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Question Three. Whether an Angel is Required to have Distinct Reasons for Knowing Created Quiddities in Order to Know them Distinctly
349. I ask third about the knowledge of an angel (and it is the second question with respect to things known other than himself [n.255, 302]), whether an angel is required to have distinct reasons for knowing created quiddities in order to know them distinctly.
350. That he is not:
Metaphysics 8.3.1043b33-34, “Forms are disposed like numbers;” therefore the more perfect virtually includes the more imperfect, and consequently the more perfect will be a sufficient reason for knowing the more imperfect, just as a greater number is a reason for knowing a lesser number.
351. There is a confirmation from the Philosopher On the Soul 2.3.414b29-32, where he maintains that the sensitive power is in the intellective power as a triangle is in a quadrilateral, and such seems to be the order of ordered forms in the universe; but a quadrilateral can be a sufficient reason for knowing a triangle; therefore etc.
352. Again, a material thing is more perfect than its species, because the species has to the material thing the relation of measured to measure, but the measured is naturally posterior and more imperfect than its measure; but nothing more imperfect than a material thing seems to be a perfection of an immaterial thing; therefore no species of a material thing will be the proper reason of knowing for the intellect of an angel. But that which is for it the reason of understanding any intelligible is for it a natural perfection insofar as it is intelligible; therefore etc.
353. Again, an angel understands himself through his own essence (from the first question [nn.269-271]), therefore he understands other things through it as well. The consequence is plain, because his quiddity is intelligible in the same way as other created quiddities are intelligible; therefore if for any intellect its own essence is the immediate reason for knowing itself, by parity of reasoning the quiddity of another thing will be a reason for its knowing itself, and so there will not be proper reasons with respect to proper quiddities different from those quiddities.a
a.a [Interpolation] Again, in the first proposition of On Causes, “Every first cause has a greater influence on the thing caused than a second cause does;” if therefore an angel is a cause of an inferior thing, he will contain it perfectly.74
354. To the contrary:
The divine intellect (according to most people) understands many things distinctly through many distinct reasons (and on this account do some posit [Bonaventure, Aquinas, Henry of Ghent] a necessity for ideas in the divine intellect), and our intellect understands many things precisely through many reasons; therefore the fact of having many reasons with respect to many intelligibles comes neither from an imperfection of intellect (because it belongs to the supreme intellect) nor from a perfection of intellect (because it belongs to the lowest intellect); therefore it comes from an absolute perfection of intellect in itself.
I. The Opinion of Others
A. First Opinion, which is that of Henry of Ghent
355. Here Henry of Ghent says, Quodlibet 5 q.14, that an angel understands all quiddities through a single scientific habit. Now his way of positing it is this, that although the habit is in the intellect as a form in a subject (or by impression), yet the object that shines forth in the habit does so only objectively.
356. And if it be asked how an object could be present as shining forth through a habit, the answer is that “although scientific habits are qualities in the first species of quality, yet there is founded on this quality a respect essential for it (which cannot be removed from it) to the knowable object as to that on which it depends in its essence and its existence.. .so that the intellect cannot take hold of this quality without taking hold of the knowable object with resect to which it exists,” because of “the natural connection of correlation” that it has to it; and even if the quality is “divinely bestowed, it no less has the essential respect to the knowable object,” so that “the knowable object, from the nature of the scientific habit, always shines back on the intellect with that of which it is the object...and it as much more naturally shines forth than could happen through a species as the science depends more essentially on the knowable object than the species on the thing, from which thing the species does not get its being caused.”
357. And if it be asked how it is that through one habit many objects can be present, the response is that “a single habit of science contains virtually the many intelligibles that the science concerns, and contains them the more actually the more simple it is; so that, if there were infinite species of creatures, that one habit would suffice for understanding all of them one after another, even by an infinite process, and this by understanding each of them the more simply and clearly the more indeterminate the habit is and the less determinate in its nature and essence, according as the higher angels are reckoned to understand by more universal and simpler habits than the lower ones do.”
