In De ente et essentia D. Thomae Aquinatis commentaria

On the essence of simple substances compared with the essence of composite substances. Simple substances, which are forms alone, are composed of essence and being, and proceed from God as from an efficient cause.

Now it remains to see in what manner essence is in separated substances, namely in the soul, the intelligences, and the first cause. Although all philosophers concede the simplicity of the first cause, nevertheless some strive to posit a composition of matter and form in the intelligences and souls; Avicebron, the author of the book The Fountain of Life, is said to have held this position. But this is found to be contrary to the statements of the philosophers, because they call those substances separated from matter and prove them to be without all matter; the strongest demonstration of this is from the power of understanding which is in them. For we see that forms are not actually intelligible except insofar as they are separated from matter and its conditions; nor are they made actually intelligible except through the power of an intelligent substance, insofar as they are received in it and insofar as they are acted upon through it. Hence there must be in every intelligent substance complete immunity from matter, so that it neither has matter as a part of itself nor is like a form impressed in matter, as is the case with material forms.

Here the second treatise of this work begins, intending in two chapters to hand down knowledge of the essences of simple substances, just as knowledge of the essences of composite substances was handed down. In the present chapter he does six things. First he declares that essence in simple things does not signify something composed of matter and form, but form alone. Second he compares those essences with the essences of composite substances. Third he shows that such substances are composed of being and essence. Fourth he declares that the intelligences have being effectively from God. Fifth he shows that they are composed of act and potency. Sixth he treats of their multitude. Having first proposed the philosophers’ unanimous opinion concerning the complete simplicity of the first cause, and having brought forward certain dissenters concerning the immateriality of the intelligences, against them he posits this conclusion: every intellectual substance is immaterial, that is, not composed of matter and form, and independent of matter. He proves it thus: everything undergoing, acting, receiving, or having an actually intelligible thing in itself is immaterial; every intellectual substance undergoes, acts, receives, or has an actually intelligible thing in itself; therefore every intellectual substance is immaterial. The major, as to its three parts, is proved from the same middle term, namely from the fact that what is actually intelligible must be immaterial, On the Soul III, texts XI and XV; and an agent producing an immaterial thing must be immaterial, because an agent cannot be less noble than its effect, as is said in On the Soul III, texts XVIII and XL; nor can an immaterial thing be received except by an immaterial thing, as is clear in On the Soul III, commentary V: each thing is received according to the mode of the receiver. By the same reasoning it is evident that only an immaterial thing can have in itself an immaterial cognoscible. The minor is conceded by everyone. For an intellectual substance would be useless unless it understood something, since everything exists for the sake of its operation, as is said in On the Heavens II, text XVII.

Nor can anyone say that matter of every kind does not impede intelligibility, but only corporeal matter. For if this were so solely by reason of corporeal matter, since matter is not called corporeal except insofar as it stands under a corporeal form, then matter would have from corporeal form this property, namely to impede intelligibility. This cannot be, because corporeal form itself is actually intelligible, just as other forms are, insofar as they are abstracted from matter. Hence in the intellectual soul and in an intelligence there is in no way a composition of matter and form, if matter is taken in them in the way it is taken in corporeal substances; rather, there is a composition of form and being. Hence in the commentary on the ninth proposition of The Book of Causes it is said that an intelligence has form and being, and there “form” is taken for the simple quiddity or essence itself.

Because someone might believe that the argument made receives a response, he therefore intends here to exclude a response which might be imagined sufficient. Someone could distinguish between corporeal matter and matter simply speaking, and say that the major is true of corporeal matter but not of matter simply speaking, and consequently concede that every intellectual substance is immune from corporeal matter but not from matter, because it is not matter, but corporeal matter, that impedes intelligibility in act.

Against this evasion an argument leading to the impossible is urged as follows: Corporeal matter per se impedes intelligibility; therefore corporeal form is that from which matter has its impediment to intelligibility. This is impossible; therefore, by destruction of the consequent, etc. The consequence is evident from the terms. Since corporeal matter signifies two things, namely “matter” and “corporeal,” and according to the adversary intelligibility in act is not impeded by “matter,” it remains that the impediment comes from “corporeal.” But “corporeal” adds nothing to matter except corporeal form; therefore it arises from corporeal or bodily form that matter impedes intelligibility in act. The falsity of the consequent is proved thus: every form not conceived together with matter is actually intelligible, as is clear from On the Soul III, text 11. Corporeal form is, in itself, a form not conceived together with matter, for it is taken as distinct from matter; therefore corporeal form in itself is actually intelligible. Further: nothing that is in itself actually intelligible provides, of itself, an impediment to intelligibility; corporeal form is such; therefore corporeal form is not that from which matter derives its impediment to intelligibility, which was to be proved. Thus neither the intellective soul nor any intelligence is composed of matter and form, if we take “composition from matter and form” univocally, namely as matter and form naming the essential parts of a thing, as was said above concerning certain composed substances. Rather, there is in them another kind of composition, namely from form and being, which will be discussed below. Thus the first part of the intended conclusion is obtained: essence in intellectual substances does not signify something composed of matter and form. It remains to explain how it signifies form alone; therefore he adds:

And how this is so is easy to see. Whatever are so related that one is the cause of the other’s being, that which has the character of cause can have being without the other, but not conversely. Matter and form are found to be related in this way: form gives being to matter, and therefore it is impossible for any matter to exist without form; yet it is not impossible for some form to exist without matter. For form, insofar as it is form, does not depend on matter; but if some forms are found that cannot exist except in matter, this happens to them insofar as they are distant from the first principle, which is first and pure act. Hence those forms that are nearest to the first principle are forms subsisting in themselves without matter. Form does not need matter according to its whole genus, as was said; and such forms are intelligences. Therefore the essences or quiddities of these substances need be nothing other than form itself.

Intending in these words to explain how essence in simple substances signifies form alone, he proves it by this reasoning: whatever are so related that one is the cause of the other’s being, and not conversely, that which has the character of cause can exist without the other; but form and matter are so related that form causes the being of matter, and not conversely; therefore form can exist without matter, and matter not without form. Further: the essence of intelligences is not composed of matter and form, and it cannot be matter alone; therefore it is form alone.

Note that the major proposition can be understood in two ways. In one way, that what is the cause of another, etc., can be numerically the same while existing without the other; this is not assumed by us, because it is false and beside the point. It is false because a subject causes the being of its proper passion, and not conversely, yet the subject cannot exist without its proper passion. It is beside the point because we do not wish to conclude that the form which is in matter exists without matter, but that some form does not require matter. In another way, the major is understood to mean that what has the character of cause according to its order can exist without the other—that is, something belonging to its order can be found without the other—and in this way it is true and relevant. It is true because, since a cause is independent of its effect, it follows that something belonging to its order can have being outside the effect. It is relevant because we intend to conclude that form according to its genus does not depend on matter, so that some form can be found separate. Hence in the minor it is carefully not “material form,” or form having being in matter, that is assumed, but “form” without qualification, to suggest that we are speaking of form insofar as it is form, not insofar as it is this or that form.

That minor is clear from Metaphysics IX, texts 13 and 15, where it is stated that act is simply prior to potency and independent of it. Since form is essentially act, while matter is essentially potency, if act according to its entire scope does not depend on potency, it follows that form according to its whole order does not depend on matter. Since matter is essentially potency, it must depend on form, without which actuality is not found. Thus the minor is clear: matter depends for its being on form absolutely, insofar as it is form, just as potency depends on act, and not conversely. That it belongs to some act not to be found except received in a potency arises from its imperfection, not from its being act; likewise, that some forms exist only in matter arises from their imperfection, measured by their distance from the first principle, glorious God, and their proximity to prime matter. Hence such forms not only cause matter to be, but are themselves in a way caused by matter. For causes are causes of one another, as is said in Physics II, text 30. Therefore the essence of intellectual substances is immaterial and form alone.

Whether matter can exist without form.

Concerning this part there arises a question, and this is the ninth: whether matter can exist without form. In this question three things must be done: first, Scotus’s opinion will be set forth; second, the opinion of St. Thomas; third, the arguments on the contrary will be answered.

As to the first, Scotus, in II Sent. dist. XII, q. II, holds that matter can exist without form, and argues in several ways to prove this.

First, thus: An accident does not depend on substance less than matter depends on form; but an accident can exist without substance, as is clear in the Sacrament of the altar. Therefore matter can exist without form.

Furthermore, What is absolutely distinct, and prior to another absolute, can without contradiction exist without it; matter with respect to form is of this kind; therefore it can exist without form. The minor is evident; the major is proved because what is prior, precisely as prior, does not depend on what is posterior. This is taken from Metaphysics V, text XVI: those things are prior which can exist without others, while the others cannot exist without them.

Furthermore, Whatever absolute reality God makes in creatures through a second cause that is not of the essence of the thing caused, He can make without it; but God makes matter through form, which is not of its essence; therefore He can make it without form.

Furthermore, Whatever God creates immediately, He immediately preserves, or can preserve; but God creates matter immediately; therefore He can preserve it immediately, and therefore without any form.

Furthermore, Since God wills nothing outside Himself necessarily, from His willing matter to exist it does not follow that He necessarily wills form to exist, unless because of a necessary connection between the two. But there is no such necessary connection between matter and form; therefore, and so on. That there is no such necessary connection between matter and form is proved because it would then follow that matter necessarily determined some determinate form for itself. The consequence is proved thus: what determines a genus of forms for itself determines some species in that genus, and what determines a species for itself determines existence in some individual of that species; for whatever is necessarily a man is necessarily this or that man. But the consequence is false: matter determines no form for itself. Therefore it remains that matter does not determine the genus of form for itself in order to exist. It is confirmed: whatever is contingently related to each member of an absolute genus is contingently related to that absolute genus; but matter is contingently related to each form; therefore matter is contingently related to the genus of form. It is further proved that if matter necessarily determined the genus of form for itself, it would also necessarily determine one sole individual of that genus. For one essential and singular thing cannot essentially depend on several things of the same genus; but matter is one essential and singular thing; therefore it is impossible for it to depend on several forms of the same genus. Thus, if it necessarily determines the genus of form for itself, it also necessarily determines some one form, which is false. So much for the first.

As to the second, St. Thomas, in I Sent. q. LXVI, art. 1, in De potentia, q. IV, art. 1, and in Quodlibet III, q. III, art. 1, confirms what he says here, namely that matter cannot exist without form, by two arguments.

The first leads to an impossibility, as follows: If matter existed without any form, matter would both be and not be at the same time. This involves a contradiction; therefore it is impossible. The consequence is proved as regards the second part, since the first is conceded by the adversaries. It is impossible for a formal effect to be separated from its form; but to exist is the formal effect of form, for form is defined as that which gives being to a thing. Therefore it is impossible to posit existence without form. For just as it is impossible to be white without whiteness, so it is impossible to be in act without act; but the first act, whose function is to give being, is the same as form. From the proposition, therefore, “Matter exists without any form,” two contradictories follow as true at once: from matter’s existing it follows that it is in act, while from its being without any form it follows that it is not in act. Scotus gives a certain response to this argument; but since it is merely chimerical and unworthy of discussion, let it be omitted. For, as Aristotle says, whom we learned from in Book IX of the Metaphysics what act is and how many kinds there are, it is foolish to trouble oneself over anyone uttering contradictions.

