3. What should be Said about the Rejection of the Third WayThis section is an extensive and somewhat fractured addition by Scotus to the basic text. ²

41. The first argument against Henry, about the arduous [nn.33-34], has a confirmation: if the excelling is a condition of the object of any supernatural virtue, then it specifies nothing; if the valuable is such a condition then it is so actually or habitually, so that the second argument is part of the first.

42. Again, the second argument of Henry, about being irate [n.29], is valid for a distinction of force, and it is not solved by saying that ‘to be irate is a certain not-wanting with respect to what impedes’ [n.35], and if the not-wanting is supreme (namely when it is known that what impedes cannot be removed), the sadness is supreme, and yet there is no anger.

43. I reply that just as wanting a thing for an end is not efficacious unless it follows knowledge about the possibility of attaining the end, so not-wanting an impediment is a sort of wanting the privation of a being relative to the end - nor is this not-wanting efficacious unless it follows knowledge of the possibility of attaining it; yet efficacious and non-efficacious wanting do not vary in species but only formally (as to the intention, perhaps, or as to the first knowledge of the possibility of attaining or not attaining).

44. On the contrary: he who is irate does not merely want (with an efficacious willing) the impediment to be removed but also wants the impediment to be punished, so that he does not rest in the ceasing of the impediment until the impediment is punished. The point is plain in the brutes: if what first impedes the delight of a withdraws, a does not rest until it exacts punishment; but if what impeded a was angry against some impediment, a was not angry, and then - when it withdraws - a does not pursue vengeance (namely crow with crow, crow with some third thing). As to what is supposed about ‘adequation’ [n.25], it seems false, because fear and hope are passions in the irascible; therefore not every passion in it is anger.

45. I reply that the first four passions [sadness, joy, hope, fear] can be about the delightful desirable and about an offense that needs to be avenged; these first four are in the concupiscible power and all others [love, desire, hatred, flight] in the irascible [Aquinas De Veritate q.26 a.5]. And just as the first four are about an object, namely the delightful, that is adequate to the concupiscible power, yet ‘to be apprehended in diverse ways’ is lacking in the present in the case of the future, so the four others are about an offense to be avenged that is apprehended as being now or as after having been avenged, but not as something to be angry against. So what is intended there [n.25] by the object is true.

46. However the premises given there for the adequate object [n.35] are not true. For although ‘to hope’ belongs in a way to anger, because it is a sort of efficacious will to avenge, yet ‘to fear failure to avenge’ is not a sort of anger, because it draws one away from avenging.

47. I reply that ‘to fear failure to avenge’ is a sort of ‘not-wanting not to avenge’, just as ‘to hope’ is a sort of ‘wanting to avenge’ and a certain pain in not getting it. Say that to be pained at this or that in the present is not formally to be irate but is a different passion, though consequent to anger, just as fear and excitement in the concupiscible are not formally to desire but they are different passions arising from the concupiscible. Therefore both forces or energies - both of the irascible and the concupiscible - do not get their names from an adequate passion but from the most principal passion. The point is plain about fear because when something hurtful is apprehended as future the concupiscible fears it, and from this pain [of fear] anger arises against what is bringing the harm, and command is given to subdue it; and in this way anger prevents the pain of a present harm and preserves one from it. But if the irascible is afraid to subdue it, supposing its fear is great, it does not subdue it, and pain arises because the harmful thing happens.

48. Similarly the first hope can exist without the second hope, if nothing is apprehended as impeding the object of the first hope.

49. Note: hope in the irascible lessens fear and pain in the concupiscible; but perfect fear in the irascible, or the pain of it, increases pain in the concupiscible. Hence there is supreme pain in the appetite when it is suffering a supreme present harm and despairs of being able to repel the harm.

50. Note to this [n.49]: the first part is perhaps true, the second false; for although an animal or the appetite feels perhaps more pain when it is pained in both forces, yet one diminishes the other since they are compossible.

51. The second arises from the first; an effect does not diminish the cause; therefore neither part is false when speaking properly as to the intensity of the forces - and both are true of the appetite as to extension.

52. Henry’s third reason is not well argued against above [n.36], because just as we fight in order to have peace, so the will fights against inordinate motions then arising in order that afterwards it may more agreeably and peaceably be at leisure for contemplation; therefore, at the time when the irascible is fighting, it impedes delight in the concupiscible, but the quiet that will follow is intensified. So Henry does not contradict himself when he says that it impedes the concupiscible from delight and that it fights in order to enjoy quietly (supply: afterwards, when victory is gained).

