Third Distinction. First Part. On the Principle of Individuation

Question One. Whether Material Substance is Individual or Singular of Itself or from its Nature

1. As to the third distinction one must ask about the distinction of persons in angels. But to get a view of this distinction in angels one must first inquire about the distinction of individuals in material substances; and just as different people speak differently about this distinction, so they speak in like different ways about the plurality of individuals in the same species of angels. And in order to have a distinct view of the diverse opinions that are inquired into as to the distinction or lack of distinction in material substance, I inquire individually about the diverse ways of positing the distinction - and first about whether material substance is individual or singular of itself or from its own nature.a

a.a [Interpolation] “Behold, it has been shown where the angels were immediately they were created; the next thing now is to investigate of what sort they were made to be at the very beginning of their condition etc.” Lombard Sent. 2 d.3 c.1 n.17. As to this third distinction, where the Master deals with what the angels were created to be like as concerns their natural conditions, two things must principally be asked - first about distinction of persons in them, and second about natural knowledge in them [n.255]; but because we are led from distinction of persons in material substance to knowledge of distinction of persons in spiritual substance, so we must first get a view of distinction of individuals in material substance and lastly in spiritual substance. And because there is a variety of opinions about distinction of individuals in material substance, so a variety of questions will be formed in accord with the variety of opinions. First then the question is raised whether material substance is individual or singular of itself or from its nature; second whether it is individual through some positive intrinsic thing; third whether it is individual through actual existence, or whether something else is the reason for individuation; fourth whether it is individual through quantity; fifth whether it is so through matter; sixth whether it is so through some positive entity determining the nature to singularity per se; seventh and lastly whether there can be several angels in the same species.

2. That it is:

The Philosopher proves in Metaphysics 7.13.1038b10-11 against Plato, that “the substance of any thing is proper to that in which it is, and is not present in something else;” therefore etc. So material substance of its own nature, with everything else removed, is proper to that in which it is, so that it cannot of its own nature be in something else; therefore it is individual of its own nature.

3. On the contrary:

Whatever is present in something from its idea per se, is present in it wherever it is; therefore if the nature of a stone were of itself a ‘this’, then wherever the nature of a stone was, that nature would be ‘this stone’. The consequent is unacceptable when speaking of determinate singularity, and the question is about this.

4. Further, that to which one opposite per se belongs, to it the other opposite is per se repugnant; therefore if a nature be of itself numerically one, numerical multitude is repugnant to it.

I. To the Question

A. The Opinion of Others

5. Here the statement is made that, just as nature is of itself formally nature, so it is of itself singular, such that to look for a cause of singularity beside the cause of nature (as if nature is nature first - first in time or in nature - before it is singular, and then is narrowed down by something additional so as to become singular) is not necessary.

6. This is proved by a likeness: that just as nature has of itself true existence outside the soul but does not have existence within the soul save from something else, that is, from the soul itself (and the reason is that true existence belongs to nature simply, but existence within the soul is its existence in a certain respect), so universality only belongs to a thing according to existence in a certain respect, namely existence in the soul, but singularity belongs to a thing according to true existence, and thus belongs to it of itself and simply. Therefore one must look for a cause as to why a nature is universal (and the intellect is to be given as the cause), but a cause other than the nature of the thing as to why a nature is singular - a cause mediating between the nature and its singularity - is not to be looked for, but the same causes that are causes of the unity of a thing are causes also of its singularity; therefore etc.Vatican Editors: Several other reasons for this opinion are given by Scotus in Metaphysics 7 q.13 n.16. ⁴⁴,a

a.a [Interpolation] Against this there is argument as follows, and first on the part of the communicability of nature: if a nature is of itself a ‘this’, then communicability [to several] is repugnant to it, as is plain about the divine essence [sc. communicability by division] - and so it is also in the case of angels, if the nature of them were of itself a ‘this’. Another proof is that that to which one opposite of itself belongs, to it the other is repugnant; but communicability is not repugnant to material nature. Again, if a nature were, according to what it is in reality, of itself a ‘this’, then to understand it to be universal would be impossible unless one understood it under the opposite idea of understanding such an object [n.7]. Again, if singularity is included in the idea of a nature, then being a ‘not-this’ (and thus being a universal) is repugnant to it [n.48], because whatever is repugnant to what is included in a thing is also repugnant to the thing that includes it [Scotus Rep IIA d.12 q.5].

7. [Rejection of the Opinion] - Against this [n.5] there is argument as follows:

An object insofar as it is an object exists first actually by its own act, and in that prior act - according to you - the object is of itself singular, because this belongs to the nature when not taken in a certain respect or in accord with the being that it has in the soul; therefore, when the intellect understands the object under the idea of a universal, it understands it in an idea opposite to the object’s own idea, because as the object precedes the act [sc. of the intellect] it is determined of itself to the opposite of that idea, namely the idea of a universal.

8. Further, whatever has a real, proper, and sufficient unity less than numerical unity is not of itself one with numerical unity (or is not of itself a ‘this’); but the nature existing in this stone has a proper unity, real or sufficient, less than numerical unity; therefore etc.

9. The major premise here is plain of itself, because nothing is of itself one with a unity greater than the unity sufficient for it; for if its proper unity - the unity that is of itself due to it - is less than numerical unity, then numerical unity does not belong to it from its nature or according to itself (otherwise it would have precisely from its nature both a greater and a lesser unity, which are opposites about and according to the same thing - because along with a lesser unity there can stand, without contradiction, a multitude opposed to a greater unity, and this multitude cannot stand along with a greater unity, since this is repugnant to it; therefore etc.).

10. Proof of the minor [n.8]; because if there is no real unity to nature less than singularity, and if all unity other than the unity of singularity and of specific nature is less than real unity, then there will be no real unity less than numerical unity; the consequent is false, as I will prove in five or six ways [in fact in seven ways, nn.11, 16, 18, 19, 20, 23 28]: therefore etc.

11. The first way is as follows:

According to the Philosopher Metaphysics 10.1.1052b19-24, “in every genus there is one first, which is the standard and measure of everything that belongs to that genus.”

12. This unity of the first measurer is real, because the Philosopher proves [ibid.] that the first idea of measure belongs to a ‘one’, and he explains by means of order how that to which the idea of measuring belongs in every genus is a ‘one’. Now this unity belongs to something insofar as it is first in the genus; it is therefore real, because things measured are real and really measured; but a real being cannot be really measured by a being of reason; therefore it [sc. the unity of the measurer] is real.

13. But this unity is not numerical, because there is no singular in a genus that is the measure of all the things that are in that genus - for according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 3.3.999a12-13 “in individuals of the same species it is not the case that this individual is prior and that one posterior.”

14. And although the Commentator [Averroes Metaphysics 3 com.11] expounds the ‘prior’ here of a prior that constitutes a posterior, yet this is of no consequence for the minor premise [n.13], because the Philosopher intends to assign there [ibid. 999a6-13] the reason for Plato’s positing that the nature of the species exists separately and not in a genus - because there is in a species an essential order, on account of which the posterior can be reduced to the prior (and so according to Plato there is no need to posit an idea of the genus, ‘through participation in which the species are what they are’, but only an idea of the species, to which all the others are reduced); but in individuals, according to Plato and according to the Philosopher reporting him, there is no such order, whether or not one of them constitutes another; therefore etc.

15. So the Philosopher’s intention there is to agree with Plato that in individuals of the same species there is no essential order. Therefore no individual is the per se measure of the things that are in the species of it - and so no numerical or individual unity is either.

16. Further, second, I prove that the same consequent [n.10, ‘there will be no real unity less than numerical unity’] is false:

Because according to the Philosopher Physics 7.4.249a3-8“If then comparable things must not only not be equivocal but must also have no difference..., then a thing is not comparable in this way, namely whether something colored is more white than black (for these are not compared as to some color but insofar as there is color), but in whiteness [sc. whether something white is more white].” ⁴⁵ comparison occurs within an undivided species, because there is one nature - but not within a genus, because a genus does not have such unity.

17. This difference [sc. between unity of species and unity of genus] is not one of unity in idea, because the concept of a genus is as one in number in the intellect as the concept of a species is; otherwise no concept would be predicated in the whatness of many species (and so no concept would be a genus), but there would be as many concepts predicated of species as there are concepts of species, and then in individual predications the same thing would be predicated of itself [sc. the species would be predicated of the species]. Likewise, unity of concept or of non-concept is of no relevance to the Philosopher’s intention there, namely for making comparison or not [n.16]. So the Philosopher intends there that a specific nature is one with the unity of specific nature; but he does not intend that it is one in this way with numerical unity, because in numerical unity no comparison is made. Therefore etc.

18. Further, third:

According to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.15.1021a9-12, in the chapter on relation, the same, the like, and the equal are founded on ‘one’, so that although likeness has for foundation a thing of the genus of such and such a quality, yet relation is not real unless it has a real foundation and a real, proximate idea of founding; therefore the unity that is required in the foundation of a relation of likeness is real; but it is not a numerical unity, because nothing one and the same is like or equal to itself.

19. Further, fourth:

Of one real opposition there are two real extremes; but contrariety is a real opposition (as is plain, because one of the contraries corrupts or destroys the other in the absence of any work of the intellect, and just because they are contraries); therefore both first extremes of this opposition are real and ‘one’ with some real unity; but not with numerical unity, because then this white thing would be precisely the first contrary to this black thing (or that white thing would precisely be so), which is unacceptable, because then there would be as many first contrarieties as there are contrary individuals; therefore etc.

20. Further, fifth:

Of one act of a sense there is an object that is one according to some real unity; but not numerical unity; so there is some real unity other than numerical unity.

21. The proof of the minor is that a power which knows an object in this way (namely insofar as it is one ‘with this unity’) knows it insofar as it is distinct from anything that is not one with this unity - but a sense does not know an object insofar as it is distinct from anything which is one with numerical unity, as is plain because no sense distinguishes that this ray of the sun differs numerically from another ray, although however the rays are diverse because of the motion of the sun; if all common sensibles are removed (to wit, diversity of place or of position), and if two quantities were, by divine power, posited to be together at once, and they were also completely alike and equal in whiteness - sight would not distinguish that there were two white things there (yet if it knew either of them insofar as it is one with numerical unity, it would know it insofar as it is one distinct by numerical unity).

22. Next to this [n.20], one could also argue, as to the first object of a sense, that it is one in itself by some real unity, because just as the object ‘of this power’ - insofar as it is the object - precedes the intellect, so too it precedes, according to its real unity, every action of the intellect. But this argument does not conclude as the preceding one does; for one could posit that a first object - as it is adequate to the power - is something common, abstracted from all particular objects, and thus does not have a unity save the unity of commonness with the several particular objects; but the argument does not seem to deny, as to one object of one act of sensing, that it necessarily has a unity that is real and less than numerical unity.

23. Further, sixth:

Because if every real unity is numerical, then every real diversity is numerical. But the consequent is false, because every numerical diversity, insofar as it is numerical, is equal - and so everything would be equally distinct; and then it follows that the intellect could no more abstract something common from Socrates and Plato than from Socrates and line, and every universal would be a pure figment of the intellect.

24. The first consequence is proved in two ways:

First, because one and many, same and diverse are opposites (from Metaphysics 10.3.1054a20-21, b22-23); but as often as one opposite is stated so also is the remaining one (from Topics 1.15.106b14-15); therefore to any unity there corresponds its own diversity.

25. The second proof is that each extreme of any diversity is in itself one - and the way it is one in itself it is in the same way diverse from the remaining extreme, so that the unity of one extreme seems to be the per se reason for the diversity of the other extreme.

26. There is also a confirmation of this in another way, that if there is only a numerical unity in this thing here, then whatever unity there is in that thing there is of itself one in number; therefore both this thing and that thing are, according to their whole entity, diverse first, because diverse things do not agree in anything ‘one’ in any way.

27. There is confirmation too from this, that numerical diversity means that this singular is not that singular, though with the assumption of the entity of both extremes.

But such unity belongs necessarily to one or other of them/[or alternative text:] is the negation of the other of them.

28. Further:

When no intellect exists, fire would generate fire and corrupt water, and there would be some real unity of generator to generated in form, according to which form there would be univocal generation. For the intellect when considering does not make generation to be univocal but knows it to be univocal.

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

29. To the question then [n.1], I say, conceding the conclusion of the above arguments [nn.7-8], that material substance is not of itself from its own nature a ‘this’, because in that case, as the first argument proves [n.7], the intellect could not understand material substance under its opposite if it did not understand its own object under an idea of understanding repugnant to the idea of such an object.

30. Also as the second argument proves [n.8], along with all its own proofs [nn.9-28], there is, without any operation of the intellect, some real unity in things less than numerical unity or than the proper unity of a singular, which unity belongs to nature of itself; and nature, according to this proper unity of nature as it is nature, is indifferent to the unity of singulars; so nature is not thus one by that unity, namely the unity of singulars.

31. But how this should be understood can in some way be seen from the statement of Avicenna Metaphysics 5.1 f.86va,“For the definition of horseness is aside from the definition of universality, and universality is not contained in the definition of horseness; for horseness has a definition that does not contain universality but universality is accidental to it; hence horseness itself is not anything but horseness alone; for it is of itself neither many nor one, and is not existent in sensible things or in the soul; nor is it any of these potentially or in fact, such that they are contained in the essence of horseness; but it is, from what it is, horseness alone.” ⁴⁶ where he maintains that ‘horseness is just horseness, and is not of itself one or many, or universal or particular’. I understand this to mean that horseness is not of itself one by numerical unity, nor many by the manyness opposed to that oneness; nor is it actually universal (namely in the way that something is universal as it is the object of the intellect), nor is it of itself particular.

32. For although it is really never without some of them, yet it is of itself none of them, but is naturally prior to all of them, and according to natural priority its ‘what it is’ is per se the object of the intellect and, as such, it is per se considered by the metaphysician and expressed in a definition; and propositions ‘true in the first mode’ are true by reason of the whatness thus taken, because nothing is said ‘per se in the first mode’ about a whatness save what is essentially included in the whatness, insofar as it is abstracted from all of the above things which are naturally posterior to it [1 d.3 n.164, d.5 n.18, d.2 nn.19, 25].

33. But not only is the nature of itself indifferent to existence in the intellect and in the particular, and thereby indifferent to universal and to particular (or singular) existence, but also, as it has existence in the intellect, it does not first of itself have universality. For although it is understood under universality as under the mode of understanding it, yet universality is not part of its first concept, because it is not part of a metaphysical but of a logical concept (for the logician considers second intentions applied to first intentions, according to Avicenna). Therefore the first understanding is of the nature without any mode being understood along with it, either the mode that belongs to it in the intellect or the mode that belongs to it outside the intellect; and although the mode in which that understanding is understood is universality yet it is not a mode of that understanding.

34. And just as, according to that existence [sc. existence in the intellect], the nature is not of itself universal, but universality is an accident of the nature according to its first idea, according to which idea the nature is object - so too in the thing outside [the intellect], where the nature exists along with singularity, the nature is not of itself determined to singularity but is naturally prior to the idea that contracts it down to that singularity; and insofar as it is naturally prior to what contracts it, there is no repugnance in its existing without what contracts it. And just as the object in the intellect did, according to the primacy and universality of it, have intelligible existence, so too the nature according to that entity has true real being outside the soul in the thing; and according to that entity it has the unity proportioned to it, which unity is indifferent to singularity, so that there is no repugnance in that unity’s being of itself posited as existing with some unity of singularity (so this is how I understand ‘nature has a real unity less than numerical unity’); and although it not have the unity of singularity of itself, so that such unity be internal to the idea of the nature (because ‘horseness is just horseness’, as Avicenna says in Metaphysics 5 [n.31]), yet that unity is a proper accident of the nature according to its first entity, and consequently the nature is not of itself a ‘this’, either intrinsically or according to the proper entity necessarily included in the nature according to its first entity.

35. But against this [n.34, about the indetermination and indifference of nature to singularity] there seem to be two objections:

One, that it seems to posit that the universal is something real in the thing (which is against the Commentator [Averroes] in On the Soul 1 comm.8,“It is shown by this that Aristotle does not think that definitions of genus and species are definitions of universal things existing outside the soul, but definitions of particular things outside the intellect; but the intellect - which acts - creates in them universality; and it is as if he said: and the being of definitions is not attributed to species and genus such that those universal things exist outside the intellect. For either the universal living thing or animal is altogether nothing, or, if some universal thing is a per se being, its being is posterior to the being of sensibles; and he said this because it appears here that definitions are of the sensible things existing outside the intellect, and then either there are no universal things existing per se, the way Plato used to say, or, if there are, their being is not necessary to the understanding of sensible things.” ⁴⁷ when he says that ‘the intellect makes universality in things, so that universality does not exist save through the intellect’, and thus universality is just a being of reason) - for although the nature as it is a being in this stone is naturally prior to the singularity of the stone, yet, from what was said [n.34], it is indifferent to this singular and to that [sc. and such indifference is a mark of universality].