St. Thomas’s second argument for the same conclusion is this: Every individual determined to a complete or incomplete genus, existing per se in the nature of things, is in some definite species, either per se or reductively. Matter alone is in no definite species, neither per se nor reductively. Therefore matter alone cannot be just any individual in the nature of things. The minor is clear in itself; it would not be easy to imagine in what determinate species matter alone would be. The major is proved because every individual, complete or incomplete, if it exists per se in the nature of things as separate (I say this because of an individual of a genus, such as this substance, this animal, and so on), is not contained under a genus per se or reductively immediately, but through a species. For species mediate between genera and individuals, and, correspondingly, the principles of species mediate between the principles of genus and the principles of the individual. Moreover, this major can be proved ad hominem by taking Scotus’s statements in the fifth argument; there he expressly assumes that whatever determines some genus for itself determines some definite species of that genus. You can also argue ad hominem from Scotus’s statements there and prove the opposite of his intention as follows: Whatever determines some genus determines some definite species of that genus; matter alone determines the genus of substance; therefore it determines some definite species of substance, at least reductively; therefore matter alone would be in some definite species. This is false; the minor is accepted by everyone, and the reasoning is sound; therefore, and so on.

Aristotle approves this truth (as Scotus himself admits) in the cited place. But because Scotus says that Aristotle held this conclusion from a false foundation—namely, that God cannot act without second causes—I show that Scotus errs in this, on the basis of the Commentator’s statements. For Averroes, in II Physics, commentary XII, holds this conclusion from precisely the same foundation that St. Thomas brought forward in the first argument. There is no mention there of any connection of causality with the first cause, but only of act and potency; thus, from the nature of act and the nature of first matter, which is pure potency, Averroes concludes that two contradictories would be true at once, as was deduced. Avicenna too, in II of his Metaphysics, chapter III, holds Scotus’s conclusion to be impossible, and yet expressly posited that matter is created. Hence this opinion, as destructive of metaphysical principles, must be avoided. So much for the second.

As to the third, I answer. To the first, the antecedent is denied; pure potency depends more on act than imperfect act depends on perfect act. But against this Antonius Trombeta objects as follows: What is posterior depends more on what is prior than what is prior depends on what is posterior; but accident is posterior to substance, while matter is prior to form; therefore accident depends more on its subject than matter depends on form. Perhaps, he says, one might reply that matter is not prior but posterior to form. Against this: although matter is posterior to form in the order of perfection, it is prior in the order of generation, and consequently prior simply. The argument is: Whenever there are two orders, one of which is simply prior to the other, whatever is in the prior order is simply prior to anything existing in the posterior order; but the order of origin and the order of perfection are such that the order of origin is simply prior to the order of perfection (and this in limited nature); therefore whatever is prior in origin is simply prior to anything prior in the order of perfection. But matter is prior in origin to form, although form is prior in perfection; therefore matter is simply prior to form. The reasoning is sound, and the major is proved: namely, that the order of origin is simply prior to the order of perfection. For things prior in generation are posterior in perfection; nature always proceeds from the imperfect to the perfect. Therefore whatever is more imperfect is simply prior to anything more perfect; but first matter is more imperfect than form; therefore first matter is simply prior to form. Then further: It is simply prior to form, and everything prior in its own order can exist without what is posterior.

This is answered in three ways, to indicate the multiple defect of the argument.

First, it is said that, although form is posterior to matter in the order of generation, it is nevertheless prior even in the order of generation to existing matter. For it makes a great difference whether one says matter or existing matter: a surface is prior to whiteness, yet whiteness is prior to a surface having white existence. Thus, in the present case, since the discussion concerns existing matter (for if matter alone were posited in the nature of things, it would have to exist), it is clear that the assumption is false.

Second, it is said that another falsehood is assumed there, namely that the order of generation is simply prior to the order of perfection, while remaining within the limits of finite nature. Since act is simply prior to potency, whether God is posited finite or infinite, as is clear from Metaphysics IX, text XV, and XII, texts XXX, and since the priority of act is the priority of perfection, it follows that according to Aristotle and the truth the order of perfection is simply prior to the order of generation. Further, what is prior by nature, reason, and time is simply prior; the order of perfection is prior by nature, reason, and time to the order of imperfection, which is the order of generation and belongs on the side of the material cause. Therefore the order of perfection is simply prior. The middle proposition is also Aristotle’s, in Physics VIII, text LXXV, where he expressly speaks of finite nature to prove that circular motion is first. Hence, as to the proof: granting that things prior in generation are more imperfect and that nature proceeds from the imperfect to the perfect, the consequence is denied: therefore the order of generation is simply prior. Although a natural agent first reaches the imperfect, the agent must nevertheless first be perfect in itself, as is said in Metaphysics XII, text XL. Here observe that a liar must have a good memory: in the question concerning the first known, Antonius Trombeta now assumes the propositions he attacked there, and so on.

Third, it is said that, even granting the entire process, the final consequence is worthless. For it is false that everything prior can, in reality, be separated from every posterior, as will be said in answer to the second.

But against the first response, which holds that matter does not have its own existence but begs it from form, one objects thus: Whatever is competent to cause in act at some point is also competent to exist at that same point; but first matter is competent to cause at the first point at which it receives form; therefore at that point it is competent to exist. But at that point it does not have the existence of form; therefore it has its own existence.

It is confirmed because matter either causes the composite and receives form when it exists, or when it does not exist. Not when it does not exist; therefore when it exists. Therefore at that point its own existence belongs to it, because the existence of form follows upon the whole composite. It is confirmed a second time because a cause does not beg from its effect; but matter causes the existence of the composite and of form; therefore it does not beg existence from them, and so on.

To this it is said that it is enough for a cause to have existence at every instant of time during which it actually causes. Nor does it appear necessary that existence belong to it at every point of nature at which causality belongs to it. For the order of nature is such that, in the same instant of time, matter receives form, from which the composite results; actual existence then comes to the composite, so that the composite exists first, form second, and matter third. As to the first point, the major is denied. To the first confirmation it is said that matter causes when it exists, because it exists at every instant during which it causes; for that is when it is a temporal terminus. To the second confirmation it is said that, although a cause as cause does not beg from its effect, a material cause does beg from its effect, which is its cause in another genus of cause, since causes are causes of one another, Metaphysics V, text II. The Scotists must admit these responses, however, because since Scotus holds, in II Sent. dist. II, q. 3, that existence is the last act posterior to the whole categorial coordination, although not really distinct from the thing whose it is, the essence of matter must, by the nature of the thing, have a relation to its existence as potency to act. One can then argue as follows: The essence of matter, as distinct from its existence, by the nature of the thing causes its existence in the genus of material cause by receiving it; therefore existence belongs to it at that point. Thus it has existence before it receives it, while remaining at that same point. Or the essence of matter receives its existence by the nature of the thing when it exists or when it does not exist, and so on.

To the second principal argument, the major is denied. To its proof it is said that not dependence alone, but a necessary connection of some things, can be the cause of their inseparability. To what is brought forward from Metaphysics V it is said that a universal affirmative does not simply convert. This is true: whatever can exist without others, while others cannot exist without them, is prior. But it does not convert: whatever is prior can exist without others, while others cannot exist without it.

And note that Scotus’s maxim, “every absolute prior thing,” and so on, cannot be preserved even by following Scotus’s path, as is shown presently by two examples. First, essential parts taken together are prior to the whole, and yet according to Scotus they cannot exist without the whole.

Second, the category of quantity is an absolute category prior to the category of quality, especially as regards its fourth species; yet continuous quantity cannot be made without figure. If quantity without figure is said to be possible, it is either finite or infinite. Not infinite, because that would not be assignable; and even if one imagined that it could be given, since it would have to be linear, it would be either a straight or a curved line, and thus would be a figure. If finite, then it is figured; for figure is that which is enclosed by one or more termini. Likewise, it either has straight, curved, or circular lines, and so on.

As to the third, whatever may be said of the major, the minor is denied: although form is not of the essence of matter, it is of the essence of existing matter.

To the fourth it is said that, since the medium is twofold, effective and formal, whatever God causes immediately effectively He can preserve without an effective intermediate cause; but not without a formal intermediate cause, and form is such a medium with respect to matter.

To the fifth it is denied that there is no necessary connection between matter and form. As to its proof, the consequence is denied, and the major of the proof is false. What is added—namely, that whatever is necessarily a man is necessarily this or that man—yields nothing more than this: because matter necessarily determines the genus of form for itself, matter cannot exist without this or that form. That is our intention. The consequence, “A is necessarily a man; therefore A is necessarily this determinate man or that one,” does not hold, but only vaguely. Thus it is conceded that matter necessarily determines form; therefore it necessarily determines this or that form, not determinately but vaguely.

To the confirmation, when it is said, “Whatever is contingently related to each member of an absolute genus is contingently related to the genus itself,” the same answer is given by distinguishing between being contingently related to each member determinately and vaguely. In the first way the major is false. In the second way the minor is false: matter is not contingently but necessarily related to each form indeterminately and vaguely.

To the other proof it is said that one thing, essentially one and singular negatively, as first matter is, can essentially depend for its being on several things of the same genus indeterminately and vaguely, insofar as those several things have one common account: in the present case, all forms agree in giving actual being. Reflect this argument against Scotus concerning quantity and figure, and perhaps you will persuade him of its weakness: continuous quantity determines the genus of figure for itself, yet claims no particular figure. So much for the fourth.

Thus the essence of a composite substance differs from that of a simple substance in this: the essence of a composite substance embraces not form alone or matter alone, but form and matter; whereas the essence of a simple substance is form alone. From this arise two other differences. One is that the essence of a composite substance can be signified as a whole or as a part; this occurs because of the designation of matter, as was said. Hence the essence of a composite thing is not predicated of the composite thing in every way. For it cannot be said that man is his own quiddity. But the essence of a simple thing, which is its form, can be signified only as a whole, since there is nothing there besides form that receives form, as it were. Therefore, however the essence of a simple substance is taken, it is predicated of it. Hence Avicenna says that the quiddity of a simple substance is the simple thing itself, because there is no recipient of it.

In this second part of the chapter he compares the essences of simple substances with the essences of composite substances, assigning three differences between them. The first difference is that the essence of a simple substance signifies form alone, whereas the essence of a composite substance signifies a composite made from matter and form; each part of the difference is clear from what was said above. The second difference is that the essence of a composite substance can be signified as a whole and as a part, but not the essence of a simple substance. Hence it follows that, because a predicate ought not have the character of a part, the essence of a composite substance is sometimes predicated of it and sometimes not—namely, when it is signified as a part. But the essence of a simple substance, since it cannot be denoted as a part, is always predicated of that whose essence it is.

For the evidentness of this difference, it must be noted that at first sight it appears false because it is clear that, once names have been imposed on separate substances, their essences can be signified in the abstract and in the concrete, and consequently as whole and part. For I can say “Gabriel” and “Gabrielity,” “God” and “Deity,” and so on. But although it appears so, to one who examines carefully the opposite becomes clear.

