which is its partial cause - not just that it remains in the agent supposit (such that it not go outside the supposit), but that it does not go outside the intellective part into the sensitive part, nor outside the intellective part into the appetitive part, nor outside its active principle into another power, but that it remains in the intellective part, which is its partial cause. And it is not necessary that action properly speaking remain in its total cause, but it is enough that it remain in its own partial cause.

B. To the Arguments for the Second Opinion

512. To the arguments for the second opinion [n.422].

Although there it could be touched on whether the causality that is attributed to the intellective part belongs properly to the agent intellect or the possible intellect, yet I dismiss the difficulty to another place [Scotus, Quodlibet 15 nn.13-20, 24; cf. n.554 infra.].

513. When it is argued [n.422] that the possible [intellect] cannot have any causality, because nothing the same acts on itself, I reply that that proposition is only true of a univocal agent, and that the proof of it, that then the same thing would be in act and potency, only concludes when the agent is acting univocally, that is, when it is inducing in the passive subject a form of the same idea as that by which it acts. For if it were thus to act on itself, then it would at the same time have a form of the same idea as that to which it is being moved, and while it is being moved to it, it would lack it; so it would have it and not have it at the same time - at least this follows about two forms of the same species or about the same form. But in equivocal agents, that is, in those agents that do not act through forms of the same idea as that toward which they act, the proposition that nothing moves itself does not have necessity. Nor does the proof of it, that something would be in potency and act with respect to the same thing, conclude anything, for there the agent is not formally in act of the sort that the passive subject is formally in potency [cf. n.422]; but that the agent is virtually such in act and formally such in potency is not a contradiction.

514. This gloss [n.513] about univocal and equivocal agents is necessary because the Philosopher posited that what is moved is not only in the genus of quality but of quantity and ‘where’. And in quantity and ‘where’ no agent is univocal, because in the genus of quantity and ‘where’ there is no form that is the principle of inducing a similar form. Indeed, to speak generally, any motion that is not to an active form is not from a univocal agent, because, from the fact that a terminating form is not active, no form of the same idea is the principle of acting. There are with the Philosopher, therefore, many motions from an agent not univocal but equivocal; and there an agent is virtually such in act as the patient is formally in potency.

515. If you argue that therefore in all cases the same thing could be in virtual act and in potency to a formal act, and so anything can move itself [n.513] - I reply that in this inference a non-cause is put for the cause, for from the general idea of virtual act and of potency for formal act no repugnancy arises, because if there were a repugnancy from this idea, there would be a repugnancy in everything. Yet in something with virtual act there concurs something else on account of which it is sometimes repugnant for it to be virtually in potency or formally such in act. An example: being hot virtually in act and in potency formally do not of themselves include contradiction or repugnancy, and therefore in no subject do they include a repugnance that, because of this, they could not be together, or that one could not be there because the other is. However, the sun, which is hot virtually, cannot be hot formally, but this is not because of a primary repugnance between these things. For Saturn is cold virtually and yet cannot be hot formally, so the virtual act was not the reason in it for the repugnance, but something else was that is common to the sun and Saturn, namely that these are incorruptible bodies and heat is a corruptible quality. In medieval and ancient physics of the Aristotelian and some other traditions, the heavenly bodies are incorruptible and impassible because not made of contraries (hot/cold, wet/dry) or their mixtures (fire, water etc.). They suffer no change save change in place. They do, however, have effects in the sublunary world, as that the sun warms the earth because, although not actually hot, it is virtually hot, or has the power to heat other things. ⁵²

516. But if you object that such metaphysical principles [‘nothing acts on itself’, nn.422, 513] should not, because of the fact they are general, be denied on account of some special difficulties, I reply: no principles that have many false instances are metaphysical principles. But if one has the understanding that nothing is in virtual act and in potency to a formal act, and that this repugnance is taken from the idea of act and potency, there are many instances that are sufficiently plainly false, and from this it sufficiently follows that this is not a metaphysical principle. But that nothing is in formal act and in potency in respect of the same formal act is true, namely that nothing is thus in act and in potency at the same time.

517. And if you altogether contend that, even when speaking of virtual act and potency to formal act, it is a metaphysical principle - how were others so blind, and he [sc. Godfrey of Fontaines, n.422] alone seeing, that they could not conceive the idea of the common metaphysical terms and from them apprehend the truth of such a proposition as he posits to be a metaphysical principle, which is not only not posited by others to be a principle, but is in many cases false, and never necessary by reason of the terms?

518. When, second, it is argued [n.422] about material and efficient cause that they do not coincide - this is true of matter that is in pure potency but not of matter in a certain respect, of which sort is a subject in respect of an accident. For it is necessary that something that is the same is sometimes matter and efficient cause with respect to the same thing - which is apparent because otherwise a property would not be predicated of a subject per se in the second mode. Proof: because if it [a property] is predicated of it [a subject] per se in the second mode, it [the subject] is the material cause of that [the property] as matter is in the case of accidents, because it [the subject] is put in the definition of it [a property] as an addition. If too the predication is per se, then it is also necessary; but what is only a material cause with respect to something does not have necessity with respect to it; therefore, to save necessity, one must posit in the subject, besides a causality of matter, a causality of efficiency.

519. As to what is argued afterwards about opposite real relations [n.422], I say that some real opposites are incompossible in the same nature, some incompossible not in the same nature but in the same supposit, some neither in the same nature nor in the same supposit. Hence a repugnance of them in the same thing cannot be proved by reason of real relations generally. Examples of the aforesaid: cause and caused in the same nature or in the same supposit are repugnant because, if not, then the same thing would depend on itself. Producer and produced are not repugnant in the same nature if the nature can be communicated without division, of which sort is the divine nature; yet they are repugnant in the same supposit. Mover and moved are repugnant neither in the same nature nor in the same supposit, because there is not posited here an essential dependence of the sort they posit relations to be of cause and caused; nor is it posited there that the same thing exists before it exists, which the idea of producer and produced seems to posit; but there is only posited here that the same thing depends on itself as far as concerns an accidental act, as the moved depends on the mover as to the accidental act that it receives from it. The incompossibility, therefore, of some real relations must be reduced to some prior incompossibility, and where that prior incompossibility is not found, there the incompossibility of opposite real relations will not be proved.

520. This is also made clear further, because just as these relations of producer and product, which are repugnant in the same supposit, can be founded on the same unlimited nature, as in the divine essence, so these relations of mover and moved, which have a much lesser repugnance, can be founded on the same somehow unlimited nature. And whatever is in potency to some act formally, and yet along with this has the same actuality virtually (as when the same thing moves itself), it is in some way unlimited; for it is posited to be not only capable of that perfection but as causing it. So there those opposite relations are, because of some sort of unlimitedness, very well compatible.

521. To their ‘Achilles’ [their key argument, n.422], that ‘anything would move itself’, I say, as was argued against the first opinion when excluding a cause ‘sine qua non’ [n.415], that nothing is a total and perfect and natural effective cause of anything without causing it when it is proximate to the whole receptive subject and not impeded. Now wood is always proximate to itself, and sufficiently so, and a persistent impediment cannot be posited when fire is not present; because, if this impediment be posited, let it be removed and it will not exist, if that impediment be posited, let it be removed; and so, by running through them one by one, one will get to wood that is present to itself and in no way impeded. Therefore, if it were the total active cause with respect to heat, and it is itself the total receptive cause, then it would always be hot, as a brute is always able to sense. Therefore, since an absence of total causality cannot be posited because of an impediment, nor because of non-proximity, nor because of receptive subject, the conclusion will be that there is not a total active causality in the wood, which is the point intended. So, therefore, not everything will move itself as total cause, because no cause, which does not always have its act, is a total natural cause of the act.

