Footnotes

¹Vatican Editors: Scotus did not deal with this question in 1 d.7 in the Ordinatio and he here corrects a position he had himself embraced in the Reportatio, IA d.7 n.58, “Although the Son has the essence that is the productive principle of the Son, yet he cannot produce by it, because it is already understood to have in the Father a term adequate to the production; and so the essence in the Son cannot be a principle of production of the same idea, because then the production would not have been adequate to the principle in the Father.”

²The three ways are: negatively, when someone says he is speaking ‘of nothing’ because he is not speaking; or affirmatively when the ‘from’ marks the matter out of which something is made; or affirmatively when the ‘from’ marks origin or order, in the sense of ‘after nothing’.

³“Since something from among ‘things by essence’ was cause of the being of something else always, assuredly it will always be the cause of it as long as it has this being; and if the being of the cause always was, the being of the something else always will be; the reality of this cause then is more worthy in causality than all causes, by the fact it absolutely prevents a thing not to be. This then is the cause that gives a thing being in fact, and this is what for the wise is meant by ‘creation’, which is the giving of being to something after absolute not-being. For the caused thing, as far as concerns it in itself, is that it not be - but as far as concerns its cause, it is that it be; but what belongs to a thing from itself is, as to understanding, prior in essence, not in time, to what belongs to it from something other than itself; therefore everything created is being after not-being, by posteriority of essence.”

⁴There are four in order: absolute in the cause, absolute in the effect, respect or relation of effect to cause, respect or relation of cause to effect; see references in the text.

⁵1 d.8 n.306: “I say that no natural connection of cause and caused is simply necessary in creatures, nor does any second cause cause simply naturally or simply necessarily but only in a certain respect. The first part is clear, because any second cause depends on the relation of the first cause to the caused; likewise, no second cause causes save by the first cause causing the caused along with it, and this naturally before the proximate cause causes; but the first cause only causes contingently, therefore the second cause causes simply contingently because it depends on the causation of the first, which causation is simply contingent. The second part, namely about necessity in a certain respect, is plain, because many natural causes, as far as concerns themselves, cannot not cause their effects, and so there is necessity in a certain respect -namely as far as concerns themselves - and not simply; just as fire, as far as concerns itself, cannot not heat, yet, with God cooperating, it can absolutely not heat, as is clear, and as was clear about the three boys in the furnace [Daniel 3.49-50].”

⁶Vatican Editors quote from Henry Quodlibet 8 a.9: “If the creature has from God actual being, then the creature is of itself a possible to be...; wherefore, since just as being simply is related to possible being simply, so too is being from eternity to possible being from eternity - therefore, if the creature has from God being from eternity, then the creature is of itself a possible to be from eternity...and a not haver of being from eternity. I ask therefore whether at the same time the creature has altogether from God being from eternity and from itself possible being and not-being from eternity, or whether it has being first from God before the reverse, or the other way around? Not in the first way because then contrary acts would be together in the same thing, namely being and not-being; nor in the second way, because what belongs to a thing from itself is prior to what belongs to it from another. So the third way is necessary, namely that the creature has from itself possible being and not-being before it has being from God. -- Being able to be in existence and being able not to be in existence, do they have being in the essence of the creature at the same time, or one first and then another? Not together because contrary powers (according to the Philosopher On the Heavens) cannot be wholly together in the same thing, just as neither can contrary acts; for if (as they say) the powers were present together.then two contrary powers could at the same time issue in contrary acts, and from the positing of a possible in being there would follow a false impossible. - Can then in the essence of the creature possible being in existence precede possible not-being in existence, or the reverse, and this either in nature or in duration? Now possible being cannot precede in nature, because not-being precedes being in nature. Possible not-being then precedes possible being. There remains a doubt, therefore, which of these precedes in duration? For if one of them precedes in duration then of necessity either possible this precedes possible that, or the reverse, or either of them can indifferently precede the other. And the last of these is impossible because then the essence of the creature under indifference would be disposed to both of them, and thus to the possible and to the act of them; but as it is, the essence of the creature is not equally disposed to act of existing and act of not-existing, because it is not of a nature to have the act of existing save from another, while the act of not-existing it has from itself. But if possible to be precedes in duration, and this of necessity. then of necessity the existence of the creature would precede its not-being (thus the creature would not be of itself a non-being in nature before it would be a being from another by some duration; for nothing belongs prior in nature to something which is not of a nature to belong first in duration to the same); but this is impossible, because (as has been said) what belongs to something of itself by nature is prior to what belongs to it from another. The second member (what I called above ‘the reverse’) is therefore necessary, that of necessity possible not to be is prior in the being of the creature in duration; wherefore so too is its not-being prior not only in nature but also in duration. It remains therefore that the creature cannot have being from something other than itself prior in duration to its having not-being (which belongs to it of itself) - and thus in no way could it be posited that a created thing could be made from eternity but from time.”