36. Further, Damascene Orthodox Faith ch.8 n.16 says, “It must be borne in mind that it is one thing to be considered in reality and another to be considered in reason and thought. So, and more particularly, the division of hypostases [supposits] in the case of any creature is considered in reality (for Peter is considered in reality as separate from Paul), but commonness and union are considered only in the intellect, reason, and thought (for we understand by the intellect that Peter and Paul belong to one nature and have one common nature); . .for neither do these hypostases exist in one another, but each is divided one by one, that is, separated in reality.” And later [ch.8 n.17], “However, in the holy and supersubstantial Trinity it is contrariwise; for there what is common is considered one in reality, ...but afterwards in thought it is considered divided.”

37. As to the first [n.35], I say that a universal in act is that which has some indifferent unity, according to which the identically same universal is in proximate potency to being stated of any supposit whatever, because, according to the Philosopher Posterior Analytics 1.4.73b26-33, a ‘universal’ is what is a one in many and of many. For nothing in reality - according to any unity - is such that according to that precise unity it is in proximate potency for any supposit by a predication stating ‘this is this’; because, although there is no repugnance for something existing in reality to be in a singularity other than the one it is in [n.34], yet this something cannot truly be stated of any inferior beneath it, that ‘anything whatever is this’; for this is only possible of an object the same in number actually considered by the intellect - which object indeed ‘as understood’ has also the numerical unity of an object, according to which it is, as identically the same, predicable of every singular, by saying that ‘this is this’.

38. Hereby is evident the refutation of the statement that ‘the agent intellect creates universality in things’ [n.35, cf. Scotus On the Soul q.17 n.14] on the ground that one can say of any ‘what it is’ existing in a phantasm that it is such that being in something else is not repugnant to it, and on the ground that there is a denuding [Henry of Ghent, Quodlibet 8 q.12, 13 q.8] of the ‘what is’ existing in the phantasm - for whenever a ‘what is’ exists beforehand in the possible intellect, it has objective being, either in reality or in a phantasm, or it has a being that is definite or deduced through reason (and thus not through any [intelligible] light, but it is always of itself a nature of such sort that being in another is not repugnant to it); but it is not of such sort that being said of anything whatever belongs to it in proximate potency, but only in the possible intellect is it in [such] proximate potency.

There is then in reality a ‘common thing’ that is not of itself a ‘this’, and consequently ‘non-this’ is not repugnant to it of itself. But such a common thing is not a universal in act, because there is lacking to it the indifference by which a universal is a completed universal, namely the indifference by which the common thing, being identically the same by some identity, is predicable of any individual, such that any individual is it.

39. To the second objection - from Damascene [n.36] - I say that what is common in creatures is not really one in the way that what is common in divine reality is really one. For in divine reality what is common is singular and individual, because the very divine nature is of itself a ‘this’, and it is manifest that in this way no universal in creatures is really one; for to posit this would be to posit that some undivided created nature was predicated of many individuals by a predication stating that ‘this is this’, just as it is said that the Father is God and the Son is the same God. But in creatures there is some common thing one by a real unity less than numerical unity, and this ‘common thing’ is not so common that it is predicable of many, although it is so common that its being in something other than what it is in is not repugnant to it.

40. So it is plain in two ways how the authority [of Damascene] is not against me: first because he is speaking of the unity of singularity in divine reality, and in this way not only is the created universal not one but it is also not common in creatures [or: the common in creatures is not one]; second because he is speaking of a common predicable, not precisely of a common that is determinate in fact (even though being in another is not repugnant to it), and a common of this sort can be precisely posited really in creatures.

II. To the Principal Argument

41. And from what has been said the answer to the principal argument [n.2] is plain, that the Philosopher is rejecting the invention that he imputes to Plato, namely because ‘this man’ existing per se - which is posited to be the Idea - cannot be per se universal to every man, because ‘every substance existing per se is proper to that in which it is’, that is: either it is of itself proper or it is made proper by something contracting it and, once this something contracting it is posited, it cannot be in anything else, even though being in something else is not repugnant to it of itself - and this gloss is certainly true when speaking of substance as it is taken for nature; and then it follows that the Idea will not be the substance of Socrates because it is not even the nature of Socrates - for the Idea is neither proper of itself nor made so proper to Socrates that it exists only in him, but it exists also, according to Plato, in someone else. But if substance is taken for first substance, then it is true that any substance is of itself proper to that to which it belongs, and then it much more follows that the Idea - which is posited as a ‘substance existing per se’ - cannot be in that way the substance of Socrates or of Plato; but the first member [sc. substance as taken for nature] suffices for the conclusion.

III. To the Confirmation of the Opinion

42. As to the confirmation of the opinion [n.6], it is plain that commonness and singularity are not related to nature as existence in the intellect and true existence outside the soul are related, because commonness belongs to nature outside the intellect as likewise does singularity - and commonness belongs of itself to nature while singularity belongs to nature through something in reality that contracts nature, but universality does not belong to reality of itself. And so I concede that one must look for a cause of universality, but one must not look for a cause of commonness other than nature itself; and once commonness is posited in nature according to its proper entity and unity, then one must necessarily look for a cause of singularity, a cause that super-adds something to the nature to which it belongs [sc. which cause is what is looked for in the following sections, nn.43-211].

Question Two. Whether Material Substance is of itself Individual through Some Positive Intrinsic thing

43. I ask second whether material substance is of itself individual through some positive intrinsic thing.a

a.a [Interpolation] Argument about the second, namely whether material substance is individual through some positive intrinsic thing.

44. That it is not:

Because ‘one’ states only privation of division in the thing itself and privation of its identity with something else; therefore, since singularity or individuation only states a double negation, there is no need to look for something positive as its cause but negation suffices.

45. The proof of the first proposition here is that if ‘one’ were to state a positive idea, it would not state the same idea as ‘being’ states (for then it would be otiose to say ‘being is one’); nor does it state an idea other than ‘being’, because then in any being there would be an entity added to an entity, which seems unacceptable.

46. On the contrary:

Primary substance is generated per se (from Metaphysics 7.6.1033a24-b19) and operates per se (Metaphysics 1.1.981a16-19), and in this respect it is distinguished from secondary substance, to which neither of these per se belongs; therefore they belong to primary substance through what primary substance adds above secondary substance. But they do not belong to anything formally through negation; therefore primary substance does not just add negation to secondary substance [n.53].

I. To the Question

A. The Opinion of Henry of Ghent

47. Here the statement is made that individuation in created things is done by double negation - see this opinion in [Henry] Quodlibet 5 q.8. “It is necessary then that the cause of individuation be something negative or positive-relative; but not positive-relative, because the relation would necessarily be founded on the thing itself as made and so as determinate in a supposit; so the cause must be some negative condition. One must therefore say that in specific created forms...the reason for individuation...is negation, whereby the form itself., as it is the term of the making, is made altogether undivided in the supposit and individual and singular by privation of all divisibility (per se and per accidens), and divided from any other thing whatever. This negation, indeed, is not simple but double, because it is a remover of all multiplicability and diversity from within and of all identity from without. And this double negation altogether formally determines the idea of the form, by which determination an absolute supposit over and above the essence of the form is constituted. Thus, therefore, only by the determination of negation as to form.does the individuation and constitution of a supposit come, as by its formal idea, completely to be.” ⁴⁸

48. But against this opinion:

First I expound the meaning of the questions moved about this matter [sc. the six listed in the interpolation to n.1, and dealt with at nn.1, 43, 59, 66, 129, 142]; for I am not asking by what a nature is singular or individual if these terms signify a second intention (for then a nature would exist by a second intention formally and exist effectively by the intellect causing that second intention, namely by its bringing ‘this nature’ to ‘nature’ as a subject-able to a predicable); and I am also not asking about the real numerical unity whereby a nature is one in this way (for a thing is formally one by numerical unity, whether the unity converts with being or is in the genus of quantity or states a privation or something positive); but, because there is in entities something incapable of division into subjective parts, that is, something ‘to which its being divided into several things, each of which things is it, is formally repugnant’, the question being asked is not whereby it is formally repugnant (because it is formally repugnant by repugnance), but by what, as by proximate and intrinsic foundation, this repugnance is in an entity. Therefore the meaning of the questions about this matter is ‘what is it in this stone by which, as by proximate foundation, its being divided into several things each of which is it is simply repugnant’ - which division is the sort proper to a whole universal into its subjective parts.

49. Understanding the questions in this way, then, I prove that there is not anything formally individual in the way this position [n.47] seems to posit.

First, because nothing is simply repugnant to any being through a mere privation in it but through something positive in it; therefore being divided into subjective parts is not repugnant to a stone - in that a stone is a certain thing - through any negations.

50. Proof of the antecedent: because however much negation may take away the proximate potency for acting and undergoing, so that thereby the being which the negation is in is not in proximate potency to anything - yet it does not posit in that being a formal repugnance to anything, for, when the negations are removed, possibly or impossibly (since they do not exist), such a being would stand along with the opposite of the negations, and so along with what it is said to be repugnant to, which is impossible.

An example of this: if a substance be understood to be a non-quantum, it is not divisible (that is, it is not able by proximate potency to be divided), yet being divided is not repugnant to it, because then receiving a quantity would be repugnant to it, a quantity by which it could be formally divided; therefore, while the nature of the same bodily substance stands, being divisible is not repugnant to it. Likewise: if ‘not having sight’ takes away the proximate potency for seeing, yet it does not create a repugnance to seeing, because the positive nature (where this negation was) can stand, and the opposite of the negation can, without repugnance on the part of the nature, be present in it.

51. So can it be argued in the issue at hand: although he [sc. Henry] posits nature to be ‘of itself one and individual’,Quodlibet 5 q.8, “Now there is another form which, as to thing and nature, is one and undivided in itself, and it is divided from a different form in the way that, with nothing formal being added to it, it subsists in supposits - the way it is the form of any most specific species, whose unity is only according to reason; ‘undivided’ I say, as far as concerns it of itself, in respect of subjective parts... But any specific form does not of itself and by its nature admit division into supposits but is simple, and it exists whole in whatever it exists in;” “An individual form (as humanity or ass-ness) is of itself and by its nature simple and indivisible, in that of itself and by its nature it does not have parts that differ in form, the way the form of a genus does - which differs in this respect from the form of a species, that the form of a genus.of itself and by its nature is divided through parts that differ in form, and it does not have a natural unity of itself but only according to reason and conception of the intellect; but the form of a species is of itself and by the nature of species individual in form, having of itself a unity terminated at the same time in the being of nature and in the intellect.” ⁴⁹ yet never will being formally divided be repugnant to nature through some negation posited in it, and so never will there be in things any positive being that will be completely individual.

52. And if an instance is in any way made against the first proposition of this argument [n.49], I will at least assume this proposition: ‘no imperfection is repugnant to anything formally save because of some perfection’, which perfection is some positive thing and a positive entity; but ‘to be divided’ is an imperfection (and for that reason it cannot belong to the divine nature); therefore etc.

53. Again, a thing is not by a negation formally constituted in a more perfect entity than is the entity presupposed by the negation (otherwise the negation would be formally some positive entity); but primary substance (according to the Philosopher in Categories 5.2a11-15) is most of all substance, and is also more substance than is secondary substance; therefore primary substance, insofar as it is distinguished from secondary substance, is not constituted formally in the entity of primary substance by negation [n.46].

54. Again, that of which a singular is the singular is predicated of the singular in the first per se mode of predication; but of some being taken under negation no entity is per se said by reason of the whole subject, because the whole is not per se one (if it is said by reason of a part, then a superior is not being predicated of an inferior but the same thing of itself).

55. Further, although this position [of Henry, n.47] seems to be false in itself because of the arguments already given [nn.49-54], yet, if the individual is understood to be constituted in the entity and unity of singularity through negation, the position seems altogether superfluous and not to respond to the question, because even when it is posited the same question remains:

For about the double negation that it posits I ask what the reason is that the negation belongs to the thing. If the position says that this double negation is the per se cause, no response is made to the question; for the question is what makes the opposites of these negations to be repugnant, and consequently what makes these negations to be present in the thing.

56. Likewise I ask where the negation comes from, since it is of the same idea in this thing and in that thing. For just as there is a double negation in Socrates, so there is a negation of a double idea in Plato; why then is Socrates singular by this singularity (a proper and determinate singularity) and not by the singularity of Plato? It is impossible to say unless one finds what this negation is a negation by, and this cannot be anything other than something positive.

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

57. I concede then the conclusions of these arguments [nn.49-56], that the repugnance in this stone for being divided into subjective parts must be through something positive as through a proper reason; and this positive thing will be what is said to be the per se cause of individuation, because by individuation I understand the indivisibility, or the repugnance to divisibility.

II. To the Principal Argument

58. To the argument for the opposite [n.44]:

Although the assumption [sc. ‘that ‘one’ states only privation of division in the thing itself and privation of its identity with something else’] is perhaps false (about which elsewhere [not in the Ordinatio; see Metaphysics 4 q.2 nn.2, 4, 7, 9, 13; 7 q.3 n.17]), yet, if it were true that ‘one’ signified formally that double negation, it does not follow that the double negation does not have some positive cause whereby it is present in a thing - for specific unity would by parity of reason signify double negation, and yet no one would deny that there is a positive entity in the idea of a specific entity, from which positive entity the idea of the specific difference is taken. And this is a good argument for the solution of the question and for the opinion [sc. Scotus’ solution and opinion] because, since in any unity less than numerical unity there is a positive entity given (which is the per se reason for the unity and for its repugnance to the opposed manyness), a positive entity will be most of all - or equally - given in the most perfect unity, which is numerical unity.

Question Three. Whether Material Substance is Individual, or the Reason for Individuating Another, through Actual Existence

59. I ask third, without arguments, whether material substance is individual, or the reason for individuating another, through actual existence.

I. The Opinion of Others

60. The statement is made that it is,a because, from Metaphysics 7.13.1039a3-7, ‘act determines and distinguishes’, so ultimate distinction is through ultimate act; but the ultimate act of individuals is according to the being of existence, because anything other than this is understood to be in potency to it.

a.a [Interpolation] About the third, namely whether material substance is individual through actual existence or whether something else is the reason for individuating, without arguments; the statement is made that material substance is individual and singular through actual existence.

II. Rejection of the Opinion

61. Against this:

First, because what is not distinct or determinate of itself cannot be the first distinguisher or determiner of something else; but the being of existence, in the way it is distinguished from the being of essence, is not distinct or determinate of itself (for the being of existence does not have its own differences besides the differences of the being of essence, because then one would have to posit a proper ordering for existences other than the ordering for essences), but the being of existence is determined precisely by the other’s determination; therefore it does not determine anything else.

62. On this basis one can argue in another way: because that which presupposes the determinateness and distinctness of something else is not the reason for distinguishing and determining itself; but existence, as it is determinate and distinct, presupposes the order and distinctness of essences; therefore etc.

63. And if it be said that existence presupposes every distinctness other than the one that is for individuals, but that it causes the distinctness that is as it were for an individual - on the contrary: in the ordering in a category there exist, when whatever is no part of the ordering is removed, all the things that per se pertain to the ordering, because, according to the Philosopher in Posterior Analytics 1.20.82a21-24, ‘in any category a stand is made upwards and downwards’. Therefore just as the highest in a genus is found precisely by considering it under the idea of essence, so the intermediate genera and species and differences are found in this way; the lowest, namely the singular, is also found there, with actual existence altogether removed - as is plainly evident, because ‘this man’ does not formally include actual existence any more than ‘man’ does.

64. Further, there is the same question about existence - by what and how it is contracted so as to be a ‘this’ - as there is about nature, for if the specific nature is the same in several individuals, it has an existence in them of the same idea: following the way the proof that specific nature is not a ‘this’ goes in the solution to the first question [nn.29-30], it can in the same way be asked what existence is a ‘this’ by (because it is not of itself a ‘this’), and so to give existence as what nature is a ‘this’ by is not sufficient.

III. To the Argument for the Opinion

65. On this basis I say to the argument for the opinion [n.60] that act distinguishes in the way it is act, but accidental act distinguishes accidentally, just as essential act distinguishes essentially. Accordingly I say that the ultimate distinction in ordering in a category is individual distinction, and individual distinction is through an ultimate act pertaining per se to the ordering in the category - and therefore I concede that this act distinguishes ultimately, but by a distinction that is outside the whole per se ordering in the category. This distinction is as it were somehow accidental; even though it is not truly accidental, yet it is subsequent to the whole of the ordering by quidditative being; in the way then that it is act it distinguishes, and in the way it is ultimate act it ultimately distinguishes.

Question Four. Whether Material Substance is Individual or Singular through Quantity

66. I ask fourth whether material substance is individual or singular through quantity.a

a.a [Interpolation] About the fourth, namely whether material substance is individual through quantity, argument is made:

67. That it is:

Boethius On the Trinity ch.1, “Variety of accidents makes a difference in number, for three men do not differ in their genus or species but in their accidents; for if we separate in our mind, for example, all the accidents, still the place for them all is diverse, and we can in no way imagine one place for two; for two bodies will not occupy one place, which is an accident, and therefore they [sc. the three men] are numerically many to the extent the accidents [sc. the places of the three men] are many.” And the first among all accidents is quantity, which is even what ‘in place’ seems specifically to express (when we say that ‘we cannot imagine the same place’), and place belongs to bodies insofar as they have quantity.

68. Further, Damascene Elementary Introduction to Dogmas ch.4 (not counting the preface): “Everything in which a hypostasis differs from an hypostasis of the same species is said to be a difference from without and a characteristic property and a hypostatic quality; now this is an accident, in just the way that one man differs from another man because one is tall and the other short.”

