Cursus Theologicus, Tomus I: In Primam Partem

1 Before St. Thomas sets forth the first article of this question, he gives the reason for the order of this question in relation to the preceding ones, as is clear from his words just quoted. Therefore, so that everything which the Holy Doctor teaches in this question may stand explained, we have deemed it right to examine this prologue of the same St. Thomas — brief, yet most profound — in which the reason for the order of this question in relation to the preceding ones is contained.

§ I. Reasons for doubting.

It seems to be false, then, that which he lays down at the outset, namely that he is here treating of those things which belong to the operation of God, after the consideration of those which concern the divine substance. Since divine understanding bears on the substance and essence of God — not in just any way, but as what is proper to it, and its greatest constitutive principle, as we shall say more fully in art. 4 of this question — the discussion of it which is contained in this question will bear on the treatise and the discussion of those things which belong to the substance of God. Add to this that the Holy Doctor, after this question on divine knowledge, treats of the truth and the life of God: yet it is clear that truth does not entail operation, but conformity and consonance with a thing, and that life likewise pertains to the substance itself of a living thing. Consequently, in these questions St. Thomas is treating of many things which belong to the substance of God, according as, in our manner of understanding, it is distinguished from operation. And so it does not seem to have been rightly said that he begins the discussion of those things which belong to the operation of God with this question, 14, those things which concern his substance having been already treated of.

2 Second. The second reason for doubting is derived from the fact that the Holy Doctor said in the place cited, namely that since the operation is twofold, of which one is immanent and the other transient, one must first treat of knowledge and of the will, because to understand is in the one who understands, and to will in the one who wills, and afterwards of power, which is considered as the principle of external effects. For in the first place the Holy Doctor does not seem to have rightly compared these two extremes with one another: for although, the comparison having been made between the immanent and the transient operation, the former is prior and the latter posterior, and therefore the same St. Thomas, after the treatise on the divine processions and on whatever else is necessarily required for them, treated of the operation ad extra, the fact nevertheless remains that if the comparison is made between the immanent operation and the divine power, then the immanent operation is not prior to the divine power, but on the contrary: as, in general, all powers of any kind whatsoever are prior to its immanent operations. Therefore, etc.

3 Third. Next, because God does not act ad extra by a formally transient operation, but by an act of divine dominion, according to that saying: He said, and it was done: he commanded, and it was created. Therefore St. Thomas has wrongly distinguished the order of these questions: from the fact that in some of them the immanent actions of God are treated of, but in others the power which is considered as the principle of the divine operation proceeding into an external effect, and consequently as the principle of a transient action.

It will not be enough, if it be said that although the act of dominion is formally immanent, yet, since it is an act of the intellect, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. 2. qu. 17. art. 4, it is virtually transient; and so he was able to treat of it in the various questions, considered under these various aspects.

For against this stands the fact that, in order to treat of the immanent divine acts, in so far as they are virtually transient, there was no need to institute distinct questions. And therefore in this very question, and in qu. 19, the knowledge and the will of God are treated of, in so far as they are causes of things, and consequently in so far as they are virtually transient.

§ II. Decision of the doubt. § II. Decision of the doubt.

4 Nevertheless it must be said that what St. Thomas taught in this prologue is true, and that he has accordingly observed the best method and the most beautiful order in the treatment of these questions. So do his disciples in common, and very many others. The first part of this assertion will be made sufficiently clear from what is to be said below and from the solutions of the reasons for doubting. The latter, however, follows from the former. For what is principally contained in the prologue of St. Thomas is the aforesaid order and method. And then this same part is proved nowhere better than from the reason for the order which the same author adduced in the opening of his question, which can thus be set out more fully.

For in the first place he treated of the divine being and of the other (let us say so) entitative attributes which belong to God's substance in the manner of a property, such as infinitude, immutability, eternity, invisibility to the created intellect by its own proper powers; and finally, in the immediately preceding question, he explained how all these ought to be expressed and signified by words and names. Since therefore the (let us say so) entitative attributes are prior to the operative attributes, or the divine operations, as is clear from itself, it follows that he was deservedly to have treated of them in the first place; and since among operations the immanent are prior to the transient, because these are directed by those towards their end, and since among the immanent, cognition, or knowledge, is prior to volition, it was with the best right that he treated of divine knowledge in the first place, after the (let us say so) entitative attributes.

§ III. Solution of the reasons for doubting set out at the beginning.

5 Hence, as to what we objected in the first place against the prologue of this question, it must be said that although to understand (taken in the sense explained below in art. 4) pertains to the intrinsic concept of God, as the differential reason and the ultimate constitutive principle of it, nevertheless the title of this question is not of it, taken in this sense, but under the formality of knowledge, with respect to which, in our manner of understanding, it does not pertain to the intrinsic constitutive principle of God, as we shall say in this same treatise, disp. 1, num. 68. As to what is further alleged from the questions on the truth and the life of God, it must be said that in those questions on the operative attributes St. Thomas treated of truth because, as he himself notes in the prologue of this question, knowledge is of truths; and therefore he had to treat of truth and falsity, just as to understand and to know are a certain living, and therefore, as the Angelic Doctor says there, after the consideration of divine knowledge, the divine life must be considered. Nor does it matter that it is said there that life pertains to the concept of the substance and essence of God: just as in us also life bears on the quiddative concept of our substance and essence. Therefore the Holy Doctor should rather have treated of the life of God in the preceding question on the knowledge of God than in those that follow it. For it will be answered that life can pertain both to the concept of essence and to the concept of powers and of vital actions, as is clear from what St. Thomas teaches in qu. 18 of this Part 1, and from what the Complutensians assert in 1. de Anima. And therefore the Holy Doctor could treat of the life of God in a special manner after this question on the knowledge of God. The reason, however, for which he treated of the life of the vital operations of God, and of those flowing as it were from his essence, in a special and more explicit manner, is this: because with us the reason of life is above all found among all other things, so that it is recognized by the operation of life, or by the fact that something is moved of itself. So true is this that even those things which seem to be moved of themselves, although in truth they are not so moved, are wont to be marked by us with the name of life, as quicksilver, running water, etc.

Nor does it matter either, if one presses the point that, still speaking of the life of the vital operations which do not pertain to the essence, the Holy Doctor seems to have had to treat of the life of God before of its knowledge, since that reason of life is more common and more universal, and consequently prior, than the reason of knowledge.

For it will be answered that knowledge, which treats of some species as of its adequate object, ought not to treat first of the more remote and more universal, as happens in the Theology, whose adequate object is God himself.

6 To the second it will be answered that although in creatures the immanent operations of the intellect and the will are not prior to their operative power, but rather posterior, nevertheless in God they are in a certain way prior according to our manner of conceiving: because the immanent acts of his intellect and will, in so far as they are virtually transient, and have the efficacy to produce whatever pleases him, assume the character of omnipotence; and because in these acts it is, in our manner of understanding, prior that they are immanent acts of understanding and of willing than that they have the aforesaid efficacy and virtual force of acting transiently, as we have already explained. Therefore in this question and in qu. 19 of this Part 1, they are treated of first according to the former consideration rather than according to this latter one.

From which it is clear as to the third reason for doubting. For we say that the solution given there is legitimate. And to the proof, namely that although one may treat of the immanent acts of the divine intellect and will, in so far as they are virtually transient, in the manner of directing and intending future effects, this belongs to this question, because that is proper to the intellect and the will as they are distinguished from the executing power, nevertheless to treat of the same acts, in so far as they are identical with omnipotence, as will be said below, and consequently in so far as they are virtually transient in the manner of executing in time that which from eternity is directed by divine knowledge, and intended and foredetermined by the divine will, does not unjustly also bear on a distinct question, since, as we shall see below, God influences through these acts in one way according to that former consideration, and in another way according to this latter one.

First conclusion. Knowledge is found in God.

Second conclusion, which the Holy Doctor indicates in the answer to the second. The knowledge of God is an attribute of it.

Third conclusion. In this respect knowing things are distinguished from things that do not know, in that knowing things have their own form and that of other things, and become things known; whereas things that do not know have only their own form.

1 Although St. Thomas treats expressly in this question of the knowledge of God, in so far as it has formally the character of knowledge, nevertheless he mixes in much concerning intellection, which is in some way distinguished from knowledge. And so, both because of this reason and also because knowledge cannot belong to anyone unless there be in him an intellectual cognition, we inquire in the first place whether there is formally in God an intellectual cognition, setting aside whether such cognition has the character of knowledge or not.

§ I. Arguments for the negative side.

2 The first is this. For Dionysius, in the book On the Divine Names, cap. 7, speaking in the middle about God, says: For how would he understand anything intelligible, not having intellectual operations? He therefore plainly understands that there is not in God an intellectual cognition, which is the operation of the mind. Second, because in the book On Causes, proposition twenty-second, it is said that when we call God intelligent, we do not name him by a proper name, but by the name of his first caused thing, namely of the intelligence or Angel, who is the first effect of God.

Third. Because imperfection repugning to God is included in intellection: therefore it ought not to be posited in him formally, but only eminently; just as, because being rational includes an imperfection fighting against divine perfection, therefore it is not posited in God formally, but only eminently. The antecedent is proved. Because intellection is a certain suffering, and a motion of the thing understanding, as Aristotle teaches in 3. de Anima; but to suffer and to be moved mean an imperfection repugning to God, because they necessarily include potentiality: therefore, etc.

§ II. Catholic truth.

3 Nevertheless it must be said that there is formally in God an intellectual cognition. This conclusion is of faith, Job, cap. 31: Does he not consider my ways? Psalm 137: The Lord is high, and looks down on the lowly, and knows from afar what is exalted. Since these testimonies are not understood to be of imperfect cognition, namely sensible cognition, which is material from within, they must necessarily be understood to be of perfect cognition, namely intellectual. Likewise Baruch 3, where God is called the fountain of wisdom, and is said to know all things. Ecclesiasticus 1: All wisdom is from the Lord God, and was with him from the beginning. And Psalm 94, where, after he had in verse 7 premised the sentence of the wicked by these words, they have said: The Lord will not see, nor will God understand Jacob; and in verse 8 he rebuked them, asserting: Understand, you simpletons, and you fools, be wise at some time; then in verses 9 and 10 he argues thus: He who planted the ear, will he not hear? or he who formed the eye, will he not consider? He who teaches man knowledge, etc. As if he were to say: it is repugnant that he who gave men the power of understanding and knowing should not be knowing and understanding. Hence this assertion is broadly held by Dionysius, On the Divine Names, cap. 2, Damascene, Parallela, lib. 1, c. 2, St. Thomas in the present question and in 1. dist. 35, qu. 1, art. 1 and 2, and Contra Gentes 1, cap. 44, and De Veritate qu. 2, art. 1; and all the Fathers and Theologians hold the same.

4 Nor is there an obstacle, if along with those whom St. Thomas cites in qu. 2. de verit. art. 1, you say that testimonies of this kind, and the other things usually adduced, are not to be understood in the formal sense, but in the causal or the metaphorical sense, after the manner in which God is said to be angry: because although there is truly no anger in him, nevertheless he punishes as if he were angry.

For against this presses the rule drawn from Augustine and commonly received by the Theologians, namely that the words of Scripture must be understood in the proper and formal sense, whenever no absurdity follows from them; otherwise we should have nothing firm from Scripture. For each person could, as he pleased, explain them in, for example, an improper and metaphorical sense; whereas no absurdity follows from the aforesaid testimonies being understood in the proper and formal sense, as is clear from itself, but rather a great perfection is thereby posited in God, as is clear from itself and will at once be clearer from what is to be said: therefore they are ill taken in the merely metaphorical sense, or in the causal sense alone.

5 Next, against that same solution St. Thomas argues well in 1. dist. 35, qu. 1, art. 1, from a reason drawn from Anselm in the Monologium, cap. 14. Because to be intelligent is a simply simple perfection: therefore it is not among those things which belong to God causally or metaphorically, but among those which are found formally in him. The antecedent is proved. Because that perfection is simply simple which, in whatever it is found, is better than its own absence, and than anything incompatible with it: but in whatever thing being intelligent is found, it is far better than being ignorant and unknowing, as is clear from itself and from the common conception of all: therefore, etc. The consequence from the antecedent is plainly evident: because every simply simple perfection must be found formally in a being most perfect in every way; otherwise it would not be most perfect in every way, since it would lack that perfection which, taken formally, is better in any thing than its own absence: therefore, etc.