⁷The mss. are obscure here. The Vatican editors note that the second ‘not’ is omitted by them, and they also print ‘be moved’ and not ‘move [something]’. But Scotus’ criticism seems to be that if time has to be eternal then God has to be always moving things, which he rejected in n.70 against the philosophers. Accordingly the alternative reading in the mss. of ‘move’ for ‘be moved’, together with the addition of ‘not’, is translated here.

⁸Tr. The argument being criticized would run: ‘what begins is a creature, everything other than God begins, therefore everything other than God is a creature’. The middle term is ‘what begins’ which is extraneous both to ‘other than God’ and to ‘creature’, because ‘what begins’ is not part of what it is to be a creature or of what it is to be other than God, but is accidental to both. For those who hold the first opinion think a thing can be a creature and other than God and yet not have had a beginning (in time).

⁹“Hence horse-ness is not anything but horse-ness alone; for it is of itself neither many nor one, nor is it existent in these sensibles or in the soul; nor is it anything of these in potency or in fact, such that this be contained within the essence of horse-ness.”

¹⁰Scotus and Medieval theologians in general used the word ‘aevum’ for the eternal existence of angels and ‘aeternitas’ for the existence of God. Angels depend for existence on another (unlike God) but are immaterial and immortal (unlike men), and so exist, once they exist, without end (unless God un-creates or annihilates them). They are thus measured neither by God’s eternity nor by human or material time but by something in between, for which the Latin word ‘aevum’ was used. In English a term for the purpose has to be invented, and aeviternity is now by tradition that term. See the quotations from Henry of Ghent in the footnote to n.42 below.

¹¹11.31, “The holy angels have an eternity of persistence...”, 12.15 n.2, “...the immortality of the angels does not pass in time, nor has it gone by (as if now it were not) nor is it in the future (as if it not yet were).”

¹²Scotus Lectura 2 d.2 n.34, “So others say [namely Thomas] that eternity is the measure of stable existence. To the extent, therefore, that something departs from stable existence, to that extent it departs from eternity; now there is something that is in flux as to its whole existence (as a temporal thing), and there is something that, though it is not in itself in flux, yet has existence along with that in which there is flux (and in this way ‘aeviternal’ things exist along with flux) - and, when understanding things in this way, the heaven and angels exist along with flux, but yet their existence is stable in itself and their whole duration exists at once in itself.”

¹³In Scotus’ Lectura 2 d.2 nn.35-36, “On the contrary: an angel is some being in itself, and so he has in himself his proper duration; therefore some duration must be assigned in itself to him. So he is not measured because of the fact that something else, possessed of duration, runs along with him; the point is plain in the heaven, which exists along with its own motion that is measured by time, and yet the heaven in itself has its proper measure... Besides he [Thomas] says elsewhere [ST la q.14 a.13] that ‘God knows future contingents because all things are present to the ‘now’ of eternity, which contains in itself the whole of time’; therefore, if the ‘now’ of aeviternity contain the whole of time, the consequence is that an angel knows all future things.”