358. And if it is asked how this habit reduces the angel’s intellect from potentially understanding to actually understanding, the answer stated is that “an angel’s intellect is naturally inclined by the habit co-created with it to understanding the quiddities of simple things, in the way an unimpeded heavy object is at once made to tend downwards by its heaviness; and an angel’s intellect is inclined so much the more naturally by the habit to understanding this thing rather than that thing the more essentially the habit is ordered to one thing rather than another (as to an intellection of itself or of a more abstract and more perfect creature that has more intelligibility). And then, when the intellect has been put into first act for first understanding, it runs discursively by a free choice of will to understanding particular things both propositional and simple (I mean by ‘discursively’ to know this thing after that thing, not to know this thing on the basis of that thing).. and according as it tends determinately to something by command of will, so the habit inclines determinately to that same thing;” for the habit “moves determinately to something according as it is impelled toward it by command of will.”
359. Now, in support of this opinion, five reasons can be elicited from the statements of the author of it. The first of these is that the Philosopher Ethics 2.4.1105b19-21 says there are only three things in the soul: power, habit, and passion. But the reason of understanding in an angel cannot be only his power (because thus something natural would be a sufficient principle for representing all knowables), and it is certainly not his passion; therefore it is his habit.
360. The second is as follows: in an intellect that has no habit a habit can be generated by frequent elicited acts; therefore if a scientific habit for knowing were not cocreated in an angel, he could generate in himself such a habit, and thus he would be in essential potency, not only to second, but also to first act (the way our intellect is), which is unacceptable.
361. The third is that Dionysius Divine Names ch.7 says that ‘the connection of the universe consists in the fact that the highest of the lower is conjoined with the lowest of the higher’; but the highest in human knowledge is that he should be ready for knowing through a scientific habit; therefore this sort of knowledge must be posited in an angel.
362. The fourth is that if there were no other reason save that a species without a habit does not suffice for perfect knowledge while a perfect habit without a species does suffice, in vain is a species posited for an act of understanding.
363. The fifth is that several elements are not posited in the will as principles for willing diverse objects; therefore neither are diverse principles of understanding posited in the intellect, but a single habit in a perfect intellect will suffice for representing whatever is naturally knowable to it.
B. Second Opinion, which is that of Thomas Aquinas
364. Another opinion says [Aquinas ST Ia 1.55 a.3, De Veritate q.8 aa.10-11] that there is no need to posit proper reasons in an angel with respect to individual created quiddities, because although a lower angel knows many quiddities through many reasons for knowing, yet a higher angel can know them through some one reason, as is proved by Dionysius Celestial Hierarchy ch.12, “The superior angels have a more universal science than the inferior ones;” it is also proved by reason, because just as prior things are nearer to the first thing in entity so are they too in intellectuality. Since therefore the first intellect understands everything through one reason, a higher intellect will understand through fewer reasons what a lower intellect understands through more. There is a confirmation of this, that a sharper human intellect understands more things in one reason for knowing than another less sharp one does; therefore it thus seems that the angelic intellect, because of the greater perfection of its intellectuality, can distinctly understand more things through one reason.75
365. There is another argument to the same effect, that the more some reason for knowing is in something more immaterial or in something more actual, the more universal is the reason for representing; this major premise is plain of the species in the senses and of the phantasm in the intellect; and the reason is that ‘a received thing is in the receiver in the mode of the receiver’ [n.412]; therefore the reason that is in a higher, more actual angel will be a reason in a superior for knowing more things than in an inferior.
C. Rejection of Both Opinions in General
366. Now this opinion seems to coincide with the preceding one in this respect, that as the first posits that infinitely many quiddities could be known by the one habit (as far as concerns it of itself [n.357]), so this second one has to posit that in some one angel there was some one reason that would not be a reason for representing a definite number of quiddities without being a reason for representing more. For, by proceeding according to the number of quiddities in the universe and the number of intelligible species in angels, ‘of which there is always a smaller number in a higher angel’ [nn.364-365], one will eventually reach some single species in some single angel that could be the reason for knowing all inferior intelligibles - or at any rate one will reach some few species, and so all the inferior quiddities whatever that could come to be could be known by those few species; and thus, by attributing to one species some one definite multitude of knowable quiddities, one would not be able to find, on its part, why it was the reason for knowing so many and not more. And granted that the second opinion could in some way escape this conclusion, nevertheless, even were it not the first reason I pose against it, there will be another three against it, as also against the first opinion [nn.369, 371, 376].
