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.