For consider that we are speaking of the essences of things and of the conditions that follow upon them, not of those that arise from the mere work of the intellect. The essences of composite substances, because they really have two parts, or because they are forms in matter, possess in themselves the basis for the intellect to establish in them signification in the manner of a part and in the manner of a whole. When it signifies that form in something possessing or bearing it, it signifies it as a whole and a concrete, as “man”; but when it signifies it not as in something possessing or bearing it, but in itself, it signifies it abstractly and in the manner of a part, as “humanity.” But the essences of immaterial substances, because they are forms not received in matter, do not possess in themselves the basis for being signified concretely and abstractly, as whole and part, and so on. For there is no bearer or borne thing there. But because our intellect understands simple and highest things in the manner of composite things, it was therefore necessary, as the Commentator says in XII Metaphysics, commentary XXXIX, and St. Thomas in I, q. 13, that it form an abstract and a concrete in them and understand them in the manner of whole and part.

The difference posited here must therefore be understood with this addition: the essence of composite substances possesses in itself the basis for being signifiable in the manner of whole and part; the essence of simple substances does not possess in itself the basis for being signified in the manner of whole and part, but receives it from the intellect alone. Therefore the difference between abstract and concrete in composite substances is from the side of the thing, and is reduced to the distinction between the subject bearing and the form borne. The difference between abstract and concrete in separate substances, however, is only from the side of the intellect, as the Commentator says there. For this reason Avicenna says that the quiddity of a simple thing is the simple thing itself, while the quiddity of a composite is not the composite itself.

Concerning this passage there is one doubt: whether it is true that in separate substances the quiddity is the same as that whose quiddity it is, that is, nature and supposit. The reason for doubting is that St. Thomas, in Quodlibet II, q. II, art. II, says that according to Aristotle, Metaphysics VII, texts XX and XXI, in those things to which some accident is added, nature and supposit are distinct; and since in all intellects other than the first some accident exists, nature and supposit—or quiddity and that whose quiddity it is—are distinct. On the other hand, in III On the Soul, commentary IX, he says that in things separate from matter “what it is” and that whose it is are the same. And in the First Part, q. III, art. 3, St. Thomas expressly says this, as also appears here from Avicenna’s authority.

For understanding this difficulty, it must be noted that by the name “nature” is understood that which is signified by a definition, while by the name “supposit” is understood an individual possessing that quiddity. According to the threefold grade of substances in the universe, the difference of supposit from nature is found in three ways.

In material substances, indeed, the supposit differs from nature in two ways according to the thing, and beyond this according to reason. It differs in the first way intrinsically, because the supposit intrinsically includes some real thing that nature does not include, namely the principles of individuation. If Socrates were defined, this matter would be placed in his definition, whereas it is not placed in the definition of human nature. It differs in the second way extrinsically, because the supposit includes some real extrinsic thing, namely actual existence, which nature does not include. For existence is first the act of the supposit, whose coming-to-be it is; nevertheless, it would fall within the definition of Socrates if he were defined. It differs in a third way according to reason, as is clear.

In separate substances other than the first, however, the supposit differs from nature in only two ways: extrinsically according to the thing, and according to reason. For the supposit includes no real intrinsic thing in them that nature does not include, because it is not individuated by some positive contracting principle that determines the specific nature and is intrinsic to the supposit as an individual difference, as happens in material substances. But because in them, as will appear, existence differs really from nature, and existence is first, as was said, the act of the supposit, the supposit differs extrinsically from nature: it adds the reality of existence extrinsically. It differs secondly according to reason, as is clear. In God, however, the blessed supposit differs in only one way, namely according to reason, because the divine nature is not individuated by an added feature, nor is His existence really distinct from His essence. Hence it is clear that both parts of the doubt are true in some way: in separate substances “what it is” and that whose it is differ according to the thing, because they differ by an extrinsic difference according to the thing; and they are the same, because they do not differ by any intrinsic real difference. That this is St. Thomas’s mind can easily become known to one who carefully attends to his statements in the cited places.

The second difference is this: because the essences of composite things, insofar as they are received in designated matter or multiplied according to its division, can be the same in species and diverse in number. But since the essence of simple things is not received in matter, such multiplication cannot occur there. Therefore it is not necessary that several individuals of one species be found in those substances. Rather, as Avicenna expressly says, however many individuals there are, so many species there are. Here the third difference is set down, called second in order among those arising from the first. It is said that the essence of a composite substance and the essence of a simple substance also differ in this: the essence of a composite substance is capable of numerical multiplication within the same species, as human essence is numerically distinguished in Socrates and—

each individual constitutes one species and is specifically distinguished from another. Its foundation lies in two propositions, the first of which is this: Since act is what divides and separates, Metaphysics VII, text XLVI, every division is either formal or quantitative, as Aristotle says in III Metaphysics, text II, and the Commentator in I Physics, commentary VI. The second is: Specific forms are formally indivisible. From these it follows that specific forms received in matter are divided according to the division of matter through quantity, and thus become many individuals of the same species. But a specific form not received in matter is without every kind of division: formal division, because it is the most specific species; quantitative division, because it is not received in matter, which quantity follows. Therefore there cannot be many individuals in the same species: multitude follows division.

Whether each species of separate substances has only one individual.

Concerning this part there arises the question whether each species of separate substances has only one individual. Three things must be done in this question. First, Scotus's opinion with its foundations will be set forth; second, the Peripatetic truth; third, the arguments on the contrary will be answered.

As to the first, Scotus, II Sentences, distinction II, question VII, holds that there are several intelligences of the same species, for the following reasons.

First: Every quiddity, in itself, is communicable; an intelligence is some quiddity; therefore the quiddity of an intelligence is communicable in itself; therefore it can be found in several. The major is proved thus: if no quiddity were communicable, communicability would either be repugnant to it by reason of quiddity's perfection or imperfection. Not by reason of perfection, because, according to the Catholic faith, communicability belongs to the divine quiddity, which is supremely perfect. Nor by reason of imperfection, because communicability belongs to the quiddities of composite substances, which are imperfect. Since it is repugnant to it by reason of neither, the major remains true.

Furthermore, every intelligible quiddity under the aspect of the universal, without contradiction, is numerically plurifiable; a separate quiddity is intelligible under the aspect of the universal without contradiction; therefore it is numerically plurifiable. The major is proved by the fact that it involves being understood under the aspect of the universal and being this in itself: for universality is opposed to haecceity, just as it involves understanding the divine essence under the aspect of the universal, since it is this in itself.

Furthermore, God can annihilate this angel in this species. Once it has been annihilated, God can restore this species in another individual, not in the same one, according to this opinion: for according to these men a human being could not rise again numerically the same unless the intellectual soul remained numerically the same. Therefore in the same species there will be several individuals, at least successively.

Furthermore, intellectual souls are numerically distinct in the same species, and yet they are immaterial; therefore, and so on.

Furthermore, Augustine, in the Enchiridion, chapter XXIX, says that because the whole of human nature, or species, had fallen, God in pity came to save it; but he did not come to save angelic nature, because the whole of it had not fallen. Behold: Augustine says that the whole angelic nature had not fallen through sin, which cannot be true if there are as many species as individuals; for thus many angelic natures would have fallen wholly, whereas there would be only one human nature, since the human nature is only one.

Furthermore, Damascene, in the Elementarium, chapter XII, says that God made angels according to each species.

Furthermore, he argues to the same conclusion in Quodlibet II, that the aforesaid opinion was condemned at Paris in several articles. The first is: “If anyone says that God cannot multiply forms without matter, let him be in error.” The second: “If anyone says that a form does not receive division without matter, let him be in error.” The third: “Because intelligences do not have matter, God cannot make several of the same species,” let him be in error.

But if it is said, with Anthony Trombetta, that this sentence was not condemned everywhere, even granting that it was so at Paris, the contrary is that a sentence condemned in any famous university is condemned everywhere, or suspected of heresy, not only by the authority of the diocesan but also by the authority of the Lord Pope, as is clear in Extra, On Heretics, chapter Ad abolendam. This concludes the first part.

CONCLUSION

Each intelligence constitutes one species.

As to the second, the Peripatetic truth accepted from Aristotle, his Commentator, and Saint Thomas is that each intelligence constitutes one species, so that several individuals of the same species cannot be found there. Saint Thomas proves this in many ways in Disputed Questions on Spiritual Creatures, article 8, Against the Gentiles II, chapter 113, and the First Part, question 50, article 4, and elsewhere; two of those arguments must now be used. The first is drawn from their immateriality, by which they lack every principle that distinguishes numerically. The argument is formed thus: every species having several individuals has in itself a numerical distinguishing principle; an intelligence has no such distinguishing principle; therefore it does not have several individuals. The proof of the minor was given immediately above, before the question. Note that this argument is taken from Metaphysics XII, text 49, where the consequence is made: heaven—that is, the first principle—is one in species and many in number; therefore it is material. Thus it is expressly given to understand that immateriality is a sufficient cause of non-multiplication numerically. But since Scotus expressly says in the place cited above that his opinion is against Aristotle, I shall omit the authorities.

Saint Thomas's second argument is taken from the order of the universe, founded upon three propositions. The first is that the universe, having three parts—the sphere of generable and corruptible things, heavenly bodies, and immaterial substances—has order as an intrinsic good. This is found in Metaphysics XII, text 52.

The second proposition is that order is twofold: essential and accidental. Essential order is among things essentially ordered, such as species, which are like numbers, Metaphysics VIII, text 10. Accidental order is among individuals of the same species, as is said in Metaphysics III, text 11.

The third proposition is that the part of the universe in which there is pure essential order is superior to that in which essential order is mixed with accidental order. This follows from Metaphysics XII, text 52, where the first part of the universe is compared with sons of families, in whom nothing accidentally ordered is found. On these propositions the following argument is founded: what lacks accidental order does not have several individuals of the same species; the highest part of the universe lacks accidental order; therefore it does not have several individuals of the same species.

The major is evident from the terms. Although the minor is found in Aristotle at the cited place, since these men deny Aristotle here as elsewhere, it is proved as follows. The highest part of the universe excludes accidental order no less than the middle part, since the highest is more perfect, the goodness of the universe consists in order, and accidental order is something imperfect and deficient from essential order; indeed, what is ordered accidentally is disordered, because the accidental condition diminishes the reason of order. But the middle part excludes accidental order, as is clear: heavenly bodies do not have several individuals of the same species, for there is only one sun, one moon, and so on. Therefore the highest part excludes accidental order a fortiori. This concludes the second part.

As to the third, Scotus's arguments are answered. To the first, since it is a theological argument, let us introduce theological terms: communicability is threefold. One is with division of essence, as the universal is communicable to particulars. Another is without any division of essence and being, by identity, as the divine essence is common to three supposits. The third is by assumptibility into hypostatic union, as human nature is communicable to all the divine supposits. If Scotus takes “communicable” in the premises in the first way, the major is false, as is clear in the divine essence. If in the second way, it is also false, for no created essence is communicable in that way. If in the third way, it is likewise false, as is clear of the divine essence. If “communicable” is taken in none of those ways but for communicable in general, without descending determinately to this or that communicable thing, the whole argument may be conceded, but it does not conclude that an angelic quiddity is communicable as a universal is to particulars. For the fallacy of consequent is committed, from superior to inferior affirmatively. The proposed proof therefore does nothing against us. Communicability in the first way is repugnant to intelligences because of their perfection; in the second way because of their imperfection; in the third way it belongs to them because of their imperfection, since being is really distinct from their essence.