367. I prove first, then, that a single created reason cannot be a principle for knowing an infinity of quiddities, or cannot be a principle for knowing a definite number of them without being a principle for knowing more, because where a numerical plurality requires a greater perfection, there an infinite plurality or a numerical infinity requires an infinite perfection (an example: if being able to carry more weights at once entails a greater power, then being able to carry an infinity of weights at once, or not being able to carry a definite number at once without being able to carry more, entails a power intensively infinite); but for something to be a reason for distinctly knowing several quiddities entails a greater perfection in it than does being a reason for knowing one quiddity alone; if therefore something could be a reason for knowing an infinity of things (or not a reason for knowing a definite number without being a reason for knowing more), it will be infinite - which is impossible.
368. The assumption [sc. the minor, ‘for something to be.. .knowing one quiddity alone’, n.367] I provea by the fact that if the proper reason representative of this quiddity is taken, then, insofar as it is the representative reason of this quiddity, it includes some perfection, and likewise the proper reason representative of another quiddity includes some perfection; and these perfections in their proper representative reasons are of different idea; the one reason, then, that distinctly represents both of them as objects includes virtually in itself several perfections of different idea, and so it is more perfect in itself than is either of them alone. This is also confirmed by what is said in 1 d.2 nn.125-127, where it is proved that God is infinite from the infinity of the things represented through his essence.
a.a [Interpolation] Hereby not only is the minor proved but also the major.
369. Second I prove that no created reason can be a reason for knowing distinctly several quiddities:
First, because each one reason for knowing has one adequate object, and in this object are perfectly included all the things knowable through that reason, if several things are knowable through it.a The point is plain from a likeness about the divine essence as reason and as object; for the divine essence as reason is distinctly representative in regard to infinite objects because it is of one first object, which object perfectly includes all those infinite objects insofar as they are knowable. But the one reason here that is being posited does not have any first object virtually including, according to its total knowability, all other quiddities; for this reason is posited precisely as having for object all created things, and no creature thus includes all quiddities.
a.a [Interpolation] Or alternatively let the major be this: whatever is the reason for knowing distinctly several things has one object in which those several things are perfectly contained.
370. There is also proof of the major [n.369] by reason, because the unity of the naturally posterior depends on the unity of the prior, for on a distinction in the naturally prior follows a distinction in the posterior; but every reason for knowing that exists in a created intellect (that is, which is not participated as the divine essence is) is disposed to the known thing as measured to measure, and so is as naturally posterior to prior; therefore its unity necessarily depends on the unity of the object measuring.a
a.a [Interpolation] Therefore it is necessary that some one object is the measure of the reason for knowing. But the object that is the measure of it is adequate to it; therefore it is not a reason for knowing other things save in that these other things are virtually contained in the first object, which is the measure of the reason for knowing. - Second, the major is proved as follows: nothing is a reason for perfectly knowing another thing unless it either is the proper reason for it or contains the proper reason for knowing it; but not in the first way, since it is a reason for knowing distinctly several other things; therefore it must contain virtually the reasons for knowing many things, if it is a distinct reason for knowing them. The minor is evident, because the quiddity of the object will be a created one - and it cannot contain other quiddities distinctly in knowability, because there is some entity in an inferior that is not contained in a superior; therefore likewise there is in knowability some reason in an inferior that is not contained in a superior knowability; therefore etc.
371. Again second: each one reason for knowing can have some act of knowing adequate to it; but this reason, which is posited to be the reason with respect to knowing distinctly several quiddities, cannot have some one act of understanding adequate to it, because - according to them - this intellect cannot know distinctly and at once the several quiddities of which it is the reason; therefore etc.
372. The proof of the major is that every perfect memory can have an intelligence adequate to itself as to the fact that, according to its first and total act, it can produce an effect adequate to itself; this is clear because even the infinite memory of the Father can be the principle for producing an actual infinite knowledge.a
a.a [Interpolation] Proof of the minor: for it cannot have one act adequate to it intensively, because then the act would contain virtually acts of understanding all other quiddities, which it cannot do; nor can it have one such act extensively, because then it could at once actually and distinctly understand all those quiddities, and this is not true and not conceded by them either.
373. Against these two arguments [nn.369, 371] it is objected that a form productive of several things does not have to have one first object in which are contained virtually all other objects (as is clear about the form of the sun with respect to generable and corruptible forms); nor even does it have to be able to have one act adequate to itself, but several. So it is in the issue at hand.