522. If you say, ‘at least I will say the wood is a partial cause, so that, when fire is present, it acts along with it for the heating of itself in idea of partial effective and active cause’ - this cavil is not of any value either, because two partial causes are not posited with respect to the same effect when one of them precisely has the total effect, univocally or equivocally, in its own power. Proof: for if one of them has the whole effect in its own power, it can produce the whole of it, or the same thing would be produced twice; but fire, which from the preceding argument [n.521] was proved to have activity with respect to heat in the wood, has in itself virtually the whole heat of the wood; therefore the wood here has no partial causality.

523. To the issue at hand then: because the soul is not always in act with respect to any intellection (although, however, it is receptive of any intellection whatever, and is itself proximate to itself and not always impeded), the conclusion is that it is not the total active cause but something else is; that something else is proved to be the object, because when it is present the effect follows, when it is not present the effect cannot be had. Some sort of primary causality then is proved to be in the object; and not total causality, because the object (on account of its imperfection) cannot have intellection (on account of its perfection) totally in its power, and so it is proved that, along with the object, is required some other partial active cause - and not any cause other than the intellective power because, when it concurs with the object, there is intellection. So therefore is it here proved that there are two partial active causes, and in many other cases that nothing the same moves itself, either totally or partially.

This argument too, which is held up as the Achilles [n.522], does not seem capable of effecting much; for this seems to be a certain defensive move, by diverting [attention] from the side of the opponent to the side of the respondent; for, because of their lack of arguments, they take on the sort of form that respondents take one, so that the [other] respondents may make an argument to prove something necessary, namely that wood does not heat itself.

524. An objection to the response [n.521] to the Achilles is that wood will not heat itself unless the other ‘sine quo non’ thing [sc. fire] is present, just as the will, for you [Scotus], does not make itself to will save when an object through cognition is present. Also, if you argue that one of the two [sc. wood and fire] will always heat something else, because it has the power of heating, the response is that it will heat itself before something else, and do this first only when the sine qua non cause is present. Or perhaps it will never heat something else, just as neither does the will make another will to will. Indeed, having conceded that some action of the genus of action is immanent, will it be said, or why will it not be said, that any is?

525. The Achilles is removed in another way: when diverse pieces of wood, similarly disposed, are present to fire, they are all made hot; when the same object is present to diverse wills, they do not all similarly make themselves to will (City of God 12.6); therefore the fire acts here, and not there the object, because then [the object] would act equally on every will.

526. An objection against this [n.525] is that if wills are not similarly affected when a sine qua non cause is present, this is because, for you [Scotus], they act freely. Pieces of wood when a sine qua non cause is present act naturally; therefore, prove that fire here is a cause other than a sine qua non cause. But [in reply], all that is said is that wood is a natural [cause], the will is not.

527. Argument in a third way [nn.521, 525] against the Achilles [sc. ‘anything would move itself’]. Whatever is acted on, it is acted on by something; when therefore it cannot be acted on by itself, it must be posited that it is acted on by something else. The will cannot be acted on by something else (not speaking about God), both because then volition would not be in its power and because then some other mover, disposed in the same way and with respect to the same passive subject, would have power indifferently for both opposites; for the will can will and not will the same thing presented to it in the same way. Therefore, it is necessary to attribute principally to the will the motion of itself toward [act of] willing, because it alone has the indifference in acting that is proportioned to itself in its idea as passive subject. But wood does not have in acting the indifference that is proportioned to itself in idea of passive subject; for it is receptive of disparate qualities, and also of contraries, one of which, when made intense, corrupts it. And it does not have that many univocal principles (as is plain, because also nothing univocally moves itself), nor does it have a single univocal principle, because how would [a single principle] be unlimited unless one says that anything at all has power for all the qualities it is susceptible of, even those corruptive of it? In the case of the will anything it all that it is capable of is an operation of it and some sort of perfection.

C. To the Things Said in the Third and Fourth Opinion

528. For the third and fourth opinion [nn.450-451] there are no arguments adduced to which it may be necessary to reply. He who wants to believe what is said about the first simple act and about the second of distinct knowing, or the statement of the second opinion [n.451, the second opinion of Henry] that the species ‘inclines’, let him believe it. For him who does not believe it, since it is not an article of faith, let this be shown by the arguments [nn.452-453].

529. However, these two opinions, namely the third and fourth, which seem opposed to each other, are in agreement and in conformity with each other, and that as follows: There is required for acting a formal idea of acting and an idea of an agent. The agent is the supposit, the idea of acting is the form elicitive of action. Therefore, the agent in the first action on the possible intellect is the phantasm, but the ‘what it is’, shining forth in the phantasm, is the idea of acting, and this insofar as the ‘what it is’ stands in the light of the agent intellect and is penetrated by the light and is embraced by the agent. And what is first by this idea of acting impressed on the possible intellect is the beginning of the scientific habit, which beginning is not the intelligible species nor the form that moves to act of understanding, because the object in itself is present insofar it shines forth in the phantasm, for the phantasm is present to the intellect because it is in a place in the body. So some other species is not required whereby the object may be thus present, nor is anything required holding the place of the object or representing it. Yet the first impression has the idea both of the ‘by which’ and the ‘what’ with respect to intellection. The ‘by which’ because by it the intellect is proximate and in accidental potency to an act of understanding, just as a body is by its weight in potency to a ‘where’; and ‘by which’ also in this regard, that it remains in the intellect when the intellect is prevented from actual intellection. The first impression is also the ‘what’ because it comes to it [the intellect] first (just as, according to Avicenna, On the Soul p.2 ch2, the first sensed thing is the species) - not as the terminating object, but as what leads to the object, not through comparison but by continuation. In this way, then, do the first and second opinion [of Henry, nn.450-451] agree as to this, that the first denies the species and the second admits an inclination preceding the act.

530. But as to this point, that the first opinion [n.450] posits the intellect to be passive with respect to the first act and active with respect to the second act, and that the second opinion [n.451] seems to posit that the soul itself elicits the act - these agree in this way that when on the possible intellect such an impression has first been made, the intellect itself meets with the impressed effect, because everything acted on strives, when meeting an agent, to preserve its being. Augustine also maintains this in On Music 6.5 n.11, where he speaks of the numbers that come to us, and of other numbers. These ‘numbers’ are characterized as progressive (pronouncing of words), sounding (sounds), occurring to us (hearing), memorable (memory) and judgeable (judgment of sensing). ⁵³ And, in this meeting, the intellect imbibes the confused intellection and transmits it within into itself and then receives it more intimately from itself than it could receive it from the object. Also, the intellect meets with the impression, thus intimate, a second time, and in that second meeting it immerses itself in it by penetrating it - and in this lies the intellect’s distinct and perfect knowledge.

531. However it may be with these opinions which this middle view strives to expound, there is argument against much of what is here said [nn.529-530].

As to what it first posits, that the ‘what it is’ shining forth in the phantasm is the formal idea of acting for the phantasm [n.529] - on the contrary: how is a thing the idea of acting for something which it is not formally in? Or if the ‘what it is’ is somehow posited to be in the phantasm, then since it is the being of it in a certain respect, for it is the being of what is represented, and is not there according to any being of existence, how will the ‘what it is’ be, according to this being, the formal idea of doing some real action? And thus, since the phantasm, by the fact that this being belongs to it, is not the principal cause of acting according to them [Henry etc., n.529], neither is the ‘what it is’, according as it exists in the phantasm, the principal idea of acting, which is against them.