It is confirmed, first, by the reason of St. Thomas in 1. dist. 35, qu. 1, art. 2. To Anibaldus in these words: For that which is the principle of all things must be most perfect, because all imperfect things are reduced to something perfect, as to a principle: as the seed to the plant, or to the animal. Now the highest perfection cannot be found except in cognition. For a thing that does not know has its own proper perfection, and the perfections of all other things are lacking to it; whereas a thing that knows has not only its own proper perfection, by which it subsists in its own nature, but also that of others, in so far as other things can be present to the knower through their own forms, and that of all things, if the knowing thing is by nature able to know all things. Which cannot be unless it have intellectual cognition. For sensible cognition does not extend beyond corporeal things. God therefore, who is most perfect and from whom every perfection derives, must have intellectual cognition, which we for the present call knowledge.

6 It is confirmed, second, by another reason drawn from the same Holy Doctor. For as often as anything belongs to God causally or metaphorically, but not formally, so often it is said to belong to him by reason of something else that exists formally in him, and which of itself is proportioned to the production of that effect. As, although there is no act of anger in God, there is nevertheless an act of justice in him, by reason of which he punishes no less than if he were angry; but unless to understand is formally understood to be in God, nothing else could serve for this end, namely to cause the effects which he causes: therefore it is a sign that to understand is not among those things which belong to him only causally or metaphorically. The major, with the consequence, is sufficiently evident.

The minor, however, is proved. For in order that men, for example, should remain predestined, and that the necessary laws should be imposed on them for their direction, and finally that God should be the supreme judge, punishing their crimes and rewarding their good works, nothing else could serve them, if he were once formally not intelligent: for that which is formally ignorant, and does not know the end, cannot destine or direct another towards an end; as likewise that which cannot understand cannot establish laws, or, after the manner of a judge observing the gravity of the fault and the dignity of the deed, punish or bestow a reward: therefore, etc.

From which it also remains that another solution is refuted, which St. Thomas cites in the place referred to, namely that to be intelligent, or knowing, is predicated of God by reason of the negation which it imports, so that it is only meant that God is not ignorant, like a stone; but not because it is positively verified that there is intellection or knowledge in him. For this solution, as will be clear to the one who looks into it, sufficiently collapses from what has been said; and besides, against it presses the reason which the Holy Doctor adduces there in these words: Because every negation concerning some thing is founded upon something existing in the thing, as when it is said that a man is not an ass, the truth of the negation is founded upon man's nature, which does not admit the negated nature. Hence if ignorance is denied to God, it must be by reason of something which is in him, and so the opposite of ignorance must be posited in him.

7 Finally the assertion is proved by another reason from the same Angelic Doctor, adduced in the place cited in nearly these words. Because every agent has some intention and desire of an end, such that some cognition precedes the aforesaid desire, positing the end, and directing towards it those things which are towards the end: therefore the first agent, such as God is, cannot fail to have formally a cognition of the end, and consequently an intellectual cognition, which alone attains the end formally understood, as the Angelic Doctor and his disciples teach in 1. 2. qu. 1, art. 2. The antecedent is clear from itself. The first consequence, however, is proved and explained. For although in some agents the cognition of the end is not conjoined with them, nevertheless in that case such agents must be directed by some prior agent: as an arrow tends towards a determinate place through the determination of the one who shoots it, and all things which act by the necessity of nature without knowing the end are determined by some intellect instituting that nature, according to the saying of the Philosopher in 2. Physic.: The work of nature is the work of intelligence. Therefore the first agent cannot fail to know the end; otherwise it would be directed towards the end by another prior agent, and consequently would not be the first.

It is confirmed by the reason which the same St. Thomas adduces in these words: For that which is found in more things, and more and more in proportion as more things approach it, ought to be found in it in the highest degree, as heat in fire, the more mixed bodies approach it the warmer they are. Now it is found that the more things approach the first being (that is, God), the more nobly they participate in cognition: as men more than brute animals, and Angels more than men. Hence it is fitting that in God is found the most noble cognition.

§ III. Answer to the arguments set out at the beginning.

8 To the first it must be said that the meaning of Dionysius is only that he denies to God a cognition involved with defect, or defects and imperfections, but not a cognition which is through excess, or which surpasses every mode of created cognition, as is clear from the context of Dionysius himself. This solution is taken from St. Thomas in the place cited, from 1. Sent., in the answer to the first, in these words: It must be said that whenever knowledge, or intellect, or anything which pertains to perfection, is denied to God, it is to be understood according to excess, and not according to defect. Hence Dionysius says, c. 7. of the book On the Divine Names, that to be without mind and without feeling is, in God, to be understood according to excess, and not according to defect. For so much is the name of intellect denied to God as properly belonging to him: because he does not understand after the manner of a creature, but more eminently. Which he also taught in 1. part. qu. 13, art. 3, ad 2, where, speaking of these names, wise, understanding, etc., he says: It must be said that the reason why Dionysius says that such names are denied to God is that what is signified by the name does not belong to him in the manner in which the name signifies, but in a more excellent manner. Hence Dionysius says there that he is above all substance, and life.

9 To the second St. Thomas answers in qu. 2. de verit. art. 1, ad 11, in these words: It must be said that the meaning which the name signifies is a definition, as is said in 4. Metaphys., and therefore that is the proper name of some thing of which the signification is a definition; and since no meaning signified by a name defines God himself, no name imposed by us is properly his name, but it is properly the name of a creature, which is defined by the meaning signified by the name; and yet these names, which are names of creatures, are attributed to God according as some likeness of him is represented in creatures.

To the third it will be answered, with St. Thomas, 1. part. qu. 79, art. 2, that that testimony of Aristotle must be understood to be about our understanding, that is, created understanding, and not about divine understanding, which is free from imperfections. But on these matters let our Complutensians be seen, 3. de Anima, disp. 21, num. 8, and what follows there.

10 Although from those things which were said in the preceding doubt it is sufficiently established that God is most understanding, as is clear to one who inspects it: yet since D. Thom. very often, and especially in this article, proves that a thing is cognitive, on the ground that it is immaterial, and hence that it is most cognitive, or most understanding, from the fact that it has the highest immateriality — and this reasoning is not without considerable difficulty — therefore, so that the principal proof which the Holy Doctor adduces here may remain wholly explained, we raise the present doubt for its examination.

§ I. Opinion denying it.

The first opinion denies that it is rightly inferred from the highest immateriality that God is understanding. Thus Gabriel in 1. distinct. 35. quaest. 2.; Aureolus apud Capreolum, in the same place, in the unique quaestio.

It is proved, first. Because there are several entities that are immaterial simpliciter and are not cognitive: therefore nothing cognitive is inferred from immateriality of that kind, and pure spirituality: therefore neither is anything most understanding inferred from the highest immateriality. This last consequence is clear from the preceding. For if that which is most immaterial were for that very reason most understanding; then that which were more immaterial would be more understanding: and consequently that which were immaterial simpliciter, or purely spiritual, would be understanding simpliciter; according to that rule of Aristotle: As a thing stands in more and in less, so it stands in the simple and the simple. The antecedent, however, is proved. For will, and that habit, as well as the agent intellect, are immaterial simpliciter, or purely spiritual, and yet they are not cognitive, as is clear from themselves and as the Philosophers and Theologians teach in common: therefore, and so on. Then again: for intelligible species, intellectual habits, as well as the possible intellect itself, have accidental spirituality, and yet they are cognitive: therefore, if immateriality were the reason of knowing, this immateriality of accidents would have it too: and consequently will, and the agent intellect, which can be equally immaterial as the possible intellect, and its species, would be cognitive in the same way.

11 Nor will it suffice to say that although nothing cognitive is inferred from the immateriality and pure spirituality of accidents, it is nevertheless inferred from the immateriality and pure spirituality of substance: because there is no purely spiritual substance that is not cognitive. Wherefore, since God has the highest substantial immateriality, it is well inferred thence that he is most understanding.

For the contrary is said. Then, because D. Thom. infers that something is more, or less, cognitive from greater, or lesser, immateriality: because immateriality makes the form in which it is found more ample, and less constricted, and according to the greater or lesser amplitude of the form, something is more, or less, cognitive, as we shall say in this same doubt: but this reasoning proceeds equally in substantial and in accidental immateriality: because each of these abstracts from matter, which is the root of constriction, and takes away the amplitude of the form: therefore, and so on.

12 Then finally: because God can create a purely spiritual substance which would not be cognitive, either because it would have no operation, as many corporeal substances do not have it, as D. Thom. teaches concerning the Empyrean heaven in 2. dist. 2. quaest. 2. art. 3., that it was created only for this, that it might be the seat of the blessed: or because its operation would consist only in producing, after the manner of a first and radical principle, and by means of some agent intellect, intelligible species in our possible intellects. For, just as the agent intellect can have this office with respect to the possible intellect rooted in the same soul, so it is not incongruous that by divine power there be given some agent intellect, and some substance, whose office consists only in producing in the possible intellects of all men intelligible species, by which they may be able to understand.

It is confirmed. For the motion which is attributed to the water of Baptism for the production of baptismal grace is spiritual, as our Complutensians teach from D. Thom. in lib. Physic. disp. 12. num. 22.; and yet it is not cognitive, as it seems clear from itself: therefore, and so on.

13 Secondly, and principally. For the rational soul is immaterial, and purely spiritual: and yet from this spirituality it does not follow that it is intelligible in act, or per se, in this state: therefore neither from the same spirituality will it be inferred that it is cognitive simpliciter; and consequently neither from the highest spirituality of God will it be deduced that he is most understanding. This last consequence is clear from the preceding, and from what has just been said. The first, however, seems plainly to follow from the greater and the lesser. Because it is far better for something to be cognitive than to be intelligible; since the reason of the cognitive includes the reason of the most perfect life, namely the intellectual; but the reason of the intelligible, on the contrary, does not: therefore, if from the very fact that a thing is spiritual it does not have what is less perfect in the intelligible order, namely that it is intelligible per se, much less will it have what is most perfect in this order, namely that it is cognitive.

The lesser, however, is expressed by D. Thom. 1. part. quaest. 87. art. 1., where for this reason he teaches that the soul in this state does not understand itself per se, but through the species of material things, and reflexively through its own act, in so far as by knowing that other it comes into the knowledge of itself. The greater, however, is Aristot., 3. de Anima, cap. 4., and it is admitted in common by all Theologians and Philosophers there, and it is proved excellently by our Complutensians in lib. de Anima, disp. 16. num. 4. and following.

14 It is confirmed, first. For our intellect also in this state is purely spiritual: but from this spirituality it does not follow that it is immediately, and per se, intelligible: therefore, by the reason given just now in this second argument and applied here by proportion, much less does it follow from such immateriality that it is immediately, and per se, understanding. The consequence seems certain with the greater. The lesser, however, is also clear. Because the intellect in this state also cannot be known except through the species of material things, as is sufficiently gathered from the place cited from D. Thom., and as N. Compl. teaches in lib. de Anima, disp. 17. num. 24. and following.

15 It is confirmed, secondly. For the rational soul, while it is united to the body, has a mode of being less immaterial than when it is separated from it, as is clear from itself: since while it is in the body, it abstracts less from matter than when it is outside it: and yet within the body it understands better than outside it: therefore there is a sign that intellectuality is not rightly inferred from immateriality. The consequence seems legitimate. For if intellectuality were rightly deduced from immateriality, that which is less immaterial could not be more understanding; but rather the contrary: that which had greater immateriality would be of greater power for understanding.

The lesser, however, in which the difficulty lies, is proved from D. Thom., then 1. part. quaest. 89. art. 1., where he says that it is better for the rational soul to be in the body, and to understand by conversion to the phantasms, than to be outside the body, and to understand without such conversion. Then also 1. 2. quaest. 54. art. 5. ad 4., where he says that the soul's separation from the body retards it, so that it does not tend with its whole intention to the vision of the divine essence.

16 Thirdly. For if the highest immateriality were the reason of having the highest cognitive power, some immateriality would not fail to be desired for the sake of having any cognitive power at all, as is clear from what has just been said: but this is false: therefore the highest immateriality will not be the reason of the highest cognitive power. The lesser is proved. For brutes have nothing of immateriality, since they are entirely material and corporeal; and yet they have some power of knowing: therefore, and so on.