374. I reply:
A productive power in some way unlimited in its effects is an equivocal power, and therefore simply superior and nobler than any effect; because of this its unity does not depend on the unity of the effect but the effect depends on this cause; and the effects can be many while this cause exists as single, because there can be a plurality in posterior things along with a unity in the naturally prior thing. But in operations that are not productions the object in that case does not have the idea of a naturally prior with respect to that which is the proximate reason for operating (speaking of the case of creatures), and the unity of what is naturally posterior depends on the unity of the prior.
375. Likewise too, such a productive form does not naturally have to have a passive thing adequate to it (adequate both in intensity and in extension) so that it can act with an adequate action; but the memory insofar as it is an operative power has itself a natural intelligence (in the same nature) as the passive or quasi-passive thing adequate to it, namely because it can receive an action or a second act adequate in every way (namely both intensively and extensively) to the first act of memory itself; otherwise there would be in the memory some reason for knowing that would altogether exceed the power of generating of the memory as it is parent, and so ‘the parts of the image would not mutually take hold of themselves’, which is contrary to Augustine On the Trinity 10.11 n.18 (for that is why these parts are equal in comparison with the objects, because every object, in the way it can be in the memory, can be in the intelligence actually and in the will lovably or hatefully according to its act) - and the Master [Lombard] adduces in Sentences 1 d.3 ch.2 n.41 authorities from Augustine for the fact that ‘whatever I know I remember’.
376. I argue third as follows: the intellect that can without contradiction habitually know this and not know that does not know several things habitually in the same way formally (the proof is that it is a contradiction for the intellect to have and not have the same thing formally, and to have something by which it is and is not formally such; therefore if it can be non-knowing a habitually and knowing b habitually, it does not know a and b habitually in the same way); but every created intellect can know one object and not another; therefore no such intellect knows several objects in the same way habitually.
377. The proof of the minor is that if a created intellect could not, without contradiction, habitually know a in the absence of knowing b, this would be either on the part of such an intellect - which is false, because it can now habitually know one thing and not another thing (otherwise it would be knowing several things at once); or on the part of a necessary binding together of objects - which is false, because one object can be known by our intellect while another is not known. If then this is not because of a necessary connection of objects, nor of a necessary connection of object to power, then not in any way.
D. Rejection of the First Opinion in Particular
378. Further, I argue specifically in four ways against the first opinion about habit: First against what it posits about essential respect [n.356]: it seems to contradict Augustine, On the Trinity 7.1 n.2, who maintains that “everything that is said relatively is a something after the relative is removed;” and in 2 d.1 nn.260, 272, 243-252, 260-261, 266, 278, 284 (the question on the relation of the creature to God) it was proved that no relation is formally or essentially the same as its foundation, although it is sometimes by identity the same thing. If then the habit in question is a certain quality and an absolute entity, it does not have a respect in such a way that it cannot be understood without it.
379. Further, if the respect is posited to be the same as something absolute, it is so only as to what is naturally prior, as is plain from the question about the relation of a creature to God [ibid. nn.261, 263, 265]; but the respect of a habit in the angelic intellect to a stone is not to what is naturally prior, because a stone is not disposed in any genus of cause with respect to such a habit.a
a.a [Interpolation] Or in this way: a respect is not posited as being the same as something save in regard to that on which it essentially depends; but nothing can essentially depend on several things of the same order, because in that case, when one of the things terminates the dependence of it, another would not terminate it - and thus would it be even if that other on which it essentially depends did not exist, which is unacceptable. But if such a habit is posited, it will represent all quiddities under the same order, such that it will represent none of them by means of another but all of them immediately; therefore etc.
380. Second against the fact that an object is posited through the habit to be present under the idea of the intelligible [n.355]:
First by Henry’s own reason: for he proves that an intelligible species cannot be the reason for the presence of the object because it perfects the intellect as a certain being, the way form perfects matter, and consequently it will not perfect the intellect as it is intellect [sc. as it is an intellective power], nor will the intelligible be present insofar as it is intelligible. Much more can this be proved of the habit, because the habit, as habit, is a perfection of a power.
381. Further second: the consequence would much more hold in our habit, which is caused by the object, that our scientific habit would be something by which the intelligible object would be present, and so, when the scientific habit has been acquired, no turning toward phantasms would be required for actual intellection, which he denies.