532. Besides this, I ask what is it to say that the ‘what it is’ stands in the light of the agent intellect [n.529]. If it is nothing other than that the agent intellect is in the soul, and that in the imagination of the same soul there is a phantasm, then as long as the phantasm is in the imaginative power the penetrating and surrounding takes place, and so it will exist in a madman and a sleeper, which he whose opinion is being expounded denies. If it is something other than that the two are together, some new action takes place whose term will not be in the phantasm; therefore, it will be in the possible intellect. Therefore the ‘what it is’ does not act by any penetration (which penetration would precede the action of the ‘what it is’), but it only acts along with the agent intellect by causing some new impression in the agent intellect. This is what that other first opinion says [sc. of Scotus himself, nn.366, 381-382].

533. If you will say that the other opinion posits an impressed intelligible species [nn.339, 349, 370], this one does not but posits the beginning of a scientific habit - on the contrary: this opinion posits that the impression is the principle by which the intellect is in accidental potency [n.529], although however it was in essential potency first. If the intelligible object is, by this impression, not present more than it was before, it is not in accidental potency now more than it was before. If it is present in any way now that it was not present in before, the way it is now present is the intelligible species. This is even more apparent from the fact that [the intellect] is posited to meet with it first as with something displaying the object on account of natural continuation with it [n.529]. This could not be unless the object were to shine forth in it, and so unless it had the idea of a species.

534. Similarly, what is said of ‘precede’, ‘beginning of scientific habit’, is not true, because a habit properly speaking, as the Philosopher says in Ethics 2.1.1103b21-22, is generated by some elicited act; and just as the ultimate degree of a habit is generated from the ultimate act, so is the first degree generated from the first act, so that any degree of a habit is posterior to some act. Therefore, that which is simply first in the possible intellect is not something of the habit itself. This is confirmed by the opinion of the doctor who is being expounded, because he posits the beginning to be the whole essence of the habit.

535. As to what is said further about ‘meeting’ [n.530] - I reply: ‘meeting’ is not well assigned, nor is it to Augustine’s intention. For what is acted on when it ‘meets’ an agent strives to preserve itself and to act against the agent corrupting it; this agent acts for the preservation and perfection of the passive subject, so, for this reason (that it may preserve itself), it does not ‘meet’ it. Nor is that the intention of Augustine; for he maintains that the soul, when meeting an effect made in the air in the ear, more strongly acts on the air, and in this way causes the hearing that the sound alone did not cause. This ‘meeting’ then is a ‘co-acting’.

And then I respond in brief to the arguments of Augustine. When an impression of a sensible species is made on the organ, or of an intelligible species made on the intellect, the soul ‘meets’ with it through such power, that is, so that along with the impressed species it ‘co-act’ for some more perfect act than the species of itself alone could cause.

536. And when it is added further about that double meeting, that it first meets with the effect as touching it, later with the imbibed effect [n.530], I ask what these metaphorical words mean. If they mean that by the second meeting something more perfect is caused than by the first, and that it perfects more intimately (as matter is said to be more intimately perfected by a more perfect form that more actuates it), then in the second meeting the effect is not taken up inwardly more than before; but the soul, coacting with the effect, causes something more perfect, and this is more intimately in the soul than the effect first caused.

D. To the Arguments of the Fifth Opinion

537. To the authority of the Philosopher On the Soul 3 [n.457], that “to understand is to undergo,” which is adduced for the fifth opinion,a I say that the Philosopher spoke about the powers of the soul in common, to the extent they are that by which we are formally in second act, namely about the senses insofar as they are that by which we formally sense and the intellect insofar as it is that by which we formally understand. But we formally understand by the intellect insofar as it receives intellection because, if it cause it actively, yet I am not said to understand by the intellect insofar as it causes but insofar as it has intellection as its form. For to have a quality is to be of that quality, and so the fact the intellect has intellection, or receives it (which is the same thing), is to be oneself understanding. We understand, therefore, by the intellect insofar as it receives intellection; therefore, the Philosopher, speaking thus of the intellect, necessarily had to say it was passive, and that ‘to understand’ is ‘to undergo something’, that is, that intellection, insofar as it is that by which we formally understand, is a certain form received in the intellect. But we do not understand by it insofar as it is something caused by the intellect, if it is caused by it, for if God were to cause it and were to imprint it on our intellect, we would by it no less understand.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] but not by determining it

538. Just as I have spoken about intelligence actually [n.537], so do I speak about knowing habitually - that the intellect is that by which we know habitually insofar as it receives a habit, not insofar as it causes it, if it causes it.

539. I say, therefore, that all the authorities [of Aristotle] that read for the passivity of the possible intellect can be expounded about it insofar as by it we know habitually, or insofar as by it we cognize actually, and in this way I concede that it is passive. And if it be active, yet not according to this idea; but it is an accident of it that it is active according to this idea. Now the authorities [n.457] affirm of the intellect what is true - not speaking of the intellect under the idea of something active, but asserting that it has the idea of something receptive, although they do not say that it is not active. Now a place from an authority does not hold in a negative way [sc. it must not be taken as denying what it does not say].

540. And from these points [nn.537-539] is response made to the authority about essential and accidental potency [n.457]. For the intellect is not in essential potency because there is lacking to it some idea of causality insofar as concerns its own part; rather the intellect is in essential potency when there is not present to it another partial cause that needs to be present for the purpose that action follow; and when that partial cause is proximate to it, it is in accidental or proximate potency to acting.

541. But the authority by which it is said that the possible intellect is nothing of the things that are before it understands [n.457] requires a different exposition - which authority, however, others so far treat of as to say that the possible intellect is in pure potency in the genus of intelligibles, as matter is in the genus of beings. This is not the intention of the Philosopher, because a potency for an accident is only ever based on a substance; now an intellection or an intelligible species is not a substantial form but an accident; therefore what is immediately receptive of it is something in substantial act, or at least that is which is mediately receptive of it (and then what immediately receives it will be some accidental act, in the way a surface is related to whiteness). Therefore, the possible intellect, according as it is that in which intelligible form or intellection is received, or is that according to which the species is received in the soul, will not be a pure potential but will be something in first act, although the respect itself of the potency is not anything in act. For when I speak of a potency receptive of whiteness, I am not speaking of a potency that states a respect to whiteness; for that respect is not anything in act, because the whiteness that it is for is not anything in act either, and a respect does not exist without a term. But that in which the power is or is said to be is something in act, as a surface is receptive of whiteness. So it is here. Although in advance of intellection the power, which is a respect to intellection, is not, before act, anything in act, as neither is the intellection to which it is, yet that in which the power is or is said to be, which is what is receptive of intellection, is something in act, and it is the possible intellect.

542. Therefore that the possible intellect is nothing in act is not held by the Philosopher the way they take it [n.541 init.], but one must expound the authority in this way: we naturally understand first the things that first come to us from phantasms, as was said in the second question of this distinction [nn.73, 187]. Nothing, therefore, can we understand in proximate potency before the intellection of something imaginable; therefore we cannot understand the intellect before having an understanding of another intelligible; therefore neither can the intellect be understood by us before having the understanding of another intelligible; therefore the intellect is not intelligible before the intellection of another intelligible. Just as the first antecedent is true [“we naturally understand first.. .from phantasms”], so also is the consequence [sc. the series of consequents up to the final one of “the intellect is not intelligible before.. .of another intelligible”]. For that reason, therefore, the remark ‘it is not anything of the things that are before it understands’ [n.541, 457] namely ‘of the intelligibles’, must be understood not in the sense that before it understand it is nothing in act, but that it is not anything that could be in proximate potency understood by us before having the understanding of another [intelligible], on account of our natural intellection, which begins now from phantasms [n.187].