69. Further, Avicenna Metaphysics 5.2 f.87va says, “A nature which lacks matter - to the being of this there come, from without, accidents and dispositions, by which accidents it is individuated.”

70. On the contrary:

Primary substance, as is argued for the second question [n.46], is per se generated and per se operates, and this insofar as it is distinguished from secondary substance, to which these features do not per se belong. But they do not belong to accidental being; as concerns ‘generated’ the point is plain from Metaphysics 6.2.1026b22-24; as concerns ‘operate’ the point is also plain, because one thing acting per se is one per se being, and this in one order of cause.

I. To the Question

A. The Opinion of Others

Exposition of the Opinion

71. Here the answer to the question is said to be yes, namely that material substance is singular and individual through quantity.Thomas Aquinas, Giles of Rome, Godfrey of Fontaines. Aquinas SG IV ch.65: “Now wherever there is understood a diversity of parts of the same species, there individuation is necessarily understood; for things that are of one species are not multiplied save by individuality. And because dimensive quantity possesses of its idea that whereby a multiplication of individuals in the same species can take place, the first root for this sort of multiplication seems to come from dimension; because even in the genus of substance multiplication happens by division of matter, and this can only be understood according as matter is considered under dimensions; for, once quantity is removed, every substance is indivisible, as is plain from the Philosopher Physics 1.2.185a32-b5.” ⁵⁰

72. And for this the following sort of reason is put forward,Godfrey of Fontaines Quodlibet 7 q.5: “For it belongs to quantity to be thus divided [into parts of the same idea, as a line into many parts of the same idea], and to be the reason of dividing for every substance in which it is; hence just as this per se belongs to quantity, so it belongs to matter insofar as matter is extended - and consequently to everything that thus in matter has existence through quantity it belongs also to have substantial parts of the same idea, insofar as through quantity the substance of matter is truly extended and truly divisible and is made to be divided. For it is clear that in two individuals there are two quantities essentially and formally differing from each other in the genus of quantity, though such that, for these two quantities thus to differ from each other, there is not presupposed anything else by which they thus have to be divided or extended save only a subject ‘in which’; but, for two substantial forms thus to differ formally from each other, there is something else presupposed whereby the matter (in which such extended and divisible forms exist) has extended and divisible being;” “composites of substance and accidents...are not one per se but per accidens.” ⁵¹ that what belongs first and per se to something belongs to any other thing whatever by reason of that something; but substance and quantity do not make a per se one but only a per accidens one; therefore, singularity will belong to that among these to which first and per se belongs divisibility into parts of the same idea; of this sort is quantity, because it has of itself the capacity to be divided infinitely (Metaphysics 5.13.1020a7-8); therefore what belongs to quantity first and per se does not belong to anything else save by reason of quantity. Such is the division of a species into its individuals, because these dividers [sc. individuals] are not formally of a different idea the way the species are that divide a genus. - But from this further [Godfrey]:Ibid.: “The aforesaid are plain from the description of quantity in Metaphysics 5, where it is said that ‘a quantum is what is divisible into the things that are in it, each one of which is of a nature to be each a single one-something and a this-something’. From which it is plain that neither quantity nor substance are per se divided but the composite which is a quantum; but yet this divisibility belongs to the composite by reason of quantity, since what is formal in a quantum as it is a quantum (which is here being defined) is quantity. And the divisibility is into parts of the same idea, because the parts that are in some one quantum (as it is a quantum) are of the same idea, because they are of the same species and form; which parts, indeed, when they are actually divided, are diverse individuals in the same species - for, as Aristotle says, each one of such things ‘is of a nature to be each a single one-something and a this-something’; but primary substance, which is an individual in the genus of substance, is one something and a this-something.” ⁵² to be divisible into parts of the same idea belongs to something by reason of quantity (from Metaphysics 5 above), and quantity is the principle of division in any nature and the principle of distinction between divided things; therefore it is by quantity that individuals are individually divided from each other. And from this the conclusion is drawn that division into individuals, individuals to which there belongs such a distinction, belongs to a thing through quantity; therefore an individual is an individual through quantity.

73. Further,Aquinas, SG 2 ch.49 arg.3: “The principle of the diversity of individuals of the same species is the division of matter according to quantity; for the form of this fire does not differ from the form of that fire save by the fact that it is in the diverse parts into which the matter is divided - and divided not otherwise than by division of quantity, without which a substance is indivisible; but what is received in a body is received in it according to division of quantity; therefore only form as individuated is received in a body.” Ibid., chs.80-81 ad 2: “For it is clear that the essence of the form of this fire is different from the essence of the form of that fire, and yet there is not in species a different fire or a different form.” ⁵³ this fire does not differ from that fire save because form differs from form, and form does not differ from form save because it is received in different parts of matter, nor does one part of matter differ from another save because it is under a different part of quantity; therefore the whole distinction of this fire from that fire is reduced to quantity as to the first distinguishing thing.

74. There is confirmation of this argumentGodfrey, Quodlibet 7 q.5: “Hence it is said in Metaphysics 7, “There is a diverse species (that is, form) in the generator and generated because of matter’ (the Commentator, ‘the cause of a multitude of things able to be generated by one generator is the multiplication of the matters on which the agent acts’). But since matter in itself is one and indivisible, it seems that the causality of such division and distinction or individuation should not be attributed to the matter in itself, but must be attributed to it as it is understood under quantity, from which it has extension and divisibility into parts of the same idea etc.” Ibid., 11 q.3: “Again, because matter is not susceptible of several forms in succession save through change, but because matter is not changeable save as it is presupposed to be extended and divisible in quantity (otherwise something indivisible could be changed and moved), and because too the generator generates something else because of a different matter and from a different matter, and because matter does not have this without quantity - therefore, just as matter must precede before the substantial form is introduced through generation, so also must quantity too be presupposed. And this quantity [according to Averroes Substance of the Orb ch.1] is called indeterminate...namely because of itself it does not determine for itself a form to be corrupted or even to generated, because, when the form to be corrupted is corrupted, the quantity itself does not seem to be corrupted, and, when the form to be generated is generated, the quantity does not seem to be generated; but just as the matter remains in substance under both terms, so too the same quantity seems in some way to remain. And for the same reason one should suppose an indeterminate quantity in matter, because just as a thing is not changed save because it is under a contrary, so it is not changed save because it is a quantum.” ⁵⁴ in that a generator does not generate another save because of distinctness of matter; but the matter of the thing generated is necessarily presupposed as a quantum and a quantum under distinct quantity; that it is presupposed as a quantum is plain, because a natural agent cannot act on a non-quantum; that it is presupposed as a quantum with a different quantity from the generator is also plain, because it cannot be a quantum with the quantity of the generator. But this quantity of the thing generated naturally precedes the being of the thing generated, therefore it precedes also the distinction of the generator and the generated; but it would not naturally precede this distinction if it were not naturally and per se required as the distinguisher of the thing generated; therefore etc.

2. Rejection of the Opinion

75. Against this conclusion [n.71] I argue in four ways: first from the identity of numerical idea or of individuation or singularity; second from the order of substance to accidents; third from the idea of ordering in a category - and these three ways will prove in common that no accident can per se be the reason whereby material substance is individuated; the fourth way will be specifically against quantity as concerns the conclusion of the opinion [n.71] and argument will, fifthly, be made specifically against the reasons for the opinion [n.72-73].

a. The First Way: from the Identity of Individuation or Singularity

76. As concerns the first way I expound first what I understand by individuation or numerical unity or singularity. I do not indeed understand an indeterminate unity (by which anything whatever in a species is said to be one in number), but designated unity (as a ‘this’), such that, just as it was said before [n.48] that it is incompossible for an individual to be divided into subjective parts and that what is being asked for is the reason for this incompossibility, so I say that it is incompossible for an individual not to be a ‘this’ designated by this singularity, and that what is being asked for is not the cause of singularity in general but of ‘this’ singularity in particular, designated singularity, namely as it is determinately a ‘this’.

77. Understanding singularity in this manner I give, in the first way, two arguments:

First as follows: an actually existing substance, not changed by any substantial change, cannot become a non-this from a this, because this singularity - according to what was just said [n.76] - cannot be different in the same substance while the substance remains the same and is not substantially changed; but an actually existing substance, when no substantial change has been made in it or altered, can, without contradiction, be under a different quantity and under any different absolute accident whatever; therefore by no such accident is it formally ‘this substance’ with this designated singularity.

78. The minor premise is plain, because there is no contradiction in a substance quantified by this quantity being conserved by God and informed with another quantity; nor will this actually existing substance be, for this reason, changed by any substantial change, because there will be no change save from quantity to quantity. Likewise, if the substance is changed by any accident, it will not be changed with any substantial change; whether this is possible or impossible, it will not for this reason be formally not-this.

79. And if you say that this is a miracle and so is not conclusive against natural reason - on the contrary: there is no miracle in respect of contradictories, for which there is no potency. But it is a contradiction for the same abiding substance to be two substances without substantial change, and this both successively and at once - but this result however follows if a substance were formally ‘this substance’ by some accident; for then, when accident succeeds to accident, the same unchanged substance would be two substances in succession.

80. There is confirmation also for this through a likeness about specific unity, because it is impossible for one abiding substance - not substantially changed - to be at once or successively this species and not this species; therefore by likeness in the case of the issue at hand.

81. Second as follows: of two productions complete in substantial being there cannot be the same first term (the proof is that then each of the two would receive perfect substantial being from the fact the other of the two is complete, and so the same thing would be produced in completeness twice, - and also, if the two productions were not simultaneous, the same per se and actually existing substance would be produced when it already actually exists; so at least in the case of two successive productions the term cannot be the same). But ‘this bread’ was the first term of a generation of bread, and the transubstantiated bread exists with the same abiding quantity; so let another bread be created and affected with the abiding quantity - the consequence is that the term of the creation will be ‘this bread’, the same as the bread that was the term of the generation, because the former bread will be ‘this’ with the numerically same singularity as the latter bread was ‘this’; the consequence also is that ‘this bread’ is the same when transubstantiated and when non-transubstantiated - indeed the consequence is that no bread is transubstantiated (because universal bread is not, and ‘this bread’, the singular, is not, because, ex hypothesi [n.71], this bread remains when the quantity, by which it was formally ‘this’, is unchanged); therefore nothing altogether is transubstantiated into the body of Christ, which is a heretical thing to say.

b. The Second Way: from the Order of Substance to Accidents

82. From the second way I argue as follows: substance is naturally prior to every accident, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 7.1.1028a10-b2. And his intention concerns the substance that is one of the dividers of being [sc. into categories], so that to expound ‘substance’ there of God or the first substance is not relevant to his intention. For he proves that substance is first in the way he proves that substance is of the number of the dividers of being - that it is prior to every accident, namely such that, in order to determine everything that divides being, it suffices to determine substance as what is first, because the knowledge of accidents is had from the fact they are attributed to substance; but this is only to the purpose about substance in its whole ordering; for nothing posterior to this ordering can be the formal reason whereby something is in that ordering. Therefore, from the idea of the priority of substance universally, as it is something common, sufficient determination is made about the ordering that is the ordering of primary substance, to which this natural priority to any accident belongs; so being a ‘this’ naturally prior to its determination by any accident belongs to primary substance in its idea.

83. And the consequence can be confirmed, because when something is prior to something else, the maximally first of that something is prior to the something else; but the maximally first in substance in general is primary substance; therefore primary substance is simply prior to every accident, and so it is first a ‘this’ before it is determined in any way by anything else.

84. Here it is said [by Godfrey of Fontaines] that although primary substance is prior to quantity in existing yet not in dividing - just as also secondary substance is prior in entity but not in divisibility.

85. On the contrary:

This response destroys itself, because if primary substance is naturally prior to quantity in existing, and if primary substance cannot be understood in its existence unless it be understood as it is a ‘this’, then it is not prior in existing unless it is prior as a ‘this’; therefore it is not a ‘this’ by quantity.

86. Further, form is prior simply to the composite, according to the Philosopher’s proof Metaphysics 7.2.1029a507. Therefore if quantity is the form of primary substance insofar as it is primary substance, then quantity will be simply prior in being to primary substance - because if quantity is not the form in being, then it is not the form in dividing either, or in the unity that belongs to primary substance insofar as primary substance is such a being (for any entity is followed by its proper unity, which unity does not have any other proper cause of itself than the cause of entity).

87. Further, substance, in the way that it is the subject for every accident, is naturally prior to every accident. For, insofar as it is the subject, it is proved to be prior in definition to every accident, for it is by way of addition thus posited in the order of any definition; but as it is the subject it is ‘this substance’, because, according to the Philosopher Physics 2.3.195b25-26 and Metaphysics 1.1.981a16-19, singulars are causes of singulars (in any genus of cause), so a singular subject is cause of a singular accident. And there is an especial confirmation of this as to an accident in an accident, because that is present first in a singular, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.9.1017b35-1018a3 , ch. ‘On the Same’.

88. Further, everything that is prior in nature to something else is prior to it in duration, in the way that - as far as concerns it of itself - there is in it no repugnance of contradiction in its being able to be prior in duration to its posterior; for priority of nature universally includes in the prior thing the ability, without contradiction, to exist in the absence of its posterior, from Metaphysics 5.11.1019a2-4 ch. ‘On the Prior’. Therefore any substance (as far as concerns itself) can, without contradiction, exist prior in duration to any accident, and thus prior to quantity.

c. The Third Way: from the Idea of Ordering within a Category

89. From the third way I argue thus: in any ordering in a category are all the things pertaining to that ordering, after removal of anything else whatever that is not essentially part of the ordering (the proof of this is that two orderings are primarily diverse, and so nothing of one ordering is the sort it is through the ordering of the other); but to the ordering as it is complete both upwards and downwards (according to the Philosopher Posterior Analytics 1. 20.82a21-24 [n.63]), just as there belongs to it the first predicate of which nothing is predicated, so there belongs to it the lowest subject for which nothing is subject; therefore the singular or the individual exists in any ordering by nothing in any other ordering.

90. Further second: in any ordering, after removal of everything whatever of another ordering, there exists the idea of species - for no opinion imagines that a species is in some genus by reason of an accident, speaking of absolute things; but it is of the idea of a species that it is predicable of several things differing in number; therefore in any ordering there can be found something intrinsically, individual and singular, of which the species is predicated - or at any rate there can be found something ‘not predicable of many’ (otherwise, if nothing of this sort can be subject, then nothing in this ordering will be a most specific species, in whose idea is contained that it can be predicate).

91. Further third: the lowest that can be a subject and is a subject receives per se the predication of any predicable whatever, just as the first predicable is predicated per se of any predicate in the ordering whatever; but a per accidens being, insofar as it is per accidens, receives the predication per se of nothing; therefore the lowest thing that can be subject cannot be a per accidens being (a per accidens being is an aggregate of things of diverse genera, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.6.1015b16-36, ch. ‘On One’).

92. Further fourth: when something is precisely of a nature to belong to something according to some idea, then, whatever it belongs to essentially according to that idea, it belongs to simply and essentially according to that idea; but to be a universal in the ordering of the genus of substance belongs to something precisely insofar as it is part of that ordering, after removal of everything that is part of another ordering; therefore, what ‘commonness’ essentially belongs to insofar as it is part of the ordering, belongs to it simply and essentially. But however much it is contracted by something of another genus, nothing about it pertaining to its own ordering is taken away; for however much Socrates is determined by white or black (to which he was in potency), Socrates is not more determinately in the genus of substance than he was before, because he was before a ‘this’. Therefore, however much a nature in the genus of substance is posited to be contracted down to individuals by something of another genus, the nature will remain formally common (contracted just as when not contracted) - and therefore to posit that something common becomes an individual by what is of another genus is to posit that it is common and individual or singular at the same time.

93. So as to flee, perhaps, from the arguments of these two ways [nn.82, 89-92], the position about quantity is held in another manner [Giles of Rome, Godfrey of Fontaines]: namely in this manner, that just as the extension of the matter is different in nature from the nature of the quantity of the matter and adds nothing over and above the essence of matter, so the designation of the matter, which the matter has causally through quantity, is different from the designation of the quantity, being naturally prior to the designation that matter has through quantity; and this designation is different from the designation that belongs to quantity, but it is not different from substance - so that, just as matter does not have parts though the nature of quantity (because a part of matter is matter), so designated substance is only substance (for ‘designation’ only states a mode of disposition of substance).

94. To the contrary. This position seems to include contradictories in two ways.

First, because it is impossible for anything dependent naturally on a posterior to be the same naturally as a prior, because it would be both prior and not prior; but substance, for them, is prior naturally to quantity; therefore anything pre-requiring, in whatever way, the nature of quantity cannot be the same as substance. So it is not the case that this designation is a designation of substance and yet is caused by quantity.

95. Proof of the major: where there is a true and real identity (even if it is not formal), there it is impossible for the one to be and the other not to be, because then the really same thing would both be and not be; but it is possible for the naturally prior to be without the naturally posterior; therefore, and as a result, much more so without that which remains from, or is caused by, the natural posterior.