Nor does it matter if you say that brutes are material in their being, yet in their mode of operation they are raised above matter, and are in some way immaterial, from the fact that they have a mode of operating more elevated than that of the non-knowing: since they operate through forms elevated above matter, namely intentional qualities. For the contrary is said, that the mode of operating follows the mode of being: therefore, if brutes are entirely material, that is, if their being is in no way elevated above matter — which indeed essentially includes it, and depends on it in being made and being preserved — they cannot but be material in respect of operation as well, and of its mode.

17 Fourthly. For materiality could impede, or remove, the power of knowing only on this account, that it removes the amplitude of the form: from the fact that it is proper to matter to limit and constrict it, as is clear from those things which are taught in this article and in 1. sentent. distinct. 35. quaest. 1. art. 1. by D. Thom.: but on this account it cannot remove the power of knowing: therefore, on account of no other: and consequently neither will immateriality put in place the aforesaid power in some way, nor the highest immateriality the highest power of knowing. This last consequence is clear from the preceding. For as often as two things are directly opposed, as happens with materiality and immateriality, then the one cannot put in place by its own force something in a subject which would not be removed by the other, if the other were there: just as because hot and cold, grace and sin are opposed, therefore nothing hot can be placed in the hot which would not be removed by the cold in that in which it is found: and likewise nothing can be placed in the soul which would not be taken away by sin: therefore, if materiality does not remove from that in which it is the power of knowing, neither will immateriality put it in place.

The prior consequence, however, plainly follows from the greater and the lesser. The lesser, however, in which the difficulty lies, is proved. Because matter removes the amplitude of the form only insofar as it is the cause that such a form is this and not that, from the fact that it is the root of the individuation of that same form: but this mode of removing the amplitude of the form does not remove the power of knowing; since even in subsistent forms, such as are the Angels, their individual difference limits them in this way; and yet it does not for that reason remove from them the power of knowing: therefore, and so on.

18 Lastly. For from immateriality the power of knowing cannot be proved a priori, or a posteriori: therefore in no way. The consequence seems legitimate. The antecedent, however, which is the prior part, is proved. Then, because it is prior that a substance should be cognitive than that it be able to receive intentional species, since indeed it is capable of them because, being cognitive, it cannot know without them: therefore it will also be prior that it be cognitive than that it be immaterial: because the same thing it is to be immaterial as to be able to receive intentional species considered formally in the being of species: and therefore brutes are called by D. Thom. (as we shall see below in this doubt) to have the immateriality required for knowing by sensitive cognition, because they can receive sensible species in sensible being, and considered formally, which the same Angelic Doctor, for the reason to be suggested at n. 34, calls forms without matter: therefore the power of knowing will not be able to be proved a priori through immateriality. Then again: because that in God peculiarity repugns is from the fact that his essence consists, most formally speaking, in understanding, and so understanding cannot have another reason a priori by which it may be proved. As for the second part, however, the same antecedent is proved. Because immateriality abstracts from vital immateriality, such as is found in the cognitive power, and from immateriality not in itself vital, which is found in the intelligible species: therefore it is prior than the reason of intellectual life: and consequently, if the power of understanding could be proved in something from it, such a proof would not be a posteriori but a priori.

§ II. The opinion, and the reasoning of D. Thomas, is defended.

19 It must nevertheless be said that the power of knowing is best proved from immateriality; and hence the highest power for the highest understanding is most congruently deduced from the highest immateriality. Thus D. Thom. here, and in 1. dist. 35. quest. 1. art. 1., and in the same place against Anibaldus, 1. cont. Gent. cap. 44., de veritate quest. 2. art. 1., and in the Compendium of Theology, cap. 28. Whom Caietanus, Zumel, Bannez, Nazarenus, Ripa, Gonzal., Machin, Suarez, and others follow here, and Ferrara in the place cited from 1. contra Gent. Capreolus in 1. dist. 35., and in common the Theologians and Philosophers together with Aristotle, 12. Metaphys. cap. 7., and 2. de Anima, textu 26. and 123.

The assertion is proved by the reasoning of the Holy Doctor, which was drawn from the Philosopher in the places cited. For immateriality of that kind simpliciter as is that which is found in purely spiritual substances, as in the Angels and in our soul, is the reason of understanding: therefore the highest immateriality will be the reason of the highest understanding: therefore D. Thom. most excellently concluded from the highest immateriality of God that he is most understanding. This last consequence requires no proof. The prior, however, follows from the antecedent. For as that which is most white is therefore most dispersive, because whiteness is dispersive, so if immateriality is the reason of understanding, then whatever is most immaterial will be most understanding.

20 The antecedent, however, in which the difficulty lies, is proved in several ways. Then, by the reasoning of the Angelic Doctor here, and in the first, above, as well as by Arist., 2. de Anima, text. 123., and 3. de Anima, text. 4. up to 7. For plants are not cognitive because they are too material: brutes, however, have some cognitive power because they have something more of immateriality, from the fact that in their operations they depend less on matter and on its conditions, as N. Complut. shows in 1. de anima, disp. 4. n. 7. and following: therefore there is a sign that a more perfect immateriality, by which something is immaterial simpliciter, is a reason for knowing more perfectly than all brutes, and consequently for knowing by intellection. Then again: because among intellectual substances those are more understanding which are, in the way just said, more immaterial, and approach more closely to the divine immateriality: and so the rational soul, because it abstracts less from matter than the lowest Angel, from the fact that although it is spiritual according to its substance, it is nonetheless the true form of the body, for that reason has less of intellectuality than the aforesaid Angel: therefore, and so on.

21 Then again, by the reasoning of the most holy Preceptor in the place cited from the Compendium of Theology. Because material things become intelligible in act through immaterial intentional species, and not through material ones: therefore there is a sign that this immateriality is the reason of the power of understanding. The consequence is clear: because the same intentional species which renders the object intelligible in act renders it also a completely understanding intellect, as we shall say below in this same article: therefore, if immateriality has been called the reason of intelligibility, it will also be the reason of the intellectual power.

And all these proofs can be confirmed and explained by giving a sufficiently deep root for them. First, indeed, by the reasoning drawn from Aristot., 3. de Anima, cap. 4., and D. Thom. in the same place, lect. 6., as well as 1. part. quaest. 75. artic. 2. For the intellectual power can understand every body, whether taken in particular or in the universal: but if the intellectual power were material, and corporeal, it could not thus attain to every body, because what exists within excludes the external: just as a tongue affected with a choleric humour cannot for this reason perceive other flavours, but everything seems bitter to it. Our Complutensians expound this proof at length in 3. de Anima, disp. 16, num. 7. up to 22. and following, and they resolve several objections by which it is usually attacked.

22 The same proofs are confirmed and explained, secondly, by adducing another reason, and a root drawn from divine Thom., 1. part. quaest. 50. artic. 2. ad 2., where he says: that an intelligible form is received in the intellect according to the reason of form, that is, as Bannez well explains there, according to the whole amplitude and universality which it has in intelligible being. For although the species representing the nature of a stone cannot be received in the intellect except as it is individuated and limited in entitative being by that stone, yet in intelligible and representative being it remains as universal as the very reason and nature of such a form requires in its amplitude: and so it represents the nature of a stone taken universally: therefore there is a sign that the intellect receiving it is not material, but ought to be immaterial, and to receive it in an immaterial way: therefore there will also be a sign that from this immateriality of the intellect, and from this mode of receiving, or quasi-receiving, the intelligible species, it is rightly deduced that the intellect having that immateriality, and receiving the species immaterially, has its power of understanding through it. Both consequences are clear. The prior, indeed: because that which is material, and receives a form materially, does not receive it according to the reason of form, that is, with the universality befitting the form, but by individuating and limiting it through the individuation and limitation arising from matter, as from the first principle of limitation and individuation.

23 The second consequence, however, also follows from that prior one. For from the very fact that the intellect ought to be immaterial, and to receive the intelligible form immaterially, so that it may receive it duly, and in the being of the intelligible form, it follows rightly that immateriality is the reason of receiving it in that peculiar mode in which it itself asks to be received, in order to bestow its formal effect, which is to render the intellect completely understanding: therefore from the same immateriality it will also follow that it receives it as something having a power of understanding by the manner of the intellectual power: since the intelligible species, as such, is not received, or quasi-received, in that peculiar mode in which it asks to be quasi-received, except in that which has a power of understanding by the manner of the power, or of the intellectual power, so that nothing other than this power be constituted by it in the being of the completely intellectual power as such.

24 This same root is explained and confirmed further by an elegant discourse, which Arist., 2. de Anima, text. 121., and Ang. Doct. ibid. lect. 24., and here in this article and elsewhere often, suggest. Because the formal reason of a cognitive and intellectual nature consists in this, that the aforesaid nature not only be itself, but also be able to become all other things by means of intelligible species: and so the Philosopher, 3. de Anima, text. 17., says that the possible intellect, insofar as it can know all things, can also become all things; and the Angelic Doctor teaches in the places cited that the perfection of the knower, insofar as it is knower, consists in this, that the perfection which is proper to one thing be found in another, as we shall say more fully below in this same article: therefore such a nature cannot but be immaterial simpliciter, and receive in an immaterial way the forms and the perfections of other things by the aforesaid species. The consequence is clear. Because this, that a nature, or a form, can become all things, says the greatest amplitude and unlimitedness, as is clear from itself: therefore for that very reason it must abstract greatly from matter, which is the root of the limitation and constriction of that same form.

25 Above all, because from the very fact that an intellectual nature becomes all things which it understands by means of species, it is necessary that, just as when it understands some nature with regard to its character and its essence taken precisely, it then in that way becomes that nature which it understands, and so receives the form according to the reason of form, as we were saying just now; so also, when it perceives that same nature with regard to what is essential and numerical in it, it must needs be that the same intellect also becomes that very nature with regard to the specific and numerical perfection of it, as is clear from the parity of the reason, and as will be made clearer below in this article: and consequently it will receive from this side also the aforesaid form and perfection according to the reason of form, as we have already explained: therefore it will also be necessary that the aforesaid nature, receiving by means of the intelligible species — by which it becomes one with its object — such a form and the same perfection according to number, be immaterial, and receive the same in an immaterial way: because matter limits and distinguishes form according to number, so that forms which were found in diverse matters must be distinguished numerically. And so, if the same perfection numerically which is in the thing understood is in the intellectual nature by means of the intelligible species and the intellection of such an object, such a nature will not be able not to be immaterial, and to receive it in an immaterial way; indeed it will not be able not to receive the aforesaid form according to the reason of form, that is, not commingling with it that which is proper to the effect of matter, namely limiting, individuating, and distinguishing the aforesaid form according to number: which mode of receiving a form is in some way to receive it, so to speak, in a pure act, so far as it lies on the part of that reception.

We have said, in a pure act (so to speak), and so on, in order to signify that although imperfections are really involved there, nevertheless this peculiar imperfection of limiting the intelligible form with respect to the amplitude that it has with it is not what is meant. Which is so universally true that not only in intelligible forms that are purely spiritual, and so tending to the office already mentioned, having in the cognitive power spirituality of that kind simpliciter; but also, in proportion, in whatever intentional species, even sensible ones, the same way of philosophising must be observed. And so, although the sensitive and cognitive powers are not purely spiritual, nonetheless, because they do not limit intentional species in this way when considered formally in sensible being, because they are not compared to them so taken by the manner of a true subject, but by another higher manner, as we shall explain in disp. 2. a num. 72. up to 84., when they are united to them, therefore they are said to receive them, or quasi-receive them, or (as we had better say) to be united to them according to what they have of the reason of form and (so to speak) of a pure act.

§ III. The arguments of the first opinion are answered.

26 To the first it must be said that immateriality of every kind, or pure spirituality not including corporeity in its own reason, is the reason of understanding, whether elicitive and receptive at once; or only elicitive, or only consecutive, or finally as required for understanding; yet in such a way that all of these pertain to the intellectual part, taken adequately. Now, although the aforesaid immateriality ought to be the reason of understanding in one of these ways; nevertheless in substances it always, and necessarily, at least speaking according to their natural bent, must be the reason of understanding elicitive and receptive, and in no mere way, but as quod, that is, in such a way that the aforesaid substance elicits the intellection, and receives, or quasi-receives, it itself: and consequently it really understands through it. In accidents, however, it will suffice that it be the reason of understanding in one of the assigned ways; although it can also be sometimes the reason of understanding elicitive, or even receptive, not indeed as quod, but as quo. And therefore immateriality in the will is the reason of understanding consecutive, that is, it holds itself by the manner of an intellectual inclination, which both necessarily presupposes that thing and in some way follows upon it. The same, proportion being preserved, we say of the habits of the will. And then the intellect is the reason of understanding, as quo, elicitive and receptive at once, as is clear from itself. And likewise the intelligible species is also the reason of understanding elicitive, as quo, by the manner of the reason of that which holds itself on the part of the object, although it does not receive the intellection into itself, as is clear from those things which we have said in the treatise On the Vision of God. And finally the agent intellect is also the reason of understanding by the manner of what is required for understanding, as something producing the intelligible species by which the intellection is to be elicited.