53. What the opinion of Henry says about power and force [n.31] is not well refuted [n.40] because it may be expounded thus: the concupiscible is more principle and the irascible less principle, because the latter is always about a being relative to the end in respect of the concupiscible; therefore the power gets its name (supply: of concupiscible rather than irascible) because of the principal part, though both belong to the same power.

54. On the contrary: then the power, as it is a power, cannot issue in an act immediately but only through one of its forces.

55. Again, not everything that has the concupiscible can do an act of the irascible but conversely; therefore the irascible is nobler according to the final argument [n.40] that rejects the opinion, because object adds to object as act adds to act.

56. My response here: where the irascible exists it does so because of the nobility of the concupiscible, whose being at rest nature was principally aiming at; where the irascible does not exist, nature does not care for it. The same about the resting of the concupiscible; that is why the argument [n.40] denied the irascible.

57. An argument for the opinion: hope is a passion in the irascible of the sense part; therefore hope is a virtue in the irascible of the will.

58. I reply: the consequence does not hold, because hope is passion as a sort of beginning of fortitude, which is in the irascible. Hope the virtue is for the act for which there is an efficacious desire of advantage, consequent to the apprehension of it, under the idea of reward for merit from someone, because ‘to desire’ means ‘to expect’; therefore it is in the concupiscible of the will. But that whereby the will subdues something is not hope, for it would not then have God for object, but the subduable; but the habit that corresponds to the second passion of hope is the virtue of fortitude.

59. On the contrary: every idea in the object, because of which the concupiscible is of a nature to draw back from what is desired, requires a perfection in the irascible fortifying the concupiscible so that it not draw back; of this sort is the excellence of the desired object and not just an impeding object; therefore perfection of the irascible is required because of the excellence of the object and not only because of something that offends.

60. The major is denied, because the adequate object of the irascible is what is to be avenged; therefore it is not the excellence of it.

61. To the contrary: the irascible is what per se strengthens the concupiscible; therefore it strengthens it in everything in which the concupiscible can fail and draw back.

62. I reply: the irascible is what per se strengthens as concerns the things that agree with fortitude (namely to confront and to withstand), but it does not fortify as to intrinsic degree; and therefore as to the defect that comes from drawing back from an excelling object, it comes from this; for because it is not raised higher, the object is excelling; therefore it is raised higher by an intrinsic habit so that it may be proportioned.

63. On the contrary: the concupiscible draws back from the hurtful because of its own imperfection, for if it were more perfect it would rise up; therefore the irascible is not required in it.

64. I reply: the concupiscible - however perfect it is - can withdraw from the hurtful, and it would not rise up against but only flee the hurtful; to flee is not to repel; therefore etc. But it would not have an excelling object above it in this respect, while the idea of the concupiscible stands in the object. And also it can desire in actual fact and, however much the act varies as to greater and lesser object, no other force is required but only perfection in the concupiscible. So it is in the case of the arduous, because the arduous, as arduous, is something to be desired; but a power, in order to be proportioned to the arduous so as to desire it perfectly (which is ‘to hope’), and so as to become proportioned by an intrinsic habit for overcoming impediments, embraces the whole objective idea in question as well as the acts that are operative about an impeding object. So by reason of this something else there is another force there.

65. Another response to the argument [n.59]: the major is true properly speaking about ‘draw back’, but it is never in fact so unless the reason for drawing back is something non-desirable; but the arduous is not such; rather the arduous has a special idea of being lovable; that which offends is something non-lovable.

66. The minor is false, although this proposition is true ‘a power tends of itself non-perfectly to the excelling’; for it is one thing to be disposed to tending perfectly toward it and another to drawing back; indeed drawing back presupposes an elevated power (as the cognitive power draws back from an ugly thing seen, and so hates it).

67. Again, it does not draw back by conditioned volition but by efficacious volition; but efficacious volition belongs to the same thing as conditioned willing does. Likewise no difference as to display of the possible and of the not possible is there required.

68. Again, if the irascible regards the arduous, since nothing is arduous for God, there is no irascible in him - which is false because he desires to avenge and does avenge.

69. Again if the irascible strengthens the concupiscible so that it not fear, then since it belongs to the same thing to be afraid and to be confident, the irascible makes the concupiscible confident. The consequent is false, both because confidence belongs only to the irascible and because a passion is not caused in the irascible by the concupiscible but conversely.