¹⁴Henry ibid., “Now there is only a triple mode of existing in the universe of beings; for there is some being that exists in act altogether immutably, without any potency for change; and there is some being that exists in act altogether immutably, but is (as far as concerns itself) in potency for change if it were left to itself; and there is a third being existing altogether mutably in act and in potency. The measure of the quantity of existence (or of duration in existing) in the first way is called ‘eternity’ -and this, because of its ‘in every way immutable existence’, is necessarily a whole all at once, because as nothing is left to be acquired in its existence, so neither in its duration or eternity; and because of its lack of potency for change, it is of itself a fixed standing in the same way - for which reason the whole of eternity is nothing but a ‘now’ standing of itself immutably and indivisibly, not possessing parts., and it has, as far as concerns itself and the idea of its measurement, no idea of continuity, but only as to the consideration of our intellect in respect of and comparison with the succession of time. The measure of the quantity of existence (or of duration in existing) in the second way is called ‘aeviternity’ - which, because of its actual immutability, is necessarily a whole all at once, because nothing in the existence of what is aeviternal remains to be received; but because of the potency for change in what is aeviternal.it is not of itself a fixed standing, but is so only from another; not because it could be in the flux of a continuum, having of itself parts (as the ‘now’ of time can be), but because it can fall into, and it has a necessity of falling into, non-being unless it is conserved in being by another.; because of this, the whole duration of what is aeviternal is only a ‘now’ that stands, because of another, immutably and indivisibly, not possessed of parts.save by the extension of the intellect in respect of and by comparison with the parts of time. Now the measure of quantity (or of duration in existing) in the third way is called ‘time’ - which, because of the actual changing of the temporal thing (of which ‘time’ is the per se measure) is not a whole all at once but in succession, because in the being of a temporal thing (of which sort motion is) there properly remains always something to be received; and, because of the potency always mixed in with its act, it is always in flux (never a fixed standing), having parts that succeed to each other and never remain, in respect of which common difference eternity and aeviternity differ from time.”

¹⁵Henry ibid., “Anselm [n.31] only says this in respect of the extension of time, namely because it is not true in their case that they should have in the following ‘now’ the being that they have in the present ‘now’, nor do they have now of themselves the being that they had before; rather, the being of a creature (as of an angel), as far as concerns itself, has to have a limit, but the being of God not at all. Hence the being of a creature is not had through continuous influx save by having a reference to the extension of time, as was said; also as concerns extension or process, eternity and aeviternity are differently disposed, because eternity is related to the whole of time as ‘not being at all able to fail’, but aeviternity can (as far as concerns itself) fail at any instant and be concluded under time - and thus, by reason of its potency for corruption, it has in some way the idea of what is temporal, which eternity has not at all.”

¹⁶Henry ibid., “For eternity, as the exceeding measure, contains virtually in itself the whole course of time, just as a superior creature contains virtually and in a supereminent way whatever there is in an inferior creature; so that, by positing eternity or aeviternity to exist in reality, not only is it impossible to posit that time in itself cannot exist..., rather it is incompossible to posit this once eternity or aeviternity have been posited to exist in reality. So the fact that from positing this impossibility, namely that time cannot be.(which is not only impossible in itself but incompossible with positing that eternity exists in God and aeviternity in an angel), the impossible conclusions [about aeviternity] in the four ultimate modes of unacceptability follow, is not surprising. However, they cannot follow from the fact that the ‘now’ of aeviternity is posited to be simple and indivisible, since this ‘now’ possesses virtually in itself its being extended, by intellect or imagination, to time.; but they all follow from the aforesaid not only impossible but also incompossible thing - by the opposite of which, once posited as necessary, namely ‘there is time’. the contraries of all those conclusions are very easily understood.”

¹⁷Henry ibid. 8 q.9, “For nothing belongs to anything prior in nature which is not of a nature to belong to the same thing - as far as concerns itself - prior in duration.”

¹⁸Tr. The point here seems to be something as follows. The ‘now’ of time comes and goes with the process of change in temporal things, as these come to be and cease to be. Angels do not undergo change but simply are or are not without any process (they have, or do not have, the fullness of their being all at once). The ‘now’ of angels comes and goes, then, not because angels are subjects of change, but simply because of itself, because it is an indivisible that immediately is and immediately is not.

¹⁹William of Ware Sentences 2 d.2 q.2, “The whole of aeviternity, taken under one real respect to an angel, succeeds to itself under another real respect to an angel, succeeding to itself; likewise the creature, as it now coexists with God, has a different respect from when, in another ‘now’, it coexists with itself, without any absolute newness. Hence the whole succeeds to itself in both measured and measure, as the measure succeeds to itself the way the measured whole, in every respect of proportion, succeeds to itself; nor can there be concluded from this any succession in parts succeeding to themselves. Hence the first succession of whole to whole exists in aeviternity without absolute newness, but not without respective newness, because it receives different real respects.”