27 The reason, however, on account of which we must philosophise in this diverse way in substances and in accidents, is drawn from the nature of each, and is suggested by N. Complut. in 2. Phys. disp. 10. quaest. 4. and 5. For an immaterial substance is absolutely, and immaterial simpliciter, as quod, that is, by the manner of a subsisting thing, in such a way that it is not immaterial on account of some other thing which is more prior and more principal, as accidents have it: and therefore if its immateriality is the reason of understanding, it must be the reason of understanding absolutely, and simpliciter, and consequently of understanding as quod, elicitive and receptive. But immaterial accidents, such as are the entities of a being, which of themselves can have no immateriality as quod, or by the manner of subsisting things, are so on account of the need of the substance, to which immateriality belongs more primarily: and therefore they are measured by their own immateriality in proportion to this need, in such a way that they serve it with respect to the various and diverse effects for which the substance itself, immaterial, by reason of its own immateriality and of its cognitive power — which is such as quod — has need. Hence, because the substance sometimes has need of a vital and immaterial power, which makes material objects intelligible in act, producing intelligible species by which the aforesaid objects become intelligible in act, it follows that the aforesaid power must be given to it, namely the agent intellect, which by reason of its own immateriality is able to perform this office. And likewise, because the aforesaid created and immaterial substance can be only radically cognitive, as is clear from those things which N. Complut. teaches in 2. Physic. disp. 10., already cited, num. 22. and following; therefore it needs another immaterial power, which by reason of its own immateriality is the proximate power for understanding. And finally, because the knower as such naturally desires the intellectual good, and the substance itself cannot be the proximate principle of this inclination, therefore an immaterial power is given to it, which by reason of its immateriality is unlimited, and consequently able to tend to every good, and so of the rest.

28 Wherefore the solution given there, and understood according to the manner just stated, is the best. And to the first and second proof to the contrary it is clear from what has just been said how immateriality in accidents is also the reason of amplitude and of illumination: yet in such a way that, according to the diverse nature of substance and of accident, as well as according to the diverse need of the substance, this immateriality is modified diversely in substances and in accidents, in which it is imbued by the manner of an accident, and according to the nature of each. And so immateriality in a substance will bestow the amplitude of such a condition as is required in order that, in the manner explained, it be the reason of understanding. And likewise in accidents it will bestow that unlimitedness upon them, so modified that all of those things be the reason of understanding in one of the ways already stated, and, according to the diverse need according to which the intellectual substance in which they are has need of them, they be the reason of understanding in diverse ways.

To the last proof, however, the antecedent must be denied. For just as that substance, by reason of its own immateriality, would be above all sensitive substances, which are not purely spiritual as it is, so likewise it would have to have life, at least radical, and consequently intellectual life at the radical level. Hence, although it be admitted that the Empyrean heaven (of which there is also the testimony of D. Thom. elsewhere), which is not a living body, can be without any operation of which it is the root, nevertheless this cannot be affirmed of the aforesaid substance. Hence it will be false what is added there, namely that there can be given some created substance which has only, by the manner of a radical principle, the production of intelligible species in the intellects of men. For from the very fact that such a substance is living with a life more elevated than all sensible substances, its operation cannot but be, at least speaking per se, immanent, in the very same suppositum that operates. For a vital action, speaking per se, demands that it remain at least in the suppositum eliciting it, from the fact that it is the proper office of life to move itself. But if that production of species were received in the aforesaid substance, it would already have, or at least demand, the possible intellect, in which it might be proximately received: and so such a substance would be cognitive.

To the confirmation it is clear from what has been said. For since that motion is a certain accident, it is enough that it be ordered to something of the intellectual order, namely to the production of sanctifying grace, which is a certain participation of the divine intellectuality.

29 To the second, an answer is given from Caiet., 3. de Anima, cap. 1., at the end of the fifth text, that the soul is intelligible in the same way in which it is cognitive, and conversely. Hence, just as the soul in this state is intelligible in potency, and thus is rendered actually, and completely, intelligible through the intelligible species, so also it is cognitive, not actually and completely, but in potency, because it is cognitive by the manner of pure radical power in the intelligible order: and it is rendered in act, and is completed, through the form of this order, namely through the intelligible species, as also through the intellect, which is proximately cognitive by the manner of potency.

Now, although the soul in this state is said to be cognitive in potency, or by the manner of potency: and likewise in a proportional way it is intelligible: nevertheless it is intelligible in potency in a different way from that in which material things are intelligibly in potency. For the soul in this state is so intelligible in potency that that potency is within the intelligible order, or genus, participating in its immateriality, and consequently in some reason pertaining intrinsically to such a genus. Just as although prime matter is pure potency in the genus of substance, it is nevertheless a potency contained within this genus, and participating in the true reason of substance. But material things, insofar as they are intelligible in potency, do not participate in the immateriality of the intelligible order, nor in any reason pertaining intrinsically to such an order: because the intelligible order begins extrinsically with the intelligibility in potency of material things, according as they are proximately to be stripped of their materiality, and intrinsically with the intelligibility in potency of spiritual things, such as is the soul in this state, and other like things. Wherefore, when it is said that the soul is intelligible in potency, the aforementioned particle in potentia is not added in order to exclude the soul from the intelligible order as something not intrinsically contained in it, but to signify the manner in which it differs from certain other things that look intrinsically to the same order, and according to which it pertains, in the manner just said, to the aforesaid intelligible order.

30 Secondly, it is answered, that the rational soul has more of intellectuality in this state than of intelligibility: because, in order that it be intellectual, in as far as intellectual being is distinguished from intelligible being, it is not necessary that it be completed except by something that is borne away from it by its own merits, namely by the intellect flowing from it: but in order that it be rendered an object actually, or intelligible per se, it is required that something be added on its part in the being of an object, holding itself there, which comes from elsewhere, namely an intelligible species.

Now, nothing follows from this against us. For since a thing can be intelligible in three ways: either so that it is only actually, or per se intelligible, but not cognitive by the manner of the intellectual power, or of anything holding itself on its part; or so that it is not actually, or per se intelligible, but is only actually cognitive, that is, having in act whatever is required on the part of the intellectual power, but not yet what is desired on the part of the object, as we have said happens in our soul in this state; or finally so that it is at once actually intelligible, and also actually cognitive, in the manner just said.

We say, therefore, that that which is precisely intelligible in act, or which renders an object intelligible in act, is more perfect secundum quid with respect to what is actually cognitive, in as far as it sharpens it, and is compared to it by the manner of form; yet it is simpliciter more ignoble than that, because it is not necessary that it live so perfectly the intellectual life, which bears a certain maximum perfection before it; which perfection of life, however, what is actually cognitive seeks. Now, that which is at once cognitive and intelligible in act is, with respect to this reason, more noble than that which is only cognitive in act, as is clear from itself. Wherefore, although the rational soul, through lack of perfection and through that simpliciter excess by which it is surpassed by those things which would at once have the reason of things both intelligible and cognitive in act, be not actually intelligible and cognitive; nevertheless it can have the reason of being actually cognitive, in the manner explained. Just as also, by reason of that simpliciter excess according to which it surpasses things which are precisely intelligible in act and not cognitive, from the lack of immateriality, in the vital manner just said, of which they are devoid; and by reason of the excess by which it is surpassed secundum quid by those things which are only intelligible in act, it cannot be of the number of those things which are precisely intelligible in act; but of the number of those which have intelligibility in potency, already explained, together with actuality in the intellectual order.

31 Hence, as to the form of the argument, the greater and the lesser having been granted, both consequences must be denied. And to the proof of the prior, upon which the proof of the posterior depends, the answer is given by distinguishing the antecedent: It is far better for something to be cognitive than to be intelligible — cognitive with such perfection of intellectuality that it is also itself actually intelligible — is to be granted; cognitive with precision, so that it is not at once actually intelligible, the antecedent must again be distinguished, and granted of the simpliciter excess of the cognitive, so taken as surpassing what is actually intelligible, with the secundum quid excess of that same intelligible also compatible surpassing the aforesaid cognitive: but it must be denied of the simpliciter excess of the cognitive itself, which excludes the secundum quid excess of what is actually intelligible over the cognitive itself. And then the consequence must be denied on account of the reason given just now in this solution.

To the first confirmation it is answered, first, that the intellect, according to the preceding solution of the argument, is intelligible and cognitive in this state in the same way and proximately. For as it is not proximately cognitive except dependently on the phantasms, so neither is it proximately and per se intelligible except with the same dependence. Although, because the aforesaid dependence is of a different reason, on account of its peculiar nature on the part of that by which it is cognitive, and that by which it is intelligible, it demands that it be proximately cognitive by the manner of a potency that the phantasy can and ought to produce simultaneously, its own phantasm about some object connected with, or having an affinity to, that which is then understood by the intellect: but for it to be proximately intelligible, it is requisite that the possible intellect, dependently on that same phantasm, produce an intelligible species, through which the intellect itself becomes in some way actually intelligible in this state. Or, secondly, to the same confirmation one may have recourse in the same way, proportion being preserved, in which we had recourse in the second place to the second argument immediately preceding.

32 To the second confirmation the lesser must be denied. And to the first testimony it must be said that the Holy Doctor wills only that for the soul, as a part of man, it be better to understand by conversion to the phantasms, and to be united to the body, than to understand without such conversion, and to be separated from it. For since every part, as such, is best situated when it is in its whole, hence it follows that for the soul according to the reason of a part, it is better to understand through that conversion than without it, and to be within the body than outside it. Yet it does not follow that such a mode of understanding, taken in itself, is a nobler mode of understanding than that which it has outside the body, as the same Holy Doctor teaches in this very testimony in the body of the article. We have said, taken in itself: because, as Caiet. well noted there, although the mode of understanding without conversion to the phantasms is, taken in itself, or from its genus, nobler than the mode of understanding by conversion to them, nevertheless that mode, as modified and qualified to the human intellect, because it is in some way disproportionate with respect to it, as the same Caiet. excellently explains in the place cited, is, in so far as it is thus taken, more ignoble than the mode of understanding by conversion to the phantasms.

Yet nothing follows from this against us. For although greater immateriality, and a more immaterial mode of operating, argue, speaking per se, a better mode of understanding; nevertheless it is not incongruous that what happens, as is seen here, by accident, or by reason of some impediment, and of some disproportion between the intellect so operating and that mode of greater immateriality, should befall as its opposite. For, as N. Complut. noted in lib. de Anima disp. 2. num. 55., the mode of being outside the body is not so connatural to the soul, and understanding by conversion to higher intelligible things, or independently of the body, is in some way disproportionate with respect to the human intellect: and therefore by reason of this impediment, or disproportion, the human intellect when separated cannot understand so perfectly without conversion to the phantasms as with conversion to them.

Hence (as Caietan. well observes) when D. Thom. said that that mode of understanding without conversion to the phantasms is nobler in itself, and absolutely, yet not for the soul, the meaning is not that the aforesaid mode retains its greater nobility in the soul; but that in the soul it is not posited absolutely, but conditioned, and modified by a condition and modification diminishing it, namely with some disproportion and defect of commensurability of the species to the intellect, in as far as the human intellect has an order to the body, and that body, and their union per se: whereas the aforesaid species, and so they are, are more universal, and more abstract, than species which befit the soul united to the body.

Wherefore the Holy Doctor, in this same article, after he had said that the mode of understanding by conversion to the intelligible simpliciter, or without conversion to the phantasms, which are intelligible in potency, is better simpliciter than that by conversion to the phantasms, immediately added that that prior mode, insofar as it is possible to the soul, is more imperfect than this one, in order to signify by this that that mode, from its genus and without adjuncts from elsewhere imperfections, is nobler; yet considered as it is in the soul, and as it is modified and qualified there.