543. When argument is next made [n.458] about likeness, that it is the reason both for making and for acting, I say that in a maker that makes well the form is the idea of the making, by which the maker assimilates the thing made to itself; but in action nothing is a product save the action itself, for action is the final term and does not have another term. And, therefore, there is no need that in an agent the idea of the acting be in the producer’s being assimilated to some second product, or in the agent’s being assimilated to the object about which it acts, because the agent does not assimilate the object to itself.

544. And if you say that that at least is the idea of acting wherein the agent assimilated the product to itself, namely the action itself - I do indeed admit that the species, which is the likeness of an object and by which the intellect is assimilated to the produced knowledge, is some idea of generating; but it is not the whole idea, nor even the principal idea, as will be clear in the following question [n.562]. But, when two causes come together, in the nearer one a formal likeness suffices and in the remoter one a virtual or equivocal likeness suffices; and thus the intellect, a sort of superior cause, is assimilated virtually to intellection; the species, a sort of nearer cause, is assimilated to it univocally, as it were, and formally.

545. When argument is later made about the indetermination of the intellect to diverse acts and objects [n.459], I reply that some indetermination is material, because of defect of act, and some is indetermination of the agent, because of unlimitedness of active virtue, as the sun is undetermined as to the many things it is generative of. Something indeterminate in the first way does not act unless it be determined by some act, because otherwise it is not in sufficient act but in potency. Something indeterminate in the second way is determined by no form different from itself, but it is determined by itself to producing whatever effect it is of itself indeterminate to, and this when the passive recipient is present - just as the sun, when a passive subject is present to it, generates anything that, from the fact it is of a nature to be generated, is generable. The indetermination of the intellect is not the indetermination of a passive potentiality in its own order of causality, but is the indetermination of an as it were unlimited actuality; and therefore is it not determined by a form that is a determinate idea of acting for it, but only by the presence of the object, about which determinate object intellection is of a nature to be determined. Or it could be said in another way that, just as a superior cause is determined to acting (as the sun to generating a man when a man concurs as agent, and an ox when an ox concurs), but not by some form received in itself, so the intellect, which is a superior and unlimited cause, is determined to this object when a particular determinate cause concurs, as to acting about this object when this species concurs. Now an inferior cause does nota effectively determine a superior indeterminate cause, nor does it do so formally as the idea of acting, but it determines it like this, that is, the indeterminate active superior power produces something determinate when such and such a determinate inferior power concurs.

a.a [Canceled text by Scotus, replaced by ‘Now an inferior cause does not’] For this determining cause [sc. the particular determinate cause just mentioned] does not

546. There is an opinion that the intellect is the principle of intellection as to substance, but that the object is the principle as to modifying or specifying the act. On the contrary: nothing is the principle for nothing; intellection, when modification or specification is bracketed, is nothing; therefore etc. The major is understood of a nothing that includes a contradiction. The proof of the minor is that the intellect is first by nature precisely something possible to be; but an intellection without the fact that it is, in the same now of nature, the intellection of some object, is a contradiction, otherwise intellection would be a purely absolute form. For a reply to the sixth opinion, nn.461-462 (no separate reply is given by Scotus), the Vatican Editors refer to nn.505-506, 535, and the note added to n.493. ⁵⁴

IV. To the Initial Arguments

547. To the main arguments. To the first [n.401] I say that the argument of the Philosopher On the Soul 2 does well prove that the senses are not the total cause with respect to sensation, which I concede. And thus was it argued against the first opinion [n.414], that the soul is not the active total cause for intellection, and this I concede. But it does not prove it without the soul being a partial cause, because it does not follow therefrom that the soul is always in act save when another partial cause goes along with it.

548. As to the second [n.403] (not treating the difficulty whether the activity belongs to the agent intellect or the possible intellect [cf. n.512, and the note added to n.554]), I say that the possible intellect (according to what the Philosopher says about it [n.537]) is that by which we are formally understanding, and in this way is it precisely “that by which there is a becoming everything,” because, as was said before [nn.537-539], we are formally understanding by it insofar as it receives, not insofar as it acts (although it does act, because this happens to it as it is that by which we understand).

549. As to the third [n.404], although the consequence is not necessary, because the sun can be the cause of many differences in species (on account of the distinct powers in it, which are sufficient in idea of effective cause for distinguishing effects), yet the consequence can be conceded for the issue in hand; for it concludes that the soul is not the total cause of all intellections, which has been conceded [n.547].

550. As to the first argument for the opposite [n.405], I concede that the soul, because it is immaterial, is receptive of any intellection (it is also active as to any intellection of an object other than itself as partial cause, and active as to intellection about itself as total cause,a according to Augustine On the Trinity 9.12 n.18 [n.413], but such intellection we do not have for this present state of life) - but from its immateriality does not follow that it is the total cause of any intellection of an object other than itself.

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus] because as generator and as generated

551. As to the second argument [n.406] I concede the conclusion, that cognitions of diverse species, namely those had by the proper virtue of them, are different in species. I prove this because, for individuals of the same species, there is not required a total cause diverse in species (or anything in the total cause diverse in species) from that which in the total cause belongs to another individual. That for individuals of the same species there is not necessarily required a cause of another species the proof is that the form is the principle of acting and is the formal term of action; therefore a perfect form of one idea is a ‘by which’ of the same idea with respect to a formal term of the same idea; therefore with respect to such term there is not required another ‘by which’. But now, for the intellection of white and black, there are required things diverse in species, namely a white thing and a black thing, or things including them. Therefore, these two differ more than individuals of one species; therefore, they differ in species.

552. When you argue further that then all habits of such things would differ in species [n.406], I concede it about habits that are had by the proper virtue of such objects, and this conclusion is proved like the preceding one, through the causes [n.551].

553. And when you say: how then would there be one science about several most specific species [n.406]? I reply that one most specific species can include many other species virtually (either the properties of them, or by way of cause, or according to another essential order), and then the habit that is formally of the first thing that includes the others is virtually of the other objects, though not formally and first. The habit, therefore, is one by unity of first object, virtually containing everything that is contained in that science - but it is not proper to everything contained virtually in that first object, but habits that would be proper to them would be distinct as they are distinct.a

a.a [Note added by Scotus] On this Metaphysics 6.1.1026a18-19, ‘Why there will be three theoretical philosophies: mathematics, physics, theology’, first question [Scotus, Metaphysics 6 q.1 nn.8-12].

Question Three Whether the More Principal Cause of Generated Knowledge is the Object Present in Itself or in the Species, or the Very Intellective Part of the Intellect

554.a I ask about the comparison of these two partial causes which cause generated knowledge, whether the more principal cause of generated knowledge is the object present in itself or in the species, or the intellective part itself of the intellect.

And proof that it is the object:

Because that is the more principal mover that moves unmoved, as appears in all essentially ordered causes; and the object moves unmoved, as is held by the Philosopher, On the Soul 3.10.433b11-12, but the intellect does not move unless moved; therefore etc.

a.a [Note added by Scotus. The Vatican Editors add that it comes between the two questions, and that the ‘difficult question’, deferred from Ord. I d.1 n.232 and cf. supra nn.512, 548 and infra n.