To the second, the major must be distinguished. That something is intelligible under the aspect of the universal belongs to it in two ways. In one way, on the part of the thing and the intellect, to use Saint Thomas's words; in another way, on the part of the intellect alone. In the first way the major is true and the minor false. In the second way the major is false, although the minor is true. For since the foundation of universality on the part of the thing is the finding of that quiddity in several individuals, simultaneously or successively, while the foundation on the part of the intellect is the presentation of that quiddity without represented individuating conditions, that is universal in both ways—on the part of the thing and of the intellect—which is supported by both foundations. Thus human essence is intelligible under the aspect of the universal on the part of the thing, because it is really divided and found in many, and on the part of the intellect, because it is represented without here and now. That is universal on the part of the intellect alone which is supported by only one foundation, namely representation. Its universality is had solely from this: it is placed objectively in the intellect, to which the thing is presented according to quidditative rather than individuating conditions. In this way the quiddity of an intelligence is universal. Although individual and specific being there have the same principle, since the thing is represented as such and not as this, because it is represented not according to what it is in itself but according to the mode of composite things, in which nature is one thing and the individual of that nature another, it is therefore universal only as an object. In this same way the quiddity of an intelligence is predicable of several—not actually or aptitudinally, but as it is an object of the intellect—as Avicenna teaches in Metaphysics V. Indeed, the divine quiddity itself is common and universal in this way according to reason, and therefore grammarians give it a plural number. As for the proof of the major, the answer is clear from the negation: when it is said that it involves a quiddity being this in itself and universal and predicable of several, this is true if “universal” and “predicable” are taken on the part of the thing. A universal according to reason alone is in many and of many only as an object. A universal only on the part of the thing is in many in reality, although it is also an object. If you wish to understand these matters clearly, remember what was said in the question on universals.

To the third, in that case the numerically same angel would necessarily be restored: Gabriel here and Gabriel there are from the same Gabriel. Nor is it true among us that God cannot restore the numerically same thing. Although we say that if, in the resurrection, the numerically same soul—which must not have been annihilated if the reason of resurrection is to be preserved—did not rise again, it would not be the numerically same human being, it follows that the numerically same thing can be restored by God.

To the fourth, the case of intelligences and intellectual souls is not similar in this respect. Souls are parts of a species capable of union with bodies, whereas intelligences are not. A fuller discussion of this will follow below.

To the fifth, Saint Thomas replies that human and angelic nature can be taken in two ways. In one way, according to the being of nature: thus human nature is one, while angelic nature is several. In another way, according to the being of the way, namely as travellers toward supernatural beatitude: thus, just as human nature is one, so the whole breadth of angelic species is one nature. For just as all human beings tend in one way toward their homeland, through free choice capable of being flexibly remedied, so all angels tend in one way toward beatitude, through free choice incapable of being flexibly remedied: once bent, it cannot turn back, for they apprehend immovably. Therefore Augustine, speaking as a theologian concerned with human beings and angels in the being of the way and of the homeland, called all angels one nature.

To the sixth, it is said that Damascene perhaps stated the opinion of those whom he does not follow in this matter; or by “species” he understood a subordinate species, not the most specific species. Since it is not certain that he held the contrary opinion, I prefer this reading. Therefore the name “species” must be taken broadly if the statement is to be true.

To the seventh, first, the argument proceeds from articles of Paris wrongly understood. They are directed against the Averroists, who say that the intellectual soul, being an immaterial form, cannot be multiplied numerically. Thus the sense of the first article is: if anyone says that God cannot multiply forms without matter, that is, without dependence upon matter, let him be in error. Likewise the second means: if anyone says that forms do not receive division without matter, that is, without dependence upon matter, let him be in error. Likewise the third means: because intelligences do not have matter, God could not make several of the same species, let him be in error; “do not have matter” means dependence upon matter, and “could not” means that this would proceed from God's impotence.

Or, secondly, it may be said that the Paris articles, insofar as they touch or seem to touch Saint Thomas's doctrine, were revoked by Stephen, bishop of Paris, at Bertillac, in the year of Our Lord 1325, on the Thursday before Holy Ashes, as is clear in the letter beginning Magistra rerum experientia certis indiciis evidenter demonstrat.

Thirdly, it is said that since the most holy Pope Urban V approved Saint Thomas's doctrine in the extravagans beginning Laudabilis Deus in Sanctis suis et in sui maiestate mirabilis, it is astonishing that these men dare, against the approval of the Roman Church, to revive the Paris articles. The Pope's words at the end of the extravagans to the University of Toulouse are: “Moreover, we wish and by the tenor of these presents enjoin upon you that you follow the doctrine of the blessed Thomas as truthful and Catholic, and strive with all your strength to enlarge it.” Given at Montefiascone, and so forth. Let the opponents attend to these words and see with what temerity they strive against the command of the Supreme Pontiff to attack the Catholic doctrine of Saint Thomas.

Therefore, although such substances are forms without matter, they do not have complete simplicity, nor are they pure acts; rather, they contain a mixture of potency. This is clear as follows. Whatever is not included in the notion of an essence or quiddity comes to it from outside and makes a composition with the essence, since no essence can be understood without the things that are its parts. Yet every essence or quiddity can be understood without anything being understood about its actual being. I can understand what a human being or a phoenix is and nevertheless be ignorant whether it exists in nature. Therefore it is clear that being is other than essence or quiddity.

In this third part of this chapter it is proved that separate substances are composed of being and essence. Before approaching the proof, it must be noted that in material substances four things really distinct are found: matter, form, the essence composed of them, and existence. In a human being we consider the matter in which its form is received, the form itself, which is the act of that matter, the human essence, which is neither matter nor form, and the actual being of existence, by which the human being formally exists in the nature of things. Hence in these substances two compositions belonging to the genus of substance are found. The first is from matter and form; the second from essence and existence, which is called composition from being and essence.

These compositions agree and differ among themselves. They agree in two respects. First, each consists of act and potency. It is clear that matter and form have the relation of potency and act; essence and being likewise, because every quiddity is placed in the nature of things by acquiring existence.

Second, they agree in this: the extremes of both are in the same genus. Matter and form of a human being, and its essence and being, are placed in the genus of substance and in the human species.

They differ in ten respects. First, the extremes of the first composition are parts of a substance and, properly speaking, are not substance. Matter and form are in the genus of substance only reductively; hence they receive the predication of substance, which is the most general genus, only obliquely. Neither extreme of the second composition is a part of substance: one, essence, is substance in the direct line of the categories; the other, existence, is outside substance.

Second, the extreme that is potency in the first composition is a being purely potential, namely matter. The extreme that is potency in the second composition is not pure potency, but a being quidditatively complete in some species, namely essence.

Third, the extreme that is potency in the first composition is not, properly speaking, what is or what comes to be. Matter does not come to be, as is said in Metaphysics VII, text 27; yet being and coming-to-be belong to the same thing, since coming-to-be terminates in being. The extreme that is potency in the second composition is what is and what comes to be, since every making terminates in the composite, as is said in the same place.

Fourth, the extreme that is act in the first composition is not the thing's ultimate actuality, but causes a further act. The form of a human being, which informs its matter, by causing the whole composite completes its own proper receptacle of existence, and thus causes existence, which is a further act. The extreme that is act in the second composition is the ultimate actuality of that genus; for after Socrates' existence nothing substantial further accrues to him.

Fifth, the extreme that is act in the first composition is act in such a way that it is nevertheless related to another as potency. The extreme that is act in the second composition is act in such a way that it is related as potency to nothing belonging to the thing itself. This can be seen by noting the proportion between form and existence. The proportion of form to actual being is like that of transparency to light: form receives existence and causes it, as transparency does light. Air is not capable of light precisely as air; it must be informed by transparency to become light's proper receptacle. Thus neither air nor transparency, but transparent air, is first luminous, although secondarily both air and transparency shine with light. So here matter alone is not capable of existence, since act must be received in its proper potency; form must be received in matter so that the composite of them, neither matter nor form, becomes the proper receptacle of existence. What first exists is the composite, whose coming-to-be is also first. Yet matter and form are secondarily actualized by that same existence. Just as transparency is the formal cause and formal completion of transparent air so that it may be light's proper receptacle, while it is related to incoming light as receiving potency, though secondarily to received act, so form is the formal cause and completion of the composite so that it may be existence's proper receptacle, and thereby is related to the subsequent existence as receiving potency, though secondarily to received act. Hence actual existence is related as potency to act to nothing else, but is the ultimate actuality of every thing, including its form.

Sixth, the extreme that is act in the first composition belongs intrinsically to the intellect or definition of the thing, since form, according to everyone, is conceived intrinsically in the definition. The extreme that is act in the second composition is outside the quiddity of the thing, for a definition signifies neither being nor non-being, as is said in Posterior Analytics I.

Seventh, from the extremes of the first composition there results one third thing, one per se. From the extremes of the second composition there results neither one third thing one per se nor, properly speaking, one per accidens. The reason follows from what was said above: one per se arises only from two things, each of which is a part of substance, one of which is pure potency. For a third thing one per se does not arise from two acts, nor from two things unless one is act in such a way that it can be related to another as potency; the parts are matter of the whole, Metaphysics V, text 3. Since all these conditions are preserved in the first composition and none in the second, it follows that the second composition produces no third one per se; nor does it produce one per accidens, since one per accidens aggregates things of different genera. Nevertheless essence is joined per se with being. Eighth, the first composition is a composition “from these,” and therefore a third one arises there. The second is a composition “with these.” Properly speaking, no thing is given that consists of essence and existence as a thing is given that consists of matter and form; rather, essence composes with existence and conversely. Therefore it was said that they are joined per se, but do not compose a third thing. Ninth, the first composition extends to fewer things than the second. The extremes of the first composition are found only in sensible things, since it was concluded above that only these consist of matter and form. The extremes of the second composition are found both in sensible and immaterial things, for intelligences have quiddity and existence. Hence the first composition entails the second, but not conversely. Every composite of matter and form is a composite of essence and being, but not conversely. Tenth, they differ in their properties. The first composition is followed by quantity, sensible accidents, and at least local change. The second is followed neither by generation, corruption, nor any physical change, but only by receiving and being received, perfecting and being perfected, because these follow act and potency, whereas the former follow matter and form.