²⁰Henry of Ghent Quodlibet 5 q.11, “But different are the things on which caused things depend not only as to their coming to be but also as to their being, as the creature universally depends on God and light in the air on a luminous body. In the case of such things the caused altogether does not persist in the absence of the truth of its cause; not because the agent by a different action in reality gives being and conserves it once given (as the opinion already stated maintains [sc. the opinion of Bonaventure]), but because the action does not have any co-agent for the coming to be of its being..., such that, as the acting virtue itself...remains the same in number, so its action about the caused thing is the same, remaining one and the same in number; and likewise, the caused thing itself.is first said ‘to be a caused thing coming to be’ and next there is conservation of it. Yet the agent has not done by the first causing of coming to be anything other than it is doing now by the causing of being conserved (nor conversely), such that, as on the part of the agent ‘to make’ and ‘to conserve’ are the same in reality, so on the part of the caused ‘to come to be’ and ‘to be conserved’ are the same in reality and different only in reason. Rather (as it seems) ‘coming to be’ and ‘making’ should not be spoken of save as regards the first instant, wherein the caused leaps into being at the presence of its cause - but afterwards, as regards the whole succession of time, ‘conservation’ of the persisting thing should be spoken of, without any making.” “And as to what Augustine said...about ‘always coming to be’, he did not understand the ‘coming to be’ of the thing itself considered in itself and absolutely, but according to a certain respect to time, where there is before and after.”

²¹Henry of Ghent Quodlibet 5 q.13, “Hence the fact that the [angelic] creature has, in the said way, its whole being at once does not in any respect derogate from the simplicity of the being of God. Hence it is false to say that the being of the creature yesterday and tomorrow is not the same and simultaneous; for it is simultaneous as far as concerns itself and on the part of aeviternity. But if it is understood not to be simultaneous, this is according to the mode of our understanding, extending aeviternity to the parts of time; for the intellect seems to exist with the continuous and with time in such a way that it cannot understand things, which are in themselves fixed according to the whole of time, without understanding their being to be extended according to the differences of time - and in this regard our intellect is altogether defective... In that which has being at once and from itself, there is no difference at all between ‘to be’ and ‘to have been’ and ‘to be going to be’ - but these differ in anything that has being at once but from another, so that, when it has been according to the extension of past time, it is thereafter impossible for it not to have been according to that past; simply however it is impossible for it not to be going to be, on the supposition that there was no extension made.”

²²Tr. The sense seems to be that since an angel, or anything aeviternal, is (according to this opinion) only said ‘to have been’ relative to the parts of time, if there was no time, or no past time, then the angel would not have the ‘when’ of past time. Yet he would still have the ‘what’ of his existence. So the angel would still exist in the way he was said to have been, though there would no longer be a ‘when’ relative to which his ‘have been’ could be said. So there is a fallacy of figure of speech in inferring absence of the ‘what’ from the absence of the ‘when’.

²³Vatican Editors remark that Scotus means the identically same being is restored as was annihilated, not some other being, and that the not-being of annihilation was identically the same as the not-being prior to creation, not some other not-being.

²⁴Henry of Ghent Quodlibet 12 a.8, “But someone might ask in what category the measure of angels is. And I say that it is in the category of quantity as the principle of it, in the way that unity and point and instant are in the category of quantity. For just as from diverse indivisibles measuring the diverse thoughts of any angel there is constituted one discrete measure, which is called time, because it is constituted from transient things measuring the being of a transient thing, so from the diverse indivisibles of aeviternities measuring the substance and ‘the being as to substance’ of several angels, differing in number in one species of angels, there is constituted one discrete measure, which does not deserve to be called time, because it is not constituted from transient things measuring the being of a transient thing as it is transient, but rather is constituted from permanent things of a permanent being as it is permanent; and so it is not a species of time but rather of number - and this number is from discrete unities in spiritual things, just as the number that the philosophers posit is from discrete units in corporeal thing. But if it happen that there is only one angel in one species, yet because there can be several angels, as we made clear elsewhere (ibid. 9 q.1), this makes no difference as to positing that such a number is some species of quantity - just as if everything corporeal were one continuum, this would make no difference as to positing that natural number is a species of quantity, since the continuum can be divided (at least by the intellect) and from the continuum something discrete comes to be. So therefore the aeviternity in a species, containing in itself diverse aeviternities measuring the being of diverse angels of the same species, is a discrete quantity and divisible into indivisibles - which indivisibles are the aeviternities of individual angels and differ in number among themselves; and if from the aeviternities of diverse angels differing in species a mathematical abstraction could be made, just as it can be made from the numbers of diverse corporeal things differing in species - then perhaps, just as there is one number ten for ten men and for ten horses (although the tens are not the same), so there is the same aeviternity in species for all the angels diverse in species, although the aeviternals would not be the same in species.”