563, is here finally to be asked by Scotus and settled.] Here it can properly be asked whether the agent intellect is a principle with respect to intellection. And, in that case, let there be treatment of how it is disposed toward memory, according to what Augustine says of it [sc. that it is disposed as having the idea of parent, nn.583-587] - as to why it is posited.

There remain, however, two other difficulties, to be spoken of here or elsewhere [sc. in the Ordinatio], namely about the conservation of the species outside the act, against Avicenna [On the Soul p.5 ch.6, Scotus, Rep. IA d.3 nn.129-130], which difficulty can well be touched on in one of the arguments in the preceding question about the species [n.403, 400; Scotus, Lectura I d.3 n.309, “the intellective memory pertains to the possible intellect, because it belongs to it to conserve and retain, and not to the agent intellect”] - and the other difficulty, about memory, properly speaking, of the past; the question can be per se touched on here [nn.383-384, 391], in Ord. 4 etc. [4 d.45 q.3 nn.3-20; 3 d.14 q.3 n.7].

555. Again, an agent assimilates the effect to itself, therefore that is the more principal agent which assimilates more; the act is assimilated more to the object than to the intellect; therefore etc.

556. Again, unity of science is assigned in view of the unity of the object virtually containing it, and such virtual containing with respect to a habit is not attributed to the intellect; ‘to contain virtually’ belongs to the active cause; therefore will the object be a cause of the habit more principal than the intellect, and if cause of the habit then also of the act.

557. To the opposite:

The more actual, formal, and perfect something is, the more active it is; therefore, the soul, which is a form more actual than the many other concurring causes, will be more active, and so, when it concurs with them in acting, it will be the more principal agent.

558. Again, to what is a being in a certain respect there does not belong an act simply; but when an act has this sort of being in a certain respect through something that is a being simply, then it belongs more principally to that being simply, if it is in any way active with respect to the same thing; but the object now naturally understood by us has only being in a certain respect in our intellect, on account of the being simply of that very intellective part, for the object is in it as a known in a knower; therefore, in the case of the action for which these two concur, the object having such being will not be the principal cause, but the intellective part will be, because of which the object has such being.

I. Solution of the Question

559. I respond. It seems that the intellective part has a more principal causality with respect to the intellections that are now naturally fitting for us.

First because when one of two ordered causes is indeterminate to many effects and is quasi unlimited, and the other is, according to the utmost of its power, determined to a certain effect, the one that is more unlimited and more universal seems to be more perfect and more principal - example about the sun and particular generating causes. The intellect also has a quasi unlimited and indeterminate virtue with respect to all intellections, but the objects naturally known by us have a power determinate in respect of the determinate intellections that focus on them, and this according to the utmost of their power, just as does anything relative to the intellection of itself; therefore etc.

560. Second, because the cause by which, when it is acting, another cause acts along with it (and not conversely), is more principal than the other; but when our intellect is acting for an intellection, the object in itself or in the species acts along with it; for it is in our power to understand, because we understand when we will, On the Soul 2.5.417b24. This is not principally because of the species (which is a natural form) but because of the intellect, which we can use when we want,a and the action of the species, which is of a nature to be always uniform on the part of the species, principally follows the action of the intellect.

a.a [Note by Scotus] Whence is it proved that it is more in the power of the will to use the intellect than the intelligible species? Each is of itself a natural agent. And why is not each free by participation? Response: nothing is by participation primarily free save what is in the same essence along with the will. On the contrary: organic powers and organs (and external ones too) are free by participation Similarly, there is not in our power any act of the vegetative soul. This middle term, then, is obscure, because it is doubtful what things in us are subject to the will and what are not.

561. However, some object that much exceeds the faculty of the intellective part, for example the beatific object as clearly seen, could be posited to have total causality with respect to the vision, or a more principal causality than the intellective part, and this on account of the excellence of such object and of the deficiency on the intellective part, but about this in the fourth book [Ord. Supplement d.49 a.2 q.3 n.9].

562. But as to the objects that we now naturally know, the first part of the response seems to be true [nn.559-560]. For it seems that, as to the intelligibles naturally understood by us, the species of them in the intellect is, as it were, the instrument of the intellect - not something moved by the intellect so as to act (as if namely the species receive something from the intellect), but what the intellect uses for its action; as that, when the intellect acts, the species acts as less principal agent along with it for the same thing, as for a joint effect.

II. To the Initial Arguments

563. To the first argument [n.554] I say that there is a double act of the intellect with respect to objects that are not in themselves present, of which sort are those that we now naturally understand. The first act is the species, by which the object is present as an object actually intelligible; the second act is the actual intellection itself. And for both acts the intellect acts not moved by that which is the partial cause concurring along with it for that action, although one act of the intellect is preceded by the motion of it to the other act. Now for the first act the agent intellect acts along with the phantasm, and there the agent intellect is a more principal cause than the phantasm, and both are integrated into one total cause with respect to the intelligible species. For the second act the intellective part acts (whether the agent intellect or the possible intellect I do not care now [cf. nn.512, 548, and added note to n.554]), and the intelligible species acts, as two partial causes. Also does the intellective part act there not moved by the species, but moving first, that is, acting as it were so that the species acts along with it.

564. When you say, therefore, that the object moves not moved [n.554], I say that in both actions the object is a secondary mover, although it is not moved, that is, it receives in itself something from the principal or prior mover. When you say the intellect does not move unless moved [ibid.], I say that it does not move with a second motion unless moved with a prior motion; but this is to compare two motions of the intellect and not to compare two partial causes concurring in a single motion. If you compare the partial causes in both motions, I say that in both cases the intellect moves not moved by the partial cause concurrent in the same motion.

565. To the second [n.555] I say that an effect is more assimilated formally to an inferior proximate cause than to a remote cause and to a more perfect principle, as appears of a son with respect to the father and the sun. Hence this argument is for the opposite, because it proves that the act of intellection is from the object as from the proximate cause, because it is more assimilated to it formally; thus too is the intelligible species more assimilated formally to the phantasm than to the agent intellect, and yet it is less principally from the phantasm than from the agent intellect.

566. On the contrary: since an agent intends to assimilate the patient to itself, how does the principal agent not assimilate it more?

I reply: a more principal agent is commonly an equivocal agent, and it has in itself the perfection of the effect more eminently than a univocal cause does; and therefore it does not assimilate it more to itself formally (because this would be a mark of imperfection in a cause, to be thus assimilated to the effect), but it does assimilate it, that is, it does give to the effect, more than the particular agent gives to it, the form by which the effect is assimilated to it equivocally; and this active assimilation comes from the perfection of the cause, although it is not a greater assimilation formally.

567. Likewise, a more perfect cause assimilates the effect more to what it is assimilable to than an inferior cause does; for it more causes an effect of the sort that is causable. Now the effect is assimilable formally to the proximate cause, so the more remote cause assimilates the effect to the proximate cause effectively more than the proximate cause assimilates it to itself. For the fact that a son is formally similar to the father is more from the remote cause (which assimilates effectively the son to the father) than from the proximate cause, because what more gives the form by which the effect is assimilated gives effectively the assimilation more.