96. Further, that which is necessarily a condition of the cause in its causing cannot be possessed by the thing caused, because then the cause - insofar as it is sufficient for causing - would be caused by the caused, and the caused would be the cause of itself and would, to this extent, be able to give to the cause its own causation; but singularity - or singular designation - is a necessary condition in a substance for causing a quantity, because (as argued [n.87]) a caused singular requires a singular cause; therefore it is impossible for the designation of a designated substance or of a singular to be from a singular quantity (or to be from the caused) and not from the substance insofar as the substance is singular.

97. Further, what is it for quantity to leave remaining, or to cause, such a mode of being in a substance? If it is nothing but what was present before in the quantity, then in no way is the designation through quantity, because the designation simply of substance would naturally precede quantity. - But if it is something else, I ask how it is caused by quantity and in what genus of cause? The only genus it seems possible to assign is that of efficient cause; but quantity is not an active form; therefore etc.

98. Further, why does quantity leave such a mode remaining in the substance, the same really as the substance, more than quality does, like whiteness? There seems to be no reason, because just as whiteness itself is a form in the surface and is so without the mediation of any other form that is left remaining, so it seems that quantity is a form in the substance whereby the substance is a quantum and never leaves any other form remaining.

d. The Fourth Way: on the Part of Quantity

99. From the fourth way I argue as follows: the quantity by which a substance is a ‘this’, so designated, is either a terminated quantity or a non-terminated quantity. It is not a terminated quantity because this follows the being of the form in the matter and, consequently, the singularity of the substance - because if substance is the cause of quantity as terminated, ‘this substance’ is the cause of the quantity as it is ‘this terminated quantity’. If non-terminated quantity is the cause of this substance being a ‘this’ - on the contrary, this quantity, namely non-terminated quantity, remains the same in a body when generated and when corrupted; therefore it is not the cause of any designation of terminated quantity.

100. If you say that the consequence does not hold, because quantity is not posited as the cause of singularity save on the presupposition of specific unity, but a body when generated and corrupted is not of the same species - on the contrary: I posit that from water first fire is generated, and second from fire water is generated. There is the same quantity in the first water corrupted and in the second water generated - and not just nonterminated quantity but also terminated quantity, because it can have from the form the same term; or at any rate the same non-terminated quantity suffices, and that, for you, is the cause of singularity, on the presupposition of specific unity. Therefore the first water and the second water are numerically the same ‘this water’ - which seems impossible, because the numerically same individual is not made to return by natural action, from Physics 5.4.228a4-6 and On Generation 2.11.338b16-18.

101. Further, if quantity is what first individuates substance, then it itself - in itself - must be first ‘this quantity’ and numerically distinct of itself from ‘that quantity’, just as this substance is numerically distinct from that substance; but in that case your proposition is not true, namely that ‘every formal difference is specific difference’; for this quantity and that are forms, therefore they differ specifically.

102. And if you except from this fundamental proposition the quantity of a building going to ruin, how will formal difference be proved to be specific difference [nn.71-73 footnotes]?Tr. A building going to ruin does not differ from the unruined building in number (it is numerically the same building), but in quantity (its outline differs, for instance). So difference of quantity here cannot cause numerical difference, and so not specific difference either; but the quantity of something, however taken (its outline as in ruins or as unruined), is a form of the thing, namely an accidental form; therefore difference in form does not always cause difference in species. Aquinas and Godfrey [as quoted here and earlier by the Vatican editors] speak of two numerically differing lines as being two by difference of position, which is a difference of form. ⁵⁵ For any quantity adduced from the form will equally fit the proposition, since a quantity is a form just as also are the other categories.

103. And if you say, ‘on the contrary, quantity has of itself a determinate position, and it is by this distinct of itself from that quantity’ - on the contrary: of which position are you speaking? Either of predicamental position (which is one of the categories), and this category is naturally posterior to quantity.The ten categories follow in order of prior and posterior: substance, quantity, quality, relation, action, passion, position, having, where, when. Peter of Spain Logical Summaries tr.2 n.6. ⁵⁶ Or of position as it is a difference of quantity, insofar as a quantity is said to be made up of parts having position - and then the same question arises as before [n.101], namely why this position of this quantity differs from that position of that quantity; and this question is ‘how this quantity differs numerically from that’, and so it seems that you are assigning the idea to itself; for the fact that the permanent and continuous parts - within the very whole - are in themselves distinct from the permanent and continuous parts in the whole (and these two features, namely continuity and permanence, are included in position as position is a difference of quantity) - this fact is not more known than the fact that this quantity differs in itself from that quantity.

104. Further, all the arguments used against the opinion in the first question, to prove that flesh is not of itself a ‘this’ [nn.7-28], can be used the same to prove that quantity is not of itself a ‘this’; and it is manifest that the idea of line is of itself common to this line and to that, nor is there a greater contradiction in thinking of line under the idea of a universal than in thinking flesh so. And line even has some real unity less than numerical unity, just as flesh also has, on the ground of the same proofs as were set down in the second argument against the opinion of the first question [nn.8-28]. It is plain too that line and surface are of the same idea in this water and in that; why then is this water ‘this water’ and a singular? And I am not speaking of a vague and indeterminate singularity but of a designated and determinate one.

e. Against the Reasons for the Opinion

105. Against the reasons for the opinion [nn.72-73] I argue thus:

First against the first opinion [n.72], because quantity is not the reason for divisibility in individuals:

For whatever is the formal idea for any divisibility is formally in that which is divisible by this division; but quantity is not formally in a species as it is divisible into subjective parts; therefore it is not the formal idea for the divisibility of such a whole into such parts.

106. There is a confirmation for this argument, that a universal whole, which is divided into individuals and subjective parts, is predicated of any of those subjective parts (so that any subjective part is that universal [sc. as ‘animal’ is predicated of ‘horse’ and ‘man’ and of ‘this horse’ and ‘this man’]) - but quantitative parts, into which the division of a continuous whole is made, never receive the predication of the whole that is divided into them. And even if the division of a homogeneous whole into quantitative parts and the division of a species (or of a universal whole) go together, yet they are not divisions of the same divided whole, because a quantitative whole is divided by quantitative division and is not predicated of any of the parts dividing it, just as neither is a heterogeneous quantum predicated of the parts that divide it; for, universally, no quantitative part is the whole of which it is the part; but there goes, along with this, also the fact that there are many individuals possessing the same common being, and this common being is divided into individuals by another division; and the common being was not the quantum that was divided by quantitative division. There is then a different whole that is divided by this division and by that; and it is divided per accidens into the same parts, but formally into parts of different ideas, in respect of this [universal] whole and of that [quantitative] whole - because with respect to the latter the parts are integral parts, and with respect to the former they are subjective parts.Tr. Say, for example, that a line of 12 inches is divided into parts of 2 inches; each 2 inch part of the line is a line, or has the same universal whole (‘line’) predicated of it, but no part of the line is the whole quantity of the 12 inch line. ⁵⁷

107. And as for what is taken from the Philosopher [n.72], one must say that the Philosopher does not say that a quantity is divided into parts of the same idea, but that “a quantity is divisible into the things present in it, an individual of which, or each of which, is of a nature to be a thing and this thing.” He says ‘into the things present in it’ as the things that compose the whole they are in, and so not into subjective parts, which are not in it in this way; ‘each of which’ (if the division is into two) or ‘an individual of which’ (if the division is into several) ‘is of a nature to be a thing’, namely per se existing in the way that the whole is (because to the extent a thing is a quantitative part dividing the whole, to that extent it can per se exist just like the whole does that is divided), and this against the division of a composite into matter and form; ‘and this thing’ - against the division of a genus into its species. And if a number were composed of diverse numbers, it would not be against the idea of number for it to be divided into numbers of different idea [sc. if 6 were composed of 2 and 4, which are of different idea]; and in the same way it would not be against the arm for it to be divided into parts of different idea if it were composed of two cubits or three cubits - and these are different in species; so too it would not be against a quantity for the division of its subject to be into parts of different idea.

108. I concede the fact universally, then, that although a whole does not require to be divided into parts of the same idea, yet it does not require the parts to be of a distinct idea, because, insofar as the parts are parts of a quantity, they are not of a different idea; for although head, heart, and hand are quantitative parts and of different ideas, yet they are not parts of a different idea insofar precisely as they are parts of a quantity.

109. In the way, then, that it is true that a quantity may be divided into parts of the same idea (although this cannot be got from the Philosopher [n.107]), this is altogether not to the purpose, because the division is not into parts which include the idea of the divided thing, but into parts which were present in the divided thing - and they do have one idea, not the idea of the divided thing, but of something common to it and to themselves [sc. the idea of 12 inches is not included in the idea of its 2 inch divisions, but only the idea of length is common to them all]; but a species is divided into parts of the same idea, namely because they include the idea of the divided thing [sc. as ‘this man’ and ‘that man’ both include ‘man’] and not something else that is of a different idea, common to the divided thing and the things that divide it.

110. Further, I argue against the second argument [n.73]: the generator qua generator (with everything else removed) is distinguished from the generated qua generated (with everything else removed from the generated), because it is unintelligible for the same thing to generate itself (even in divine reality a person does not generate himself); but the generator qua generator does not include quantity as it includes its proper generative principle; nor does the generated qua generated include quantity as the per se or formal term of generation; therefore when both quantities are removed, namely the quantities of generator and generated, the latter substance is distinguished numerically from the former.

B. Scotus’ own Conclusion

111. Therefore, I concede the conclusions of all these arguments [nn.76-110], namely that it is impossible for substance to be individual through any accident, that is, impossible for substance to be divided into subjective parts [sc. into individuals] through something accidental to it and thereby have being ‘non-this’ repugnant to it.

II. To the Arguments for the Opinion of Others

112. As to the first argument for the opinion [n.72], it is plain from the fifth article [nn.105-109] how badly the minor is taken [sc. ‘to be divisible into parts of the same idea belongs to something by reason of quantity’], and that it cannot be got from the Philosopher [n.107]; and in the way in which the minor can be held to be true, it is not relevant to the division of a whole into quantitative parts [n.109].

113. When further too the premise is taken that ‘by the same thing is something divisible and distinguished into the parts that divide it’ [n.72: ‘quantity is the principle of division in any nature and the principle of distinction between divided things’] - this is false, for a common nature is divisible of itself into individuals, and the divisions of it are not distinguished by reason of the nature but by their own distinguishing differences; for thus does it appear in a genus, that a genus is divisible of itself into several genera and several species, and yet the genus is not the reason for the distinction of species but the differences are that constitute the species.

114. As to the second argument [n.73], it is plain how from it can be concluded that the same thing would generate itself [n.110]. But as to the form of the argument, I say that both premises are false: for although ‘a different form is in a different matter’ [n.73, ‘form does not differ from form save because it is received in different parts of matter’], yet it is not a different form because of difference of matter, but just as a form’s entity is prior so also is its difference; likewise the other premise - namely that ‘there is a different part of matter because there is a different part of quantity’ [n.73, ‘nor does one part of matter differ from another save because it is under a different part of quantity’] -is false, because, whether the distinction of parts of matter in themselves is quantitative or not, the distinction of parts of matter is prior to the distinction of quantity (for the subject of such an accident is a ‘this something’).

115. As for the proof, when it is said that ‘the generator does not generate save from a matter quantified by a different quantity’ [n.74, ‘a generator does not generate another save because of distinctness of matter etc.’] - whether this is so or not (about which elsewhere [n.208]), at any rate, in the case of parts of matter that are distinct in form of quantity, I say that unity is a metaphysical property [n.128], so that unity of matter naturally precedes any idea of quantity; for an idea of quantity does naturally precede such a natural generator, because the generator requires, externally, a matter of its own from which it generates, and it requires the quantity as a concomitant distinction of matter from matter. And yet what needs to be proved is that the quantity was the proper idea of such unity, that is, of singularity in the substance, and what is proved is that it is the idea sine qua non in respect of the ultimate thing [sc. the thing generated]; hence there is no place for the consequence.Tr. The contention seems to be that in the argument [in n.74]: ‘the generator does not generate save from a matter quantified by a different quantity; therefore quantity is the idea of distinction in the generator’ the conclusion does not follow. What follows rather is that a difference of quantity in the matter on which the generator works is required for the generator to be able to work on it. So all that follows is that such difference of quantity in the matter worked on is the sine qua non of the generator’s generating. It does not follow that the difference of the quantities in the matter of the thing worked on and in the matter of the generator working on it is what formally makes the generator’s own quantity to be ‘this quantity’. For it could still well be, as for as this argument goes, that ‘this quantity’ is a ‘this’ because it is the quantity of ‘this substance’. So the argument in n.74 does not prove, as it needs to, that the ‘this’ of ‘this substance’ is the result of the quantity’s being a ‘this’ and not, as Scotus contends, the cause of it. ⁵⁸

116. If the objection be raised that at least from the confirmation [n.74] one will get the result that quantity naturally precedes the individuation of substance (which is contrary to the conclusion of the second way rejecting the opinion [nn.82-83]) - for if the generator first requires a quantified matter before it may generate, then the quantity of the matter is naturally presupposed to the individuation of the thing generated - I reply and say that the quantity of the thing corrupted and all the accidents of the thing corrupted are presupposed, in the order of duration, to the individuation of the thing generated, because the thing corrupted with all its parts pre-exists; but herefrom nothing follows as to the minor, that there be a natural priority of quantity to the individuation of the thing generated [n.74, ‘the quantity of the thing generated naturally precedes the being of the thing generated’], or follows as to the individuation of the substance in which the quantity is - for the accidents of the thing corrupted, which precede in time the thing generated, follow the substance in which they are (and follow it even as it is singular), and in the same way do the accidents of the thing generated follow the substance of the thing generated.

117. But the argument [n.74] is taken still further back [by Godfrey], that ‘quantity - as it is in the thing corrupted - not only precedes the thing generated, but naturally precedes in the thing generated the form of the thing generated’. The proof is that, otherwise, in the instant in which the generator introduces the form, it would introduce it not into a quantum, and this seems contrary to the proposition that ‘a particular agent does not reach the substance of the matter but reaches the matter precisely insofar as it is a quantum’ [n.74, ‘a natural agent cannot act on a non-quantum’]; it seems likewise contrary to Averroes in his treatise On the Substance of the Globe ch.1, where he seems to hold that the quantity remains the same in the thing generated and in the thing corrupted, otherwise the generator would generate body from non-body.

118. Against this I argue as follows:

And first indeed it seems that this argument [n.117] should not be adduced for this opinion [n.71], because he [Godfrey] who seems to be the founder of this position seems to hold what is here adduced against it [n.117]. For he holds [Quodlibet 11 q.3, 7 q.5, 6 q.5, 2 q.7] that, since quantity is not the first act of matter, no form of corporeity remains the same in the thing generated and in the thing corrupted (he says, when speaking of corporeity in the genus of substance, that no quantity remains the same in number in the former and in the latter); and also, since he posits that quantity perfects the composite substance (and not the matter) immediately as subject, he should posit that the different quantity of the thing generated is naturally posterior to the thing generated, just as he should also posit that the quantity of the thing corrupted is naturally posterior to the thing corrupted - and thus the deduction about the priority of the quantity to the substance or the form of the thing generated (whatever may be true of Averroes) does not belong to the opinion of the one who posits that opinion [n.71]. This as to the man [Godfrey]. But as to the conclusion in itself, I say with him (as far as these matters are concerned) that if no form of corporeity remains the same formally in the fire and in the water, then altogether no accident - which requires a composite substance as subject - can remain the same in number, but each will be either in the thing corrupted as subject or in the thing generated as subject; and so quantity, and any other accident, will be naturally posterior to substance - and thus the quantity of the thing corrupted, and any other accident of it, was naturally posterior to the substance corrupted.

119. And then about that proposition [n.117, ‘a particular agent does not reach the substance of the matter but reaches the matter precisely insofar as it is a quantum’] I do not much care, because it seems impossible; for to be an agent that reaches the thing acted on in its idea as acted on seems to be nothing other than to introduce into it the act by which it is perfected; but the particular agent introduces a substantial form whereby the matter as matter is perfected - and not matter as a quantum, such that quantity is the ‘mediating idea’ between the agent and the thing acted on; therefore a natural agent reaches the matter in its bare essence as the acted on thing that is immediately changed by the agent.

120. As to Averroes [n.117], I say that a body could be generated from what was once a non-body, but perhaps a natural agent could not generate a body from a non-body as from a thing corrupted; but from what was a body up to the instant of generation, and this by the quantity inhering in it, a natural agent can in that instant generate something else that is a quantum with a different quantity; because, just as it can generate a substance that was not present before, so it can produce all the accidents consequent to that substance.

121. And if you say that, although it does not produce a body from a non-body as from a thing corrupted, yet it will from matter as from a non-quantum produce another body that is a quantum - I say that a composite must come to be or be produced from a non-composite as from a part, or there will be a process to infinity; and so, from matter according to its substance absolutely as from a part, a body can be produced that is a composite substance, and the substance as quantum is a concomitant, because quantity is a property of the composite substance (this response denies that an indeterminate dimension numerically the same remains in the thing generated and in the thing corrupted, about which elsewhere if occasion arise [Ord. 4 d.11 p.1 princ.1 q.2 nn.6-7, princ.2 q.1 nn.18-21 and 50]; but it has been touched on now because of the arguments [nn.118-121]).