In the text, therefore, this second composition is proved to be found in every being short of the first, by proposing the following conclusion: every being other than the first is composed of being and essence. The reasoning is: everything having something really joined to its quiddity, outside its essence, is composed of quiddity and that addition, that is, essence and being; every being other than God has something real really joined to its quiddity outside its essence, namely being; therefore every being other than God is composed of being and essence. Saint Thomas leaves the major as manifest. It must be modified so that the addition is outside the essence of the thing taken particularly (which is said because it is outside the essence of a superior, yet does not compose with it). So modified, the proposition also serves, because existence is outside Socrates' essence: it would not be placed in his definition if he were defined. The major is therefore manifest, since two things joined, neither of which contracts the other, one being act and the other potency, are really joined only through composition. The minor is clear from the sixth difference and from Aristotle's saying in Posterior Analytics I that no definition signifies being. The minor is therefore clear from the sixth difference and from Aristotle's saying in Posterior Analytics I that no definition signifies being. Unless perhaps there is some thing whose quiddity is its being; this thing can be only one and first, because multiplication can occur only by adding a difference, as the nature of a genus is multiplied in species, or because one is abstract and the other received in something, as a separated color would differ from a non-separated color by its separation. If something is posited which is being alone, so that being itself is subsistent, it will not receive the addition of a difference, since it would no longer be being alone but being plus some form; still less will it receive matter, since it would no longer be subsistent but material being. Therefore such a thing, which is its own being, can be only one. In every other thing, then, its being must be other than its quiddity, nature, or form. Hence in intelligences there must be being besides form, and it was therefore said that an intelligence is form and being. Here a second argument for the same conclusion is given, by excluding an implicit reply. Someone could say that there is a thing whose quiddity is its being and whose definition does not abstract from existence. The second argument replies by proving that in one being alone, namely the first, essence is identical with existence, and consequently that in every other being being and essence are really distinct. The reasoning is: everything plurifiable, or plurified, is multiplied in one of three ways—by adding a formal difference, by receiving both in matter, or by receiving one in matter and separating the other. But a quiddity that is its own existence is multiplicable in none of these ways; therefore a quiddity that is its own being is neither multiplicable nor multiplied; therefore it is one alone; and thus everything other than it is not its own existence. The process is clear. The major is explained because plurality follows division. Division occurs through formal differences, as the generic nature of animal is multiplied in human being and lion; or through individual differences, as the specific nature is multiplied in Socrates and Plato because Socrates' humanity is in matter signate distinct from Plato's; or, thirdly, division can be imagined between two things of the same nature because one is wholly separated from material conditions while the other is concreted with them, as a separated human being, in Plato's account, is distinguished from a particular human being because the separated human is immaterial while Socrates' nature is received in this matter. No other real mode of multiplication in the universe appears when one runs through all the categories. Nor should anyone object that quantity and substance are really distinct and yet not through formal differences, and so forth. Whether division is made through modes or differences does not matter, provided that the contracting thing draws what is contracted to some limited nature. The minor is explained in all its parts. First, that it is not multiplicable as a genus is clear because a genus receives the addition of a difference, by which the nature of the genus is drawn to a determinate specific nature and loses its own purity: animal contracted to the human species is not pure animal but human animal. A quiddity that is its own existence, however, is pure being itself and not restricted. As soon as it were contracted, it would lose its purity and there would be two things there, being namely and the quiddity to which it had been contracted. The second part of the minor is clearer: what is received in another is not pure and subsistent being, but is sustained in another; whereas a quiddity that is its own being is pure and consequently subsistent through itself, not mixed into another in which it would be sustained. The third part is clear in the same way. If one quiddity that is its own being is separated and another is received, the latter, by being received, cannot be identical with its own existence; for, as was said, received being cannot be identical with the quiddity. Thus it is concluded that the quiddity which is its own being is one alone, namely the first cause of all things, and consequently that the others have being distinct from their essences.

Whatever belongs to something is either caused by the principles of its nature, as the capacity for laughter in a human being, or comes from some extrinsic principle, as light in air comes from the influence of the sun. Being itself cannot be caused by the form or quiddity of the thing as by an efficient cause, for then something would be the cause of itself and would produce itself in being, which is impossible. Therefore every such thing whose being is other than its nature must have being from another. In this fourth part of the chapter it is explained that intelligences have being from God efficiently, in whom being is entirely identical with essence. The first point is proved in this universal conclusion: everything other than the first cause is produced by it. Everything whose being is distinct from its quiddity is efficiently produced by the first cause; every being other than the first cause has being distinct from its quiddity; therefore every being other than the first is efficiently produced by the first cause. The minor is assumed from what has been and will be said. The major is proved thus: everything to which something distinct from its quiddity belongs is related to it so that either it is itself the efficient cause of that thing or it has it efficiently from another; no third possibility can be imagined. Risibility, whiteness, and whatever else belongs to a human being is either efficiently caused by the human being itself or by something else that is not the human being's quiddity. But no being can efficiently produce its own existence, as is said in On the Soul II, text 47. Therefore it must have existence efficiently from another. That a being cannot produce its own existence is clear because it would follow that it existed before it existed: by causing it would exist, since every efficient cause exists, Physics III, text 17; and by causing its own being, its existence would follow its causality. Thus it would exist before it existed.

Since everything that is through another is reduced to what is through itself as its first cause, there must be some thing that is the cause of being for all things, because it is being alone; otherwise there would be an infinite regress among causes, since every thing that is not being alone has a cause of its being, as was said. It is therefore clear that an intelligence is form and being, and that it has being from the first being, which is being alone; and this is the first cause, which is God. Here the second proposed point is declared, namely that the essence of the first cause is its existence. The reasoning is: everything that is through another such thing is preceded by what is through itself such a thing; every being other than the first cause is through another such thing, that is, a being; therefore it is preceded by what is being through itself. What is being through itself is the cause for all things that they may be beings, as is said in Metaphysics II, text 4. Therefore the first cause is being from itself, or being through itself, and consequently its quiddity is being itself; otherwise it would be a being through another and dependent upon another, as was deduced above. Although the major is found in Physics II, text 66, and VIII, text 39, it is proved in the text because otherwise there would be an infinite process in the cause. If one did not arrive at one thing that is such through itself, but all things were such through another, then for the same reason that one thing precedes another, another would precede that one, and so to infinity. The minor is the conclusion of the preceding argument.

Whether, according to the mind of Aristotle and the Commentator, intelligences were effectively produced by God.

The question is whether intelligences were effectively produced by God. The negative argument is this: every agent acts through motion; no cause of immaterial substances acts through motion; therefore no cause of them produces them. Aristotle’s major is in I On Generation, text XLV. Further, every production requires that from which, that out of which, and that toward which; these cannot be found in immaterial substances. Nothing comes from nothing; but, if intelligences are effectively from God, they are from nothing. Again, nothing eternal has a true efficient cause except as form and end; and in things separated from matter there is no true acting. Finally, nothing possible in itself is necessary from another except motion; but intelligences, if effectively from God, are possible in themselves; therefore they are corruptible. Since it is not disputed here that God created intelligences, but whether this accords with Aristotle and the Commentator, we shall briefly show that all intelligences are effectively from God according to the Commentator and consequently Aristotle. We shall also explain the manner of this production. That which is being and truth to the highest degree is the cause of being and truth in other things. God is being and truth to the highest degree; therefore He is the cause of being in other things. If He is said to be only a final cause, the Commentator says that whatever separated thing has a final principle also has an efficient principle. Thus, wherever immateriality and final causality are found, effective causality is found as well. He expressly says that heaven needs an intelligence not only moving it, but granting eternal permanence to its substance; the same reasoning applies to intelligences. Averroes also gives the mode of production. He reproves Avicenna, not for saying that intelligences are produced by God, but for saying that God causes being naturally, so that from one only one proceeds. Avicenna held that God, pure actuality, by understanding Himself produces the first intelligence; that intelligence, by understanding God, produces the second; by understanding itself according to actuality it produces the soul of the first sphere, and according to potentiality the first sphere, and so on to the last intelligence. Averroes objects that only one thing proceeds immediately from God. He then says that there is only cause and caused, as the intellect is the cause of the intelligent. Albert explains that intelligences must be contemplated as operative, not merely speculative: they are essentially makers, as their instruments, the celestial bodies, show. A common and principal art causes subordinate arts both exemplarily and effectively; military art, for example, causes equestrian and bridle-making arts. God is the first and most common art, imitable in many ways by the special arts, namely the intelligences. Thus the divine art causes the arts of the several celestial movers, not merely exemplarily but effectively and totally. Human universal art causes special arts only partially because it requires the light of the agent intellect; divine art, being subsistent and supremely effective, requires no co-agent. Since these arts are not received in anything, they are subsistent and intelligent, for every subsistent immaterial thing is intelligent. Therefore God immediately produces several intelligences, which are essentially arts. Hence there is only cause and caused: the understood common art is the cause of the intelligent subordinate craftsman. The Commentator likewise compares the relation of the other intelligences to the first with that of special arts to the common art: as the latter perfects and causes the former, so the first intelligence perfects and causes the others. The first objection is answered by distinguishing “agent.” Properly, it is that which by its action produces a passion opposed to the patient; more commonly, it is anything that causes in the genus of efficient cause, and so is more common than mover. The confirmations concern physical production, through motion and change, or Avicenna’s doctrine that one proceeds from one. To the second argument, the major is granted and the minor denied: something may be effectively from another and nevertheless be necessary in itself. Four propositions establish this. First, what is possible in itself has in itself a potentiality not to be. Second, only that has such potentiality whose something has potentiality to be otherwise; no potentiality first desires non-being, but desires another being, and consequently non-being when its present form cannot remain. Third, what lacks potentiality to be and not to be is necessary in itself. Fourth, neither intelligences nor celestial bodies have anything of their own in potentiality to another being: intelligences are simple forms; celestial bodies are simple substances according to Averroes, and according to St. Thomas their matter can receive no form other than the one they have. Thus intelligences and celestial bodies are necessary in themselves. Yet they may be effectively from another necessary thing. They are necessary in themselves formally and intrinsically, and from another effectively and extrinsically. The Commentator denied only that something is precisely necessary from another except motion, not that it can be necessary both in itself and from another.

Everything that receives something from another is in potentiality with respect to it, and what is received is its act. Therefore an intelligence’s form or quiddity is in potentiality with respect to the being it receives from God, and act and potentiality are found in intelligences, though form and matter only equivocally. To suffer, receive, and be a subject therefore belong equivocally to intellectual and bodily substances. Intelligences are composed of act and potentiality, or of “that whereby it is” and “that which it is”: whatever effectively receives something is composed of a potential recipient and a received act; intelligences receive being from God; therefore they are so composed. Nevertheless they do not have form and matter, since act and potentiality are broader than form and matter. Their receiving occurs without motion or material conditions, unlike the receiving of lower things. Since an intelligence’s quiddity is the intelligence itself, its essence is what it is, while its being received from God is that whereby it subsists in nature. Hence, as Boethius says, such substances are composed of “that whereby it is” and “that which it is,” or of “that which it is” and essence.

Whether actual existence and essence are really distinct.