33 To the second testimony, from 1, 2. quest. 4. art. 5. ad 4., the answer is given that the Angel. Doctor wills only that the soul, as separated, be retarded, or impeded, from the extensive perfection of beatitude, from the fact that its beatitude does not overflow into the body, so long as it is separated: but not that it be retarded from the intensive perfection, which cannot grow except in proportion to the greater or lesser amount of the light of glory received in the soul, whether separated or united, which before and after the resurrection is of the same intensity, as D. Thom. teaches there in ad 4., and as is clear from those things said in the treatise On the Vision of God. Hence that phrase, so as not to tend with its whole intention, and so on, is understood to refer to the whole intention that has all the extensive perfection, already explained, which can agree with it.

34 To the third, the lesser must be denied. And to the proof it must be said that although brutes are immaterial nothing simpliciter, and corporeal, nevertheless they are not such as to have nothing of immateriality, so much as suffices for it that they be cognitive. The reason for this was adduced by Aristot., lib. 2. de Anima, cap. 3., D. Thom. there in lect. 4., and 1. part. quaest. 78. art. 1., de verit. quaest. 12. art. 2. ad 2., quaest. de Anima, art. 13. For although, both according to being and according to their operations, they depend on matter, nevertheless they are not altogether comprehended by it, nor altogether immersed in it, but are in some way elevated above the conditions of matter. This elevation, however, and this surmounting consists in this, that they have a being of such a nature that they are the roots of operating without motion and passion, in the physical sense, and strictly speaking.

For, as the same Holy Doctor well noted in lib. Physic. and as all philosophers teach in common, to be moved and to suffer through the passion and motion already mentioned is the proper condition of matter; so that it befits it as the first root, and also the others over which it rules considerably, by reason of it. And therefore to operate without the aforesaid motion and passion is to operate through an operation not altogether mixed with the conditions of matter, but considerably elevated above the aforesaid conditions; and to have a being that is the root of this kind of operation is to have a being not altogether comprehended and immersed in matter, but considerably elevated and surmounting its conditions. Hence, when it is said in the argument that brutes are altogether material and corporeal, it must be granted, if the word altogether removes the pure spirituality such as is found in our rational soul: but not if it removes both this and that which is to have the elevation already mentioned. But on these matters let N. Complut. be consulted in lib. Physic. disput. 16. num. 13. and following, and in lib. de Anima, disp. 21. quaest. 1., and especially num. 19., in which places they explain what is required for motion, or mutation, in the instant sense, physically and strictly speaking, and why the intellection of intellectual things, and the sensitive cognition of brutes, do not have the reason of such motions.

35 This elevation of brutes in respect of their forms can also be explained further in this way. For as D. Thom. noted in the places cited, from the very fact that the aforesaid mode of operating is in them, they have a mode of being of such a condition that they are the root of operating, not indeed through mere qualities that are very material, and depend very much on matter, such as are the first qualities and the other second qualities which arise from their mingling, but through higher and more elevated qualities, such as are the intentional species, which Aristotle in 2. de Anima, cap. ultimo, calls forms without matter, by reason of the elevation which they have above matter, from the fact that intentional being is of such a condition that, as we touched on at nn. 24 and 25, and as we shall say below in this same article from the Philosopher and D. Thom., although according to purely natural being, as it is distinguished from intentional being, nothing can have the same perfection numerically that another has; and therefore the aforesaid natural being is a more determinate and constricted being: yet under the manner of intentional being some thing can very well have the same perfection numerically that another has: and therefore the aforesaid being is elevated above the conditions of matter, which of itself is the root of limitation and constriction: and consequently that it be some perfection, or form, that is this and not that, and that it be thus this so that it be not found in that. But on these matters let those things be consulted which N. Complut. teach in 1. de Anima, disp. 4. quaest. 1. and 2., as well as those which we shall say in the following disputation, num. 14. and following.

This is declared further from those things which we were saying in this doubt at nn. 24 and 25. For from the very fact that sensible or intelligible intentional species — if they are taken formally, and with precision, in sensible or intelligible being — are not limited and constricted by those things in which they are received, or quasi-received, according to this being; and consequently that brutes receiving these species, and sensible intentional forms, considered in sensible being, do not limit them, but leave them in their amplitude, and do not prevent the same species numerically in sensible being, which is in this brute, from being in another; it is necessary that the forms of the aforesaid brutes have a being sufficiently elevated above the conditions of matter: since, as we have so often said, it is proper to matter, and consequently to those things over which it rules considerably, to limit and constrict the form, and the power of operating received in it; so that they make it be this and not that; and this, and not indeed that.

36 Nor does it matter, if against this solution you object that if the aforesaid elevation above matter and its conditions were the reason of knowing, then a white wall would be cognitive: because it has a being of such a condition that it can operate without motion and passion, strictly speaking, or without physical motion and passion: as happens when it diffuses its intentional species through the medium: and likewise the Sun illuminating the medium, and the medium itself, for example the air receiving the aforesaid species and transmitting them, would be cognitive, because all these things operate without it being necessary that a passion and motion, strictly speaking, intervene there.

For it will be answered that the mode of operating above the conditions of matter, indicating a cognitive power in the operator, must be not just any, but immanent per se, and consequently vital, because cognition is of itself an act immanent per se, and consequently vital. Hence, because all those things which are recounted in this objection operate through a transient operation, which is a far more ignoble operation, and not through an action immanent per se and vital, therefore that some such mode of elevation which they have is not sufficient for it that they have a cognitive power.

Add that it is false that illumination is motion in the physical sense, strictly speaking, of which there is mention in 3. Physic., as is clear from those things which N. Complut. noted in 3. de Anima disp. 21. num. 19.

37. To the fourth it must be said that the individual difference of the Angel limits him, so that he is here, that he is not the other things in natural being; yet it does not prevent him from being able to be in intentional and intelligible being, as N. Complut. explain in 3. de Anima, disp. 16. a num. 1. up to num. 20.: but matter, comprehending some form altogether immersed in it, or not elevated as much as the forms of brutes, limits and restricts it, so that they are not other things also in intentional and representative being, as is clear from what has been said. Hence it is not every constriction, but that which prevents one form from being able to have the perfections of others in representative being, which removes the amplitude necessarily required in order that it have a cognitive power.

38 To the last it will be answered that the reasoning of D. Thom., in so far as it shows from the highest immateriality of God that he is most understanding, is not properly, and speaking strictly, a priori or a posteriori: because the highest immateriality does not hold, properly and strictly, as the foundation and root of the highest and purest intellectuality of God, but is rather constituted in the highest act of immateriality through the highest act of his most actual intellectuality.

Wherefore this reasoning proceeds only from one inadequate reason found in the divine essence to another found in it, and distinct from it a priori not virtually, but on the part of our mode of conceiving. For these two reasons are so connected with each other that wherever one of them is, the other must necessarily be, and not merely so, but in such a way that they look to one and the same line. And the reason is. For from the very fact that the divine essence says, first and per se and by its own reason, entity through essence by the manner of the purest act: and consequently abstracts from all matter and potentiality, there must needs be in it likewise another inadequate reason of the highest and purest intellectuality in act secundo, pertaining to the same line, as will be sufficiently clear from what has been said in this doubt, and from what is to be said in disp. 4.

Now, when it is granted that, speaking of cognitive and created being, and of its immateriality, created immateriality is the a priori reason with respect to the cognitive being proportionate to it, namely created: but speaking of the intellectual being of God by the manner of the purest act, then its highest immateriality will be, on the part of our mode of conceiving, a certain inadequate prior reason with respect to its purest intellectuality: because these two reasons are not yet distinguished in God virtually, but are only two inadequate offices of the same purest reason, distinct on the part of our mode of conceiving.

39 Hence, as to the form of the argument, the antecedent must be denied as regards the prior part. And to the first proof the greater is to be granted, according to what has been said, and the consequence denied. And to the proof the antecedent must be denied in the most formal sense. For that some substance, and its cognitive power, be immaterial with that immateriality which is desired in order that it have the reason of substance and of cognitive power, is to have a nature so purified from matter, and so elevated, that it remains with sufficient actuality, elevation, and amplitude for it that it follow thence that it be able to receive the desired intentional species for knowing. Hence, in creatures the reason of immateriality so considered pertains to those very creatures insofar as they have the reason of essence, and the reason of receiving species pertains to them insofar as they have the reason of nature: and it is clear that in them the reasons of essence and of nature are virtually distinct, as our Complutensians teach in lib. Phys. disp. 7. num. 15. and in lib. de Anima, disp. 3. num. 16. and following.

To the second proof, however, it will be answered: only that divine understanding, in which the nature of God consists, cannot have another reason virtually prior to it; not however that on the part of our mode of conceiving we cannot distinguish there several inadequate offices of that same most eminent intellection: such that the very same intellection is understood, by reason of its highest immateriality, to have that actuality and amplitude, most pure, which is required in order that by the manner of the purest act it become all things in intelligible being, and by its own reason, as it expresses itself, so that it has formally the reason of an intelligible species with respect to itself, as well as the last and supreme actuality of understanding, so that it may most perfectly and most actually become all things in that same intelligible being.

After we have shown that there is in God an intellection taken properly and formally, it remains that we explain whether such an intellection at the same time has the reason of knowledge taken properly and formally, or whether it is distinguished virtually from the intellection such as it is precisely in God, or only on the part of our mode of conceiving, as is said below.

§ I. Two opinions are set out.

40 The first opinion denies to God the reason of knowledge taken properly and formally. Thus some, whom D. Thom. reports in 1. dist. 35. art. 1. For that opinion argues as follows, first. For knowledge, of which we are speaking, is the habit of the conclusion, just as the intellect is the habit of principles, as the Philosopher teaches, 6. Ethic. cap. 3. 5. and 6.; but God does not know anything by the manner of a conclusion; because in that way his intellect would descend from principles to conclusions, which Dionysius also removes from the Angels, 7. de divinis nominibus: therefore knowledge is not formally in God.

The Holy Doctor confirms this same point, de verit. quaest. 2. art. 1. For everything which is known by knowledge must be known by something more known: but nothing is more, and less, known to God, but all things are equally most known to him: therefore there cannot be knowledge in him.

Secondly, he argues in the place cited from 1. sententiarum. To what is most simple, and first, nothing befits which presupposes something to itself, and which is added to a pre-existing thing: but knowledge presupposes life, and essence, and says that something is added to them, as is said in the principle of the book On Causes: therefore, since God is a most simple, and first, being, knowledge cannot be found in him.

41 Thirdly, the Holy Doctor proves this very point. Nothing which requires plurality is found in that which is most one: but knowledge requires a certain plurality, namely of the knower, of the knowing, and of the known: therefore it will not befit God, who is most one.

Nor does it matter if you say that the distinction between the knower and the known is not necessary to the reason of knowledge: but that the two can coincide in the same.

For the contrary is said (D. Thom. says) that nothing can be said to be like itself, as Hilary says; nor does anything receive, or contain, itself: but according to the Philosopher, 1. de Anima text. 25., knowledge is the assimilation of the knower to the thing known, and knowledge is according to the reception of the known in the knower: therefore it seems that the same thing cannot be both knower and known.

Lastly, it is proved. For the cognition of God, taken first and per se, terminates in his own essence, and, being thus known there, reaches the attributes and the creatures: therefore there is not knowledge in God, taken properly and formally. The antecedent is clear from those things which we have said in the treatise On the Vision of God, and it will be clearer still from what is to be said below, and it is admitted in common by the Theologians. The consequence, however, is proved. Because in this does knowledge differ from the knowledge of principles, which is called understanding, that the latter turns about the conclusion first and per se, whereas the latter tends first and per se to the principles and causes of conclusions: therefore, if all divine cognition turns about its own essence first and per se, which has the reason of principle and cause, or quasi-cause, of its attributes and of creatures, the consequence will be that all divine cognition is a cognition of principles, and none scientific, if we are speaking of scientific cognition properly and formally.

42 The second opinion admits knowledge in God, taken properly and formally; it denies it, however, with respect to his attributes, and to the other created truths, which are altogether necessary. Thus, as to each part, Durandus in 1. dist. 35. quaest. 4., and Ferrara, reported by Gonzalez in the present disputation 34. n. 4. And as to the latter, Democritus, and Herveus, quodlib. 2. quaest. 2.