568. To the third [n.556] I say that the unity of a science is assigned in view of the object, because that is what the sciences are distinguished in view of, not in view of the intellect, for the intellect is single with respect of all the sciences. And, by distinguishing the sciences in this way, that is one science which is of one prime subject, insofar as the first object has to contain the science virtually; but this is only as partial cause, for the intellect is, in addition to it, another partial cause containing the science. To reduce a science, therefore, to its first object is nothing else than to reduce it to what, in the other partial cause (which has an essential order in its genus), is first there simply, and to assign from that the unity of the effect insofar as the effect is from it. And it is not necessary there to reduce it, because it is the same in respect of any habit whatever; and consistent with this is that it is much more perfectly contained in the other partial cause.

Question Four. Whether there is Distinctly in the Mind an Image of the Trinity

569. Lastly about this question I ask whether there is distinctly in the mind an image of the Trinity [cf. nn.281-332].

I argue that there is not;

Because an image represents that of which it is the image; therefore, the mind would distinctly represent the Trinity; this is false. Proof: First because then the Trinity could be proved by natural knowledge from the known the mind. Second because no creature exceeds, in representing, the perfection of its own idea; but the idea of the mind does not represent God insofar as he is triune, because the idea is of God insofar as he is cause, and he is cause insofar as he is one.

570. Again, nothing in the mind represents one [divine] person more than another; therefore, neither does the whole mind represent the whole Trinity. Proof of the antecedent: On the Trinity 15.7 n.12, the Father is memory, intelligence, will etc.; therefore, the Father is as formally intelligence and will as he is memory, and the Son likewise; therefore the memory does not distinctly represent the Father more than the Son.

571. Again, third, in the Trinity two Persons are produced; in the image nothing is produced, as I will prove; therefore, it is not representative of production. Proof of the assumption. In the soul there are only either first acts or second acts. First acts [sc. the powers of intellect and will] are not originated from themselves mutually, because they are co-created with the soul itself. Nor are second acts [sc. the actions of intellect and will] originated. Proof: because there is not an action of an action, either of an action as the subject or of an action as the term, from the Philosopher Physics 5.2.225b15-16, because then there would be a regress to infinity. Therefore, there is no action of these acts as they are terms, because they are actions formally; proof, for they are second acts, not first acts; but if they were not actions, they would be first acts.

572. Again, by them [second acts or actions] a habit is generated; an action by which a form is generated is an action of the genus of action; therefore etc.

573. To the opposite is Augustine On the Trinity 14.8 n.11, “The image must be looked for and must be found where our nature has nothing that is better.”

I. To the Question

A. About the Image of the Trinity in Us

574. Here one needs to understand, first, what is the idea of an image in corporeal things, whence the word has been transferred to the issue at hand; second, with respect to what in the Trinity the image is; third, in what in us the idea of the image consists.

575. [Article 1]. As to the first point I say, as was said in the question about the footprint [nn.289, 293], that an image is representative of a whole, and in this it differs from a footprint, which is representative of a part. For if the whole body were impressed in the dust, the way a foot is impressed, it would be an image of the whole, just as the latter is an image of the part and a footprint of the whole. But the conformity expressive of a whole does not suffice, but imitation is required, because according to Augustine 83 Questions q.74, “however much two eggs are alike, one is not an image of the other,” because it is not of a nature to imitate it; and so it is required that an image be of a nature to imitate that of which it is the image, and to express it.

576. [Article 2]. About the second article,a although in our intellect the concept of one Person is partial with respect to the concept of the whole Trinity, the creature that may lead us to knowledge of the Trinity by way of image will represent the Trinity as to the total concept that our intellect can have of it; therefore it will represent the distinction of three Persons and the unity of the essence and the order of origin, because the real distinction in divine reality is through origin; it will also have an essential imitation relative to the Trinity that it represents.

a.a [Interpolated text] namely with respect to what in divine reality there is an image in the mind, one must understand that the Trinity constitutes in our intellect a certain numerical whole, of which whole the parts are understood to be divine persons. The image, therefore, is not focused on in respect of one Person only, nor in respect of that in which they are one, but in respect of the whole Trinity and of the essence.

577. [Article 3] About the third article [n.574] one must first consider the things that are manifest in being in the mind; second in what things the image does not consist; third in what things it does consist.

578. As to the first, we experience in ourselves that there is an act of intellection and an act of volition, and that these acts are in some way in our power when an object is present; therefore, it is necessary to posit in some way in ourselves principles active for these second acts, so that by them we may have a capacity with respect to those acts. Now the same thing under the same formal idea cannot be the principle of these two second acts, because these second acts require in their principles an opposed idea of being a principle; therefore it is necessary to have some distinction of first acts, and this a distinction corresponding proportionally to the distinction of second acts.a

a.a [Note by Scotus] Objection about the powers of the soul in distinction 13 [Ord. I d.13 q.1 n.12]. Look for this against the final rejected opinion.

579. About the second point in this article [n.577] I say that neither in first acts alone nor second acts alone is there an image. This appears in two ways: first because it is both the case that the latter are two only and that the former are two only, so they would only be an image of a duality, not of a trinity; second, because in the first acts, although there is consubstantiality there, yet there is not a real distinction there between thing and thing, nor an order of origin; in the second acts, although there is a distinction and an origin in some way, yet not consubstantiality.

580. From these points follows, third, that the image consists in first and second acts together - and I understand this as follows:

The soul has in itself some perfection according to which there is a first act with respect to generated knowledge, and it has in itself a perfection according to which it formally receives generated knowledge, and it has in itself some perfection according to which it formally receives volition. These three perfections are memory, intelligence, and will - or the soul insofar as the soul has them. Therefore, the soul, insofar as it has total first act with respect to intellection (namely something of the soul and the object present to it in idea of ‘intelligible’), is called memory, and this perfect memory by its including both intellect and that by which the object is present to it. The same soul insofar as it receives generated knowledge is called intelligence; the will too is called perfect, insofar as it is under the perfect act of willing. Accepting, therefore, these three on the part of the soul as they are under their three acts, I say that in these three terms there is consubstantiality, by reason of these three realities that exist on the part of the soul. But there is distinction and origin by reason of the actualities received in the soul according to these realities in the soul.a

a.a [Interpolated text. Rep. IA d.3 nn.204-209] What then are the three things in which the image consists?
     I reply that, by taking a single first act or two first acts, whereby we are capable of second acts (intellection namely and volition), we have thus within us some principle fertile for operations producible in the mind. There are therefore three things in us, namely a principle fertile with respect to these two acts, along with the two second acts, which are as one, with a certain unity, and I do not find another three in us as perfectly representing a trinity and a unity. But there is not a like unity here and there. Because in us they are one with unity of subject and accident, but in divine reality the three are one with unity of essence, because in divine reality there is not found a unity conformed to unity of subject and accident. We have therefore three things in us that represent the Trinity, namely the fertile principle, and this is perfect memory in us (which includes the essence of the soul and the intelligible species and the will as parent and combiner), and two operations or productions that respond to that fertile principle with a double fertility (namely the principle of intellect and will, or of intellection and volition); and from this we have the order of origin.
     Now to the mind of Augustine On the Trinity 9.5 at the end, where he assigns the image very beautifully when he says “mind, knowledge, love” - From this he says ‘mind’, which does not precisely state a fertile principle or power for generating or spirating but a certain first act having both in itself virtually, and this representing the Father, who has both from himself. And this is the most properly assigned image of the Trinity, in my judgment.
     But elsewhere, On the Trinity 10.10, he assigns these three: memory, intelligence, and will. And these represent a unity more, and more principally, than a trinity, because they are the same thing as the soul. But they are not thus representative as to the productions and as to the Threeness. For memory only states fertility for understanding, and so does not represent the Father as he has both fertilities, the way mind represents both. Likewise, the intelligence does not represent the Son as produced, or under act of knowing, nor does intelligence as it is a power originated from memory; likewise the will as it is taken for a power does not represent the Holy Spirit.
     But Augustine does not take will there for the power but for the act of willing, as is plain in On the Trinity 15.3, where he compares these images and says that the will is born from knowledge by the fact that it only loves what is known, or that no one loves save what he first knows. That therefore Augustine says that the second assigning of the image is more subtle than the first is true as to some condition of it, because it more perfectly represents the unity of the essence, as was said.