Regarding the foregoing, there are two questions. The first is whether actual existence and essence are really distinct. The second is whether intelligences are composed of act and potency. Regarding the first, three things are to be done: first, Scotus’s opinion will be set forth; second, St. Thomas’s opinion; third, the arguments to the contrary will be answered. As to the first, Scotus, in III Sentences, distinction VI, question 1, holds that actual existence and the essence of a thing are really the same, although they are distinguished by the nature of the thing, as an intrinsic mode and the quiddity of which it is the mode; just as whiteness is not distinguished from its intrinsic mode, namely its degree, whether three or four. To prove this, although Scotus’s arguments could be brought forward, since they concern the union of human nature with the divine supposit, I have judged it best first to recite the ten arguments introduced by Antonius Trombetta in his Quodlibet. First, he argues, as he himself says, against Thomas’s foundation: When the same reason remains, the same effect remains. But the whole reason why these men posit essence as differing from existence is the indifference of essence to existence and non-existence: for, they say, a stone is in potency to be and not to be; therefore, wherever such indifference is found, such a distinction must be posited. But there is a similar indifference of existence to existence and non-existence (for the existence of a rose is not in winter, but is in spring); and there is also a similar indifference of essence to essence and non-essence, since the essence of a creature is not from eternity. Therefore existence really differs from existence, and essence differs from essence, which is ridiculous. Moreover, II: Whenever two things are essentially ordered and really distinct, the prior can, without contradiction, come to be without the posterior. But essence cannot come to be without existence; therefore, and so on. The minor is clear, because the particular essence, which alone comes to be, is necessarily existent. Moreover, III: Whatever things are really distinct are related as thing and thing. But essence and existence are not related as thing and thing; therefore, and so on. This is clear, because “thing,” properly speaking, is convertible with being in act, with the actuality of existence. Moreover, IV: No thing composes with its reality; therefore no quiddity really differs from its existence. The consequence holds because existence is the very reality of a thing: to say that a thing is real is nothing other than to say that it exists, and conversely. The antecedent is self-evident; for it is ridiculous to say that something composes with its reality. Moreover, V: A true man does not compose with his truth, nor does an affirming man compose with his affirmation; therefore quiddity does not compose with its existence. The consequence is clear from the fact that the existence of a thing is nothing other than the positing of its truth and the affirmation of this. But the contrary antecedent does not seem intelligible. Moreover, VI: Existence and essence have the same contradictory; therefore they are not really distinct. The consequence is clear. The antecedent is shown by the fact that nothing deprives something of existence without depriving it of essence, nor is there one nothing depriving existence and another nothing depriving essence. Moreover, VII: Man in potency does not compose with man in act; therefore essence does not compose with existence, and consequently they are not really distinct. The consequence is self-evident, because essence is in potency and existence is its actuality. The antecedent is clear from the fact that act and potency divide being as a condition that diminishes and one that perfects, just as the true and the painted divide animal, as the Commentator says in IX Metaphysics, commentary 7. Thus man in potency, since he is not man simply, when he is man in act loses only the distracting condition placed beneath the perfecting condition; and so he has no composition with man in act. Moreover, VIII: If the existence of a thing is really distinct from its quiddity, it is neither substance nor accident; therefore, and so on. The antecedent is proved. It is granted that it is not an accident. That it is not substance is proved: it is either matter, form, or composite; according to Thomas it is none of these; therefore, and so on. Moreover, IX: Existence and essence are really distinct; therefore in every substantial generation there are two total terms and two formal terms. The consequence is impossible; therefore, and so on. The consequence is proved in both parts, supposing two things. First, a per se one composite comes from a per se act and a per se potency, from VIII Metaphysics, where Aristotle knows no reason why a substantial composite is per se one except that matter is per se potency and form per se act. Second, essence is per se potency and existence per se act. From these it follows that what results from existence and essence is per se one. Given this, there will be two composites possessing per se unity, one composed of matter and form, the other of existence and essence; and since each per se one is naturally able to terminate generation, there will be two total terms in generation. Thus the first part is clear. There will also be two formal terms, namely existence and substantial form, proved as follows: the formal term of generation is that by which something is generated. But both existence and form are that by which something is generated; therefore, and so on. The minor is proved thus: in the way in which something is the reason for being, it is the reason for generating; but existence is the reason for being; therefore it is the reason for generating. Or let the reasoning be formed thus: in the way in which something is generated, in that way it is; but a per se composite is not generated through existence, so that existence is the term of generation; therefore it does not have being through existence itself. The consequence is false; therefore one of the premises is false. It is not the major; therefore it is the minor. Moreover, X: From existence and essence a per se one results; therefore there is an infinite process in essences. The consequence is impossible; therefore, and so on. The antecedent is clear from the preceding argument and is proved thus: just as a third per se one results from matter and form because the former is per se potency and the latter per se act, so from existence and essence, since existence is also per se act and essence per se potency, a per se one results, for the reason is the same. The consequence is proved because, if a third per se one results from existence and essence, then, since it is again distinguished from its existence, it will compose with that existence, and from them something per se one will result; the same will then be argued of that, and so to infinity. This much for the first point.

As to the second, St. Thomas’s opinion, given by him in II Contra Gentiles, chapter 52, is that in every creature its quiddity and actual existence are really distinct. Although this conclusion is now proved in the text, for fuller declaration I shall draw three proofs from St. Thomas there. The first is: Every created essence has something really joined to it besides its existence; no unreceived existence has anything annexed to it besides itself; therefore no unreceived existence is the essence of a creature, and consequently existence and essence are not the same. If they were the same, it would be unreceived existence itself, just as the essence itself is unreceived, speaking of substances. The major is self-evident: Socrates, besides his existence, has quantity, whiteness, and the like; likewise separated substances, as we now suppose, have some accident, at least the act of understanding. The minor is explained by this: if affirmation is the cause of affirmation, negation will be the cause of negation. But the precise reason why existence has something annexed to it besides itself is that existence is received in another, in which something else can be received. This is clear because the substantial existence of Socrates and his existence as white are united for no other reason than that both are received in Socrates; they are one only in subject. Therefore, when existence is not received, no way remains by which it can have something annexed to it. This is confirmed because the substantial existence of Socrates is either identical with other things besides itself, which is plainly false—for Socrates’s substantial existence is not his existence as white—or it is related to them as potency and act, so that substantial existence is potency and accidental existence its act. But this cannot be, because no actual existence can be the subject of another, since it is ultimate actuality. It remains, then, that they are united because both are received in a third; and therefore, when this is removed from actual existence—namely, its being received—what it can have something annexed to it is removed as well. This is what Boethius says in the Hebdomads: “that which is” has something joined to it besides itself, but being itself has nothing. The second argument is: Every unreceived existence is infinite simply; no existence of a creature is infinite simply; therefore no existence of a creature is unreceived existence; therefore it is distinct from essence, and so on. The minor is self-evident. The major is proved thus: every pure being is infinite simply; every unreceived existence is pure being; therefore every unreceived existence is infinite simply. The major is clear from the terms, for being is limited because it is not pure but mixed with the categories; being is limited by categorical natures, and if it is purified of them, it remains wholly without finitude, altogether infinite. The minor is also clear from the preceding argument and from the argument made above in the text. It is further explained by an example: if whiteness were posited as unreceived in anything, it would be pure whiteness and have nothing but itself, and it would be infinite in the species of whiteness, as is clear in itself. A separated whiteness, defined to some degree of whiteness, cannot be imagined by a sound intellect; whatever is such through itself has every perfection possible to that nature, just as Plato’s separated man has every perfection possible to human nature. Nor is what Antonius Trombetta says against this, taken from Scotus, II Sentences, distinction II, last question, valid: if whiteness were separated and had every perfection possible to that species, whiteness would be infinite simply, because it would have the perfection of infinitely many individuals capable of existing under the species of whiteness. This, I say, is of no force. Just as infinitely many individuals of whiteness, even if posited together, are not simply infinite in perfection, since they are limited to the species of whiteness, so separated whiteness possessing their perfections will not be infinite simply, but infinite in that species. The third argument is this: Whatever belongs to a specific nature without any efficient cause is really distinct from what belongs to it only through some efficient cause. But quidditative predicates belong to a thing without any efficient cause, whereas existence belongs to a thing only through some efficient cause; therefore the quidditative predicates and the existence of a thing are really distinct. The major is self-evident. The minor is also perfectly clear as to the second part; as to the first it is explained thus: setting aside all efficient causality with respect to a rose, I ask whether this is true: “A rose is a corporeal substance.” If so, I have what I intend. If not, then a rose taken absolutely is not in the meadow, and predicates of the first mode could be understood not to be present in the thing, and the definition would be separated from the defined thing—none of which can be imagined, and so on. This opinion also seems to derive from the ancients, namely Plato, Alfarabi, Avicenna, Algazel, Boethius, Hilary, Albert, and their followers, although we have nothing manifest from Aristotle on this matter. This much for the second point.

As to the third, the arguments to the contrary are answered. To the first it is said, by way of preface, that the objector did not see St. Thomas at the source. For, as appears from II Contra Gentiles, where he deliberately grounds his opinion on seven arguments, the argument assumed by the objector is not named among them. He therefore erred in imposing on us that this was the whole foundation of our position, although that argument can be elicited from St. Thomas, I Sentences, distinction VIII, question 4, article 2 (where he does not, however, treat this matter), and it should be formed thus: A particular essence taken in itself is indifferent to being and non-being; therefore it is really distinct from its being. Nor is his reply valid, when he says that the antecedent must add that essence has a reality proper to it, other than the reality of existence, because this is voluntary. For real distinction is between matter and form, which philosophers do not doubt to have the same reality of existence, since from them they posit one per se thing. To the argument made against this reasoning, it is said that it is false that being is indifferent to being and non-being, and essence to essence and non-essence. Nothing is indifferent to two things one of which determines it in its definition; but it is clear that being belongs to the understanding of being, and essence to the understanding of essence. That the existence of a rose is not in winter but is in spring is because the essence of the rose, to which its quidditative predicates always belong, does not attain to the act of being—not because being itself is indifferent. When he adds that essence is indifferent to essence and non-essence because it is not from eternity, he does not seem to understand the proper expression. From the negation of the act of being from eternity it follows that the rose is indifferent to being and non-being, but not that it is indifferent to rose and non-rose. As Alfarabi, Avicenna, Algazel, and Albert say, whether a rose is or is not, it is always a rose and always a corporeal substance, if one may use a term of measurement in these matters. To the second, both premises are denied; the major, as assumed, has already been shown false. The minor is shown in Christ, in whom humanity exists without created actual existence. To the third, the major is denied in the objector’s understanding: for real distinction does not require that each have its own existence. To the fourth, it is said that, just as being is twofold—existence and essence—so reality is twofold, the reality of essence and the reality of existence. Although no thing composes with its reality, it nevertheless can compose with the reality of existence. Thus the essence of man is placed in a real category, namely substance; but when posited in the nature of things, it becomes real through the reality of existence.

To the fifth, the same is said, because the true is also convertible with being and thing. Thus man is simply true in two ways: by the truth of essence and by the truth of existence. A true man by the truth of essence does not compose with such truth, which is nothing other than fundamental conformity to his quidditative predicates; but he does compose with the truth of existence, that is, with being, which grounds this truth: “Man is.” The same is said of affirmation. To the sixth, the antecedent is denied, and both assumptions in its proof are false. For just as many ways as one of the opposites is said, so is the other said, as is held in I Topics. Therefore, just as being is said in two ways, namely quidditative being and existence, so non-being, or nothing, is said in two ways: quidditative nothing and nothing of existence. For man taken absolutely, since he is in the category of substance, is quidditatively being, though outside the category he is opposed to nothing in actual existence. Therefore one is the nothing opposed to categorical being or essence, and another the nothing opposed to actual existence; likewise, the negation of essence is one thing and the negation of existence another. To the seventh, the consequence is denied. It is not the same to say that man in potency composes with man in act and that essence composes with existence. The first is false, because the same thing does not compose with itself; the second is true, because the extremes are really distinct. Hence the proportion of existence to essence is not the same as that of man in act to man in potency. Between the first there is a proportion of receptive potency to act, and a real distinction with both extremes posited outside their causes; between the second there is no such proportion, but a relation of the same thing to itself according to diverse dispositions of itself that are simultaneously incompatible, namely being in potency and being in act.