²⁵Tr. To argue from a distinction between change and its measure to an equal distinction between a permanent thing and its measure is to argue from a less permanent thing to a more permanent one, which is fallacious here because there is no reason to suppose that a more permanent thing should have the same distinctions as a less permanent one; rather it would seem intuitively to have fewer distinctions.

²⁶Vatican Editors: by Bishop Stephen Tempier on March 7, 1277. To the extent the articles condemned by Bishop Tempier touched on the teachings of St. Thomas Aquinas, the condemnation was revoked by Stephen de Bourret, Bishop of Paris, in 1325, so that Thomas’ doctrine could be left to free discussion in the schools.

²⁷Vatican Editors: William of Ockham tells of a certain Dominican doctor who claimed there was no problem his holding an opinion condemned by Bishop Tempier because the condemnation did not pass beyond the seas.

²⁸Decretals 5.7 ch.9, “In order to abolish the depravity of the diverse heresies that have begun to burgeon in many modern parts of the world, the vigor of the Church should be stirred up... Therefore do we rise up...against the heretics. by the general sanction of the present decree, and we condemn by apostolic authority every heresy (under whatever name it is held) one by one in this decree. And in general all those who have been judged heretics by the Roman Church, or by individual bishops in their dioceses, we bind with equal bond of perpetual anathema.”

²⁹Tr. Since points b and c are, by hypothesis, not the same, the lines from b to d and from c to d must form an angle when they meet at d. Hence, since b is, by hypothesis, to one side of c, the angle bde will be smaller than, or a partial amount of, the angle cde; but by the argument from Euclid, bde must equal cde, so a part will equal the whole.

³⁰Aristotle in the Arabic-Latin translation: “And we saw Plato for this reason posit two infinites, because he thought that a thing can pass through and proceed to infinity both by increase and by decrease.” Averroes: “When Aristotle declared that an infinite is found in decrease simply and in addition non-simply (but in that which is converse to division), he began to accuse Plato because Plato equated infinity in one way with infinity in the other (namely both in addition and in decrease), and Aristotle said ‘And we saw Plato etc.’; that is, and Plato, because he thought an infinite proceeds to infinity both by increase and by decrease, posited two species of infinite, by addition and by decrease; and Aristotle introduced the term ‘increase’ in place of the term ‘addition’, so as to distinguish between a proposition of nature and one of geometry.”

³¹Vatican Editors quote from Peter of Spain Logical Summaries tr.7 n.37: “The third mode of fallacy of figure of speech comes from diverse mode of supposition, as ‘an animal is Socrates, an animal is Plato, and so on about each one; therefore an animal is every man’; for a process is made from many determinate suppositions to one determinate supposition... Hence since ‘animal’ supposits in each premise for one supposit and in the conclusion for diverse supposits, its supposition varies.”

³²Tr. That this division is possible at this now and that division possible at that now does not entail that all divisions are possible now, because the particulars do not combine the same now with each division, nor can they.

³³Averroes: “And it would be possible for a magnitude to be divided at every point at once if the points were in contact with each other, which however is impossible... And so we see that when we divide a magnitude at some point, it is impossible for a division to be made at the point following on that point, although this was possible before the division was made at that point.; but when a division was made at the first point, the possibility of division at the second point was immediately destroyed. When therefore we have taken some point, at any place we wish, it will be possible for the magnitude to be divided at that point; but when the magnitude has been divided at a point and at some place, then it will be impossible for it to be divided at a second point in any place we wish, since it is impossible for it to be divided at a point following on the first point.”

