Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

The title is clear. – In the body, two things. First, he recites three opinions clearly: the third is the one Scotus follows¹. – Second, he attacks all of them together, as to the matter proposed, in two ways, as is clear.

The first argument. Angels are not composed of matter and form: therefore neither are there several in one species. – The consequence is proved: because whatever agree in species and differ in number agree in form, and differ materially.

Second, he attacks them, supposing that they were material, proving the same conclusion thus. A distinction caused by matter is either according to a diversity of quantity or according to a diversity of potency: the first is not there, because they are incorporeal: therefore it would be the second. But this excludes not only specific identity but generic. Therefore.

II. Concerning the proof of the consequence in the first argument, a doubt occurs: because he either assumes something false or proves nothing. For if the term differ materially signifies to differ by matter properly so called, which would be one of the two parts of the differing thing, something false is assumed. Because two souls differ materially, and yet do not differ in matter, because they lack it; and similarly two lines taken mathematically; and similarly two accidents of the same species in angels. – But if the term differ materially signifies a difference in matter properly so called, though not matter that is a part of the differing thing, then too something false is assumed, as is clear in the two instances last mentioned: and against this there are many arguments of Scotus, which you have in the questions on the De Ente et Essentia²: and it does not prove what is intended, because to differ materially in this mode is superior both to differing materially by being composed of matter and form and to differing materially by differing in some way according to matter; and thereby, from the negation of composition the negation of material difference cannot be inferred, but it is the fallacy of the Consequent, from the inferior to the superior negatively. – But if the term differ materially signifies a difference in matter commonly taken, that is, in that which stands as the material element with respect to the species, in this way it is accepted by all. But then nothing at all is proved to the purpose, for the same reason: namely because the minor that is understood, namely, angels do not differ materially, is not proved from this, that they are not composed of matter and form; but it is the sophism of the Consequent.

III. To this it is said that, since the proposition of St Thomas is universal, it is to be understood in the third way. As a sign of which, he adds the example of the plurification of whiteness, which, it is evident, is individuated not by matter, but by what is quantified.

To the instance in opposition, however, it is said that St Thomas, intent on brevity, found it enough to bring an effective proof in the matter he was speaking of. For the evidence of which know that, since according to him³ every purely material difference arises either from quantity, as happens in material things, or from the subject, as happens in spiritual accidents; and a difference arising from quantity has no place in substances except by reason of matter; and matter is in a complete substance in no other way than as a part of it: it follows that, speaking of complete substances, such as angels are, material difference is sufficiently excluded from them by the fact that composition of matter and form is excluded from them.

IV. Concerning the first argument, note that St Thomas does not, from a lack of proper arguments, as he is accustomed, argue from common ones: rather this argument examines what is proper to angels.

For the evidence of which, two propositions as if known per se are to be noted. The first is that in substances which exist among us, the notion of genus is found existing apart in the nature of things, without the nobility of a superadded nature. For corporeity is found without the perfection of mixture, as is clear in the elements; and the mixed without life, as is clear in inanimate mixed bodies; and the living without sense, as is clear in plants; and sense without motion, as is clear in oysters; and this without intellect, as is clear in brutes. – The second is that intellectuality is the last and highest nature in the universe.

For from these two propositions the argument is produced: the major holds from the first and the minor from the second proposition. For if a genus is found apart from the highest nature, because it is a more imperfect nature, it follows that not all angels agree in the highest nature: and if they agree in the highest nature, that this is not a genus, because it cannot be found outside itself. But angels agree in intellectuality, which is the noblest of all. Therefore.

V. Concerning the reply to the first, note two things. First, that there the discourse is not about just any otherness between the nature of genus and of difference, but about the otherness of real separation; not of the generic notion from the notion of a more perfect difference, but of the generic notion from a whole single latitude of differences of a more perfect order; for example, of the living from the notions of sensing, and of the sensitive from the notions of two-footed and four-footed, etc. So that the Author intends to destroy the first proposition⁴, wishing that it not be necessary universally, although it is sometimes verified. – And he proves this in two ways. First, ostensively: because it is enough that genus and difference differ as the undetermined and the determined. Second, by leading to an inconvenience, namely that in irrational animals there would be, besides the sensitive nature, which is the genus, another more perfect form, or they would be of one species: for each is inconvenient, as will be clear below⁵.

Second, that the reply consists formally in this, that to agree in the noblest thing of oneself happens in two ways: first, in the noblest nature; second, in the noblest grade of its common nature. In the first way the major is false: in the second way it is true, but then the minor is false.