382. The response is that our intellection depends on sensibles, not so the intellection of an angel. - On the contrary: if a necessary joining together (or an essential respect in the habit) is the reason because of which the object is sufficiently present through the habit [n.356], and if that respect is more essentially in our habit than in an angel’s habit (because ours but not the angel’s is caused by the object), then our habit, because of this essential respect, will be more the reason for such presence than the angelic habit will be.
383. Third, against what he says that every created intelligible object is present through this habit [n.355]: this seems unacceptable, because if an angel were created in its purely natural powers without any such habit (and this involves no contradiction, because this habit differs, as a quality does, from the angel’s essence), then the angel would not be able to know, and the nature of angel would thus of itself be more imperfect in intellectuality than the nature of a man; because the nature of a man, however bare it is made to be, has the means to acquire intellectual knowledge of certain objects, but an angel could not acquire this habit nor be able, without it, to understand anything.
384. Further, the habit, according to him, does for this reason not represent the singular ‘the way a species would represent it’, because it is not of a nature to be generated immediately by the thing itself but only by an act of intellect comparing simples; but he himself argues against the species because, when something ‘generated by its natural cause’ is of a nature thus to represent a singular under the idea under which it is generated by it, it will, by whatever the singular is impressed on it, always thus represent it; therefore, since the habit that was thus generated by its natural cause would naturally follow the apprehension of simples (by whatever the apprehension too is impressed on it), the consequence would be that it would presuppose that apprehension of simples; therefore it cannot be the proper reason for apprehending simples.
385. Further fourth: as to his saying that this habit is the principle for knowing any distinct objects whatever [n.357] - the first argument against the first opinion [n.367] seems to be against it, namely because it would be naturally infinite.
386. As to his also saying that the habit determinately inclines to what the will by commanding determines it [n.358] - this seems irrational, because this habit, ‘as it is a natural form’, has a determinate natural inclination, and if there are many inclinations to diverse things they are ordered inclinations, such that at least one of them is first; and consequently to use it for that to which it is not first inclined seems to be against its first natural inclination, and so it will not be inclined to it merely naturally. Nor does it seem rational to posit that one natural form - as concerns its natural inclination - is subject to a created will; for if a heavy thing, while remaining actually heavy, were moved upwards by God, although the heavy thing be perfectly in obediential potency to the divine power, yet it does not seem, on its own part [2 d.2 nn.466-467], to be passively moved naturally; and however it may be in this case, it does not seem that any natural form - in its natural inclination - is altogether subject in its act to a created will, such that it be inclined naturally to that to which the created will wants it to be inclined
387. Further, in whatever way he may be able to say that the habit, by command of the will, determinately represents different things, much more could it be posited that what has many intelligible species can use now this species and now that; and a naturality will exist in any species that represents and inclines to its own object, and a liberty in the user of this species or that.
II. Scotus’ own Opinion
388. As to the question then [n.349], I concede the conclusions of the first four arguments [nn.367, 369, 371, 376], which prove that an angel has distinct reasons of knowing for knowing distinct quiddities.
389. And if it be asked what these reasons of knowing are, I say that an angel has reasons of knowing, different from the known essences themselves, that represent those essences, which reasons are both properly and truly called intelligible species; and if they are called habits by some people [e.g. Henry], they are thereby actually expressed as being accidents of species, for the idea of habit is an accident of a species, insofar as a species in the intellect, from which it is not easily deleted, has the idea of habit (because it has the idea of permanent form), but ‘species’ is not stated of the whatness of this quality or habit, just as ‘habit’ is not stated of the whatness of a species (for the same absolute essence in the genus of quality can be a habit and a disposition).
390. Likewise, ‘habit’ is universally used for a fixed such intelligible species, because although every such firm species is a habit, yet not conversely - rather, neither is every intelligible habit of the same object of which there is an intelligible species the same as the species.
The fact is plain, first because the species of the first object which is not naturally present through the essence naturally precedes the act of knowing it; but the habit with respect to that object naturally follows what it is generated from [n.384]; but the essentially same thing does not naturally follow and naturally precede, because there is no circle in essentially ordered things, neither in the case of causes nor in the case of caused things. Second because a habit can be more intense than something of which the species is less intense (and conversely), for he who has an imperfect intellect, in which an imperfect intelligible species is received, has a less intense intelligible species than someone else who has a sharper intellect (as is plain, because the natural causes in the former and the latter are unequal, namely the agent intellect and the phantasm, and natural causes act according to the ultimate of their power); therefore the intelligible species in the more imperfect intellect is less intense than in the more perfect intellect, and yet the slower intellect can more frequently consider the intelligible thing (of which it has the species), and thereby have a more intense habit with respect to this object, which habit is a quality facilitating the consideration of the object.
