4. To the Fifth

130. To the fifth [n.8] I say that the act is simply more perfect than the habit, both in idea of final perfection, because it more immediately attains the final object, and in idea of formal perfection, because there could not belong to the habit at its peak as great a perfection as belongs to such act at its peak.

131. To the Philosopher in the Topics [n.8], therefore, I say, in one way, that the consideration in question must be understood ‘other things being equal’. Hence he himself maintains (at the beginning of the book [Topics 3.1.116a4-6]) that he is not considering it “in things far apart,” that is, “in things having many differences,” but in things that have only that difference for which his considerations hold universally. And then the minor is false ‘habit and act are distinct in this alone’, namely ‘according to being more permanent or lasting and less lasting’.

But there is another response in the issue at hand, that this act is as equally lasting as the habit - on the part of the power and on the part of the object and on the part of the nature of this one and of that.

132. As to the second proof [n.8 “second because habit is a cause of act”], the answer is plain elsewhere, Ord. I d.17 n.32 (on charity), that a habit is only a partial cause of an act; and it is not unacceptable for a partial equivocal cause to be less noble than its effect, and especially as concerns a partial secondary cause, though the total or partial principal equivocal cause is nobler than its effect.

133. Briefly as follows:

Things go simply perfectly well for the blessed; things do not go thus well for anyone save in the simply perfect good, perfectly possessed, in the way possible for him; things cannot, from that good, go well for anyone else in that good save in his immediately attaining it; but he cannot attain it save by operation. Therefore, in this immediate attaining of that good, or in immediate conjoining with that good, does beatitude in its completion consist, and in the operation as in the proximate foundation.

134. The first proposition [n.133] is plain, because beatitude is the second perfection of a thing. For it is not the first perfection, because a thing is more perfect according to its first perfection (and by that first perfection alone can it be more wretched than others); now second perfection is properly expressed by the fact that ‘things go well’, for ‘things going well’ presupposes the first perfection of anything for which things go well. Further, there is an order in second perfections as in first perfections, because there is a correspondence of the latter to the former. And again, in the second perfections of any same thing there is an order such that some perfection is ultimate, short of which the thing is imperfect by way of privation, because it is of a nature to receive a further perfection; but when its ultimate perfection is obtained, if it is not simply perfect, its ultimate perfection remains something imperfect negatively, because lacking a perfection, though not a perfection of a nature to be received by it. To exclude further second perfection of the same thing, ‘perfectly’ is added to ‘well’; but to exclude further second perfection simply, at least in its kind, to ‘perfectly’ is added ‘simply well’, such that beatitude states a second perfection that excludes imperfection (both of privation and of negation), as being a supreme second perfection, at least in its kind.

135. The second proposition [n.133] is plain, because things do not go perfectly well for what can have that good if it does not have it, but go imperfectly for it by way of privation; and if it cannot have it, then things do not go perfectly well for it but imperfectly, at least negatively.

136. The third proposition is proved by the three conclusions of the first article [nn.80, 86, 95], that the whole of intellectual nature is of a nature thus to have that good, and it is imperfect unless it thus have it; but non-intellectual nature, as being inferior, if it is not of a nature to have it, then it remains imperfect, but not privatively so but negatively, that is, from the imperfection of its nature.

137. The fourth proposition is proved because there is no second perfection by which the perfect good may be more immediately attained than by operation, which of itself seems to be not for its own sake but for the sake of the object; and first perfection does not attain it save through the mediation of second perfection.