Commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologiae

In this title, note that the question is not about individual works of nature and art, but about all or most of them: whether creation is mixed in with all or most works of nature and art. I say "most," however, on account of the generation of man, since no mention is made of it here, because what holds in most cases is what is treated here.

In the body he does four things: first, he gives the cause of what is sought; second, he treats one opinion; third, the opposing one; fourth, he answers what is sought.

II. As to the first point, the question at issue is the production of forms, concerning which there was, and still is, the greatest controversy among all. For since the common conception of all minds was that from nothing nothing comes to be, and likewise nothing returns into nothing (and this is understood as from nothing of itself, and likewise into nothing of itself: and not, as the unlearned understand it, from no preexisting subject); and since they saw substantial forms appearing at one time and not at another, they fell into various extreme opinions.

For some¹, positing latitation, answered the question negatively: because they denied that anything comes to be, lest they have to posit that something comes to be from nothing. And the Author reproached these men for their ignorance of matter.

Others (among whose number Plato² and Avicenna³ seem to be counted), holding that forms properly come to be, answered affirmatively: because they come to be from nothing of themselves. Yet the subject matter veiled their eyes, so that they did not notice that they were positing something to come to be from nothing. And the Author refutes these men, because they did not know the nature of form: namely, that a material form, of which we speak, is not such as to come to be nor to be (esse).

That divine Aristotle alone, in respect of genius, found the middle way, by which things truly come to be, and yet nothing comes to be out of nothing of itself. For, positing ⁴ that forms are and are not without generation and corruption—that is, that they neither come to be nor are corrupted, but that only composites come to be, are generated and corrupted—he saved everything: for something of the composite always pre-exists and remains, namely matter.

And so the question is answered in the negative. But not because nothing comes to be: rather, because only composites come to be, while forms are for the coming-to-be of composites, and are not for their corruption. Creation, therefore, is not mixed into the works of nature, but is presupposed by them. – And thus all that is in the text becomes clear.

III. In response to the second, it would need to be discussed whether active qualities can induce substantial forms by the power of substances. But since below⁵, where the powers of the angel and of the soul will be treated, it will be treated universally whether a created substance can be the immediate principle of any operation, therefore let it be deferred until then, etc.

IV. In response to the third, note two things. First, that when it is said that for the generation of imperfect animals a universal agent suffices, the proportional power of the seed, which is the proximate cause of the generation, is not thereby excluded; rather, what is excluded is the proximate univocal cause formally, from which that power was derived, just as from a generating bull there descends the generative seed of a bull, etc. Whether those powers must necessarily be posited is another matter. It suffices here that they are not excluded by the sufficiency of the universal agent, since they are instruments of the universal agent, if they exist. On these see Averroes, XII Metaphysics, commentary 13.

Second, that, because it has not yet been decided whether the heavenly power is animate so as to be able to make an animal, or sufficiently participates in the power of a separate life; therefore how heaven can make a living thing does not belong to this place. Accordingly, the question is left to its own place⁶.