391. Thus this reason therefore (namely the species) is called per accidens and in general an ‘intelligible habit’, but per se and essentially such a reason is called an ‘intelligible species’, because in this way it is more properly expressed, more properly even than in the idea of a likeness.
392. But the proof that an angel, with respect to quiddities other than himself, has such a reason of knowing, different from his essence, is that he knows through something through which he would know those quiddities even if the quiddities were not in themselves existent; for this is a feature of perfection in our intellect, that we may have actual knowledge about a thing when it does not exist, so much more does this feature belong to the angelic intellect; but such knowledge of a thing, which can be had of it when it does not exist in itself, could only be had through a species representing it; therefore etc.
393. And herefrom follows further that an angel has a reason of knowing even about his own quiddity, because no knowledge imperfect in its kind belongs to a higher angel without an inferior angel having about the same thing a knowledge more imperfect in kind; but a superior angel can have knowledge about an inferior angel through a species (from what was already proved [n.392]), and knowledge through a species is more imperfect in its kind than knowledge through the essence; therefore an angel can have knowledge of himself through a species.
394. And if it is objected that this contradicts what was said in the first question [nn.269, 353], because it is said there that an angel knows himself through his own essence, I say that an angel can know any quiddity at all (other than himself and even his own) through a species of it and through the essence of it; he can know it through the essence indeed when he knows it with intuitive knowledge (namely under the idea under which it is present in actual existence); he can also know it through a species when he knows it with abstractive knowledge, about which a little will be touched on in d.9 qq.1-2 nn.19, 30 [cf. supra nn.318-323], in the question about the speaking of angels.
III. To the Principal Arguments
395. To the principal arguments [350-353].
To the first [n.350] I say that the Philosopher’s intention in Metaphysics 8 concerns subaltern species; this is clear from the first property of a number, where
Aristotle maintains that just as a number stops at indivisible units so the resolution of definitions stops at indivisibles; therefore the quiddities are ordered in the universe the way numbers are ordered, as resolvable to unities. He is speaking therefore of subaltern species, and so it is not to the purpose when speaking of the most specific species in the universe.
Yet if this point is taken, not from authority but as something true in itself, to be about most specific species, I say that a higher angel has a more perfect entity than a lower one; however the higher angel does not include the whole entity of the lower, such that the lower only differs from him by negation, for species in the universe are not distinguished by negations but by their proper ideas. Nevertheless the divine essence, which is infinite, does include eminently all perfections, and for this reason no higher angel is a sufficient reason for knowing a lower but the divine essence alone is.
396. As for the quote from On the Soul 2 [n.351], I say that the Philosopher is speaking there specifically of the sensitive, vegetative, and intellective soul. Nor is there a likeness between the species of numbers (or figures) and the most specific species in the universe, because greater numbers (and figures) include lesser ones as parts and according to the whole entity of numbers, and therefore they are sufficient reasons for knowing the lesser ones; but the higher species in the universe do not thus include the lower species.
397. To the second argument [n.352] I reply by conceding that the species of a material thing is a perfection of an angel in intelligible being, but an accidental perfection (not a substantial or essential one), and such a perfection does not always simply exceed what it perfects; rather, every accident is simply less a being than substance is (from Metaphysics 7.1.1028a13-20).
398. And if you ask how the species of a material thing can be an accidental perfection of a nature already perfect if that species is thus lower than the lowest nature (namely than corporeal substance), because that which is the reason for understanding whiteness in a perfect intellect (as in an angelic intellect) seems to be more perfect than whiteness - I say that the species is not altogether lower than the lowest nature, because it is not the effect of it as of the total cause but is the effect of it and of the intellect of the angel as of integral parts of one total cause. But the effect of some partial cause can exceed its partial cause, because it can have something of perfection from the other partial cause on account of which it can exceed the former partial cause; hence the species of whiteness in the intellect of the angel is a perfection of his intellect; indeed it is not a more imperfect entity than the entity that whiteness is but rather a more perfect one. And this does not belong to it insofar as it generated from whiteness but because it is generated as well from the intellect of the angel, as being a living perfection and in some way more perfect than whiteness itself (and yet it does in some way fail of entity simply, because it is an entity generated from whiteness); but this excess of perfection is only ‘in a certain respect’.
