Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

The title is clear. – In the body of the article he does four things. First, he proposes the responsive conclusion: namely that neither the action of an angel, nor the action of any creature, is its being (esse). – Second, he distinguishes a twofold kind of action: namely of the immanent and of the transient. – Third, he proves the proposed conclusion as to transient action. – Fourth, as to immanent action.

II. And the middle term assumed to prove the point about transient action is that it is an outflow from the agent into act: but being (esse) is signified, that is, is the thing signified, within the agent itself, as the signification also shows: for the term signified belongs on the side of the thing, and not only on the side of the mode of signifying.

As to immanent action, the middle term is that immanent action is infinite simply, or in a certain respect, that is, in some genus: but the being (esse) of each thing is finite, and determined to a certain genus and to a certain species, namely of the thing whose it is: therefore they are not the same. – The major is declared by distinguishing a twofold kind of immanent action, one pertaining to the intellective part, the other to the sensitive part: for the first is infinite simply, because its object extends to all things; but the second is infinite in a certain respect, because its object extends only to certain species. And everything is clear in the text.

III. On this reasoning, note that immanent operation can be taken in two ways: namely in general, for example to understand, to see, etc.; and in particular, or as contracted to this or that subject, for example human understanding, bovine seeing, etc. In the matter at hand the discussion is not about these in general, because then there would be no difference between them and being (esse) in general: but the discussion is about them as contracted to subjects. So that his intention is that, because the being of the human is of a determinate species, whereas human understanding is not, but is infinite, therefore they are not the same.

Note secondly that being determined, or being in some species, happens in two ways: in one way per accidens, or extrinsically; in another way per se, and intrinsically. In the matter at hand the discussion is not about extrinsic, or per accidens, specification, because then the reasoning would be worth nothing, as is very easily plain to anyone who runs through it: but about intrinsic and essential specification.

So that his intention is that, because the being of the human is essentially determined to the species of man; whereas human understanding is not essentially in the species of man, but can be essentially specified by all species of being or of the true, and hence is infinite and simply indeterminate; therefore they are not the same. And the case is similar in other things. – And from this it is plain how conformably to St Thomas we have spoken in the preceding article¹, in not admitting that to understand is an atomic species. For if it were a formally indivisible perfection, it would already be essentially determined to a certain species: and on the opposite of this the present reasoning is founded.

IV. On the foundation of this reasoning there is a doubt. For it can be believed to be twofold: namely either this, Of whatever things the essential specific differences are different, those are different things; or this, Those of which one is of a determinate species, whereas the other can be essentially determined to several species, are different things. – And if indeed the first proposition is the foundation of this reasoning, one must concede that every formal and specific distinction is real: which is not accepted even by the Thomists who hold that a relation is the same as its foundation; nor does it seem consonant with the doctrine of St Thomas². For as the good is distinguished formally from being, so the species of the good and the per se differences of the good are distinguished formally from the species and differences of being: and yet they are the same really.

But if this proposition is said to be false, and this argument is founded on the second proposition, a similar ambiguity returns, and perhaps a greater. Both because the second proposition does not differ from the first except in one respect. For in the first, the otherness alone of specific differences is stated as the cause of real distinction: in the second, otherness and plurality, namely because on the one side there is one constituting difference, on the other side there are several specific differences; for this is how the being of the human and to understand are related.

Now it seems very difficult whence the plurality of other differences has it that it makes a real distinction from the thing of one other difference, if the unity of another difference does not suffice for this. For that plurality effects nothing other than that that to which it belongs is related as a generic nature, just as the unity of a difference makes the thing to which it belongs be related as a specific nature: nor does any reason appear why a thing of one species could not be the same as a thing of a generic nature of another order, if it can be the same as a thing of a specific nature of another order.

– And because the proposition cannot be accepted even by the aforesaid Thomists. For whiteness is of one certain species: but the relation that is posited as identified with it is indifferent to many species, since it is divided into the relation of likeness and of unlikeness, etc. – And it is confirmed. Because to whatever the plurality of specific differences is not repugnant, to that neither are three differences more repugnant than four or ten. And therefore, if something can be one thing and yet be in two species, a thing will be able, no less, to be one and to be in all the species of one genus.

V. To this doubt it is said that the procedure of St Thomas is founded directly and proximately on the second proposition, without however the denial of the first: so that the proximate foundation is this proposition, What is essentially determined as to specific being is not a thing essentially determinable by several specific beings. This proposition seems to be known per se: otherwise one and the same thing would be an essence formally complete with the ultimate formal completion, and would not be complete with the ultimate formal completion; which implies contradictories at once.

And although in this it makes no difference whether the thing is posited as determinable by one specific being or by several, as a generic nature is specified by several; yet more impossibilities follow from the second than from the first. For if it is posited that a specific thing of one order is identically a specific thing of another order, nothing follows but this, that what is essentially determined by the ultimate formal determination is essentially determinable by another formal determination: and thus it would be ultimately determined, and not ultimately determined.

But if it is posited that a specific thing of one order is identically a generic thing of another order, besides the aforesaid untoward consequence two others follow: namely that what is formally determined by the ultimate determination would be a nature essentially formable by many differences; and that it would be two opposed natures, because it would be the same as the two extreme differences dividing that generic thing. Just as if surface were the nature of color, it would follow that one and the same surface would be whiteness and blackness: because every surface would be identically color, and hence this surface would be not only such a color, say whiteness, but would be identically every color; which implies contradiction. Just as if someone were to posit that color signifies one in number, and yet is a genus.

From this it can be plain that, although both propositions are perhaps true, yet only those that speak of the identity and distinction between a specific thing and a generic thing of another order belong to the matter at hand of necessity; which have greater evidence.

VI. Hence to the objections to the contrary³ I think nothing else is to be said, but that the present discussion is to be limited by two or three conditions. The first is that here we speak of real differences, that is, those adding some real aspect. And by this the objections about the good, and the like, are excluded: since they do not add a real thing, but only a relation of reason.

– The second is that we speak of identity per se: since per accidens is excluded from art. And by this are excluded the imaginings of those who speak into the air, feigning that some things are the same really, and that the same thing is essentially determined by the ultimate difference, and determinable by another ultimate difference of another order. For this, speaking per se, is not intelligible. But per accidens, granted that it would not imply contradiction, yet for no reason does such a per accidens seem to be posited: since nature, so far as is possible, abhors the per accidens, and always tends to the per se.

– The third condition is to be added by those who hold that relation is the same as its foundation: namely that the present discussion is about absolutes. But let those who add this third condition consider how they can escape the aforesaid untoward consequences⁴, and above all the third, since the aforesaid were deduced not on account of absolute or respective subject-matter, but from the reasons of the ultimate difference of genus and species, which are common to absolutes and respectives.