To the eighth, the antecedent is denied. The existence of a substance is substance, and the existence of an accident is accident; and, as is clear above, the existence of a substance is neither matter nor form nor composite, but the actuality of all of them, and so it is reductively in the genus of substance. But the objector presses: whatever is reductively in a genus is placed there as its principle; being is not the principle of substance; therefore it is not reductively in the genus of substance. It is answered that, since being is the ultimate actuality of a thing, and what is last in generation is first in intention, being is placed in the genus of substance as the ultimate formal principle of substance itself. For a thing is placed in the genus of substance because it is capable of substantial being; indeed, differences in all genera, as will be explained below, are taken from their order to being itself. To the ninth, the consequence is denied. In its proof the first supposition is badly understood. Aristotle, VIII Metaphysics, text 15, which the objector cites, does not say that a third thing results from per se potency and per se act, but that a thing having parts is one because one part is act and the other potency. This is to be understood, as was explained above, with reference to real composition: one part is pure potency, since a third per se one does not result from two acts. But a thing’s quiddity and its existence are not related as pure potency and act, nor are they parts, as is clear; therefore the authority is irrelevant. It follows that it is false that essence becomes a third per se one, and consequently the proof of the consequence as to its first part has no force, since there are not two composites. As to the second part, it is said that generation can have two formal terms in different ways, one primary and the other secondary. The primary formal term of generation is form, and the secondary is being; conversely, the primary formal term of creation is being, and the secondary is form. In this way the arguments are conceded. If they intend to prove that being is the primary term of generation, the answer is that what they assume—namely, that in the way in which something is the reason for being, it is the reason for generating—is false. It is true that what is the reason why a thing is, is the reason why the thing is generated; but it is not true that in the same way in which it is the reason for being it is the reason for generating. The reason is that a thing through generation does not pass from non-being altogether to being, but from privation to form, as is said in I Physics. It is proper to creation that a thing be transferred from non-being altogether to being; hence being, which is primarily the reason for being, is deservedly also primarily the reason for the first production, which is creation. But form, which is secondarily the reason for being, is the first reason for the second production, namely generation; hence in I Physics the principles of generation are posited as form and privation. The same is clear regarding the other formulation of the argument: the major is false, for the mode in which a thing is generated differs from the mode in which it is. It is through form secondarily and through being primarily, but it is generated conversely. To the tenth, the answer is clear from what has been said: the antecedent is false.

Regarding the second question, it should be known that the common opinion of philosophers is that intelligences other than the first are not altogether pure acts, but have an admixture of potency in themselves. Yet there is great disagreement among them about the manner in which these two, act and potency, are in them. To omit the others, lest we exceed the limits of our intention, Scotus, in I Sentences, distinction VI, question 1, holds that every creature is composed of act and potency in this way: since every creature is not nothing, it must have some actuality; and since it is defined to such a genus or species or degree of perfection, it must have in itself a negation of another perfection capable of being found within the breadth of being. Thus it is possible; for whatever is being and lacks some perfection possible in being is simply possible. Therefore every thing is composed of act and objective potency: from the fact that it is, it has act in itself; from the fact that it is a possible being, it has potency in itself, for “possible” is named from potency. Since God alone is act that is not possible, that is, is not capable of terminating the action of any agent capable of producing it, intelligences according to Scotus are composed only of act and objective potency, because he posits no receptive form in their substance. St. Thomas, however, from the foundations set down in the preceding question, holds that intelligences and every creature are composed of act and potency as of two things really distinct, namely existence and essence. The proofs need not be repeated; we need only solve Scotus’s argument made there against this position. He argues: If in every creature there is composition from two things, I take one of those component things and ask whether it is simple or composite. If simple, then not every created thing is composite. If composite, the same question will be asked about its parts, and so to infinity.

The answer is very easy: the argument proceeds from a bad understanding of our position. When it is said that everything other than God is composite, “everything” is distributed only over those things which truly are and properly have being. According to Aristotle and the truth, these are only subsistents. Therefore every supposit, both substantial and accidental, if one may speak thus, is composed of act and potency really distinct, namely quiddity and being. For the quiddity of Socrates, as we have explained, is really distinct from his being, and the whiteness of this white thing is really distinct from its own existence, as can be clear from what has been said. We are not so senseless as to say that every entity, in whatever way, is composite. Who doubts that the ultimate components in resolution must be simple? We say, therefore, that intelligences, since they subsist, have quiddity and existence united in them as potency and act, and are thus composed of two really distinct things. Scotus can maintain his opinion without harming the other, but he must restrain his language.

And because potency and act are posited in intelligences, it will not be difficult to find a multitude of intelligences, which would be impossible if there were no potency in them. Hence the Commentator says, in III On the Soul, that if the nature of the possible intellect were unknown, we could not find multitude in separated substances. Their distinction from one another is therefore according to the degree of potency and act: the higher intelligence, being nearer to the first, has more act and less potency, and so with the others. This is completed in the human soul, which holds the lowest degree among intellectual substances. Hence its potential intellect is related to intelligible forms as prime matter, which holds the lowest degree in sensible being, is related to sensible forms, as the Commentator says in III On the Soul. For this reason the Philosopher compares it to a blank tablet on which nothing is painted. And because among the other intelligible substances it has more potency, it becomes so near to material things that a material thing is drawn to participate in its being, so that from soul and body there results one being in one composite, although that being, insofar as it belongs to the soul, is not dependent on the body. Therefore after this form, the soul, there are found other forms having more potency and being nearer to matter, to such an extent that their being does not exist without matter. In these too there is an order and degree down to the first forms of the elements, which are nearest to matter; hence they have no operation except according to the requirements of the active and passive qualities and of the other things by which matter is disposed to form.

In this sixth and final part of this chapter, treating the multitude of intelligences, he first proposes two conclusions. The first is that, according to the foundations stated above, it is not difficult to find a plurality of intelligences. The second is that without such foundations it is impossible to find plurality in them, and this indeed only by the authority of the Commentator, III On the Soul, commentary 14. The proof of the first conclusion is this: whenever there is some intermediate, through participation in both extremes it is multiplied according to a greater participation in one and a lesser participation in the other. For example, let a name be imposed on the intermediate colours, and let them be called A. Then A, because it is intermediate between whiteness and blackness, is multiplied through participation into several species—for example, pale, saffron-coloured, and yellow—because of its greater approach to whiteness and withdrawal from blackness, and conversely. But an intelligence is something intermediate, according to what was previously established, between two extremes, namely pure act and pure potency, participating in the nature of both, because it has act joined to potency. Therefore it can easily be discerned from this foundation that there are many intelligences, namely from the fact that they are composed of act and potency.

For the evidence of this it must be known that in the breadth of being there are two extremes, namely glorious God, wholly pure act, and prime matter, wholly pure potency. Everything else is intermediate, as having act and potency. Their essential or specific multitude is measured according to approach to and distance from the extremes. For because one thing savours the nature of act more than another, and that one more than another, therefore there are more of them, and their dignity is measured by a greater approach to the noble extreme, namely pure act. For the more actual and the less potential a thing is, the nobler it is. Therefore all intermediate forms participate in act and potency. But among them some have received so much actuality that they are so close to pure act that they subsist through themselves without matter, being greatly distant from it; yet not without an admixture of potency, whose purity is the reason why matter is an extreme. And among these there is such breadth according to greater and lesser participation in act and potency that the last of them has so much potentiality that it informs matter, namely the intellectual soul. For this, among all subsistent forms, is most distant from pure act; consequently it happens that it approaches the other extreme so closely that it receives matter itself and is drawn to its being. Other forms, however, have so much potentiality that they depend on matter for being and becoming; among them too there is a great breadth, since some are more actual than others. You can know this from their operations, for operation makes the form known. Hence the forms of the elements, which have the greatest amount of potency, being nearest to matter, are principles of no operation except through material qualities, namely heat and cold. The forms of mixed things, however, being more elevated above matter, operate in a higher mode, as a diamond draws iron not by reason of heat or cold but from a property of its nature. The forms of animals are recognized as much more actual when we observe them moving themselves and discerning other things.

From these things one perceives not only how easy the approach is to knowing the plurality of intelligences, but also that it is impossible to imagine it without this foundation. For how can breadth be found in that which lacks act and potency? It is common to all extremes, if they are extremes, that they do not admit breadth in themselves. For they would be both ultimate and not ultimate, as is clear in itself. Therefore those things in which breadth is sought must be intermediates, which savour the nature of both extremes. And because we know that intellectual nature has actuality from the fact that it is intellectual, we would not know that it had potency mixed with it unless we saw that our soul had it, since potency is said equivocally of the potency of intellectual things and of the potency of sensible things, and without potency the multitude of intellectual substances cannot be understood. Therefore the Commentator says that if the nature of the possible intellect were not known, we could not understand plurality in abstract substances.

Three things are to be noted in this passage. The first is that this is brought forward from the Commentator’s statements: if the nature of the possible intellect were not known, we could not know plurality in immaterial substances.

The second is that St. Thomas does not say that the intellectual soul participates in potency to such an extent that it is a material form, but so that matter is drawn to participate in the being of the soul itself.

The third is that he says the being of the soul and of the body is one and the same being, which is independent of the body.

The procedure of Aristotle in XII Metaphysics, text 42, seems to oppose the first statement: there he concludes a plurality of intelligences from a plurality of movements, and makes no mention at all of act and potency. But this does not trouble those who understand the matter correctly. For it is one thing to conclude the number of movers and another to conclude a plurality of intellectual substances. Although the movers of the spheres and immaterial substances are the same in subject, they nevertheless differ in account, so that they belong to different sciences, according to the Commentator, XII Metaphysics, commentary 6. Therefore, although from a plurality of movements a plurality of movers as such can be concluded, a plurality of intellectual substances as such cannot. Averroes and St. Thomas therefore intend that the multitude of intelligences, insofar as they are intelligences, is discerned by us only through knowledge of the nature of the possible intellect, although their plurality, insofar as they are movers of the spheres, is inferred from the number of their effects.

Or say that that investigation, presupposing the knowledge obtained in the book On the Soul, where the plurality of possible intellectual substances was radically made known, asks from the number of movements how many there are. That the proper movers of the spheres are supposed there to have potency mixed with them can be argued from the fact that it is supposed there that the proper movers of the spheres are proportioned to their spheres, so that one moves only one sphere; and if a star were added, it either would not move or would move more slowly, as is said in II On the Heavens, text 71. For when one extreme of such proportion or commensuration is a material thing, namely a sphere, the other extreme should not be thought wholly stripped of potency; indeed, it is not intelligible to sound understanding.