399. As to the final argument [n.353], it is plain that an angel’s understanding himself through a species stands together with his understanding himself through his essence, just as does his thus understanding anything other than himself [n.394] - and that naturally, the divine essence alone excepted [nn.324-325].
IV. To the Arguments for the First Opinion
400. To the arguments for the first opinion [nn.359-363].
To the first argument from Ethics 2 [n.359] I concede that, by proceeding through the division of things in the soul, species can truly be called habits, and habit can truly be predicated of the species as a universal and per accidens predicate; and if this has to be rightly expressed per se and in particular, such a thing is called an intelligible species. But the Philosopher does not mean that nothing is in the soul save what is a per accidens habit; on the contrary, that to which the idea of habit belongs is a sort of universal predicate.
401. To the second [n.360] I say that an angel cannot generate in himself any habit from his acts (I mean a habit that is a thing other than a species), because a habit is not generated in things inclined or determined naturally to one thing (as the reason for falling in a heavy thing is not generated by its falling however many times); nor in things moved violently is an inclination generated in conformity to the mover or to the operation of a habit (as is plain if a heavy thing is projected upwards however many times),a - but a habit is generated in powers that are in themselves indeterminate to an act frequently elicited. Now it is not a feature of imperfection that some created intellect is supremely habituated to intellection; but if there is any such intellect it will be the angelic, and so in it (as in what is supremely habituated to act) an aptitude that may be called a habit in the above way [sc. as a habit is ‘a thing other than the species’] will not be able to be generated from any action; or if it lacks such a habit (a habit that was an aptitude for considering this intelligible thing) and the intellect is capable of it, then I say it is not unacceptable for it to be able to generate such a habit in itself.
a.a [Interpolation] [nor in things moved violently] is there generated, by their being so moved however many times, any idea or habit facilitating and habituating them to such violent motion, as is plain of a stone moved upwards.
402. And when you say ‘therefore it is potential, as our intellect is, not only to second act but also to first’ [n.360], I deny the consequence; because the first act in an intellect is that which is presupposed to second act (which second act is intellection), but this habit (which is an aptitude for understanding and is distinguished from a species) does not naturally precede the act but follows it; therefore it is posterior to second act (and so it is not first act), and thereby the potency for it is not an essential potency (rather it is quasi posterior to accidental potency), because an essential potency is properly for a first act preceding second act; hence the science, for which the intellect, according to Aristotle, is said to be in essential potency, is not a scientific habit (which is generated from acts), but an intelligible species.
403. Hereby is plain the answer to the third argument, from Dionysius [n.361]. I say that ‘the highest in an inferior is lowest in a superior’ when what is placed as highest in an inferior is not repugnant to the superior. Here however it is repugnant, because in us the habit of science is a perfection supplying the imperfection of our intellect, inasmuch as our intellect is not of itself supremely habituated; even when a man has an active reason whereby the object is sufficiently present, such a supreme inclination as is required for the most perfect act is still lacking.
404. Although this perfection in us supplies an imperfection, yet it is repugnant to an angel, because there cannot be an imperfection in an angel that may be supplied by this perfection; so could it be said in many other cases, because if what is supreme in an element is to generate something like itself, there is no need that it be lowest in any mixed body proximate to it, for some mixed bodies do not generate something like themselves, because such a perfection supplying imperfection in an inferior is repugnant to them (so too can what is lowest in a superior be repugnant to an inferior, and then the converse is not valid, namely that the lowest of the superior are the highest of the inferior). Hence this argument [sc. taken from Dionysius, n.361] would entail many falsehoods; for it would follow that the sensitive soul (which is the supreme form in brutes) would be formally in the intellective soul.
405. To the fourth [n.362] I say that if there were no other reason save that the species, when it is perfect, suffices for perfect intellection without a habit (and in an angel the species perhaps necessarily suffices without a habit, if a habit as it is distinguished from a species is impossible in it; or if a habit is possible there, it does not suffice without a species) - this alone suffices for denying in an angel a habit other than the species as a necessary principle for the act of understanding.