The foundation is. Because all scientific cognition must be through a cause: but neither those things which are formally in God, such as the attributes, nor the aforesaid truths of creatures have a cause of their own: therefore the cognition of God reaching those things will not have the true reason of knowledge. The greater with the consequence is clear. The lesser, however, as to the prior part, is also clear. Because whatever is caused cannot fail to be created. As to the second part, however, it is also clear. Because that which cannot fail to be cannot have a cause of its own: because a cause is desired in order that a thing be produced and be: but the aforesaid truths, precisely because they are altogether necessary, cannot fail to be such: therefore they cannot have a cause of their own.

§ II. The true opinion is explained by two conclusions.

43 It must nevertheless be said, first, that there is knowledge in God, taken properly and formally. This assertion seems certain according to faith. Esther. 14. You, Lord, who have the knowledge of all things. Job. 21. Shall anyone teach God knowledge? Psal. 138. Thy knowledge is wonderful to me. Ecclesiast. 42. For the Lord knew all knowledge. Ad Rom. 11. O the height of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Ad Colossenses 2. In whom are all the treasures of the knowledge and wisdom of God. Which testimonies, according to the rule of Augustine, dub. 1. of this disputation, adduced, and received in common by the Theologians, must be understood in the proper and formal sense, as is clear from what has been said there. Hence the holy Fathers commonly defend this very point, Dionys. cap. 7. de divinis nominib., August. 1. de doctrina Christiana cap. 8., and lib. 6. de Trinit. cap. 7. tom. 3., and lib. 15. cap. 5. and cap. 6. throughout, D. Thom. in the present place, and 1. cont. Gent. cap. 45., and many others, with whom all the Theologians in common agree.

But in order that we may set out the fundamental reason of this assertion drawn from D. Thom., it is to be noted, with Bannez in the present place, that since knowledge is the cognition of a thing through a cause, it can be understood in two ways how a thing is known through a cause, namely, either through a cause on the part of the knower and of the thing known, or solely through a cause of the thing known. Then something is known through a cause on the part of the knower, when not only is one thing known to be the cause of another, but the cognition of the thing known is also caused by another cognition, through which the cause is known. Then, on the other hand, something is known solely through a cause of the thing known, when the knower knows one thing to be the cause of another, although the cognition of the one is not caused by another cognition of the cause.

44 Hence, then, the fundamental reason is drawn from divine Thomas. Because for the reason of knowledge taken properly and formally it is not required that it be the cognition of a thing through a cause both on the part of the knower and on the part of the thing known, but it suffices that it be the cognition of a thing through a cause holding itself on the part of the thing known: but God knows things most perfectly through their causes, or through causes holding themselves on their part: therefore there will not only be knowledge, taken properly and formally, but the most perfect knowledge. The greater is clear. Then, because to know is nothing other than to know a thing through a cause: but for a thing to be known with certainty through a cause, it is enough that it be known through its own cause, or through a cause holding itself only on its part. Then again: because the Angels have true and proper knowledge, formally taken, as all the Theologians admit in common, and yet they do not know a thing through a cause holding itself on the part of the knower; that is, in such a way that the cognition of the effect be caused by another cognition of the cause, since otherwise they would understand by discourse, and by going from one cognition of some truth to the cognition of another, which indeed plainly conflicts with the proper mode of knowing them, namely by a simple intuition, as D. Thom. teaches, 1. part. quaest. 58. art. 3., and de verit. quaest. 2. art. 1. ad 4., and with him all the Theologians.

The lesser is clear too. Because God knows all created effects, and their causes, most perfectly, and that the aforesaid causes are the causes of such effects, although he attains to all these things by a simple intuition and without discourse: this, however, suffices in order that he may know most perfectly through causes holding themselves on their part: therefore, and so on.

45 It is confirmed. For God knows all creatures most perfectly in his own essence, as in a cause: therefore he has the most perfect knowledge of them. The consequence is clear. The antecedent, however, is clear. Then from those things said in tract. de Visione Dei disp. 7. n. 72. Then also: because, since the divine essence is the cause of creatures, and God penetrates and comprehends it most perfectly, he cannot fail to know in it, as in a cause penetrated and comprehended, all created effects.

Nor does it matter if you object that the knowledge of a thing is the cognition through its own proper cause: but the divine essence is not the own and peculiar cause of a thing, for example of a man, but the common cause of all possible effects: therefore the cognition of a man in the divine essence, as in a cause, will not be scientific cognition.

For it will be answered that the divine essence, as it has the reason of a cause, can be considered in two ways. First, adequately, according as it contains all creatures, not only according to the reasons in which they are gathered together, but also according to the special ones in which they are distinguished. Secondly, inadequately, according as it precisely expresses the containing of some determinate creature (for example a man), far more eminent and perfect than if it were destined only for containing that one.

. We say, therefore, that although the divine essence, taken adequately, is the common cause of all creatures, it is not so if it is taken inadequately: and so although we grant that with respect to the knowledge of a thing it is considered that it is known through its own proper cause, nothing on this account prevents the cognition of some effect in the divine essence, as in a cause, from being true knowledge.

46 Although it stand (as is clear from itself) that the knowledge of God, by reason of its highest perfection and eminence, cannot terminate in the divine essence taken with precision, as it is the adequate cause of some creature: but it must necessarily terminate at the same time in that same essence, as it is the adequate cause of all, although it terminates in this creature, for example a man, because it contains him in particular, and in the brutes, because it also has them in particular. But on these matters let those things be consulted which we have said in tract. de Visione Dei disp. 6. dub. unico, and let these things be understood according to what was said there.

47 It must be said, secondly, that there is in God true and proper knowledge of his attributes and properties, as well as of whatsoever truths of creatures, although those are necessary. This is against the second opinion adduced at the beginning. Nevertheless it is defended in common by almost all the Theologians, and therefore one should abstain from referring to them in particular.

The reason for this, as to the prior part, which D. Thom. defends in this quaestio, art. 16., saying that God has speculative knowledge of himself, is suggested by the same Angelic Doctor above, quaest. 1. art. 2. Because our Theology is true knowledge demonstrating concerning God his attributes or properties, or quasi-properties, although none of them has strictly speaking a true cause of its own: therefore for the same reason there can be in God true and proper knowledge of those same properties, even if a true cause of them cannot be given. The consequence is clear, and the antecedent from the discourse of the same Angelic Doctor, who deals with it as follows. Because for some cognition to have the true reason of knowledge, it is not necessary that it reach the thing through its own true and proper cause; but it suffices that it reach it through some formal reason of the thing itself, as is clear in the Metaphysics, where the predications of being are shown from being itself, not indeed through a cause strictly speaking, but through the formal reason; since the reason of being, which is not distinguished from the reason of the good, or of the true, cannot be the true and proper cause of them, but only the formal reason: therefore, although the divine attributes have not a cause strictly speaking of their own, but only a formal reason, they can be known by our Theology, and by God through knowledge properly such.

48 It is confirmed by the reason which the Holy Doctor touches on there. Because our Theology is knowledge subalternated with respect to the knowledge of the blessed and the knowledge of God: therefore the principles known by faith, on which Theology rests in order to demonstrate eternity concerning God, for example through his immutability, are known by the blessed, and by God, through true knowledge. The consequence is clear. Because it is of the reason of subalternated knowledge that it be subordinated to another subalternating knowledge which has the true and proper reason of knowledge, as all the Dialecticians and Theologians teach in common.

The antecedent, however, is proved and explained. For some sciences proceed from principles known by the natural light of the intellect, such as Arithmetic, Geometry, and the like. Some, however, proceed from principles known by the light of a superior science, such as Perspective proceeds from principles made known by Geometry; and Music from principles known through Arithmetic, and therefore they are called subalternated sciences: because they have the reason of a science only in so far as they are somehow under the light of another science and are subordinated to it as to a superior light, to which their principles are known. And in this way our Theology is a science, because it proceeds from principles known by the light of a superior science, namely of God and of the blessed. And so, just as Music believes the principles handed to it by Arithmetic, yet does not clearly attain to them; and therefore it is subalternated with respect to Arithmetic: so our Theology, that is, we who in act are actuated by it believe by faith the principles revealed by God, yet does not clearly know them, and therefore it is subalternated with respect to divine knowledge. But on these matters let those things be consulted which N. Complut. teach in their Logica disp. 19. quaest. 3., as well as those which we shall say in this doubt: so that in this way a certain tacit objection, which could have been made against the force of this confirmation, is easily dissolved.

49 The second part of that same assertion, namely that whatsoever truths of creatures, whether creatable, however necessary, are known by God through knowledge properly and strictly speaking called, apart from what is held by D. Thom. art. 5. and 6. of this quaestio, is proved by a reason drawn from D. Thom. in various places to be cited at once, which can be proposed in this form. Because whatsoever creatable truths, however necessary, have a true cause of their necessity and of their truth: therefore they are knowable: therefore they are known by God through his knowledge. This last consequence clearly follows from the preceding. For since the knowledge of God is infinite within its own line, it cannot fail to terminate in everything knowable. The first consequence, however, is clear from the antecedent. Because any necessary truth having a cause of its necessity is knowable: since just as to know is nothing other than to know a thing through a cause, so that which has had a cause, and has become knowable, will certainly be knowable.

The antecedent, however, is proved. Then, because Aristot., 5. Metaph. text. 6., and 8. Physic. text. 16., proves against Democritus that necessary entities have a cause of their necessity, with which D. Thom. also agrees, below quaest. 44. art. 1. ad 1. Then also: because, as the same Holy Doctor teaches, this truth, for example that a man is a rational animal, is a truth of a thing altogether necessary and of eternal truth, because God necessarily and from eternity has the power to produce a man: and so if there were involved in God a power to produce him, then this truth would also involve it: and the reason of this involvement would be rendered a priori from the involvement of the aforesaid power: because every truth by participation, such as is the aforesaid creatable truth, must be such dependently on the truth, and omnipotence, of the uncreated being, and per essentiam.

50 Then also: because this, that a man is a man, is on account of the divine goodness, as D. Thom. teaches, below quaest. 21. art. 4., and reason itself urges this. Because, since this, that a man is a man, is not an infinite perfection, nor has the reason of the ultimate end with respect to other perfections; the consequence is that it is a finite, and created, perfection; and consequently that it depends on the uncreated perfection of God, and that from its own nature it is ordained to the divine goodness; and so it will already have a final cause, through which it is knowable by God. Then finally: for this truth, a man is a rational animal, has in God a formal, or exemplary, cause: since the idea of the aforesaid truth is in him, as D. Thom. teaches, above quaest. 13.

There is added the fact that this truth, a man is visible, is very necessary, and yet it has a cause through which it is demonstrated in the knowledge of a man by his rationality: therefore this truth also, a man is a rational animal, will be able to have some cause, at least uncreated, through which it can be known by God. The consequence is clear: because a man, and whatever is in a man, has a greater dependence on being per essentiam than the predications of a man have on his essence.

§ III. The arguments of both opinions are satisfied.

51 To the first argument of the first opinion D. Thom. answers, de verit. quaest. 2. art. 1. ad 4., in these words: It must be said that because that which is in God without any imperfection is found in creatures with some defect; for this reason it is necessary that, if something found in creatures is attributed to God, we separate all that which pertains to imperfection, so that only that which pertains to perfection remain: because according to this alone does the creature imitate God. I say, therefore, that the knowledge which is found in us has something of perfection, and something of imperfection: to its perfection belongs its certainty: because what is known is known with certainty: but to its imperfection belongs the discourse of the intellect from principles to conclusions, of which knowledge consists; for this discourse does not occur except according as the intellect, knowing the principles, knows the conclusions only in potency. For if it knew them in act, there would be no discourse there, since motion is nothing else than an exit from potency into act. Knowledge is therefore said to be in God by reason of the certainty about things known, but not by reason of the aforesaid discourse, which is not found even in the Angels, as Dionysius says.

To the confirmation the same Angelic Doctor answers in the same place, in solut. ad 5., where it is thus expressed: It must be said that although nothing is more, and less, known to God, if the manner of the knower be considered, because he sees all things with the same intuition; yet if the manner of the thing known be considered, God knows that some things are more knowable in themselves, and some things less. For among all things his own essence is most knowable, through which indeed he knows all things, not by any discourse, since while seeing his essence he sees all things. Hence, as far as this order is concerned, which can be observed in divine cognition on the part of the things known, the reason of knowledge is also preserved in God; for he himself principally knows all things through a cause.