B. Two Doubts

581. But here two doubts arise.

First, that then it seems there is a quaternity in the image, for first act with respect to volition does not go with any of the three in the image. For not with the third part, plainly, because the same thing is not principle of itself; nor with the second part, manifestly, because actual knowledge is not the will; nor with the first either, because memory properly states the productive principle of generated knowledge, not of volition. Therefore, will the will be a fourth along with these.

582. Again, a second doubt is that the order of origin, the way it is in divine reality, is not preserved here. For there the first person originates the second, and these two the third; here the first part of the image is cause of the second, but neither the first nor the second are cause of the third; therefore etc.

1. To the First Doubt

583. To the first [n.581] I reply that the image can be assigned in two ways, according to the fact Augustine assigns it in two ways: in one way On the Trinity 9.5-11, as mind, knowledge, and love; in another way according to the fact he assigns it, ibid. 10. 10-12, as memory, intelligence, and will. And about this double assignment of the image Augustine, speaking in ibid. 15.3 n.5, says that what was set down in ibid. 10 is more evident.

584. I say, then, when treating of the first assignment, that by ‘mind’ we can understand first act with respect to both second acts, namely fertility for generating and for spirating. For in this the mind has perfectly the idea of parent, because it perfectly includes both fertilities; and then the two others, namely knowledge and love, are two things produced by the soul in a certain order. And then there will not be a quaternity, because in the parent having the perfect idea of parent the double first act comes together.a And in this way is it in divine reality, because in the Father there is not only fertility for generating but for spirating, and this from himself; because if the Father did not of himself have fertility for spirating, but had it by way of leftover from the production of the Son (as some say [Henry of Ghent, Summa a q.8, a.54 q.6]), this impossible result, it seems, follows, that the Father would never have that fertility. For no reality, whether absolute or relative, does the Father have in any way by production, and therefore whatever reality he does not have in the first moment of origin (insofar, namely, as he is pre-understood in order of origin to the Son) he never has. Therefore, if that double fertility he does not have in himself in the first moment of origin, he will never have it.

a.a [Note by Scotus] We experience two acts, and acts that originate in a certain order, and are in our power (On the Soul 2, n.560). Therefore, the principles of them are, in us, either the same thing or united in the same thing. That thing will be fertile with a double fertility and from itself (a stand here [sc. no reduction further]); and the two products are distinct and in some way the same as the first fertile principle, taking powers precisely under acts. And they show the first supposit to be fertile of itself with both fertilities, and two products to be adequate to that fertile principle, distinct and originated; therefore an image. On the contrary: the second part does not produce the third.
Reply: here the image falls short.

585. But if mind be taken precisely as first act, having only fertility with respect to generated knowledge, the image in this way is imperfectly assigned, because in this way the mind does not have perfectly the idea of parent.

586. So I say, about the other assigning, that if memory be taken precisely for the parent with respect to generated knowledge it is a parent imperfectly; but a parent perfectly has not only that whereby it generates but that whereby it spirates, because it cannot have that from something else; and it must have it totally; and therefore it must be had in a parent of itself. But if memory be taken for the whole soul, as it aptitudinally has in first act that double fertility, then in this way it has perfectly the idea of parent. But although memory be more evidently a parent, as one must concede because of the word of Augustine On the Trinity 15 ch.3 n.5 [n.583] - namely insofar as it expresses more than the mind does the relation of generator to generated - yet the mind seems to import more perfectly the idea of parent if it be taken as it includes both fertilities.

587. Briefly, then, however a trinity is assigned in the image, whether this way or that, there is no quaternity, because a double relationship and fertility come together in a parent, if is perfectly parent.

2. To the Second Doubt

588. To the second [n.582] I say that in us there cannot be the likeness of an image for the prototype. For generated knowledge in the created image is a certain accident, to which is not communicated the fertility for producing love, by which fertility it is formally something productive of love. For such an accident is not of a nature to be formally thinking and willing, and therefore the memory that generates actual knowledge (taking memory as it is a parent perfectly) cannot communicate to the generated knowledge the fertility that it had before, because it does not communicate to it the same nature, but produces it equivocally in another nature. Now when the Father generates the Son he communicates to him the same nature, and the same fertility for spirating love, which fertility in the generation of the Son is not understood to have an adequate term; and therefore the Son can, by the same fecundity, produce as the Father does. The reason, therefore, is plain why that production cannot be preserved in the parts of the image the way it is in the Persons of the Trinity, because there cannot be the same fertility in the two first parts of the image. But it is and can be the same in two Persons with respect to the third.

589. Similarly, if generated knowledge were in any way productive of anything, this would only be by way of nature and not freely. There is here, however, an order between the second part of the image and the third, because the third part presupposes the second naturally, though it not be from it. And this does Augustine express in On the Trinity 15 ch.27 n.50, “the will, third, joining parent and offspring, which will does indeed proceed from knowledge.” And he adds and expounds at once how he understands it: “for no one wants something that he altogether does not know as to what it is or what it is like, etc.” It is plain, therefore, that he posits the order of origin precisely on account of the natural order of volition to intellection, and not because intellection is cause with respect to volition. It is plain, then, according to Augustine’s intention, that he there takes will (according as it is the third part of the image) for the act of willing, as he takes it here and adds, “which will does indeed proceed etc.” [supra n.589], which is not true of the will as it is a power, but if it be true, this is true of the act of willing.

590. Further, in particular: since all the things aforesaid are found in the mind with respect to any object whatever, one must note that the most perfect and ultimate idea of the image is when these things come together in the mind with respect to God as object; for then the soul has not only an expressive likeness as concerns the aforesaid (by reason of the things in it), but also by that reason by which the acts themselves are conformed to the object. For an act is truly a likeness of the object, as was said in the prior question [n.565], and therefore, when these acts are so in the mind that they not only have consubstantiality and likeness and distinctness and origin but have also a further likeness to God by reason of the object about which they are, there is a more perfect likeness; but the likeness is less perfect when the soul has itself for object, because then, although a likeness is not had from God immediately as from proximate object, yet it is had in some way, insofar as in the mind, as in an image, God is known.

591. And this double trinity is assigned by Augustine, namely the one that is in respect of God, On the Trinity 12.4 n.4, when he says, “in it alone which pertains to the contemplation of eternal things is there not only a trinity but an image of God - but in this which is derived in the doing of temporal things, even if a trinity could be found, yet an image cannot be.” This is to be understood of the expressive image, as far as concerns supreme expression or likeness. About the same is also On the Trinity 15.20 n.39,

“Whence can an eternal and immutable nature be recollected, seen, desired,” etc., “an image, to be sure, of the supreme Trinity, to remembering which, seeing and loving which, everything should refer that lives.”

592. About the other image he speaks in On the Trinity 14.8 n.11: “Behold,” he says, “the mind remembers itself, understands itself, loves itself; if this we discern, we discern a trinity, not yet God indeed, but already an image of God.” This second authority seems to contradict the first [n.591] unless it be understood in the aforesaid way [n.591 “This is to be understood of the expressive imae...”].