406. To the fifth and last argument [n.363] I say that if the appetible object were present to the appetite by some proper presence different from that by which it is present to the cognitive power of the appetite, then proper reasons would be required in the appetite whereby diverse objects might be present to it; but this supposition is false, because an object present to some cognitive power is present by the same fact to the appetitive power that corresponds to the cognitive power.
407. And then if you argue that ‘the will does not require diverse reasons, so neither does the intellect’ [n.363], I say that the antecedent is false if it is understood of the reasons by which an object is present to the intellect (for the reasons by which objects are present to the intellect are reasons that are diverse); but if you mean that the reasons by which the objects may be present would not be required in the will, I say that this is not valid, because the appetitive power is not of a nature to have an object in itself in the way that an object is present to the cognitive power. Nor is it valid to raise an objection against this from ordered cognitive powers, for the order between themselves of things that are of the same genus is not like the order of the intellective and appetitive powers, which are of different genera; and therefore ordered cognitive powers that are diverse have diverse reasons (by which their objects may be present), just as the cognitive power has diverse reasons in relation to its appetitive powers.
V. To the Arguments for the Second Opinion
408. To the arguments for the second opinion [nn.364-365].
The answer to Dionysius [n.364] is plain from a different translation that is adduced (‘total’ etc.) - look at Lincoln [Grosseteste, translation and commentary on Celestial Hierarchy ch.12]; for, as Lincoln himself expounds, by ‘universality of species’ is understood ‘totality of species’. But this totality is totality of perfection (as of clearness or intensity), and not that a single reason is for something a reason of knowing more things than it is for another, because equal for every finite intellect is that all of them require, as regard knowing several things, proper reasons.
409. When, second, the argument is made that ‘the first are nearer the first’ [n.364], I concede the fact; but they do not have to be nearer in this sense, that they know through fewer principles, but because they can know more clearly; for the per se nearness of perfection lies in the latter and not, were it possible, in the former. For that intellect is simply more perfect which knows more clearly; but nothing is lost to it if it knows through different principles, provided however it knows more clearly; for if it were to know through one and the same principle and were not to know more clearly, it would not know more perfectly - which is false [sc. for, ex hypothesi, it does know more perfectly]. For per se nearness exists in this clearness, and not in the fewness of reasons for knowing, because - absolutely - it is not in the nature of any created reason that it be one for several.
410. And hereby is plain the answer to the argument that is made about the cleverer intellect, that it knows through fewer things etc. [n.364]; the argument is false, but the cleverer intellect has as many species of knowables as the slower intellect has; yet it thereby knows objects more clearly and uses them more quickly, combining this object with that and running discursively from one known thing to another. But from its greater clearness and speed one cannot deduce that it understands through fewer reasons; so it is in the issue at hand.a
a.a [Interpolation] As to what was said there [interpolation to n.353], about the authority of the author of On Causes, there is no need to worry about it; hence one should say that the authority has to be understood about a cause simply first, not about any intermediate cause, because although a first cause can do more than a second cause (because it includes it), yet because it does not include it eminently in its whole entity (because only God includes everything in this way), so neither does it include it in its whole active virtue, because it does not include it in the representative power by which it can represent the intelligible object that a body cannot represent.
411. To the final argument for this opinion [n.365] I say that there is not a single species in sense, imagination, and intellect, but different ones; nor does a species represent more universally merely on the ground that it is in a more immaterial subject, because if - per impossibile - the species that is in the sense were in the imagination (or if the one that is in the imagination were in the intellect), it would not represent more perfectly (neither as to quiddity nor as to intensity) because, namely, it was the proper reason for more things. So from the sole immateriality or greater actuality of the receiver cannot be deduced a greater actuality in representing of the species received, but this will be only from the nature of the species in itself.
412. However these conditions of received species are proportionate to the receptive things (according to the saying of Boethius [Consolation of Philosophy 5 prose 5] that ‘the received is in the receiver in the mode of the receiver etc.’) - but absolutely, just as no receiving essence is universal with respect to all essences (nor even does it perfectly contain every essence other than itself), so neither can anything received in it be the universal reason for perfectly representing everything else; but such universal representation can precisely belong (infinitely and eminently) to the divine essence, and to no other.76