For understanding the second point, one must note that there are two orders of things in the universe, namely of intelligible and sensible things. The order of sensible things is material and necessarily claims matter for itself, for all sensible substances have matter, although in different ways, as is said in VIII Metaphysics, texts 41 and 42. The order of intelligible things is immaterial and does not depend on matter. For each thing is intelligible through separation from matter, as is said in III On the Soul, text 11. Therefore, when matter is under some form of the sensible order, such as every form having all its powers attached to sensible organs, it does not exceed its proper limits, for it belongs to that genus. But when it is under a form of the intelligible order, it rises beyond its limits and is said to be drawn to that which transcends its capacity, namely the being of a thing not dependent on it. And because the highest touches the lowest, and the lowest the highest, according to the teaching of Dionysius in On the Celestial Hierarchy, therefore the highest among sensible things, namely man or his matter, is joined to the lowest form of the intelligible order, namely the intellectual soul, and participates in its being. For this reason it is said that matter is drawn to its being: matter is elevated to what is higher.

For the evidence of the third point, Scotus’s reasons against this statement of St. Thomas must be brought forward, so that the truth may shine forth more clearly. Scotus, in Quodlibet IX and in II Sentences, distinction 42, question 1, brings six arguments against it, some of which are recounted by Antonius Trombetta in the question whether what has been corrupted by divine power can return numerically the same.

In that question both he and Scotus, in the passage cited above, attribute to St. Thomas an opinion that is not his concerning what he asks there. This is because they did not survey the whole law of the matter, and, looking to few things according to Aristotle, they readily make assertions. He argues first in the present matter as follows: the being of the soul and of man is the same; therefore the soul joined to the body is not more perfect than itself outside the body. The consequence is contrary to St. Thomas, I, question 79, where he says that the soul has a more perfect state in the body than outside it. The consequence is proved as follows: nothing having the same being is more perfect merely because it communicates something to another, even if the other is perfected by this. For communicating may presuppose perfection in the one communicating, but it does not give that perfection to it. Now the soul, while in the body, always retains the same being; it has nothing more in the body except that it communicates its being to the body. Therefore it is not more perfect for this reason than it is when separate. This is confirmed because a cause acquires no imperfection merely from not communicating something. Therefore the soul is not less perfect when separate if it retains the same being, for it has lost nothing except its communication to the body.

Furthermore, the soul has the same being with man; therefore man is not more perfect in being than the soul itself is in being. The antecedent is false, but the consequence is proved because whatever things have altogether the same being are equally perfect in being, or at least that to which the being is communicated is not more perfect in being than the one communicating it.

Furthermore, man as man is a third being, really distinct from either of his parts, namely soul and body. Therefore he has a proper being other than the being of his parts, and consequently the being of the soul and of man is not the same. The consequence holds because a distinct being must have a distinct being.

Furthermore, the being of man is corrupted in death, whereas the being of the soul is not corrupted. Therefore the being of the soul and of man is not the same. The consequence is clear, and the antecedent is proved because, just as generation terminates in the being of the composite, namely man, so corruption terminates in his non-being.

Furthermore, man does not remain after death; therefore neither does his being. Then further: the being of man does not remain after death; therefore the being of the soul and of man is not the same, since the being of the soul remains. The whole procedure is clear except for the first consequence, which is proved from the fact that no thing’s actual being is found when that whose being it is is not found.

Furthermore, there is another form in man besides the soul; therefore there is in him another being besides the being of the soul. The consequence is evident, because each form has its own being; the antecedent, however, was proved elsewhere.

Before answering these arguments, observe first that the foundation of St. Thomas is universally that in every composite there is only one substantial being of actual existence, which is what is now under discussion, because he holds only one substantial form in the composite: for from one form there is only one substantial being. But there is a difference between the being of man and the being of other things. Although both the being of man and the being of other things is first the act of a supposit, as of a thing, in man the whole composite begs that being from the form of which it is first the act, as of its proper and complete principle; in other composites, however, the form begs that being from the composite. The reason for the difference is that in man alone, who holds the highest place among sensible things, the lower order, namely the sensible, is drawn to the higher intelligible and immaterial order. Hence the being of man, since it flows from the intellectual soul, is immaterial and of a higher order than man, just as the soul itself is. Therefore man begs it from the soul, to which it belongs properly, as pertaining to its own genus. Hence after the death of man the soul remains: for its proper being was independent of the corrupted composite, and thus, drawing it back to itself, it subsists. But the being of other things, since it is of the same order as the composites to which it is attributed, just as are the forms from which it flows, is begged by the forms themselves from the composites, as is their becoming. Thus they enjoy it as long as they are in the composites; when the composites are corrupted, they themselves, since they cannot remain without existence, immediately cease.

Observe secondly, for resolving the arguments, three propositions. The first is that, since there are two kinds of perfection of a thing, first and second, a created thing capable of causing, even if it is not made more perfect according to first perfection by actually causing, is nevertheless made more perfect according to second perfection. This is clear for three reasons. First, because a thing actually causing is more in act than a thing capable of causing. For operation is the second act of a cause, while perfection follows actuality and imperfection potentiality. Second, because everything is more perfect when joined to its end than when separated from it. Now a thing actually operating is joined to its intrinsic end, which is operation, according to the statement in II On the Heavens, text 16: everything exists for the sake of its operation. Third, the same is clear because everything is more perfect the more like God it is. Now a thing actually causing is more like God than one not actually causing, because it is assimilated to God not only according to the fact that it is, but also according to the fact that it communicates itself to others.

The second proposition is this: a thing is simply perfect not because of first perfection but because of ultimate perfection. Boethius teaches this in The Hebdomads, saying: “I discern in things one being by which they are, and another being by which they are good”; and St. Thomas explains it in I, question 5, article 1, reply to objection 1.

For understanding this, note that, as the same author says in I, question 6, article 3, there are three perfections of a thing. The first is that by which a thing is constituted in its being, as the first perfection of man is his substantial being. The second is that by which it is immediately capable of its perfect operations, as the powers of the soul and the habits informing them, by which man can proceed to perfect operation. The third perfection is that by which it is joined to its end, as contemplation, which unites man to separate substances. It is clear, however, that a man who enjoys only the goodness of nature, or who is far from his proper end, is not simply perfect. Hence the order of being simply is opposed to the order of being in a certain respect, just as the order of what is simply perfect is opposed to that of what is perfect in a certain respect. According to substantial being man is called a being simply, but perfect in a certain respect; for one who has no other perfection except that he is a man is not asserted to be simply perfect, but is said with an addition to be perfect according to substantial being. According to accidental being, such as that of habits and operations, man is called a being in a certain respect, but simply perfect, for then nothing required for perfecting man is lacking to him. Therefore the proposition intended is clear: a thing is simply perfect from its ultimate perfection.

The third proposition is this: a real part of an essence is more perfect when existing in the whole than when separate. It is explained as follows: everything is more perfect when it possesses the completion of its specific being than when it falls short of it. But an essential part, when it is in the whole, is in the completion of its specific being, to whose integrity it is essentially ordered. When it is separated from it, however, it is not with the complete being of the species, since the species is composed by the aggregation of matter and form. Therefore an essential part is more perfect in the whole than when separate.

Descending from these points to the matter at hand, we say that the intellectual soul has a more perfect state in the composite than outside it, because when joined to the body it has not only first perfection, which is being, but also second perfection, by flowing into the body with its powers and communicating itself. Thus it is more like God than when separate, although God is wholly immaterial and incapable of composition. A moving heart is likewise more like God than a non-moving heart, although God is wholly immobile; for their perfection consists in this.

Moreover, there is perfection in the body, because in it the soul has complete specific being, which when separate it possesses only partially. For although the separated soul retains the whole being of existence that it had in the composite, it does not then have the whole complete being of essence in the species in the manner in which it is naturally disposed to have it, namely as a part in the whole. Yet it is ordered essentially, not accidentally, to having this. Therefore it is false that a separated soul retaining the same being of actual existence has lost nothing by separation except its communication of itself. For it has lost the integrity of specific quidditative being whenever it does not remain in its complete species. Hence blessed Thomas says in On the Soul, disputed questions, article 1, reply to objection 16, that the essential principles of a species are ordered not merely to being, but to being of this species. Therefore, although the soul can be through itself, it cannot be without the body in the completion of its species.

To the first argument, therefore, the consequence is denied. Its proof plainly assumes something false from the first proposition. For although communicating presupposes first perfection in the one communicating, it perfects it with second perfection, by which a thing is called simply perfect. Indeed, according to Dionysius, the highest thing creatures participate in from God is that they are communicative.

It is said secondly that the minor of the proof is also false, namely that the separated soul lacks only this, its communication of itself, as is clear from the third proposition. For it lacks the integrity of its specific being, and this is the first and principal thing that makes the separated soul less perfect. It lacks second perfections for this reason, because it lacks specific integrity, and not conversely. The confirmation is clear from the first proposition: a created cause, from the fact that it exists, has second perfection, and deprivation of this is a great imperfection. In the present case there is something more, because the separated soul not only ceases to communicate itself and its powers, but is in a state in which the communications of itself and its powers are impeded. This is a sign of no small imperfection, namely the separation from the complete quidditative being of the species. St. Thomas expressly has this in On Spiritual Creatures, disputed question, article 1, reply to objection 5.

To the second, the consequence is denied. To the proof it is said that, since being is twofold, quidditative and actual existence, the first remains in the soul only partially, whereas man has it integrally, and according to this being man is more perfect in being. As regards the being of existence, man can be said to be more perfect according to the mode of possessing it, namely because he has it as a supposit; the soul, however, can be called perfect according to another mode, namely insofar as such being belongs properly to it and not to man, in the manner explained above. Thus man and soul stand in this respect as exceeding and exceeded.

To the third, the consequence is denied, speaking of the being of actual existence. For a thing is not really distinguished from another and thereby has an existence different from it; it has already been said that parts and whole have the same being. The consequence is conceded concerning the being of essence, but this does not support the argument.

To the fourth it is said as before that, if the antecedent speaks of the being of essence, it is truly assumed in its first part but not in its second. For it is clear from what was said above that the complete specific being of the soul is corrupted.

But if the discussion concerns the being of existence, it can be understood in two ways. First, that the being of man’s actual existence simply ceases; and this is false, for the soul draws it back to itself. In another way it can be understood that the being of man in death ceases to be the being of man, that is, ceases to inform man; and in this way it is conceded. For just as we speak specially of the generation of man, and not in the same way of the propagation of other animals, Aristotle saying in II On the Generation of Animals, chapter 11, that only the intellect comes from within and that it alone is divine, because its operation has no communication at all with bodily operation, so a special discussion ought to be made of its corruption, the same author saying in XII Metaphysics, text 16, that in some cases nothing prevents a form from remaining afterward, as, if it is such a soul, perhaps not every part of it, but the intellect.

To the fifth, the first consequence is denied. And to the proof, using the distinction made, it is said that, since man’s actual being is taken in two ways—first, in itself or simply; second, insofar as it is the being of this man—in the first way it is not impossible for it to remain after man has been corrupted; in the second way, it is unintelligible that it remain. Therefore the actual being of no thing remains as its being when that whose being it is is not found. Yet it can be found simply, and the reason in the present case is the one often already given: that being is not proper to man but to the soul. Therefore it must always be found when that whose proper being it is exists, even if that to which it belonged as communicated ceases.

To the sixth, the antecedent is denied. To the other proofs previously made, the responses previously given apply. Therefore it remains true, speaking of the being of actual existence, that the being of the intellectual soul and of man is altogether one being, which in itself is independent of the body, since it is not caused by it. For it is not drawn out of the potency of matter, although, insofar as it is the being of this man, it can be found only in the body.