IV. To the Second Question

265. From this the solution to the second question posed is plain [n.223]. I hold to the negative part of it [sc. science is not said to be practical from its order to the end], but the first relation, namely conformity [n.236], is had by practical science per se from the object, which is either rectitude of practice or something virtually including that rectitude, and therefore action is conformable to that knowledge so as to be right, because the knowledge is of such a known thing.

266. But as to the other relation, namely priority [n.236], it is doubtful whether it belongs to the knowledge. I say that necessarily some understanding naturally precedes action, as is plain from the first article [nn.229-233]; and in this respect posteriority belongs to action and priority to knowledge from the nature of the powers that are ordered naturally in acting, namely intellect and will. But that prior understanding is not always practical, but only when it is determinative of the rectitude or of the determinate rectitude of the action itself, and that either virtually or formally. But when there is in the preceding apprehension no virtual or formal determination of the rectitude of the action, although there is priority in it, yet conformity in it is lacking, because it is not the knowledge to which action should be conformed in order to be right, because it points out nothing determinate about the rectitude of the action.Interpolation: “Now when in a previous apprehension there is determination about the rectitude of an action, but when the power of which it is the action is not in any way determinable from elsewhere, then the knowledge, although it is determinate, does not make conform.” ⁸⁰

It can be said then that, although absolutely from the nature of the intellect and of the will knowledge is prior, yet the fact that conform knowledge, namely knowledge that makes conform, is prior comes from the object and at the same time from the order of the powers and of the power of the actor, for although the object determines the intellect to knowledge of rectitude naturally before the will wills, and although the will in some way receives its rule from something else, yet not apprehension alone but conform apprehension precedes action. But this happens whenever the determinate rectitude of action is a necessary knowable, either as a principle through the intellect or as a conclusion through science.

267. The things that have just been said, namely about the source from which the double relation, that is of conformity and of priority, belongs to practical knowledge, are to be understood in a general way, unless one should add something on behalf of the divine intellect, namely that the acting power, to whose action the conform knowledge is prior, is in some way determinable, or conformable to another as to a rule in its acting, from somewhere else; but whether this is required for knowledge or not will be touched on in response to the fourth objection that will be made against the principal solution to the question [nn.324-331].

268. But when determinate rectitude belongs contingently to action, then there is no object determining the intellect to knowledge of determinate rectitude before the will wills, and this when speaking of intellect and will in general, for the contingent thing is not determined to either part in advance of all acts of the will. But when making comparison specifically to this intellect and this will, the conform knowledge, which determinate knowledge of rectitude precedes, can precede the action, and the one which it does not precede cannot; but it can precede in all and only the intelligence whose will is not the first determinant of rectitude for the action.

269. An example of what has been said:

The rectitude of this act ‘to love God’ is necessary and is included virtually in the idea of God; this action is also not only naturally preceded in everyone by apprehension but also by conform apprehension, namely the apprehension to which the action must be conformed so as to be right; so it is from the object which of itself primarily determines the intellect to know the determinate rectitude of the action, and from the order of the intellect and the will in acting, that this knowledge is obtained which is prior to action and conform, and likewise in the case of any other action that determinate rectitude necessarily belongs to.

But the rectitude of this action ‘to worship God in the sacrifice of the altar’ is contingent; for sometimes the act is right, as it is now, and sometimes not, as it was in the Old Testament; and therefore there is not an object determinative of the intellect to knowledge of this rectitude in advance of every act of the will, and so the knowledge does not precede, as conform knowledge, every act of the will. Yet it does precede the act of some will, to wit of that will alone which does not first determine rectitude for this action, of which sort is the human will. For this rectitude is determined by the divine will, which accepts now this sort of cult or act and at other times some other one.