593. And then is it plain how, in respect of all the objects lower than the mind, Augustine does not posit an image in the mind, because no other object is an image of God, with respect to whom most of all (and with respect to his image secondarily) there is an image in the mind, as far as concerns the likeness which is had from the object.

3. Corollary

594. From these points appears, by way of corollary, why in the sensitive part there is no image. First, because there is not a consubstantiality there of things operating, or of the totality of them taken along with their operations, because the principle of sensing is not only something of the soul but something composed of soul and part of the body (and a part thus physically constituted See fn. to n.122. ⁵⁵), which is the whole organ.a Likewise, the principle of desiring of the sense appetite is not something of the soul alone, but is similarly composite. These two, which the operations are of, are not consubstantial, because although these powers of the soul are in the same essence, and are perhaps the same as the essence of the soul, yet they are not total causes of operation (namely the whole organs themselves), because the parts of the body are not consubstantial, neither among themselves nor with the powers of the soul.

a.a [Note by Scotus] Note, the proximate reason for receiving a sensation is some simple entity, neither namely something of the soul nor even a thus physically constituted body, but the form of the whole organ (which is called form as the quiddity is the form of the supposit, and not as an informing form).

595. Likewise, in the sense part there is not a double mode of originating, because just as the sense senses naturally, so the sense appetite desires naturally; hence according to John Damascene, On the Orthodox Faith 2.27 (seek for it), the brutes in their actions do not ‘act’ but are ‘acted’.

II. To the Initial Arguments

596. As to the first main argument [n.569] I concede that any created essence, insofar as it is this essence produced according to such idea, does not represent God under the idea of three; because it is not caused or ideated by God under the idea of three, but under the idea of one. But yet some created essence, by reason of its essence and the many things that go along with it (as one whole aggregate), can be representative of the Trinity and of the things that are apprehended in the Trinity. Such a thing is the mind, taken in itself and with its operations, because there is unity there and distinction and order of origin; such a thing too, insofar as concerns such coming together, is nothing that is inferior to the mind, as was plain in the case of the sensitive part [nn.594-595].

597. But when you argue [n.569] that if it were an image, the Trinity could be known through knowledge of the mind, I reply that the things that come together in the mind are for someone who believes the Trinity able to persuade him how the Trinity could be, but they do not prove to one who does not believe that it exists; for the total combining of many things in the mind, wherein the image consists, could be and is from one person; and so from it cannot be shown, by a demonstration-why, that it is an image of the Trinity. Of this Augustine speaks in On the Trinity 15.24, “Those who see the mind and that trinity in it and yet do not believe it is an image of God see indeed the mirror but do not see through the mirror, since neither do they know that what they see is a mirror.”

598. But how the deduction may be able, from the idea of intellect and will in divine reality, to display the three Persons was stated in d.2 in the question about the two productions [Ord. I d.2 nn.301-303, 355-356].

599. To the second [n.570] I say that the argument seems efficacious if it be posited that the Father generates insofar as he is intelligence, as one opinion [Henry of Ghent] has posited it (posited above and rejected in d.2 in the aforesaid question [Ord. I d.2 nn.278-279, 291-296]), which posits that the actual knowledge of the Father has, in some way, the idea of what produces in respect of the generation of the Son, and has the idea of formal productive principle [ibid.]. But according to another way, which I held there, that the Father insofar as he has the divine essence present to him under the idea of being intelligible in act (which belongs to the Father insofar as he is memory) - that in this way does the Father generate; but not insofar as he is understanding, as was there made clear [ibid.]. In that case the antecedent [n.570] is false, because my memory represents the Father more than the Son - not in this respect, that memory alone is in the Father and intelligence alone in the Son, but in this, that the Father generates the Son insofar as the Father has the idea of memory, not as he has the idea of intelligence or will.

600. To the third [n.571] I say that second acts are products.

601. When you give proof from the Philosopher Physics 5 [n.571], the argument is on my side. For since an action is not the term of an action, and since these acts [second acts, ibid.] are truly terms of action (as Augustine says On the Trinity 9.12 nn.17-18, that knowledge is truly ‘generated’ and volition ‘proceeds’, as he says ibid. 15.27 n.50), therefore they are not actions of the genus of action but are absolute forms of the genus of quality.

602. When you prove [n.571] that they are actions properly because they are second acts, I say that certain forms have a fixed being, not dependent continuously on their cause (in quasi state of becoming), the way heat is in wood; some have continuous dependence on their cause, as light in the medium depends on the sun. And about this Augustine speaks, Literal Commentary on Genesis 8.12 n.26, saying that “air is not made transparent but is becoming transparent.” First forms, because of their independence in being, do not have the idea of action or motion; second forms, because of their continuous dependence, seem rather to have being in becoming than in having-become. And they thus have [being in becoming] because always they are, while they are, as equally caused as in the first instant when they begin to be; and therefore, when the cause ceases to cause, these forms cease to be. But it does not follow from this that they are actions of the genus of action, but the opposite follows, that they are terms of such actions.a

a.a [Text canceled by Scotus, replaced by “And they thus have.. .such actions”] although, in truth, there is not action and passion in them, because they are whole at once and not part after part; but action properly is only toward a formb of which part is acquired after part.

b.b [Note by Scotus] this is false in all cases of generation and change.

603. Intellection is disposed in this way, because it is in continuous dependence on the presence of its cause; for otherwise it would not have being, as is plain from Augustine On the Trinity 11.3 n.6, “But when the glance of the one thinking has been turned away from ita.nothing of the form that preceded in it will remain;” for the act of the intelligence does not remain without such presence of the cause, namely of a cause inflowing continually. But this alone does not prove it is a second act (for thus light in the medium gets to be posited as second act); and therefore, along with this, there is another further condition, namely that these forms pass, by reason of themselves, into something else as into a term;b whether, moreover, the something else is within or outside the thing operating [or: ‘is operating within or without’], I care not, for it is not intelligible that there be intellection or volition and that it not be of some term. But this belongs to action properly speaking, that it passes into something as into a term. On account of those two conditions coming together in these forms, these forms are said to be second acts, although truly they are abiding forms.

a.a [Interpolated text = continuation of the citation from Augustine] “and that which was seen in memory has stopped being looked on”

b.b [Note by Scotus] About this relation [sc. of a form to something as to a term], in question three, before, under 3 [nn.478-479].

604. To the other proof, when it is said that such act is generative of a habit [n.572], I reply that the argument is to the opposite, because action of the genus of action cannot be of the same idea unless it have the same term, as heating is not of the same idea unless heat is of the same idea. Therefore, if a habit were to be generated by an act that is an action of the genus of action, and terminated at the habit as at a term, the act could not be of the same idea unless it were per se generative of the habit. Indeed, it would seem to be a contradiction that an action would be of the same idea and not be of some term, because there cannot be an action of the genus of action unless it be of some term. But now some act of intellection or volition can be of the same idea though not be of some produced term; therefore, the act is not generative of a habit as being generation, but as being a form by which the habit is formally generated. Then I say briefly that an act is generative of a habit as being a form that is cause or reason for causing another form, as the light of the sun in the medium is the reason for generating heat there. Now such an act is not generative as an action, but by such action are both an act and a habit generated, as the proper term of such action - and to signify this sort of generation, which is action of the genus of action, I say that the power [of understanding] elicits the act of understanding.