70. I reply that the concupiscible never fears because ‘to fear’ regards the arduous.

71. To the contrary: ‘to fear to lose’ is one thing, and ‘to fear to avenge offenses’ is another, because the first fear can be without the second. Example: let grace be apprehended as capable of being lost by the wayfarer; he fears to lose it; he does not then fear the devil taking it away, against whom he may be angry or fear to vanquish.

72. Again, from what passion of the concupiscible does anger against a future offense arise, namely against one about to take away the desirable? Surely from the fear of losing it?

73. Besides, some passion follows the apprehension of a future evil in the concupiscible, as pain follows the apprehension of a present evil. What is the passion that regards the future?

74. Again, pain and joy are in the irascible and, according to you [n.45], hope and fear. Why then cannot all the passions that concern the delightful be just like those that concern the arduous or offensive?

75. I reply: flight.

76. To the contrary: flight follows pain and the passion.

77. Nor is it a passion, because it does not come from the object.

78. If the irascible alone fears, then the concupiscible, if it were alone, would never draw back, because it does not draw back from the delightful as delightful; rather the delightful would thus not inhere as arduous, because it does not thus have any act about the arduous, because it is not its object; therefore the irascible is not required for strengthening the concupiscible.

79. I reply: the concupiscible draws back though it does not fear, because the arduous is proportioned to it in this way. And when it is said that it has no act about the arduous [n.78], I concede that it has none by way of tending toward it but does by way of drawing back from it.

80. Again, that the love of advantage and the love of justice are as it were two powers (and likewise about the irascible and concupiscible) is proved thus: that is not formally a power for any action with which, when possessed, an impossibility for that action can stand without repugnance, and this impossibility is an intrinsic one (‘intrinsic’ is added because of objections about impediments, [n.36]); but when the power or force for willing advantage is possessed, there can stand with it such an impossibility for willing what is just (likewise about desiring and being irate); therefore etc.

81. Proof of the minor [n.80]: the intellective appetite is, as such, a power for advantage; but along with it, as such, non-freedom stands without repugnance, for a prior can stand with the opposite of a posterior. These two things, ‘being an appetite’ and ‘being an appetite of such sort of cognitive power’, by nature precede the idea of freedom; and further, an impossibility for willing what is just stands along with what non-liberty stands along with. A confirmation: freedom is not the idea under which the intellective appetite per se desires known advantages, both because it would desire them even if it were without freedom, and because the will is naturally most prone to desire the greatest advantages; but freedom moderates this proneness so that we do not will immoderately; therefore freedom is not the idea in the will by which it desires advantage - on the contrary freedom is rather sometimes a sort of restraint.

82. All this is confirmed by Anselm De Casu Diaboli 12-16 about the will informed with love of advantage, if it were immoderately to desire advantageous things to be just it could not sin. If this separation of justice from the will were to involve a contradiction, Anselm’s position would be null not only in fact but also in understanding; nor could Anselm show what would belong to a will without freedom, because of the contradiction involved.

83. The minor about concupiscence and anger [n.80] is similarly proved, for whence does the appetite have its force of desiring? Not from the irascible unless it is posterior to the irascible; therefore the prior stands with the opposite of the posterior [n.81].

84. This argument [nn.80-83] could be common to many things. Therefore I reply to the major, ‘that is not formally a power for any action with which, when possessed, etc. [n.80]’; I concede it is not really a power, that is, the thing or nature is not a power. Then the minor [n.80] is false; and what is proved is only that a single idea is sufficient in itself for this and not for that, and so the idea can stand in the intellect with the opposite of the thing; but both are necessary in the one thing.

85. Note that second hope [nn.47-49] is a sort of beginning of fortitude, because things ‘naturally fitted for the mean’ are well adapted for regulating the passion and so for fortitude; second fear is a sort of beginning of the timidity of vice, hence someone naturally fitted for hope is naturally fitted for fear; for he who is naturally fitted for hope is disposed to audacity, and yet another to timidity. Second hope and fear are set down as concerned with avenging, which are passions of the irascible concerned with bearing up, since patience is a sort of fortitude and is in the irascible.

86. I reply: patience is constancy, and there is inconstancy.

87. If you say that no bearing up is disagreeable to the sense appetite save by command of reason -

88. On the contrary: a brute puts up with a moderate grief so as not to lose a great enjoyment.