III. To the Principal Arguments

122. To the first principal argument, from Boethius [n.67], I concede that variety of accidents makes a numerical difference in a substance in the way that the form is said to make a difference, because all distinct forms thus make some difference in the things they are in; but accidents cannot make a specific difference in the substance they are in (from Metaphysics 10.9.1058a29-b25); so they do make a difference in substances and that a numerical one; but they do not make the first difference (but there is another, prior, numerical difference), nor do they alone make the numerical difference. And the authority [from Boethius] says neither of these two things, and unless one of them is got from it the conclusion intended is not got from it.

123. But what about Boethius’ intention?

I say that Boethius intends to prove that there is no numerical difference in the divine persons. And although at the beginning of his little book On the Trinity such propositions could be got scattered about, yet he seems to argue as follows: ‘a variety of accidents makes a difference in number; but in the divine persons there is no such variety of accidents, because a simple form cannot be a subject; therefore there is in them no numerical difference’.

124. The argument, it seems, unless Boethius meant that only accidents could make a numerical distinction, is not valid; for if a numerical distinction could exist through something else, then the negation of numerical distinction would not follow from the negation of accident. I say that a distinction of accidents is concomitant to every numerical distinction, and so there can be no numerical distinction where there can be no variety of accidents; and on this basis the argument of Boethius can hold up, because since there cannot be any accident in divine reality (nor any variety of accidents), there cannot be there a numerical distinction or difference - not as from the denial precisely of the cause there follows the denial of that of which it is the cause, but as from the denial of a necessary concomitant there follows the negation of that which it is necessarily concomitant to.

125. But how, relative to this intention, is it true that a variety of accidents makes a numerical difference?

I say that it makes some difference but not the first difference, and some difference that necessarily follows every difference; and thus does the statement ‘they make a numerical difference’ have to be understood. Nor does this gloss seem to be forced from the words, but the words themselves make it to be understood so, since they [sc. Godfrey and his followers who quote Boethius, n.67] must necessarily expound what he himself subjoins there about place. For place is not the first thing that distinguishes individuals from each other, either when speaking of place as it is the property of the containing thing or when speaking of place as it is the property of the thing contained (namely the ‘where’ that remains in the thing contained). So if they must expound ‘place’ as ‘quantity’ (according to their opinion [n.71]), what is wrong with expounding ‘make a difference’ as ‘make not the first difference but some difference and it is concomitant to the first’?

126. To the second argument, from Damascene [n.68], the response is plain from himself at the end of the chapter, where he expounds how he there understands ‘accident’. He speaks thus: “Whatever is a hypostasis in some of the things that are of one species, but in others of them is not, is an accident and added from without.” I concede therefore that whatever is outside the idea per se of a specific nature itself, and is not a per se consequent of that nature, is accidental to such nature; and in this way whatever is posited to be the individuating principle is an accident; but it is not properly an accident the way others understand this [n.128].

127. And indeed that Damascene himself does not understand accident properly is plain from what he says in On the Orthodox Faith ch.8: “For we mean that Peter and Paul are of the same idea.” Later, “Hypostases have in themselves several things that separate them; they are divided in mind and in strength and in form (that is, in figure) and in habit and in complexion and in dignity and in invention and in all characteristic properties;” and he notably adds to ‘in all characteristic properties’, “to the extent that these do not exist in themselves in relation to each other but exist separately; hence they are called two men and three men and many men. And so on in every case.” - Note well: he says that, rather than by characteristic properties, all created hypostases whatever differ by ‘not existing in relation to each other but separately’; and this is said by way of an opposition in the same place, “the holy hypostases of the Trinity are in relation to each other”, the reason for which is unity of nature, personal distinction being presupposed (Ord. 1 d.2 nn.376-87). Division of nature, then, in created supposits is the first and greatest reason for distinction.

128. To the third argument, from Avicenna [n.69], I say that he is most principally considering quiddity insofar as it includes nothing that does not pertain to its per se idea, and in this way horseness is ‘just horseness, and is neither one nor many’. To whatever extent its unity is not something else added but is a necessary consequent of the entity (just as every being, according to any entity whatever, has also its own unity consequent to it), that unity is nevertheless not within the formal idea of the quiddity (as the quiddity is quiddity), but is a sort of property consequent to quiddity [nn.31, 34] - and everything of this sort is called by Avicenna an ‘accident’. And in this way too the Philosopher (who named the ‘fallacy of the accident’) sometimes takes accident for everything that is outside the formal idea of another (for everything such, in comparison to the other, is extraneous to that other); and in this way does a fallacy of the accident come about, and in this way too is genus accidental to difference; and whatever is the individuating principle is an accident of the specific nature, but not in the way they [Godfrey and others] understand accident. And so there is here an equivocation over the term ‘accident’.

Question Five. Whether Material Substance is a This and Individual through Matter

129. Fifth I ask whether material substance is a ‘this’ and individual through matter.

130. That it is:

Because according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.6.1016b32-33, ch. ‘On One’, “Things whose matter is one are in number one;” therefore etc.

131. On the contrary:

Metaphysics 5.4.1014b26-32 (in the ancient translation), “in the foundation of nature there is nothing distinct.” But what is not distinct or diverse in itself cannot be the first reason for the diversity or distinction in another; but matter is the altogether indistinct and indeterminate foundation of nature; therefore it cannot be the first reason for distinction or diversity in another.

I. The Opinion of Others

132. [Exposition of the opinion] - Here an affirmative answer is given [Aquinas, Giles, Godfrey], and it is above all held because of the many authorities from Aristotle that seem to have this meaning.

One of these is Metaphysics 7.8.1034a4-8, that the generator generates another because of matter: “Callias and Socrates,” he says, “are diverse because of matter (for they are diverse), but the same in species, for they are individuals of a species.”

133. Again because of 7.11.1037a37-b5, ch. ‘On the Parts of Definition’: “The whatness and the individual are in some substances the same thing, but as to things that are in matter or taken along with matter they are not the same thing;” and 8.3.1043b2-4 seems the same, “For soul and being a soul are the same; man and being a man are not the same, unless being a soul is called man.” Therefore it seems that matter is outside the idea of quiddity and of whatever first has quiddity, and so, since matter is something in beings, it seems to be part of the individual, or the individuation of the whole; but whatever there is in an individual that is repugnant altogether to the idea of quiddity, this can be posited as the first reason for individuating; therefore etc.

134. Further 12.8.1074a31-38 proves that there cannot be several heavens: “For if,” he says, “there were several heavens as there are several men, the principle as concerns each would be one in species but many in number; but,” he says, “all things that are many in number have matter; now the whatness does not have matter first (for it is actuality); therefore the first, immovable mover is one in idea and in number.” This reasoning - whereby the unity of the heaven is proved from the unity of the mover, and the unity of the mover is not only unity in species but in number, because of the fact the mover does not have matter - would not seem valid unless distinction in number were made by matter; therefore etc.

135. Further On the Heaven 1.9.278a10-15: “When I say ‘heaven’ I state the form; when I say ‘this heaven’ I state the matter.”

136. [Rejection of the opinion] - Against this [n.132], and first through authorities of the same Aristotle:

According to the Philosopher Metaphysics 7.11.1037a5-10, ch. ‘On the Parts of Definition’: “It is clear that soul is substance first and that body is matter; but man or animal - which are from both soul and matter - as universals, and Socrates and Coriscus (supply: from both soul and matter) as singulars; since soul is said in the two ways.” And afterwards he adds: “But if soul is a ‘this’ and body a ‘this’, then as universal and singular.”

137. And previously, in the same place on the parts of definition, 10.1035b27-31: “Man and horse and what thus exist in singulars are not substance universally,” that is, form, “but together a certain whole,” that is, the composite, “made from this matter and this nature” (where he means by the ‘this’ not uniform and singular matter but determinate matter, otherwise he would contradict himself; hence he adds in the same place, “universally”). And he adds later: “From ultimate matter there is now Socrates etc.”

138. The same is also plain from the same Philosopher in 12.5.1071a27-29 where he maintains that the principles are the same just as are the things that come from the principles: “And of those in the same species,” he says, “the principles are diverse, not diverse in species, but because they are principles of singulars; your matter and mover and species are one thing and mine another, but yet the same in universal idea.” So in this way he admits a distinction of form as of matter in the particular, and in this way a unity of matter in general as of form; and therefore the question whereby matter is a ‘this’ must still be asked.

139. Further, as is proved from many places of Metaphysics 7 on the parts of definition: matter is of the essence of the composite substance, namely of man, and such a composite is not precisely the essence of the form. Therefore, just as the composite cannot be of itself a ‘this’ (from the first question, n.29), so neither will the matter -which is part of the composite - be of itself a ‘this’, because there cannot be a composite that is common and of the same idea in diverse things unless whatever is of the essence of the composite can be of the same idea in those diverse things.

140. Further, by reason: matter is the same in the thing generated as in the thing corrupted; therefore it has the same singularity in the thing generated and in the thing corrupted.

141. And if you reply that the matter is not of the same species in the thing generated and in the thing corrupted, I argue as before against non-terminated quantity [n.100], and thus generation will be circular: first of fire from water, second of water from fire; the water corrupted first and the water generated second have the same matter and are of the same species; therefore they are really ‘this water’; therefore the first naturally returns the same in number, which is against what they hold [sc. that matter is the principle of individuation, nn.132].

[N.B. Question Five is Continued after Question Six]

Question Six. Whether Material Substance is Individual through Some Entity per se Determining Nature to Singularity

142. Because the solution to the authorities from the Philosopher for the opposite [nn.130, 132-135] require a solution to the sixth question, namely through what a material substance is made completely individual, therefore I ask sixth whether material substance is individual through some entity per se determining nature to singularity.

143. That it is not:

Because then the determinant would be disposed to nature as act to potency; so there would truly and properly be a single composite from the specific nature and the determinant, which is unacceptable; for the determinant would be either matter or form or something composed of them, and whichever is taken the result would be unacceptable; for then there would be in the composite another matter beside the matter that is part of the nature, or another form beside the form posited as part of the nature, or another composite beside that which is composed of the nature.

144. Further, the singular composed of the nature and the per se determinant would then be per se one, and so per se intelligible; and this seems against the Philosopher, On the Soul 2.5.417b22-23 and Metaphysics 7.10.1035b33-6a8, where he seems openly to maintain that understanding is of the universal, and sense and sensation of the singular.

145. Further, if the singular were per se intelligible, there could be demonstration and science of it, and so there would be a science proper of singulars as they are singulars, which the Philosopher denies, Metaphysics 7.10.1035b33-6a8, 15.1039b26-40a5, ch. ‘On Parts of Definition’.

146. Again, if the singular included the specific nature and the per se determinant, it could be per se defined through those two (included per se in its idea), and so there would be one definition of the individual and another of the species - the former making addition to the definition of the species at least in the way the definition of the species makes addition to the definition of the genus.

147. For the opposite side:

Every [logical] inferior includes per se something that is not included in the understanding of the [logical] superior, otherwise the concept of the inferior would be as common as the concept of the superior, and then the per se inferior would not be per se inferior because it would not be under the common and superior; therefore something is per se included in the idea of the individual that is not included in the idea of the nature. But the included something is a positive entity, from the solution to the second question [n.57], and makes with the nature something per se one, from the solution to the fourth question [n.111]; therefore it is a per se determinant of the nature to singularity, or to the idea of the inferior.

A. To the Question

1. The Opinion of Others

a. Exposition of the Opinion

148. Here it is maintained [by Godfrey of Fontaines] that the specific nature is of itself a ‘this’, and yet it can, through quantity, be the nature common to several singulars, or quantity can be the reason that several singulars can exist in the nature.Godfrey, Quodlibet 7 q.5: “For just as the universal that is genus cannot be divided into several things differing in species save by the addition of something pertaining to the idea of the species...so too it seems that the universal that is species cannot be divided into several individuals unless each individual adds something over and above the idea of the species, which idea of the species - as concerns itself - is one in all individuals. But it does not seem that something can be understood to be added that pertains to the essence and nature of the individual, because the species, which is the whole being of individuals, states the whole of that essence; therefore if something is added, it seems to be something pertaining to accidental nature. For in direct descent under a category, the division stops at the most specific species, in that this species includes the ultimate difference below which one cannot take a more determinate difference whereby the species could be made more determinate in the individual (the way this happens in a species in respect of a genus), unless there is to be a regress to infinity; and so, as Plato says [Politicus Latinus I 596], one must rest at singulars -namely in this way, that one is not to posit in singulars something formal pertaining to essence or quiddity beyond what is included in the idea and quiddity of the species. Therefore, if anything is added whereby a nature universal in itself is to be thus determined and contracted, it must be something pertaining to accidental nature [sc. to the nature of quantity], as was said.” Ibid.: “But since material substance is in itself not divided into several things of the same idea or species.therefore, just as it is a ‘how much’ that comes per accidens, so it is divided per accidens into several things of the same idea, namely divided through quantity. Now that seems to be properly called one ‘according to number’ which is one in number or one by number; but number is properly caused by division according to quantity; therefore that seems to be properly called ‘one in number’ which is undivided first in that nature by which it is distinguished first from another of the same species; but this nature is quantity, and so a ‘one in number’ seems properly to be something undivided in the nature of quantity. Therefore, quantity is the per se principle of a one according to number, just as form.is the principle of individuation; and thus, properly speaking, there is not the same principle for per se individuation in the genus of material substance and for a one according to number, because the principle of a one according to number is quantity, in that according to quantity it is undivided in itself and divided from another of the same idea.; but the principle of per se individuation is the form, by which substance is divided into several things of the same idea. And accordingly it seems one should say that the formal principle (or the formal idea) of this sort of distinction.is each individual’s substantial form undivided in itself and divided from another, and thus do they differ in substantial number. The principle.of ‘distinction according substance’ of several individuals is quantity, since it is the principle of division both of the matter and also of the form in divided matter; for if there were not pre-understood in matter a quantity that would make the matter divisible, the matter could not receive several forms. Hence, because of this, there are several entities according as there are quanta, or according to division of quantity.; for, by the fact that quantity makes the substance to be really extended, it happens that the substance...also has parts really and essentially differing from each other.” ⁵⁹

149. The first point [sc. specific nature is of itself a ‘this’] is made clear thus: the most specific species is of itself an atomic unit; therefore it is indivisible.

150. And there is confirmation from the remark of Porphyry [Book of Predicables ch.2 2b14-16], “When we descend from the most general to the most specific, Plato [Politicus Latinus I 596] bids us come to a rest;” but if it were possible for there to be a further division of this nature, one should not rest at the nature; therefore etc.

151. Likewise Boethius in his book Of Divisions, when he is enumerating all the divisions not only per se but also per accidens, does not enumerate a division of the species into individuals; therefore the specific nature is a not a ‘this’ through something else.

152. Again, if there were some reality in an individual beside the sole reality of the specific nature, the species would not state ‘the whole being of individuals’ - which is against Porphyry [Predicables ch.2 3a5-9].

153. The second point [n.148] is made clear by the fact that quantity, although it is not the formal idea of the division of anything into subjective parts, yet, when a quantitative whole is divided into quantitative parts, it is divided per se into things that are of the same idea; now the principle of a division into something is the same as the principle of distinction of the very dividers; therefore, just as quantity itself is the principle of the division, so it is the principle of the distinction of the dividers. But these dividers are the subjective parts of the common nature; therefore quantity is the principle of the distinction of such parts.

154. Now how these two points [n.148] can stand together can be made plain through an example, because, according to the Philosopher Physics 1.2.185a32-b5, ‘substance is of itself indivisible into parts’, speaking of parts of the same idea - and yet, when quantity is added, substance is divisible into such parts, indeed it then has such parts. In this way, then, can a nature of a species be of itself a ‘this’ and yet, though a nature coming to it from without, be this here and this there.

b. Rejection of the Opinion

155. This position [n148] seems it can be understood in two ways:

One such way is that material substance, to the extent it is essentially distinguished from quantity, remains the same, wholly non-distinct by reason of its proper and essential entity, and yet receives many quantities and, when receiving them, constitutes along with them many wholes at the same time; that is to say, in plain words, that the same material substance, being in itself neither divided nor distinct, is informed with many quantities, and thereby are there many individuals in a species.

156. The position can be understood in another way, that the material substance, which of itself, with all quantity removed, would be a ‘this’, will, when a quantity informing it is posited, be this substance and that, such that it not only receives distinct quantities but also has distinctness in itself, in its proper substantial entity; so that the substance, which is subject of the quantity and is distinct from the quantity essentially, is not the substance which is subject of another quantity and distinct from this other quantity essentially, although however the fact that it is this substance and not that cannot be without quantity in this substance and in that.

157. The first way of understanding [n.155] seems impossible, because from it there follow things that are unacceptable in theology, metaphysics, and natural science.

158. In theology indeed this unacceptable thing follows, that to be ‘this’ is not a property of the infinite divine essence, namely that the divine essence, existing as single, indistinct in itself, can be in several distinct supposits - but this is commonly understood only of persons distinct just in relation; here, however, what is posited is that a single substantial nature, in no way distinct in itself, would have several supposits distinct with absolute reality.

159. Second, it follows that some substance of wine cannot be transubstantiated into the body and blood [of Christ] unless the whole substance of wine is transubstantiated, because the wine is only transubstantiated as to its substance, for its quantity remains the same, and for you [n.148, specific nature is of itself a ‘this’] the substance in this wine is the same as the substance in that wine; but the same thing is not both transubstantiated and not transubstantiated; therefore etc.

