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III. To the Principal Arguments
250. To the arguments for the opposite [nn.235-239].
To the first - about numbers [n.235] - I say that it proceeds from a failure in understanding the Philosopher. The Philosopher is there in fact comparing quiddities to numbers, to the extent they are definable, in the way Plato used to speak of quiddities, by positing them as separate [Scotus, Commentary on Aristotle’s Metaphysics VIII ch.4 n.22]; substances taken in this way, the quiddities of things, are indeed compared to numbers according to the four properties [ibid. nn.22-25] - one of which is this, that ‘anything added changes the species’; and I understand it thus, that the addition makes another species from the species, or that it makes a species from a non-species. For any difference, when added to the definition, either indicates the quiddity, or it constitutes a species other than the preexisting one, or if the preexisting one was of the nature of a genus it determines it to the nature of a species, which is something that was not had before the addition of the difference.a
a [Interpolation] An example about the intellective soul, when it is added as the difference to the sensitive soul.
251. I say, then, that an addition to the quiddity, when the quiddity is taken according to the idea of quiddity, alters the species in the second of the ways stated [sc. making a species from a species]. But what is not added to a quiddity as it is a quiddity does not change the species; now any individual degree, just as also an individual difference that contracts a thing to being a ‘this’, whether it is an individual unity or an individual plurality, and in short any individual condition whatever added to a specific nature, is not added to it as to its quidditative idea such that it determine it according to that idea, and for this reason it does not change the species of the quiddity to which it is added; for it cannot change what preexists into another species, nor can it change it from a non-species into a species, unless what is added is of the idea of a species, - and no individual condition is of this sort.
252. Next, as to the form of the authority [n.235], I say that if something that was a quidditative part were added to a preexisting quiddity it would change the species, just as if something that was a part of number were added to a preexisting number the species of the number would be changed; but if something be added that is not of a nature to be a part of number (to wit, some accident) or is a material part of number (to wit, if one of the units in a triple were made more intense than before [e.g. made more white]), then the species would not in itself be changed.a So in the proposed case: any individual difference (or degree) that is added to a quiddity is not of the nature to be a part of the quiddity.
a [Interpolation] but in some individual degree.
253. By the same fact [n.252] the response is plain as regard Porphyry [n.237], that he likewise is speaking of difference insofar as it is a per se part of definition. Difference in this way consists in something indivisible, that is, taking it according to the indifference according to which it is abstracted from individuals, which indifference - in its totality - is its degree as it is a specific difference; for thus it does not receive the more and less, because ‘all cases of more and less’ can belong to individuals in this way and these cases are all within this indifference of the difference and do not, in accord with this indifference, add anything to the difference.
254. To the passage from the Metaphysics 10 [n.236] the same response can be made, by calling formal difference ‘quidditative difference’.
255. One can also reply - as to the form - that not every difference of forms is a formal difference, speaking properly of formal difference, namely insofar as formal difference is a difference according to forms, just as not every difference in men is a difference in the form of humanity. A reason in reality and in logic is assigned for this. In reality as follows: men can possess the form of humanity and be different, though not by humanity - and so they do not differ in humanity; thus pure forms can differ and yet not be different by formality, and so not be formally different, because to differ formally -properly speaking - is the same as to differ in form or according to form.a In logic as follows: because the term of a difference is understood through the negation that is included in the difference, therefore it can be taken confusedly or distributively with respect to that negation; so too, that which is denominated as being the idea of the difference (of which sort is what is construed along with the verb ‘differ’, as that in which or according to which the denomination is made) could be confounded by the negation. But, as it is, the negation of the superior does not follow on the negation of the inferior, but there is denial of the antecedent and a fallacy of the consequent.51
a [Interpolation] I also say as to the reality that things can differ in species between themselves and yet not cause such a difference in a third thing, - just as white and black differ in species and yet white Socrates and black Plato do not differ in species; so although the individual differences are diverse primarily, yet they do not vary the essence, because they are accidents of the essence and material with respect to it, - and the same as to masculine and feminine, and also as to degrees with respect to the form in itself, which form does not, according to its existence, determine for itself a determinate degree.
256. To the other authority from the Six Principles [n.238]: its conclusion is to be conceded in the way it proves the simplicity of the form. But it proves a simplicity opposite to quantity of bulk, because when a form is added it does not make a greater in bulk (for a form when placed in a subject is not something more than it was before). So let a simplicity of form opposite to quantity of bulk be conceded - but this is nothing against an intensity in amount, which is what pertains to the proposed case.
257. To the reason [n.239] I say that as to the remark ‘something that is accidental to the nature of the species’, it can be understood in two ways: in one way like this, that it is outside the quidditative idea of the species, in the way a difference is said to be accidental to the genus - and in this way an accident is taken in the fallacy of accident for something extraneous that is outside the idea of another thing; in another way an accident is said to be what does not make a ‘per se unity’ together with that of which it is an accident, as white together with body. In the first way I say that an intense whiteness has something which is accidental to the nature of the species (so also does a mild whiteness, nay any individual has something that is accidental to the nature of the species -otherwise the nature of the species would not be contracted to individuals); in the second way I say that an intense whiteness does not have something that is accidental to the nature of the species, because the degree which is understood to be added to the nature in itself makes a ‘per se unity’ with the nature, just as any individual difference added to the nature makes a ‘per se unity’ with the nature. When therefore you say ‘if the intense thing includes something which is accidental to the nature of the species, then the mild thing, which does not include it, is not in the species’ [n.239], the consequence is not valid speaking of accident taken in the first, but the antecedent is true in this first way -and not in the other way.a
a [Interpolation] So the inference ‘therefore such a degree is not in the species’ is not valid, but the inference should be ‘therefore such a degree is not the species’; so it exists in the species as contained under it. Nor does this inference follow, ‘therefore the other degree will not be in the species’; for this does not follow, ‘it does not have whatever pertains to the species, therefore it is not in the species’. - Or one can say that ‘something pertains to the species’ is taken in two ways, either as to quiddity or as to subject. Quidditative parts belong per se to the understanding of the species, though not to the understanding of the subject but are as it were remote parts of it; so things are in the proposed case: no formal degree belongs to the species as a part per se and essential to the species (because the species can be understood without any degree), but it does very well pertain to the species as being contained under the species.
[N.B. A large blank space was left here by Scotus, both for a further question within distinction 17 and for distinction 18, but neither the further question nor the further distinction are contained in the text of the Ordinatio. They have to be supplied from the Reportatio or the Additiones Magnae.]