³⁴Book of Six Principles 1.4, “In the case of certain things there is doubt whether their beginning is from nature or from act, as in the figure of an incision; for no addition is made but a certain separation of parts.”

³⁵The Vatican Editors point out that, in his interpretation of Aristotle here, Scotus is in agreement with the like interpretation of Aquinas in his commentary, ad loc., on the Physics.

³⁶Aristotle gives in the passage at Physics 8 five arguments against the thesis that everything is always in motion: from increase and decrease, from the wearing away of a stone, from the freezing of water, from health, and from stones remaining hard.

³⁷The idea seems to be that if a cube is moved over a magnitude not continuously but indivisible by indivisible, then the surface of the cube in contact with the magnitude beneath will move over one line of the magnitude before another. So if we focus on just one line in the magnitude, we can consider the whole surface moving over that one line, which will thus be the magnitude the surface moves over. The magnitude moved over will then be composed of that one line. We can repeat this process for every subsequent line of the magnitude, and consequently the surface will always be moving over a magnitude composed of a line. Since this result is unacceptable, we must suppose that the cube moves continuously and not indivisible by indivisible.

³⁸Tr. The generator of a heavy thing need no longer exist when the heavy thing is actually in motion downwards, so that the generator cannot be the actual mover of it at that time.

³⁹ST la q.53 a.3 ad 3: “Now the time of motion of an angel can be non-continuous, and thus an angel can be in one place at one instant and in another place at another instant, without any time existing in between. But if the time of motion of angel is continuous, the angel goes through an infinity of places during the whole time preceding the ultimate ‘now’.” Ibid. in corp.: “And thus it is clear that to rest for a whole time in something, as in a whiteness, is to be in that something at any instant of the time; hence it is not possible for something to rest for the whole preceding time in one term and afterwards, in the last instant of the time, to be in another term... But in the local motion of an angel there is no term of any other continuous motion.; hence it is impossible to say that he is for the whole time in some place and is, in the ultimate ‘now’, in some other place, but one must assign an ultimate ‘now’ in which he was in the preceding place.”

⁴⁰Quodlibet 13 q.7: “And the time measuring these sudden changes of an angel is a discrete quantity., but its parts have no permanence but exist only in passing through, and the individual parts coexist with the individual instants of our time; nor do these parts have any continuity among themselves, because between any two instants and the aforesaid changes [of the angel] one must posit a stopping of the angel at the moment at which the preceding change ends, where the angel does not change but rests through some interval and part of our time.”

⁴¹ST Ia q.53 a.3: “But sometimes the term ‘to which’ is immediate to the term ‘from which’, as in the case of those changes where the change is from privation to form..., as with illumination; and in these changes too there must be a time annexed to them, since it is clear...that the air is not illumined and in darkness at the same time. But not in such a way that the departure or passage from one extreme to the other takes place in time, but one of the extremes is conjoined to the local motion of the sun (as with illumination), and in the term of that motion there is also a term of the change. Hence all such instantaneous changes are terms of the same motion.”

⁴²A version of Ockham’s famous razor, which at least in this form is not original to Ockham.

⁴³“We call those middles into which that which changes must change first, as...in the case of colors where, if a thing goes from white to black, it will go to red and to grey before it goes to black.”

⁴⁴Vatican Editors: Several other reasons for this opinion are given by Scotus in Metaphysics 7 q.13 n.16.

⁴⁵“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].”

⁴⁶“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.”

⁴⁷“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.”

⁴⁸ “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.”

⁴⁹Quodlibet 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.”

⁵⁰Thomas 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.”

⁵¹Godfrey 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.”

⁵²Ibid.: “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.”

⁵³Aquinas, 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.”

⁵⁴Godfrey, 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.”

⁵⁵Tr. 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.

⁵⁶The 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.

⁵⁷Tr. 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.

⁵⁸Tr. 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.

⁵⁹Godfrey, 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.”

⁶⁰Godfrey, 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.”

⁶¹Not express in n.143 but implied. It is express however in Lectura 2 d.3 n.140.

⁶²Tr. The most powerful demonstration demonstrates a property of a subject through the definition of the subject, and an individual has neither property nor definition.

⁶³Arguments like those in nn.222-223 are found in Aquinas and Henry of Ghent.

⁶⁴Godfrey 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.”

⁶⁵Tr. 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.