160. In metaphysics the unacceptable things that follow are:

First, that the Idea posited by Plato would be posited. For Plato posited that the Idea is a per se existing substance, a separate nature, without accidents (as is imputed to him by the Philosopher), in which would be the whole nature of the species, and this nature, according to what Aristotle imputed to Plato, would be said of any individual by a formal predication stating ‘this is this’ [n.41]; but this opinion has posited that ‘this substance’ is said of anything of this species by a predication stating ‘this is this’, and yet that it is under this accident and under that accident [n.143]. This opinion, therefore, posits as much commonness as Plato posited in the Ideas.

161. Second, because for them [Godfrey and his followers] two accidents of the same species cannot be in the same subject (provided they were absolute accidents [sc. accidents of quantity or quality]), because a manifest contradiction according to them would follow, namely that the same thing would be in act and in potency in the same respect;Godfrey, Quodlibet 6 q.5, “One must say that, just as several accidents of the same species cannot be at the same time in the same subject, so also one accident cannot, by any agent, be at the same time in two subjects... For accidents that have in themselves no distinction do not acquire distinction, but unity, from being in the same subject; hence, just as two points cannot be at the same time in the same subject (but they become one point), nor two lines, so neither can two whitenesses. Therefore it is impossible for two accidents of the same idea and species to become one in a subject and to remain two and distinct.” ⁶⁰ however the opposite hereby follows, that the same nature is in act in respect of many acts of the same species.

162. Accordingly one could infer another impossibility, a mathematical one (insofar as a quantum pertains to the consideration of a mathematician), namely that two dimensive quantities of the same idea would perfect the same subject at the same time, and this is contrary to the proper nature of dimensive quantities of the same idea, speaking according to the intention of a mathematician.

163. Third, in natural science there follow two unacceptable things:

First, that no material substance can be generated and corrupted. Not generated indeed, because if there is a ‘this stone’, all the substance will be in it that there can be in any stone; however, this substance of stone can acquire a quantity of this much and a quantity of that much, different in number; but the acquisition of a new quantity is not generation (as is plain from the terms of this generation); therefore etc. Likewise, while this stone remains, the specific nature of stone remains in it; but every nature of stone is ‘this nature’; therefore, while this nature remains, every nature remains; therefore a material substance cannot be corrupted while the stone remains, although the quality - or the quantity - is not the same.

164. Second, it follows that, although one could, according to the invention of that cursed Averroes about the unity of the intellect in everyone, make a like invention about your body and mine as about this stone and that; nevertheless, holding that different intellective souls, according not only to the faith but also to philosophy, are necessary, it cannot be that human nature is of itself atomic or undivided and yet is made different by quantity, because in this man and in that man there is a different substantial form, different by a difference naturally preceding quantity. And therefore they do not try to respond to this objection - as being insoluble - but betake themselves to different things, ‘homogeneous’ ones, stone or water; and yet, if they had anything in their favor from the idea of atomic specific nature, they would conclude about man as they conclude about stone. They are therefore able to see that the principles from which they proceed, since manifest impossibilities follow from them, are no principles.

165. The second way of understanding the position [n.156] seems to destroy itself, because what is of itself a ‘this’, in the way that ‘something is of itself a this’ was expounded before (that is, something for which it is repugnant per se to be divided into several subjective parts and for which it is repugnant to be not-this [nn.48, 76]) - such a thing cannot be divided into several parts by something coming to it from outside, because if its being divided is repugnant to it of itself, then its receiving something by which it may become not-this is repugnant to it of itself. Therefore, to say that a nature is of itself a ‘this’ (according to the understanding expounded before about a nature that is of itself a ‘this’ [n.155-56]), and yet that it can be this or that through something coming to it from outside, is to state contradictories.

166. And this is plain from the example set down in the position [n.154], that, although a material substance is not of itself divided into parts of the same idea, yet it is of itself not indivisible into such parts - because if it were of itself indivisible (that is, if division were repugnant to it), it could not receive the quantity by which it is formally divided into such parts; the fact is clear, for a soul - or an angel (which is of itself indivisible in this way) - cannot receive quantity, just as it cannot receive parts.

167. There seems then to be a deception in this consequence, ‘it is not of itself such, therefore it is of itself not-such’ (fallacy of the consequent). For substance, according to one position, is not of itself a haver of parts of the same idea, and yet it is not of itself a non-haver of parts of the same idea, such that having parts is repugnant to it; because then it could not receive such parts formally through ‘something coming to it from outside’. And so the nature of a most specific species is not of itself a ‘this’, just as neither is anything of itself a ‘this’ that is in its nature divisible; but it is not of itself not-this, such that being divided into several parts is of itself repugnant to it, because then it could not receive anything by which such a division would formally belong to it.

2. Scotus’ own Opinion

168. I respond then affirmatively to the question [sc. the sixth question, n.142].

169. For which purpose I bring forward the following sort of reason: just as unity in general per se follows entity in general, so any unity per se follows some entity; therefore if unity simply (of which sort is the unity of the individual frequently described before [nn.48, 76, 165], namely that to which division into several subjective parts is repugnant and to which not being this designated thing is repugnant) exists in things (as every opinion supposes), then it follows per se some per se entity; but it does not follow per se the entity of nature, because it has some unity proper to itself and per se, a real unity, as was proved in the solution to the first question [n.30]; therefore it follows some other entity and determines this entity, and it will make a one per se with the entity of nature, because the whole of which it is this unity is perfect of itself.

170. Any difference of differences is ultimately reduced to things that are primarily diverse (otherwise there would be no stop to differences); but individuals differ properly, because they are diverse ‘identical thing beings’ [1 d.3 n.132]; therefore their difference is reduced to what is primarily diverse. But what is primarily diverse is not the nature in this thing and in that thing, because that by which things formally agree is not the same as that by which they really differ, although the same thing can be distinct really and agree really; for to be distinct and to be that by which something is first distinct differ a great deal (so it will be like this in the case of unity). Therefore, beside the nature in this thing and in that, there are some primarily diverse things by which this thing and that thing differ (this in this thing and that in that thing); and these primarily diverse things cannot be negations, from the second question [n.57], nor accidents, from the fourth question ]n.111]; therefore they will be some positive entities per se determining nature.

171. An objection against the first argument here [n.169] is that if there is some real unity less than numerical unity, it is the unity of something either in what is numerically the same or in something other. Not in what is numerically the same, because everything in what is numerically the same is one in number; nor in two things, because nothing in them is really one, for that is proper to the divine supposits (the way the saying of Damascene was explained above, n.39).

172. I reply: just as in the solution to the first question (about this issue, nn.32, 34) it was said that nature is naturally prior to this nature, so too the proper unity consequent to nature as nature is naturally prior to the unity of it as this nature; and it is under this idea that nature is considered in metaphysics, that the definition of it is assigned, and that propositions about it are in the first mode per se [n.32]. There is, then, in the identical thing that is one in number some entity which unity less than numerical unity follows, and it is real; and that of which it is such unity is one of itself with numerical unity. I concede therefore that the real unity is not of something existing in two individuals but in one.

173. And when you object that ‘everything in what is numerically the same is one in number’ [n.171], I make my reply first in some other similar and more manifest case: everything that is in one species is one in species; the color therefore in whiteness is one in species; the conclusion ‘therefore it does not have a unity less than the unity of the species’ does not follow. For as was said elsewhere (namely 1 d.8 n.214 in the question about the attributes, before the solution of the principle argument about attributes, when solving the first doubt), that ‘something can be said to be animate either denominatively, as body, or per se in the first mode, as man’ (and thus a surface is said to be white denominatively, and a white surface is said to be white per se in the first mode because the subject includes the predicate) - so I say that a potential which is contracted by an actual is informed by that actual, and thereby it is informed by the unity consequent to that actuality or to that act; and so it is one by the unity proper to that actual, but it is thus one denominatively (and it is not of itself thus one, neither in the first mode nor through any essential part).

174. The color in whiteness, therefore, is one in species, but it is not so of itself either per se or first but only denominatively; now the specific difference is first one, because being divided into things several in species is first repugnant to it; whiteness is one in species per se, but not first, because it is so through something intrinsic to it (as through the difference).

175. I concede therefore that everything in this stone is one in number, either first, or per se, or denominatively: ‘first’ perhaps as that by which such unity belongs to this composite; ‘per se’ this stone, of which that which is first one by this unity is per se part; ‘denominatively’ only the potential which is perfected by this actual, and which quasi-denominatively has regard to the actual’s actuality.

176. I further clarify this solution [nn.168-170]: what the entity is by which that unity [sc. of the individual] is perfected can be made clear by a likeness to the entity from which the specific difference is taken. The specific difference indeed, or the entity from which the specific difference is taken, can be compared to what is below it, or to what is above it, or to what is next to it.

177. In the first way [sc. comparison with what is below], it is per se repugnant to the specific difference, and to the specific entity, to be divided into things several in essence, in species or nature, and thereby this is repugnant to the whole of that of which the entity is per se part; thus, in the issue at hand, it is repugnant first to this individual entity to be divided into any subjective parts whatever, and thereby such division is per se repugnant to the whole of that of which the individual entity is part. And the difference is only in the fact that the unity of the specific nature is less than the former unity [sc. of the individual entity], and for that reason the specific nature does not exclude all division according to quantitative parts, but only excludes the division of essential parts; the former unity, however, excludes every division.

178. And the proposed solution is sufficiently confirmed from this, that, because any unity less than the former unity has a proper entity which it per se follows, it does not seem probable to deny to the former most perfect unity [sc. the numerical unity of the individual entity, cf. n.58] a proper entity which it follows.

179. Now, comparing the specific nature to what is above it [n.176], I say that the reality from which is taken the specific difference is actual with respect to the reality from which is taken the genus or the idea of the genus, such that this latter reality is not formally the former; otherwise there would be trifling in the definition, and the genus alone (or the difference) would be sufficient for the defining, because it would indicate the whole entity of the thing defined. However, sometimes what contracts the genus is other than the form from which the idea of the genus is taken (when the species adds some reality over and above the nature of the genus), and sometimes it is not another thing but only another formality or another formal concept of the same thing; and accordingly some specific difference has a concept that is not simply simple, namely a difference that is taken from the form, and some does have a concept simply simple, namely a difference that is taken from the ultimate abstraction of the form (this distinction of specific differences was stated in 1 d.3 nn.159-161, about how some specific differences include a being and some do not).

180. In this respect the reality of the individual is like the specific reality, because it is quasi act determining the quasi possible and potential reality of the species; but in this other respect it is not like it, because it is never taken from an added form but is taken precisely from the ultimate reality of the form.

181. It is also unlike it in another respect, that the specific reality constitutes the composite (of which it is part) in quidditative being, because it is a certain quidditative entity; but the reality of the individual is primarily diverse from every quidditative entity. The fact is proved from this, that when one understands any quidditative entity (speaking of limited quidditative entity), the entity is common to many, and its being said of many, each of which is it, is not repugnant to it; therefore this other entity [sc. of the individual], which is of itself a different entity from the quiddity or the quidditative entity, cannot constitute the whole (of which it is part) in quidditative being, but in being of another idea.

182. And because the quiddity is often called form by the Philosopher (as is plain from Metaphysics 5.2.1013a26-28 ch. ‘On Causes’ and in many other places; and from Metaphysics 7.11.1037a32-b5 ch. ‘On Parts of Definition’, that “in things where there is no matter the ‘what it is’ is the same as the ‘of what it is’;” Aristotle is speaking, as will be explained [nn.204-207], of matter and form), and because whatever has a contracted quiddity [nn.206-205] is often called by him a material thing (and Boethius in his book On the Trinity maintains that no form can be the subject of an accident, because form is predicated of the ‘what’ of some other thing; and if humanity is a subject, this yet does not belong to it as it is form; humanity indeed is not a form of another composite part, as of a composite of form and matter, but belongs to the whole composite that is possessed of a contracted quiddity, or in which there is a contracted quiddity) - therefore every specific reality constitutes a thing in formal being (because it constitutes it in quidditative being), and the reality of the individual constitutes it precisely in material being (that is, in contracted being). And herefrom follows the logical point that ‘the former is essentially formal, the latter material’, because the latter precisely constitutes a thing in idea of what can be a subject and the former in idea of what can be a predicate; but a formal predicate has the idea of form, and what can be a subject has the idea of matter.

183. But, third, comparing specific difference to what is next to it, namely to another specific difference [n.176] - although sometimes it is possible for the specific difference not to be first diverse from another, as with the entity that is taken from form, yet the ultimate specific difference is first diverse from another, namely the one that has a concept simply simple [n.179]. And in this respect I say that the individual difference is likened to the specific difference universally taken, because every individual entity is first diverse from any other.

184. And from this the answer to the following objection appears: for it is objected that either this [individual] entity and that are of the same idea or they are not. If they are, then from them can be abstracted some entity, and this a specific one (and about it one must ask by what it is contracted to this entity and to that; if it is contracted of itself, then by parity of reasoning there could be a stand at the nature of stone; if by something else, then there will be a regress to infinity); if they are of a different idea, then the things constituted will also be of a different idea, and so they will not be individuals of the same species.

185. I reply. Ultimate specific differences are primarily diverse, and so from them nothing per se one can be abstracted; yet it does not thereby follow that the things constituted are primarily diverse and not of some one idea. For that certain things are equally distinct can be understood in two ways: either because they are equally incompossible (namely because they cannot be in the same thing), or because they agree equally in nothing. And in the first way it is true that distinct things are as equally diverse as what distinguishes them (for what distinguishes them cannot be incompossible without the distinct things also being incompossible); in the second way it is universally impossible, because distinct things include not only what distinguishes them but also something else (which is quasi potential with respect to what distinguishes them), and yet the things that do the distinguishing in that something else do not agree.

186. About individual entities I reply in the same way as was replied about differences primarily diverse [n.185], that individual entities are primarily diverse (that is, they agree in nothing the same), and yet there is no need that distinct things be diverse simply; still, just as the entities are incompossible so are also the individuals that have those entities.

187. And if you ask me what this individual entity is from which the individual difference is taken, whether it is matter or form or the composite, I reply:

Every quidditative entity - whether partial or total - of any genus is of itself indifferent, as quidditative entity, to this entity or to that, so that it is, as quidditative entity, naturally prior to this entity as it is this; and just as being a ‘this’ does not agree with it as it is naturally prior, so the opposite is not repugnant to it of its own idea; and just as the composite, as it is nature, does not include its own entity (by which it is formally ‘this’), so neither does mater, as it is nature, include its own entity (by which it is ‘this matter’), nor either does form, as it is nature, include its own entity.

188. Therefore ‘this entity’ is not matter or form or the composite insofar as each of them is ‘nature’; but there is an ultimate reality of the being that is matter or that is form or that is the composite, such that whatever is common and yet determinable can, however much it is one thing, still be distinguished into several formally distinct realities, of which this reality is not formally that one; and this reality is formally an entity of singularity, and that is formally an entity of nature. Nor can these two realities be thing and thing in the way that the realities can from which genus is taken and from which difference is taken (from which the specific reality is taken); but always they are, in the same thing (whether in a part or the whole), realities, formally distinct, of the same thing.

B. To the Principal Arguments

189. And from this the response to the first principal argument [n.143] is clear. For when the conclusion is drawn that ‘every individual where the nature can be contracted is more composite than the nature itself’,Not express in n.143 but implied. It is express however in Lectura 2 d.3 n.140. ⁶¹ I say that composition can be understood properly, insofar as it is composition of an actual and of a potential thing; or less properly, as it is composition of a reality and of an actual and potential reality in the same thing. In the first way the individual is not a composite with respect to the specific nature, because it adds no reality (for it adds neither matter nor form nor composite in the way the argument proceeds [n.143]). In the second way the individual is necessarily composite, because the reality from which the specific difference is taken is potential with respect to the reality from which the individual difference is taken, as if they were thing and thing; for the specific reality does not of itself have that whereby it includes by identity the individual reality, but some third thing includes by identity those two.

190. And this composition is of such sort as cannot stand along with the divine simplicity. For the divine simplicity not only does not allow a composition with itself of thing and of actual and potential thing, but not a composition either of actual reality and potential reality; for, when comparing anything essential with anything whatever in divine reality, the essential is formally infinite, and therefore it has of itself that whereby it includes by identity whatever can exist along with it (as was often touched on in the first book, 1 d.8 nn.194, 209, 213, 215-217, 220-221, d.5 nn.117-118, 127, d.2 n.410), and the extremes [e.g. wisdom and goodness, deity and paternity] are not precisely the same perfectly, because some third thing includes them both perfectly. But in the issue at hand neither does the specific entity include by identity the individual entity nor the reverse, but some third thing - of which both are as it were per se parts - alone includes those two by identity, and therefore the most perfect composition which is of thing and thing is removed; not however every composition for, universally, any nature that is not of itself a ‘this’ but determinable to being a ‘this’ (either so as to be determined by some other thing, which is impossible in anything whatever, or so as to be determined by some other reality) is not simply simple.

191. To the second argument [n.144] I concede that the singular is per se intelligible, as concerns it on the part of itself (but whether it is not per se intelligible to some intellect, namely to ours - about this elsewhere [n.294]); at any rate any impossibility in its being able to be understood is not on its part, just as neither is the impossibility of seeing or of vision in an owl on the part of the sun but on the part of the eye of the owl.

