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.