⁶⁶The 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’.

⁶⁷ST: “In the case of an action that remains in the agent there is need for the object to be united to the agent in order for the action to proceed, just as there is need for the sensible to be united to the sense so that it may actually perceive. And the object united to the power is, for this sort of action [sc. intellection], disposed in the way that the form is that is the principle of action in the case of other agents; for just as heat is the formal principle of heating in fire, so the species of the seen thing is the formal principle of vision in the eye.” SG: “Hence a separated substance, although it is per se intelligible in act, is not however understood according to itself save by the intellect with which it is one. And thus does a separated substance understand itself through its essence.”

⁶⁸Tr. A possible reference to an early form of golf?

⁶⁹Eustratius Nicomachean Ethics 6.4 f.106rb-va, as translated and annotated by Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, ibid., and on Posterior Analytics 1.14 f.14ra.

⁷⁰In the Topics passage Aristotle discusses the sentence ‘this animal is incorruptible now’ and says it can be understood to mean ‘this animal is not corrupted now’ or ‘it is not possible for it to be corrupted now’, or ‘it is of the sort now as never to be corrupted’. He further remarks that when we say an animal is incorruptible now we do not mean that now the animal is such (sc. such as never to be corrupted) but that now it is as never corrupted (sc. though it can or will be corrupted sometime later, as was also true of man in the state of innocence before the fall, that he was immortal then but not such that, through sin, he could not die later). Hence the ‘now’ is either taken in divided sense where it is outside and governs ‘this animal is incorruptible’, so that the sense is that the animal is such as never to die, and this sense is false; or in composed sense where the ‘now’ is part of ‘this animal is incorruptible’, so that the sense is that the animal is at this time now incorruptible (though nothing is implied about whether it can or cannot be corrupted later), and this sense is true.

So the sentence discussed here by Scotus, ‘the intellect is not able to be understood by itself before the understanding of other things’, can be taken either in divided sense where the ‘not possible before it understands other things’ is outside and governs ‘the intellect understands itself’, so that the sense is that the combination of ‘the intellect understands itself’ and ‘before it understands other things’ is impossible, or that the intellect is such as never to understand itself before understanding other things. This sense is false. Or the sentence can be taken in composed sense where the ‘not possible before it understands other things’ is part of ‘the intellect understands itself’, so that the combination of ‘the intellect understands itself’ and ‘before it understands other things’ is not impossible simply but only given the intellect’s current ability. This sense is true because it allows that the intellect might, in other conditions, be able to understand itself before it understands other things.

So, finally, when the Philosopher says ‘the soul understands itself as it understands other things’, he should not be taken as meaning that it is impossible simply for the soul to understand itself in any other way, but that this way is how it does in fact understand itself - without implication about what it may or may not be able to do in other circumstances.

⁷¹Tr. This proposition too is negative but it depends on the prior affirmative proposition that what is known by creatures naturally is known through a species.

⁷²This fifth argument reads as follows in Lectura 2 d.3 n.275: “Further, the species that would represent the divine essence can also represent the Trinity, because the Trinity exists in the divine essence; therefore if an angel could naturally know the divine essence distinctly through a species, he will be able naturally to know the Trinity distinctly, which is false.” Such an argument is also found in Henry of Ghent Quodlibet 4 q.7.

⁷³This sixth argument reads as follows in Lectura 2 d.3 n.276: “Again, if some species distinctly represented the divine essence and the Trinity of persons in the essence, then since one angel could see that species naturally in the intellect of another angel, he can naturally know what it represents; and thus an angel can by natural knowledge know more about matters of belief than the faithful know by faith, which is false.” Such an argument is also found in Henry of Ghent Quodlibet 4 q.7.

⁷⁴Further words are added at the end of this interpolation that the Vatican editors have transposed to n.364 as its last sentence (‘There is a confirmation of this...more things through one reason.’), where they think the words properly belong.

⁷⁵See footnote to interpolation after n.253 above.

⁷⁶The Vatican Editors point out that the interpolated fourth question here (see interpolation to n.255), about whether angels can progress in receiving knowledge from things (interpolated by another manuscript after d.12 q.1), is conflated from Rep. II B d.11 q.2 and Additiones Magnae 2 d.11 q.1 or d.10 q.1.