52 To the second it will be answered with D. Thom., 1. sentent. dist. 35. quaest. 1. art. 1., that although nothing can be added to what is first and most simple, presupposing really something other, from which it is really distinguished, since it also involves composition; yet something can indeed be added to it by addition according to reason, in such a way that that which is added is distinguished from that to which the addition is made, by reason alone, or virtually: as happens in the present case. For knowledge is added to the divine essence by reason alone, from the fact that actually and formally they are one, and the same most simple formality which provides for the proper essence, and for the knowledge of God, no less than if a real actual distinction, or a real and actual addition, intervened there.

To the third it is clear from what has just been said from the Holy Doctor. Hence the solution given there is legitimate, and in answer to its refutation D. Thom., 1. sent. ad Ambaldum, ubi supra, in the solution to the second, says in these words: It must be said that this reason proceeds from knowledge which is taken from things; but such is not the divine knowledge, but rather knowledge that causes things.

53 To the last it will be answered by granting the antecedent and distinguishing the consequent: and if it be understood of knowledge which is only knowledge, the consequence is to be granted; but if it be understood of knowledge which formally and eminently is at once knowledge and wisdom, the consequence must be denied. And to the proof it must be said that the antecedent is true of knowledge which is only knowledge, and consequently does not reach the reason of wisdom; but not of that knowledge which, in one and the same most simple reason, without any virtual distinction, is at the same time formally and eminently knowledge and wisdom, as happens in the knowledge of God.

This is explained. For wisdom, which is the most perfect knowledge, formally and eminently contains whatever pertains to the reason of knowledge which is only knowledge, and whatever concerns the habit of first principles, or to understanding, which has only the reason of understanding: because under a certain more common and more eminent reason it comprehends both understanding and knowledge. Wherefore, since to knowledge, to which only the reason of knowledge befits, it cannot belong to turn first and per se about both principles and conclusions: otherwise, I say, it is not so with knowledge which is at once knowledge and wisdom: and consequently it contains at the same time and formally those things which are proper to understanding, with the imperfection and limitation of understanding itself set aside. Wherefore, since the knowledge of God — which is the most perfect knowledge, and reaches all things through the highest causes — has the reason of wisdom, it is not strange that it should terminate first and per se, both in the principles and in the conclusions, that is, in the divine essence, which is the principle, and as it were the cause, of its attributes, and should at the same time terminate first and per se (in the manner, however, explained below in disp. 3. num. 34. and 35.) in its own attributes, which bear themselves to the divine essence as conclusions brought per se primo from the cognition of the essence itself, as of a principle, and quasi-cause, and finally that it should terminate per se secundo in creatures, which are also quasi-conclusions, brought per se secundo from the divine essence, as it is the cause of these.

Now, although divine knowledge has the said eminence, by which it has what is proper to understanding and to knowledge, nonetheless it coheres with these, in such a way that there is also to be given in God another light virtually distinct, which is precisely understanding, and which excludes the imperfection and limitation of the light of created understanding, although it does not have such eminence as wisdom has: as we shall explain further in the following doubt, num. 84.

54 Secondly it will be answered by granting the antecedent and denying the consequence. And to the proof it must be said, with D. Thom., 1. 2. quaest. 57. art. 2., that wisdom is not distinguished from understanding, or from the habit, or quasi-habit, of principles, in this, that wisdom in no way turns about the first principles: but in this, that understanding turns about them absolutely, and taken by themselves, as we shall explain further at num. 84.; whereas wisdom terminates in them, in that the conclusions are deduced from them. And so the knowledge of God, which is the most perfect wisdom, will be able to terminate first and per se in the divine essence; because it turns about it as the reason of attaining to creatures: and so also the divine knowledge can turn about, insofar as it is knowledge, or wisdom, the essence of God, as the reason of the attributes; from the fact that the aforesaid attributes bear themselves like conclusions deduced from the divine essence, as from a principle, or as the formal reason of the attributes themselves.

55 To the foundation of the second opinion it will be answered that the greater is true, if its meaning be that all scientific cognition must be through a cause, whether it be a true and formal cause, or only a virtual one, which coincides with the reason a priori. In what way immutability is called a virtual cause of eternity, because it is the reason a priori of eternity. And then the lesser must be denied, as regards both parts. And to the proof against the prior part it must be said that although that which has a true and proper cause formally such is created, it is not the case that whatever has only a virtual cause, or an a priori reason, is created, as happens in eternity, compared with immutability, and in whatever divine attributes are compared with the essence of God.

To the proof, however, of the second part, the greater must be denied. To its proof it must be said that a cause is desired, first, in order that that which is indifferent to being and not-being be produced and be: then also in order that it be a being, and true by participation, however much it may never be produced in act, or exist: or however much it may be according to its own essence of eternal and necessary truth. Because any entity, and any truth by participation, would not be such, nor would it have the aforesaid necessity, unless there were at least some first being, and first truth per essentiam, from which (in the manner suggested above) they would be participable.

56 We have said: unless there were at least some first being, and first truth: because it is not against the reason of necessary truth that it have a created cause of its necessity: and therefore this truth, a man is capable of laughter, which is necessary, has a created cause of its necessity, namely that a man is rational: and so it is demonstrated in the knowledge of a man through it.

That solution is drawn from D. Thom., 1. part. quaest. 44. art. 1. ad 1., in these words: It must be said that although the relation to a cause does not enter into the definition of the being which is caused, it nevertheless follows from those things which are of its reason: because from the fact that something is a being by participation, it follows that it is caused by another. Wherefore a being of this kind cannot be without being caused: just as neither can a man be without being capable of laughter.

What he explained still further in the solution to the second. For when he had objected to himself that in order that something should need a cause, so as consequently to be such that it cannot fail to be, such as are necessary truths, [it follows] that it does not need such a cause, he answers: It must be said that from this reason some were moved to posit that that which is necessary has no cause, but this plainly appears false in the demonstrative sciences, in which necessary principles are causes of necessary conclusions. And therefore Aristotle says in 5. Metaphys. that there are some necessary things which have a cause of their necessity. A cause, therefore, is required not for this alone, because the effect is able not to be, but because the effect would not be if the cause were not: for this conditional is true whether the antecedent and consequent be possible, or impossible.

57 Nor does it matter if you object against this solution that although with respect to ourselves knowledge of God's attributes can be given, because we know that one thing can be the a priori reason of another, and that the essence is also the a priori reason of all of them; nevertheless it is not so with respect to God: from the fact that we distinguish one attribute from another by reason: and so we can know one thing to be the reason of another; but God does not, who reaches those things as they are in himself: and consequently he does not fabricate in them any distinction of reason which is not found in them as they are in themselves: therefore at least on this account the solution given falls.

For it will be answered that although we grant that God, knowing (as elsewhere) himself and his attributes, does not effect a distinction of reason between them except at the last, through the order to the created intellect of one on the way, nonetheless per se and by his own reason he precisely knows the virtual distinction which is between the attributes, both among themselves and as compared with the essence: and this suffices in order that one attribute, for example, be known as the a priori reason of another.

The reason, however, on account of which we attribute to God the knowledge of the aforesaid distinction, in the manner just said, is this: because such a virtual distinction is really found between them, by reason of the highest eminence which that most simple formality of the divine essence and of the attributes has. For just as in creatures the essence and its properties are really distinguished actually and formally, so the divine essence and its attributes are really distinguished virtually: from the fact that that most simple formality no less provides what is proper to a plurality of things pertaining to distinct lines than if there were actually and formally several, in which the reason of a virtual distinction really consists.

58 Nor does it stand in the way, if you press, that the divine intellect cannot know per se and by its own reason the aforesaid virtual distinction without knowing in the same way that distinction of reason: because a virtual distinction is nothing else than the foundation of a distinction of reason: and consequently, what by itself and by its own reason it has attained to, it cannot fail to know in the same way the distinction of reason, indeed to effect it, since its being consists only in being known.

Therefore this does not stand in the way. Because according to this manner of speaking, although we grant that the virtual distinction is at the same time a distinction of a fundamental reason with respect to an intellect which does not reach the thing as it is in itself, or which reaches it through an order to the aforesaid intellect; nevertheless it is not so with respect to the intellect which terminates in the thing as it is in itself, and which is considered under this precision of not reaching it, namely as it is knowable through distinct concepts by an intellect which does not reach it as it is in itself.

And so the most formal concept of a virtual distinction as such is not the most formal concept of the same as it is a distinction of fundamental reason: first, on account of what has been said above. Then also: because if we granted that it involves every intellect of one on the way, that virtual distinction would still remain under the concept of a virtual distinction: since it could provide what is proper to a plurality of things pertaining to distinct lines, no less than if there were several; yet it would not remain under the concept of a fundamental distinction: since, involving an intellect able to distinguish according to reason, it also involves (so to speak) the passive capacity, founding such a distinction.

59 Hence, God can, as he is considered under this precision of reaching himself without an order to the intellect of one on the way, know the virtual distinction of his own attributes without knowing the distinction of reason, which is made, and is known, by the intellect of one on the way, which does not reach God himself as he is in himself: although (because the divine intellect cannot fail to know at the same time that his essence, and his attributes, are attainable by the imperfect intellect of one on the way, and through distinct concepts) he must also know there the aforesaid fundamental distinction: and consequently it is also very probable that through an order, or quasi-order, to the aforesaid created intellect, he should effect that same distinction of reason, as our Didacus a Jesu well explains in his Logica disp. 3. quaest. 3.

Is God's knowledge an attribute of him?

Since D. Thom. in this article, in the answer to the second objection, teaches that God's knowledge is an attribute of him, we therefore rightly inquire into this point in this first disputation; especially because we shall not so much explain what the divine knowledge is as whether it is his in the manner of an attribute, that is, whether these things are found in God as an attribute of him? And so to treat of it according to this consideration belongs to the disputation on divine knowledge insofar as whether it is his.

§ I. Arguments for the negative side.

60 First. Since God's understanding pertains to the intrinsic constitutive principle of the divine nature: therefore the knowledge of it does too: therefore such knowledge will not be an attribute of God. This last consequence is clear from what precedes. Since, as we shall say from Damascene in this difficulty, an attribute has itself after the manner of a property of the divine nature: and therefore that which belongs to the intrinsic constitutive principle of that nature cannot have the character of an attribute.

The first consequence, however, is clear from the antecedent. Since God's understanding, considered as pertaining to the intrinsic constitutive principle of the divine essence, must be most perfect within the line and genus of understanding, as is clear from itself: therefore it must be scientific understanding: since an understanding which does not reach the point of being scientific is not most perfect within the line and genus of understanding. The antecedent, however, will be clear from what is to be said in this treatise, disp. 4, num. 43, and tract. 4, disp. 2, num. 57.

61 Confirmed, first. Since understanding, insofar as it constitutes the divine nature, must be comprehensive of God: therefore it must have the character of knowledge: and therefore knowledge will not be able to have itself after the manner of a property, or attribute, of God. The antecedent is clear. Then, because the aforesaid understanding agrees with God in the degree of immateriality, as is clear from itself: but understanding agreeing with some essence in the degree of immateriality is comprehensive of it, as is commonly said above, q. 12, art. 2. Then also: because the intellection constitutive of God is as great in the line of intellection as God is in the line of the intelligible object; otherwise it would not constitute him in his essence and intelligibility: as is clear from what was said above, q. 12, art. 8, that for intellectual comprehension it is enough that the intellection be as great in the line of intellection as the essence is which is understood in the line of the intelligible object.

The first consequence, however, is also clear. Because understanding comprehensive of God reaches, in him as in the cause, or in the formal reason a priori, all attributes, and also all possible creatures: and therefore according to its formal character it will be a knowledge of attributes, and of possible creatures through their cause, or reason a priori: and consequently according to its most formal character it will be knowledge: since this is nothing other than the knowledge of a thing through its cause.

62 Confirmed, second. For either understanding, constitutive of God, taken in itself, and precisely so taken, reaches everything that is in him, both formally and eminently, and as in a cause — or it does not. If the first, then, taken in itself and precisely considered, it will have the character of knowledge, as is clear from what we have just said. If, however, the second is said, then the aforesaid understanding will be finite and limited: and consequently it cannot be constitutive of God. Both consequences are clear. Because an intellection by which God is not reached according to everything he has, both formally and eminently, is finite, as is clear in the visions of the blessed, which for this reason are finite in the line of the vision of God, as is commonly said above, q. 12, art. 8: and a finite intellection cannot be constitutive of God.