192. To the argument about definition [n.146] I say that if any account could express whatever comes together in the entity of an individual, yet that account will not be a perfect definition, because it does not express the ‘what it is to be’, and according to the Philosopher, in Topics 1.5.101b39, a definition is what expresses the whatness of a thing. And therefore I concede that the singular is not definable by a definition other than the definition of the species, and yet it is a per se being, adding some entity to the entity of the species; but the per se entity which it adds is not a quidditative entity.

193. From this is plain the answer to the other arguments about science and demonstration [n.145], because the definition of the subject is the middle term in the most powerful demonstration; but the singular does not have a proper definition but only a definition of the species, and so there is of it no demonstration proper but only a demonstration that is of the species (for it does not have its own particular property but only the property of the species).Tr. The most powerful demonstration demonstrates a property of a subject through the definition of the subject, and an individual has neither property nor definition. ⁶²

C. To the Arguments for the Opinion of Others

194. To the arguments for the opinion.

First, when it is said that a species is an atomic unit [n.149], I say that it is such a unit, that is, it is not divisible into several species; it is however not purely atomic, that is, indivisible simply; for indivisibility into several species is compatible with divisibility into several things of the same species.

195. And when indivisibility is proved by the remark of Plato that Porphyry states [n.150], I say that division by art stops at the most specific species, because to proceed further is to proceed to infinites, which “must be set aside” by art according to Plato; for there is nothing on the part of individuals whereby their number should be definite, but they can be infinite, provided their nature is not repugnant to this [1 d.2 n.176].

196. But if division is taken strictly [nn.150-151], as it is in what requires parts determinate in multitude and magnitude, then a species is not in this way divided into individuals; but a genus does require a determinate multitude of species (because, according to Boethius On Division, the first divisible is into two); and a quantum requires a determinate magnitude, and they are, because two, presupposed in the whole that bounds the middle parts. And if division is taken strictly as it is into parts having a proportion to the whole, because they either constitute it or are contained under it in a determinate multitude or magnitude - then a species is not per se divided into individuals; and by this can both Plato and Porphyry be explained. But if division is taken commonly, as it is present in all things that share the nature of the divided thing (whether they have such a proportion to the whole in being the integral parts of it, or in being the subject of it, or not) - then a species is per se divided into individuals; and this latter division is reduced to genus in Boethius, because the conditions and properties that Boethius assigns in the division of a genus agree with the division that is of a species into individuals.

197. As to the other argument, that the species states the whole being of individuals [n.152], I say that ‘being’ is taken there for quidditative being, as Porphyry says in his chapter ‘On Difference’ [Predicables 3.3a45-48], where he maintains that difference per se does not admit of a more and less; his proof is: “For the being of each thing is one and the same, receiving neither increase nor decrease” (he takes ‘being’ as quiddity, the way the Philosopher does in Metaphysics 8 [n.133], “soul and being a soul are the same”). And, because the entity that the singular adds to the species is not a quidditative entity, I say that the whole quidditative entity that is in the individual is the entity of the species, and for this reason the species states the whole being of individuals; but the genus does not in this way state the whole being of species, because species adds further quidditative entity.

198. To the argument for the other member, about quantity [n.153], I say that this proposition is false, ‘the principle of divisibility and of the distinction of the dividers is the same’; the concept indeed that is common to species is the reason for the divisibility into species, but it is not the reason for distinguishing the species from each other, but this species is distinguished from that by the difference. Now in a quantitative division, the whole quantity, as it contains confusedly all the parts, is the reason for divisibility in the whole quantum; but the reason for the distinction of the parts from each other is not thus but as this quantity distinctly in act is not that quantity in act, which is in the whole.

199. When the deduction too is further drawn that ‘when a whole homogeneous quantum is divided, the division is got through quantity’ [n.153] - let it be so. However that division is not the first division of individuals, but this substance and that substance -insofar as they are a ‘this’ and a ‘this’ - have a division and distinction from each other naturally prior to the distinction insofar as they were parts of distinct quantity per accidens (for it is accidental to them to be parts); yet once a division according to quantitative parts is made, a division is made according to subjective parts per accidens.

[Continuation of Question Five]

II. Scotus’ own Solution to the Fifth Question

200. As to the preceding fifth question, about matter [n.129], the solution is plain from the arguments against the opinion [nn.132, 136-141]. For I concede that matter absolutely, as it is nature, is not the reason for distinction or individuation; for whatever is a nature, total or partial, in any genus is not of itself a ‘this’; and therefore one has to ask by what it is a ‘this’.

III. To the Authorities from the Philosopher for the Opposite

201. To the authority from Aristotle Metaphysics 5 [n.130] (“in number one” etc.), I reply and say that Aristotle is there taking matter for the individual entity that it constitutes in material, and not in formal, being (as far as quiddity is said to be form), because that individual entity is not quidditative. And this exposition is plain from what he subjoins, “Those things are one in species whose idea is one, etc.,” where indeed ‘idea’ is taken for quiddity, which is called form in respect of individual being.

202. Thereby is plain the answer to the remark in On the Heaven about heaven and this heaven [n.135] - and it confirms the conclusion proposed.

203. Thereby too is plain the answer to the remark in Metaphysics 12 [n.134]. For I concede that there cannot be several first movers because there is no matter in the first mover: that is, there is not in it anything that, as matter or as anything else, contracts it, but it is of itself a ‘this’ without anything else contracting it; for such contracting does not stand along with perfect simplicity; and therefore the quiddity of the first mover is of itself a ‘this’.

204. As to the remark in Metaphysics 7 [n.133], that ‘whatever there is of reality in things that are without matter is the same as what it is the reality of’, I say that the ‘what it is’ of a thing can be compared with what it belongs to per se and first and with what it belongs to per se and not first; and, universally, the way it belongs to something is the way it is the same as it, because, as the Philosopher argues in 7.6.1031a17-18, “The singular seems to be not other than its substance, and the ‘what it is’ is called the substance of the singular” (for if the ‘what it is’ is not being, it is nothing). But the ‘what’ is that which a thing first is, and so that to which the ‘what it is’ per se belongs is the same per se as the ‘what it is’, and that to which the ‘what it is’ per accidens belongs is the same per accidens as the ‘what it is’ and so is not simply the same as it (hence Aristotle too himself maintains there [6.1031a19-21] that, in the case of things said per accidens, the ‘what it is’ is not the same as what it belongs to - and no wonder, because he has earlier made it clear [4.1029b12-30a17] that nothing is the ‘what it is’ or definition of them).

205. Now that which has a ‘what it is’ can be understood either as the nature itself, which the ‘what it is’ first belongs to, or as the supposit of nature, which the ‘what it is’ per se but not first belongs to. The ‘what it is’ taken in the first way, in both material and immaterial things, is the same as what it belongs to - even first belongs to, because what it belongs to has the ‘what it is’ first. Taken in the second way, what has a ‘what it is’, when it includes some entity outside the idea of its whatness, is not the same as the ‘what it is’; for then it is not the same first as the ‘what it is’, because the ‘what it is’ does not belong to it first, in that what has the ‘what it is’ includes some entity outside the idea of what is first the ‘what’.

206. To the intended conclusion of the Philosopher, therefore, I say that in things not conceived along with matter (that is, not conceived along with an individual entity contracting the quiddity), the ‘what it is’ is the same as what it belongs to, because such a ‘what it belongs to’ has no nature outside the nature of that which is the ‘what it is’; but in things conceived along with matter (that is, conceived with an individual entity contracting the quiddity), the ‘what it is’ is not the same first as what it belongs to, because a first thus conceived would not have the ‘what it is’ of itself but only through a part, namely through the nature which is contracted by the individual entity.

207. So from this one does not get that the matter which is the other part of a composite is outside the idea per se of the quiddity - rather, matter truly belongs to the quiddity, and the species (and what has the form universally) has the ‘what it is’ first and is the same as it first; and so it does not follow that the matter that is the other part of a composite is what individuates it, but this only follows about the matter that is the entity contracting the quiddity, and I have conceded that [n.206]. But whether a lack of the matter that is the other part entails, according to the Philosopher, the lack of this sort of individual entity will be discussed in the following question [nn.238-239].

208. To the remark of the Philosopher that ‘the generator generates another because of matter’ [n.132] I say that the intention of the Philosopher there is that [Platonic] ideas are not necessary for generation, because both the distinction of the generator from the generated and the assimilation of the generated to the generator (which two are required for univocal generation) can be got without ideas. For the particular agent has from its form wherewith to assimilate the passive thing to itself, and the generator has from its form wherewith so to assimilate the generated - and from matter the generator has that it is distinct from the generated: not principally, although however it may follow that it is distinguished by matter from the generated, because, through the form that terminates generation, it perfects another matter and not its own matter (for its own matter is already perfected by the form); and, because it assimilates through the form, it perfects another matter than its own, and so its own matter is other than the matter which is deprived of such form. But whatever has a different matter is, from the fact that matter is an essential part of a thing, other than it.

209. I say then that the principal reason for assimilation (or of likeness) is the form itself between the generator and the generated, and this not according to individual unity and identity insofar as the form is a ‘this’, but according to a lesser unity and identity insofar as it is a form, and the reason for generating accords with this; the form too is a more principal reason for distinction than matter is, because just as form is more principally that by which a composite is than matter, so it is more principally that by which a composite is one and so that by which the composite is not in itself distinct but is distinct from another.

210. However (distinguishing ‘what assimilates’ from ‘what distinguishes’), the form is appropriately assimilative in a way that the matter properly is not, because matter is not a substantial or an accidental quality; but matter is a distinguishing thing (speaking appropriately), because - from the fact it lacks form - it necessarily distinguishes from the matter which already has the form, and so it distinguishes composite from composite.

211. The composite can also in another way be understood to be ‘other because of matter’, as being other because of a pre-existing cause of otherness: for the form of the generated thing is a more principal cause of otherness in the composite than the matter is; however it is not the pre-existing cause of this otherness, but matter is - and that because it pre-existed as deprived matter; and therefore it cannot be the same as informed matter.

Question Seven. Whether it is Possible for Several Angels to Exist in the Same Species

212. Seventh and last about this subject matter I ask whether it is possible for several angels to exist in the same species.

213. That it is not:

Because the Philosopher in Metaphysics 7.11.1037a32-b5, ch. ‘On Parts of Definition’ at the end, says that “in things that are without matter the ‘what it is’ is the same as what it belongs to” [nn.133, 182, 204]; therefore since an angel is without matter, his ‘what it is’ is the same as the angel himself. Therefore it is impossible for an angel to be distinguished from an angel unless his ‘what it is’ is distinguished from the ‘what it is’ of the other angel; therefore there cannot be a distinction of individuals among angels under the same ‘what it is’.

214. Further, Avicenna Metaphysics 9.4 f.104vb-105rb sets down an order of intelligences wherein he seems to maintain that a lower intelligence is produced by a superior intelligence as by the one creating it; but this causality is not in anything with respect to another of the same species.

215. I argue further by reason: every formal difference is a specific difference; angels, since they are several and are forms, differ by some formal difference; therefore they differ specifically.

216. The proof of the major is taken from Metaphysics 8.3.1043b32-44a11 where forms are compared to numbers, in which any addition or subtraction varies the species; therefore etc.

217. Again the major is proved in another way in Metaphysics 10.9.1058a29-34 and b21-23, “Masculine and feminine do not differ in species, because masculinity and femininity are only material differences of the form of humanity,” insinuating by this that all formal differences make a distinction in species, and also that form and species are the same; therefore etc.

218. Further, every form separated from matter has in itself the whole perfection of the species; therefore if one such form is posited in the species (as the form of this angel) and another such form is posited, the former will be the latter and the latter will be the former, because each angel is a form separated from matter, and consequently any one of them has the perfection of the whole species.

219. Proof of the antecedent [n.218]: because the fact that a form does not have the whole essence of the species is because it partakes of it; but the form only has the essence of the form by partaking of it because it exists in matter; therefore etc.

220. Further, in the case of perfect beings there is nothing that is not intended by nature; but numerical plurality is not per se intended by nature because numerical difference - as far as concerns it of itself - can be increased infinitely; now infinity is not per se intended by any agent; therefore there is no numerical difference in perfect beings. But what is in angels belongs to them as to the most perfect beings in the universe; therefore there is no numerical difference in them but only a specific one, wherein the beauty of the universe principally exists.

221. There is a confirmation: the intention of nature stops per se at those beings that pertain to the order of the universe; but species and not individuals are of this sort; now there is nothing in angels that does not pertain to the order and beauty of the universe; therefore there is no numerical difference in them.

222. Further, the Philosopher in On the Soul 2.4.415a26-b7 seems to say that a multitude of individuals exists only for the sake of the preservation of the species; but in the case of incorruptible things nature is sufficiently preserved in one individual; therefore etc.

223. There is confirmation too from the Philosopher in On the Heaven 1.9.278a22-b8, that in the heavenly bodies there is only one individual of one species, as one sun and one moon; therefore etc.Arguments like those in nn.222-223 are found in Aquinas and Henry of Ghent. ⁶³

224. On the contrary:

Damascene in his Elements or On the Two Wills etc. in Christ n.3 [“Wisely then did the author of natures (that is, of species) make much difference in them for the display of his riches and wisdom and virtue, so that he might, by being at least wondered at, be the more desired... For this reason he made different hypostases, not only for each order of angelic virtues, but also for each species, so that they might, by communicating with each other at least in nature, rejoice in each other and, by being joined together in natural condition, might care for each other and be amicably disposed toward each other.”]

I. To the Question

A. The Opinion of Others

225. Those who answer to the preceding questions about individuation that the principle of individuation is quantity or matter [nn.71, 132, 148, 153-154] accordingly in consequence give a negative answer to this question [Aquinas, Giles, Godfrey], namely that there cannot be several angels in the same species, because the principles of such an individual difference for a species cannot be found in angels; and they have to say that this is impossible not only by an intrinsic impossibility [sc. on the part of the angel] but also by an extrinsic one [sc. on the part of divine power], because it is simply incompossible in such a way that an individual distinction cannot belong to angelic nature, because that which precisely can be the principle of such a distinction is repugnant to the nature - just as it would be incompossible for there to be several species under animal if the different actualities by which the species were distinguished were repugnant to animal.

226. However, the foundations for this opinion were rejected before in the preceding questions [nn.75-104, 136-141, 155-167, 200].

B. Scotus’ own Opinion

227. The simply opposite conclusion must therefore be held, namely that it simply is possible for several angels to exist in the same species.

The proof is as follows:

First, because every quiddity - as far as concerns it of itself - is communicable, even the divine quiddity; but no quiddity is communicable in numerical identity unless it is infinite; therefore any other quiddity is communicable, and this with numerical distinctness - and thus the intended conclusion. But that every quiddity is communicable is plain because this is not repugnant to it from perfection, since it belongs to the divine quiddity, nor from imperfection, since it belongs to things generable and corruptible; therefore etc.

228. Further, any quiddity of a creature can be understood, without contradiction, under the idea of a universal; but if it were of itself a ‘this’, it would be a contradiction to understand it under the idea of a universal (just as it is a contradiction to understand the divine essence under the idea of universality), because the idea of understanding the object is repugnant to the object understood, which means that the understanding is false; therefore etc.a

a.a [Interpolation] Or as follows: no created quiddity is of itself a ‘this’, but it can be conceived as a universal, because in its idea is not included singularity (and therefore God cannot be a universal, because he is of himself a this, not possessing the genus and difference that belong to created quiddity); therefore, since any quiddity has principles that are not of themselves ‘this’, it can be understood under the idea of a universal. But it is of the idea of a universal that it is multipliable into many, because a universal arises from the fact that it is understood according to an indifference to this thing and to that, as being sayable of many things according to the same idea; and there is a confirmation from the idea of species [sc. because a species is of itself sayable of many].

229. Further, if God can annihilate this angel in this species, then, after the angel has been annihilated, he can produce this species anew in some other individual, because being does not become, by the annihilation of this singular, repugnant to the species; for otherwise it would be only a fictitious being, like a chimaera. God can, then, produce the same species in some individual, otherwise he could not make the same order of universe as he made at the beginning; but not in this angel [sc. the one annihilated], according to those who hold this opinion, ‘because a man could not rise again the same in number unless the intellective soul remained the same in number’.

230. Further, intellective souls are distinguished by number in the same species, and yet they are pure forms, albeit perfective of matter; there is, then, on the part of forms, no impossibility in their being distinguished by number in the same species; for whatever would entail, by reason of form, this impossibility in angels would entail it also in souls.

231. But if you say that souls have an inclination to diverse bodies and thus they have an aptitude for perfecting matter, and so they are distinguished by diverse relationsGodfrey of Fontains, Quodlibet 7 q.16: “...just as also the separated rational soul is not thus a purely metaphysical being, the way the intelligences or angels are, on account of its natural relation and inclination to a natural body, which includes natural and material dispositions. Notwithstanding this, however, several souls differing in number are posited; but this is said to come from the fact they are forms of diverse bodies differing in number, and following along with these bodies there is an individuation or numerical distinction of this sort.” ⁶⁴ - on the contrary:

This inclination is not an absolute entity, because a thing cannot be inclined to itself; therefore it supposes some prior entity absolute and distinct, and so in that prior entity this soul is distinguished from that. Therefore souls are distinct without these sorts of relations (as without a formal reason for distinguishing).

