2. The Opinion of Richard of Middleton and its Rejection

100. There is another opinion [Richard of Middleton], that a noun signifies without time and so can stand for a supposit of any time; and it cannot be restricted by the time co-signified by the verb that signifies the completed proposition. For the verb is remote from the understanding of the noun, and nothing is contracted by something that is remote from it (just as ‘man’ is not contracted when ‘man is white’ is said, though it is contracted when ‘this white man runs’ is said). So in like manner, when a pronoun is put in place of a proper name and signifies without time, it can signify or point to something without time, because ‘this’ signifies that it points to something for all time. And so the pronoun ‘this’ can, under a disjunction, point to what is contained under the species now or to what will be contained under them in a moment; so that, for the intellect, there is a pointing to what is directly pointed to and, for the senses, a pointing to what is indirectly pointed to [cf. IV d.2 n.19]; and what is directly pointed to is either something now present or something that will be present in the next moment, and what is pointed to for the senses is ‘under these species’. And the above disjunctive is true, because one or other part is true. And this as concerns the intellect, to which namely the divine virtue assents, when such words [sc. ‘this is my body’] are said, bringing about, at the final moment, what is signified.

101. Against this: although the pronoun ‘this’ need not point to anything for a determinate time, yet as he [Richard] himself argues, the signification of an utterance is constituted from the signification of the parts; but the parts signify when they are uttered; therefore, even according to him one must say that the word ‘this’, when uttered, signifies that which it then points to. But it does not seem that it can then point to something that is not then contained under the species, because one could in this way say ‘this fire is water’ or ‘this body is water’, when speaking of fire that is at once to be converted into water; and one could do such pointing for the senses indirectly and for the intellect directly, and do so by pointing to the body that is now or will be in the next moment. But it does not seem reasonable to say of air, when immediately changing it, that ‘this body is fire’; for the statement ‘this body is air’ is simply true, and ‘fire’ and ‘air’ are not said of the same thing at the same time.

102. Again, if the parts of an utterance signify when they are uttered, and if from the things signified by the parts thus taken the thing is signified by the whole utterance according to how that utterance takes the parts, then one must say that the ‘is’, when uttered, posits what it signifies for the present moment that it signifiess; but the subject of the first part of the disjunction [n.100] is not taken for any time that is the same as that which is imported by the copula ‘is’ [sc. ‘this’ is taken for the bread now, and ‘is my body’ is taken for the body in the next moment]. Therefore, the whole signification of the utterance does not refer to any same thing or to the same instant.

103. Again, a disjunctive does not posit either disjunct determinately, but a fallacy of the consequent follows; so if ‘this’ stands here disjunctively [sc. either for bread or for Christ’s body], it does not, in respect to the predicate, posit one disjunct (namely what will be under the species in the next moment), just as it does not posit the other disjunct either (namely what is now under the species). And what is brought about by the utterance is, according to them [Richard and his followers, n.100], only that the disjunction is true. Therefore, the effect of the disjunction is no more that what will immediately be under the species is the body of Christ than that what is now under them is so.