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I. What Action [Praxis] is
228. I say first, then, that the action to which practical knowledge is extended is the act of some power other than the intellect, naturally posterior to the intellect, of a nature to be elicited in conformity with right intellect so as to be right.
The first condition is clear, because when one stops precisely at acts of the intellect there is no extension of the intellect, because it does not tend beyond itself unless its act has regard to the act of another power.
And if you say that one act of the intellect is extended to another, being directed by it, the second act is not for this reason action as we are now speaking of action, nor is the first knowledge practical, because then logic would be practical, because it directs in acts of discursive thought.
229. The second condition is plain, because acts not having an order to the intellect, of which sort are vegetative acts, and acts naturally preceding the intellect, as sense acts, are not called actions, nor is practical knowledge said to be extended to them in the way these are prior to understanding. Similarly, the act of the power of sense appetite, insofar as it precedes the act of the intellect, is not action; for it is in this way common to us and to the brutes. Nor is any knowledge practical in respect of these acts, unless it in some way moderates them and these acts follow the understanding moderating them qua being moderated by it.
230. From these two conditions follows a corollary, namely that the action to which the practical habit is extended is only an elicited or commanded act of the will, for no other act coming from understanding or beside understanding is essentially posterior to understanding, for any other given act, which is of the same nature as it is, could be prior to it, as is plain by running through the acts of all the powers.
231. This fact is plain, second, in this way, that action is an act that is in the power of the knower. The proof is from Ethics 6.5.1140b22, that the artisan needs a virtue for acting rightly; but he does not need a virtue with respect to what is not in his power; therefore the artisan has the act of making in his power; much more does the prudent man have action in his power, because he is virtuous in his very form. From this follows further: if all action is in the power of the knower, and if nothing is in the power of the will save either an elicited or commanded act, the proposition intended follows as before [n.230].
232. Against this condition is that the consequence seems to be that then any intellection will be action, because any intellection can be an act commanded by the will the way the act of other powers is commanded by the will. And in that case it follows further that therefore the first condition is false, namely that action is the operation of a power other than the intellect. - I reply: although speculation is a certain operation and so, in an extended sense, is an action, yet, in the way action is said to be only the operation to which the intellect can be extended, no understanding is action; and this is the way action is taken when practical knowledge is said to be extended to action. When, therefore, it is argued that ‘understanding is commanded by the will, therefore it is action’, the consequence does not hold, but what holds is ‘therefore it is action or practical’; for it has the nature to be denominated practical accidentally, as it were, because of the action to which it can be extended; but it cannot be the term of such extension. Yet, on the other hand, I do well concede that all action is an elicited or commanded act of the will. Hence, to infer from this second condition the opposite of the first condition is to commit the fallacy of the consequent, by asserting the consequent.73, 74
233. Proof of the third condition. First from the remark of the Philosopher in Ethics 6.2.1139a22-25, that right choice necessarily requires right reason. This remark is not only true of choice taken strictly but, by parity of reason, of any right volition, because it requires the right reason in conformity with which it is elicited; but all action either is volition or follows volition, from the preceding corollary [n.230]; therefore all action, for the purpose of being right, is naturally elicited in conformity with right reason. Second from the remark of Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.5 n.10, ch.7 n.13, that the intellect performs acts of understanding for itself and for the other powers. Therefore, just as it can pass judgment on its own act, so it can on the acts of the others; therefore on an act naturally posterior to its own act it can naturally pass judgment before that posterior act is elicited; and consequently, if the intellect judges rightly, that act, if it has to be right, must be elicited in conformity with that judgment.
From the two final conditions of action [nn.228, 229, 233] it follows that an act commanded by the will is not primarily but as it were per accidens action, because it is not primarily posterior to understanding nor is it primarily of a nature to be elicited in conformity with right reason. Some other act, then, must be primarily action; this act is nothing but volition, because through volition the commanded act has the said conditions; therefore the first idea of action is found in an elicited act of the will.
And then further: whenever something that is conjoined to another is primarily of a certain sort, it would still be of that sort if it could be separated from that other; therefore if the act of will can be separated from the act of the other power, it will be action when separated from that posterior act. But it is separate with respect to whatever can be the object of an act of will with respect to which there cannot be an act of another power, and of this sort are all immaterial things; therefore an act of will is about every such thing, and it alone is action.
235. Second, the same is proved from the intention of the Philosopher On the Soul 3.10.433a17-18, where, in his inquiry about the first mover, after he has concluded that there are two movers, namely will or appetite and reason, he subjoins: “The intellect does not move without appetite, for will is appetite.” And next he says that two appetites are sometimes contrary to each other; therefore he is positing as it were one species of mover, because common to the two appetites is the nature of the species that mediates between them, namely the nature of appetite. His meaning expressly, then, is that just as the sense appetite has the nature of a mover along with sense and imagination, so the will has the nature of a moving principle along with intellect and reason. Therefore, just as an act of sensitive appetite without any transition to what is extrinsic is truly action when it follows an act of intellect, so the act of will that is posited as equally a moving principle will truly be action, for it always follows an act of intellect; and it is action even if it is on its own without a commanded act, nay even if it is with an act in sense appetite opposed to the act which it commands, because, although it has that sometimes opposed appetite, it is itself a moving and operating principle, whose operation is action.