232. There is confirmation, because this aptitude cannot be of the formal idea of the soul, for it is a relation; but a relation is not of the formal idea of anything absolute.

233. Again, it is because a soul is this soul that it therefore has this inclination and not conversely (because form is the end of matter and not conversely); therefore this inclination is not the idea of being this soul, but presupposes this idea.

234. This point [n.230] is also confirmed for some [e.g. Aquinas] who find it unacceptable that any species simply of intellectual nature should be damned in its totality; but, on the positing of this position [sc. that there is one angel per species], there would be many species of angels where none would be saved; therefore the position is not true.

235. And there is proof of the first proposition [n.234] from what Augustine says

Enchiridion ch.29 n.9: “It has pleased the universal Lord that, since not the whole multitude of angels, by deserting God, had perished, the part which had perished should remain in perpetual damnation, but that the part that had stood with God, while the other part was deserting him, should rejoice in their happiness most certainly known to be always going to be; however the rational nature that was in man, since it had all perished in sins and punishments, deserved to be in part repaired, whence it might be joined to the curtailed society of angels that the former ruin had diminished.” This totality and partialness in angels does not seem to be rational unless it be posited that no angelic species had totally perished as to all individuals, and so some from each species fell and some stood; therefore etc.

236. Further, if it be conceded that the quiddity of an angel is of itself communicable to many and so - as far as concerns it of itself - communicable to an infinite number (for there is no idea of impossibility on the part of a numerical multitude), then, if the fact the nature is produced in this individual means that the possibility of its being in more is taken away, the nature exists in this individual according to its whole communicability and so infinitely, because it is infinitely communicable according to its quiddity; therefore that single angel would be formally infinite. The consequent is unacceptable, therefore the antecedent is too.a

a.a [Interpolation] Or the argument goes as follows: if the quiddity of an angel is in itself multipliable into many, then it is multipliable also into infinites; therefore it cannot, by its being received in some one angel, be made incommunicable to another angel unless it is in the former in its whole commonness; now this whole commonness does not belong to the former unless it is in him infinitely, because it is in itself infinitely communicable. But this reasoning of others supposes that the quiddity of an angel is of itself multipliable and that the whole of its commonness is received in this angel; and then the reasoning would proceed, but others would have to deny the antecedent.

237. I say therefore that every nature which is not itself pure act can - according to the reality according to which it is nature - be potential to the reality by which it is this nature, and consequently can be a ‘this’; and just as it does not of itself include any quasi singular entity, so such entities in whatever number are not repugnant to it, and so it can be found in any number of them. But in the case of what is of itself a necessary being, there is a determination in nature to being ‘this’, because whatever can be in the nature is in it - so that the determination cannot be through something extrinsic to singularity if there is in the nature of itself a possibility for infinity; things are otherwise in the case of any possible nature, where there can be multiplication.

II. To the Principal Arguments

238. To the first argument [n.213] I say that although the Philosopher’s understanding there is per se about matter (that is, about the entity that per se contracts the quiddity [nn.182, 206-207]), yet it is by application of it to what has matter, which is the other part of a composite, and to what does not have matter - I concede that the Philosopher’s intention was that everything not possessed of matter as some component nature is the same first as its ‘what it is’, because every such ‘what it is’ per se posits a ‘this’; and the reason for this is that he posited that everything such as not to have matter as part of itself is formally necessary. Now whatever can be in a nature formally necessary is actually in it; therefore anything whatever that can have that quiddity does have it, because there is no potency there distant from act; hence every possibility for supposits that he posited in such a nature he posited as being actual. Now if there were a possibility there for several individuals, there would be a possibility there for an infinity of individuals, and so the individuals would be actually infinite; therefore, since an infinity is impossible in any nature, so there is in this nature too (according to him) an impossibility for infinity. Therefore this nature is of itself a ‘this’, according to him.

239. But we disagree with him in the proposition that ‘everything such as not to have matter as part of itself is formally necessary’ [n.238], and so we disagree with him in the conclusion. For it is more rational for a theologian to disagree with a philosopher in the principle because of which the philosopher holds some conclusion, than to err with him in the conclusion and to disagree with him in the principle because of which he himself erred. For thus to agree with him is neither to philosophize nor to think theologically, because such a theologian does not have a reason that would be valid with the philosopher, because the philosopher would not be conceding the conclusion save because of that principle; nor even does such a theologian have a theological principle for his conclusion, because there is precisely a philosophical principle for it, which the theologian denies.a

a.a [Interpolation] The response [to the first argument, nn.238-239] stands on the fact that matter is taken in one way for the second (potential) part of a composite, in another way for the disposition that contracts a quiddity or for any entity that is outside the idea of the quiddity; and accordingly things that do not have matter can be understood in two ways. Likewise, a distinction must be made on the part of the predicate, for ‘whatever is the same as that which it belongs to’ can be understood in two ways: in one way about a real identity, and thus the ‘what it is’ is the same really as what it belongs to, whether it has matter or not (because as Aristotle argued in the beginning of the chapter ‘On Parts of Definition’ [n.213], “The singular does not seem to be other than its own substance;” and the argument is not sophistical but demonstrative); in another way it can be understood about the most precise identity, and thus the ‘what it is’ is the same as that which it belongs to when what has the quiddity is only quiddity and not something else (which indeed the Philosopher would place among things that do not have matter as the second part of a composite, because he posits that on this follows that there is in them no matter in the second way but that there is only quiddity there and not any condition contracting the quiddity, for the reason above posited, that they are formally necessary [n.238]). - Thereby to the form of the argument [n.213] I say that in things having matter the ‘what it is’ is not the same as what it belongs to in either the first or the second way. But then the minor is false, when it is said that angels are of this sort [n.213]; for in them there is in truth matter in the second way (though not first), because none is of himself a ‘this’, although Aristotle posited this because of the principle that the theologian has to deny.

240. On the same basis I say as to Avicenna [n.214] that his intention was that there is one angel in one species, but the proposition on which this conclusion rests -namely that ‘a superior angel causes an inferior angel’ (because he posits that there can only be one thing from one thing disposed in the same way)- is conceded by no Catholic theologian; therefore neither should his conclusion be conceded by any theologian.

241. As to the first of the reasons [n.215], it was said elsewhere [1 d.17 n.255] that formal difference can be taken for a difference in form (and what is called ‘formal difference’ seems properly to signify this), or ‘formal difference’ can be taken for a difference of forms, although the difference is not in the form as in the reason for the difference.

242. In the first way the major [n.215, sc. ‘every formal difference is a specific difference’] can be conceded, and thus the minor [sc. ‘angels differ by some formal difference’] is false. And the proof of the minor, namely that ‘an angel differs from an angel because he is a form, therefore angels have a formal difference’, involves the fallacy of the consequent; for the inference ‘the forms differ, therefore they differ formally (or they differ in form)’ does not follow, just as the inference ‘many men differ, therefore they differ in humanity’ does not follow; for it is one thing that ‘something is distinct’ and another that ‘it is the first reason for the distinguishing (or the distinction)’, because that the thing is the reason for the distinguishing entails that the thing is distinct, but that the thing is distinct does not entail that it is the reason for the distinguishing. And the logical reason is to this effect, that the negation included in the term ‘difference’ not only confounds the term of this relation [sc. the relation of difference] by confusing and distributing it, but also confounds the thing that specifies the difference (as that in which the difference is noted to be); the difference is indeed confounded (as to the negation included in the term ‘difference’), because if Socrates differs from Plato in whiteness then he is not the same as him, neither in this whiteness nor in that.Tr. The logical point in this paragraph seems to be as follows. The statement ‘A is different from B’ does not so much assert something of A as deny of it a relation with B (that A is not the same as B). So it distributes the term of the relation ‘different’, namely ‘B’ and everything about B in which something could differ from it; or, alternatively, it distributes the whole predicate ‘same as B’ (negative propositions logically distribute the predicate of the proposition). Accordingly it takes the predicate confusedly, that is, takes it to apply to everything that belongs to ‘B’, or to ‘same as B’, and leaves indeterminate what sort of sameness with B, if any, is being denied of A. Hence one cannot conclude from ‘A is different from B’ that A is not the same as B in humanity, say, or whiteness. One needs further premises for that purpose. Further, if the proposition does specify what the difference is in, as that A is not the same as B in humanity or whiteness, then the negation distributes and takes confusedly the specification as well. For the proposition ‘A is not the same as B in whiteness’, because it distributes and takes confusedly, or universally, the predicate ‘same as B in whiteness’, denies of A, if not further clarified, all likeness with B in all whiteness. But of course it could well be that A is not different from B in all whiteness but only in this or that shade of whiteness (A and B are both white, say, but A is a paler white). Thus the proposition ‘A differs from B in whiteness’ is, by itself, far too vague or confused to form the basis of any valid inference about what sort of difference in what sort of whiteness. And this error is committed by the argument ‘an angel differs from an angel because he is a form, therefore angels have a formal difference’. For in fact, as far as the premise is concerned, an angel could differ from an angel in form or because of form in a whole host of ways. So to conclude that the angel differs in this way (namely in ‘formal difference’) is to infer something not warranted by the premise, and so to commit the fallacy of the consequent. ⁶⁵ - But if the major

[n.215] is taken improperly, according to the second understanding [n.241], I deny the major.

243. As to the proof [sc. of the major, n.216] I say that the Philosopher in Metaphysics 8 is speaking of form as it indicates quiddity. This is apparent from his first comparison of forms with numbers; for he says [8.3.1043b32-36], “If substances are in some way numbers, they are so in this way - that definition is a sort of number, a divisible into indivisibles (for accounts are not infinite), and number is such.” That is: the resolution of definitions stops at an indivisible just as the resolution of numbers stops at an indivisible; and such a definition is of what he calls ‘substance’, that is ‘quiddity’, not form, which is a second part of quiddity.

244. I say that in this way [sc. as form indicates quiddity] nothing is added to form without varying the species, whether simply, that is, without making from one species another species (a contrary or disparate species), or in a certain respect, that is, without making another species from what is not such a species (for example, if a difference pertaining to quidditative being is added to a genus, then it makes a most specific species, and such a most specific species was not present before but only an intermediate species was present).

245. And I say that in this way nothing circumstantial to nature in inferior things adds anything to the form. Whether this something circumstantial is an individual property or is a more or less (or anything else that does not regard the nature as it exists in its quidditative being), it neither removes nor adds in this way anything to the substance. An example of this would be if a unity, as it is part of a triple, were a precise part as a numerical individual difference, and yet it could in itself be intensified or relaxed - this difference would belong per se to the unity but per accidens to it as it is part of a triple; so there would not be a different triple when the unity was intensified or relaxed.

246. So when you say that ‘any distinction of forms is like a distinction of number’ [n.216], this is false save as it is about what accords with the formal being that pertains to the quiddity per se; and such is not the case here.

247. As to the statement from Metaphysics 10 [n.217] I say that a fallacy of the consequent is involved in inferring, from the text, that ‘all forms make a difference in species’. For the Philosopher is really maintaining there that ‘a non-formal difference is not specific’, and from this it does not follow that ‘a non-specific difference is not formal’ (which they themselves want to have), just as this does not follow in the case of the affirmative propositions that are equivalent to these, because a universal affirmative does not convert with the terms disposed in the same way.The objectors want to argue from ‘no non-formal difference is specific’ to ‘every formal difference is specific’, and in order to do so they have to go through a series of logical obversions and conversions. So: ‘no non-formal difference is specific’ is obverted to ‘every non-formal difference is non-specific’, which is converted to ‘every non-specific difference is non-formal’, which is obverted to ‘no non-specific difference is formal’, which is converted to ‘no formal difference is non-specific’, which is obverted to ‘every formal difference is specific’. But in this series of obversions and conversions an invalid conversion is made, namely from ‘every non-formal difference is non-specific’ to ‘every non-specific difference is non-formal’. For a universal affirmative does not convert to a universal affirmative but to a particular affirmative, that is, in this case, to ‘some non-specific difference is non-formal’, and from this latter one can no longer validly get, as the objectors wish, the proposition ‘every formal difference is specific’. ⁶⁶

248. From the Philosopher then is got that ‘only a formal difference is specific’, not that ‘every difference in form is specific’, because although an exclusive proposition [sc. a proposition of the form ‘only A is B’] entails an affirmative proposition with the terms transposed [sc. ‘only A is B’ entails ‘every B is A’], it does not do so in the same way with terms not transposed [sc. ‘only A is B’ does not entail ‘every A is B’] - but there is a fallacy of the consequent in converting an indefinite proposition into a universal affirmative [sc. ‘only A is B’ is equivalent to ‘some A is B’ and ‘some A is B’ does not convert to ‘all A is B’]. Indeed from that place [from Aristotle, n.217] it seems rather that one can take the opposite of the proposition ‘every difference of forms is specific’; for the difference of a white man and a black horse is a difference of forms and in some way through forms, but it is not a specific difference (according to Aristotle there), because the forms are formal with respect to the natures in which they are [sc. white and black are formal with respect to this man and this horse], that is, they are consequent to the individuals, but they are not consequent per se or terminative per se of the quidditative being [sc. white and black are forms determining individuals, not species].

249. To the other argument [n.218] I say that if some individual - from the mere fact that it is without matter - had in itself the whole perfection of a species that of itself is of a nature to be in infinite individuals (as far as concerns itself), then it would seem to have infinite perfection from the mere lack of matter; but whatever can have an infinite perfection has it, and so there would be infinite perfection in any species, and consequently the perfection of a species would not be limited or determined by the determination or specification or limitation of the ultimate difference (which, by addition to the genus, constitutes the ultimate species), which is false and contrary to all the philosophers. So the assumed proposition is false that ‘the individual which can be without matter has, from this privative cause alone (that it is without matter), the whole perfection of the species’ [n.218], because if, along with this, one posits that nothing positive is done in respect of it (but there is just separation), nothing that was not there before is posited.

But if the proposition be set down as it has some probability, namely that ‘if a form were separated from matter, it would have the whole perfection of the species, because the species cannot be participated by matter’ [n.219], it is false and begs the question, unless it be understood in the sense that matter states the individual entity that contracts the form. By understanding in this way the equivocal meaning of the assumed proposition, then every form has the whole perfection of the species and is of itself a ‘this’; and then the minor - assumed thereunder, about an angel [sc. ‘an angel is a separate form not able to be participated by matter as by an individual entity contracting the form’] - is simply false, because although the essence that is the other part of a composite is not able to be participated by matter, yet it can be participated by several material things, that is, by several individuals having material entities, which entities are called ‘material’ - as has often been said - in respect of the contracted quiddity, to the extent quiddity is called form [nn.182, 201, 206-207, 238, 243].

250. To the next [n.220] I say that there is a fallacy of the consequent in the form of the arguing, ‘infinity is not intended, therefore plurality is not intended’; numerical plurality is not of itself infinite, but infinity can stand only if the plurality is not repugnant to it. So although no one per se intends infinity, yet someone can intend a numerical plurality that is not of itself infinite, and which, just as it admits of infinity, so it also admits of finitude.

251. And thus can their common saying be understood [sc. the order and beauty of the universe consists in species, nn.220-221], and truly:

Although order in the whole universe is principally found in the distinction of species, wherein there is the inequality pertaining to order, yet because, according to

Augustine City of God 19.13.n.1, “order is the fitting disposition of equal and unequal things, bestowing on each of them its own place,” the principal agent who intends the order of the universe (as the principal good internal to it) intends not only the inequality, which is one of the requisites for order (namely the inequality of species), but also the equality of individuals (namely in the same species), which is the other of the concurrent requisites for order. And individuals are intended simply by the First Cause insofar as he intends something ‘other than himself’, not as end, but as something other for the end; hence, for the sake of communicating his goodness, as for the sake of communicating his blessedness, he produced many individuals in the same species. But in the case of the most principal beings, God principally intended the individual.

252. And when the proposition ‘numerical difference is not intended’ [n.220] is taken in this way, it is false; and when it is proved in this way that ‘numerical difference can be infinite,’ the conclusion does not follow. The inference ‘numerical difference can be infinite, and the infinity is not intended, therefore the difference is not intended’ does not hold; for there can be some finite numerical difference, and there is; and it can be intended, and it is.

253. To the last [n.222] I say that although the Philosopher says that generation is perpetual ‘so as to preserve a divine existence’, and this in corruptible things where the species cannot remain for ever in one individual, yet he does not himself say that a multitude is precisely for the preservation of the species in corruptible individuals; hence such preservation is one cause of the multitude of individuals in the same species but it is not the precise cause; rather the one stated before is [sc. the goodness of God, n.251].

254. And as to what is adduced about the celestial bodies, that ‘in one species there is only one singular and one individual body’ [n.223], I reply: Aristotle’s reason was that such a singular body came from the whole matter of the species (and this not only actual matter but also potential matter, according to him), because there was, according to him, no possible matter in any such species that was not totally in the one individual of such species; for he posited that nothing new could be produced in immobile or eternal things as they are such, namely immobile and eternal [n.222]. And because theologians do not agree with him in this proposition ‘every eternal body is made of the whole matter, actual and potential, of the species’, therefore there should be no agreement with him in the conclusion.