63 Second. Because in us to be radical and potential knowers does not have the character of a property, but pertains to the intrinsic constitutive principle of our essence: therefore in God to be knowing in act second will not have itself after the manner of a property, or attribute, of him, but will pertain to the concept of the divine essence, as distinct from its attributes and properties.

The antecedent is obvious. Because the essence of man cannot be adequately understood unless it be understood together with a radical potency for knowing: and so being radical and potential knower pertains to its intrinsic concept: just as, for this reason, being radical and intellectual, or admirable, pertains to its quiddity.

The consequence, however, clearly follows from the antecedent. Because whatever imports a perfection simply pertains to the quiddity of an intellectual creature, must, with the imperfections with which it is involved excluded, constitute the nature of God in the manner of a most pure act, excluding all potentiality: because such a character is of itself constitutive of nature: and so, if it be purged of all imperfections, it cannot constitute anything other than the nature of God: therefore, if in us being radical and potential knowers signifies a perfection simply, yet involved with imperfections and pertaining to the quiddative concept of our essence, the consequence will be that being actually knowing in the manner of a most pure act, excluding all imperfection and potentiality, pertains to the quiddative concept of the divine essence.

64 Third. Because the potency that God has to create is not distinguished from the potency which is in him to transmute one thing into another, or from a potency to effect any miracle whatever; but all these constitute one and the same indivisible omnipotence without any virtual distinction: therefore for the same reason there will not be in God a multiplied virtually intellectual understanding, but that very understanding which is constitutive of God, without any virtual distinction, will be scientific understanding: and consequently intellection, as scientific, will not be an attribute: since an attribute must be virtually distinguished from the divine essence, as it has the character of essence, and from its constitutive principle, namely divine intellection. The antecedent needs no proof. Because as in us the intellectual potency signifies one most simple potency without any virtual distinction, by which we can understand whatever is intelligible: and therefore the potency for understanding substance is not distinguished from the intellectual potency of an accident, so in God omnipotence signifies one most simple potency without any virtual distinction, by which he can produce everything doable: and therefore the potency to create cannot be virtually distinguished from the transubstantiating potency, or from a potency to effect any miracle.

The consequence is proved. For the aforesaid potencies are not virtually distinguished, because all of them belong to God by one and the same indivisible reason, namely insofar as he is a pure and infinite act, from the fact that each thing acts insofar as it is in act; and consequently, since it is in pure and infinite act, it must be infinitely and most highly active: therefore, since all intellectual knowledge belongs to God under a single and indivisible formal reason, namely because he is most immaterial, the consequence will be that intellections are not multiplied in him, but that any intellection found in him is one and the same most simple intellection without any virtual distinction.

65 Fourth. For if God's understanding, as it is constitutive of him, were distinguished from his knowledge, it would also have to be distinguished from the habit, or quasi-habit, of principles, which is called intelligence: but this is impossible: therefore, etc. The sequel seems clearly to follow from the parity of reason. For just as knowledge is an intellectual virtue, so also is intelligence, as D. Thom. teaches from Arist. 1. 2, q. 57, art. 2. Therefore if understanding, as constitutive of God, cannot reach the point of identifying with itself, without any virtual distinction, one of these virtues, namely knowledge, neither can it reach the point of being identified, without the same virtual distinction, with another intellectual virtue; namely intelligence, or the light of principles.

The falsity of the consequence, however, is also clear. Because, as the Angelic Doctor teaches in the place just cited, intelligence is distinguished from wisdom in that the latter is carried to principles as they are the cause of conclusions; intelligence, however, to principles as they are in themselves: therefore intelligence in God will not be able to be virtually distinguished from understanding, as it is constitutive of the divine essence. The consequence is clear. Because each of the two has the same formal object: since understanding, as constitutive of the divine essence, is carried to it as it is in itself, and since that same essence as it is in itself is the first principle and the cause of all conclusions deducible from it, it follows that intelligence, or the light of principles, found in God, which terminates at the first principle as it is in itself, must terminate at the divine essence as it is taken in itself.

66 Confirmed. For by the same reason God's knowledge would be distinguished from wisdom, from art, from prudence, from the other intellectual virtues, as from Eubulia, or the virtue of good counsel, and from Synesis and Gnome, which are the virtues that pronounce a verdict on things to be done: but this cannot be said: therefore, etc. The sequel seems certain. For knowledge which does not reach the point of constituting the knower in his nature remains within the compass of intellectual virtue as taken strictly; but the intellectual virtue of knowledge, or of wisdom so accepted, must be distinguished from the other intellectual virtues, as D. Thom. teaches 1. 2, q. 57, art. 2.

The falsity of the consequence, however, is proved. For since God's knowledge is most perfect in the line of knowledge, and comprehends the most perfect and highest cause, namely the divine essence, it is not distinguished from wisdom, as D. Thom. teaches in 1, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 1, ad ult., and in the same place against Ambaldus. And likewise, from the very fact that it is most perfect knowledge, it must also be most perfect in the line of practical knowledge: and consequently there must also be existing in God's intellect the most perfect reason, both of all things to be done and of all things to be made: of which the first pertains to prudence, and to the other virtues annexed to it, namely the advisory and the indicative: the second, however, to art, as D. Thom. teaches in q. 57, cited above.

67 Lastly. For in God there is not virtually distinguished a multiplied knowledge, one of metaphysical things, another of physical things, and so of others, but only a single one, which corresponds and is equivalent to all the other inferior sciences: therefore neither will a twofold virtually intellectual understanding be posited in him, one of which is constitutive of the divine essence, and another of which has the character of knowledge. The antecedent is commonly received by theologians, with one or another exception.

The consequence is proved. For a single knowledge without any virtual distinction is sufficient in God, because, since it is infinite within the genus of knowledge, it must embrace all the perfection and knowledge contained within the aforesaid genus; therefore, since God's knowledge is also infinite, both in the line of knowledge and in the line of intellection, it must also embrace without any virtual distinction all the intellection found in God; and consequently be entirely the same as the intellection constitutive of God in his proper essence.

§ II. The true opinion of D. Thomas.

68 It must nevertheless be said that God's knowledge, taken properly and strictly, is a divine attribute: and therefore does not pertain to the intrinsic constitutive principle of the divine essence, as [that essence is] distinct from its properties, or attributes. Thus D. Thom., in the prologue to this question, which we saw above, says: What, after the consideration of those things which pertain to the divine substance, remains to be considered is that which pertains to its operation, that is, those things which pertain to the operation that does not constitute God's essence and substance: and among these he reckons knowledge; and therefore he holds that knowledge does not pertain to the divine substance, or essence; but is something consequent to it, in the manner of a quasi-property, or attribute, of it. The same he also teaches, both in this article in the answer to the second [objection], as we shall set out in the proof of the assertion. And also in 1, dist. 35, q. 1, art. 1, in the answer to the second, in these words: When God is named to be being, nothing is expressed except what pertains to his perfection, and not his whole perfection. And likewise when he is said to be knowing and willing, and such like. And so it is clear that all these things are one in God according to the thing, but differ according to reason: and this difference is not only in the intellect, but is founded in the truth and perfection of the thing: and just as God is properly said to be being, so he is properly said to be knowing and willing, and such like; nor is there any plurality, or addition, or order in the thing there, but only in the reason. Where, as you see, the Sacred Doctor distinguishes, by a distinction of reason founded in the thing, or virtual distinction, the character of being found in God, namely being by essence, from the character of knowledge and volition; and therefore he holds that [knowledge] does not pertain to the intrinsic concept of the divine essence, as that concept is understood with attributes. Because what is constitutive of the divine essence cannot be virtually distinguished from the character of being by essence, which essentially pertains to the concept of the divine essence; from the fact that all things which in God pertain to one and the same line, whether of essence or of property, must be one and the same formality, without any virtual distinction, as we shall state more fully in the treatise on the Will of God, disp. 2.

69 The same opinion is held by Chrysostom, hom. 1, on the incomprehensibility of the divine nature, around the middle; where, having said that it is the utmost madness to wish to know what the substance of God is, in order to show this, he distinguishes God's substance from his wisdom, saying: For substance is not from wisdom, but wisdom from substance: and he adds: but since the Prophets are not able fully to perceive it (namely God's wisdom) to what extent do those rave who think that substance itself can be subjected to their reasonings. Behold, where he manifestly teaches that the wisdom of God arises from God's very substance; and consequently is an attribute of it. Which also Damascene teaches, lib. 1, de Fide, cap. 4, at the end, where: Thus, whether one wishes to say good, or just, or wise, or whatever, one is at length speaking not of the nature of God, but of what is contained in nature, you explain. Whence this assertion is commonly held by theologians: Henry of Ghent, in his Summa Theologiae, q. 2, num. 27; Aegidius, tom. 1, de beatudine, lib. 5, q. 4, art. 8, referring all theologians for it. Gonzalez, in the present difficulty, ult., disp. 34, sect. 4; Granado, 1, part, tract. 2, disp. 9; and all those who assert that the divine essence is not constituted by understanding in act second, but by this, that it is radical and intellectual, whom we shall mention below in art. 4.

§ III. The opinion of the Angelic Doctor, drawn from himself and from Damascene, is established.

70 Now, in order that we may set out the fundamental reason of this assertion, drawn from Damascene, lib. 1, de Fide, cap. 12, and from D. Thom. in the places cited, it must be supposed first that an attribute is nothing other than — as it is taken from Damascene and commonly admitted by theologians — a certain absolute reason existing necessarily and formally in God, and following, in our way of understanding, or (which amounts to the same for the present) virtually, upon his essence, as something constituted in a certain quasi-atomic species. It is said, then, first, that an attribute must be a certain absolute reason, so that in this way the divine relations are excluded, which, though they are formally and necessarily in God and follow upon his essence in our way of understanding, are nevertheless, because they are not absolute reasons but relative, not attributive properties of the divine essence, but personal, or constitutive, or consecutive: constitutive indeed, as is clear from Paternity, Filiation, and passive Spiritation, which constitute the persons; consecutive, however, as is seen in active spiration, which supposes the persons of the Father and the Son as constituted, and follows upon them insofar as they are so constituted.

71 It is added, then, that such an absolute reason must exist formally and necessarily in God, so that by the first part those things are rejected which are contained in him only virtually, and by the second part those which are in him only freely. And so neither the possible creatures contained virtually in God, nor God's free volition, insofar as it is such, which exists formally in him, has the character of an attribute.

It is asserted further, that attributes must follow, in our way of understanding, upon the constituted essence of God, so that in this way that same essence is excluded from the character of an attribute: since, although the divine essence may have the other conditions formerly demanded, as is clear from itself, it still cannot also follow, in our way of understanding, upon itself as already constituted.

And lastly it is said to be constituted as something in a certain quasi-atomic species, so that in this way it is distinguished from common, or transcendent, reasons, which are included in these same attributes or in other divine reasons, and likewise from the quasi-differential reasons of those same attributes: because although these two reasons concur in constituting the attribute, neither of them, taken by itself, has the character of an attribute.

72 Secondly, it must be supposed that God's knowledge agrees with the earlier parts, and also with the last part, of this definition, or quasi-definition: since it is clear from itself that it is an absolute reason, and not something formally relative. And likewise that it is something existing formally and necessarily in God, as is clear from what was said in the preceding difficulty. And lastly that it is something constituted in a certain quasi-atomic species, as will be clearer from itself and from what we shall immediately add. The whole difficulty, therefore, is whether there is anything virtually distinct from the divine essence, as that essence is understood with attributes, and consequently virtually distinct from divine intellection, as constitutive of God. For by the very fact that it is distinguished from the latter in the aforesaid way, it cannot fail to follow virtually upon it, as will be more fully explained, and consequently to have all the conditions required for the character of an attribute.

73 Now, in order to show this virtual distinction of knowledge from understanding, it must be supposed, thirdly, what in tract. de Voluntate Dei, disp. 2, num. 31, we shall bring forward in a like case to prove the virtual distinction between the divine will and its affective virtues; namely, that the most powerful proof of this virtual distinction between understanding constitutive of God and divine knowledge is to be drawn from the common consent of philosophers and theologians, who assert that the proper act of knowledge, abstracted from created and uncreated, is to know a thing through its causes, or formal reasons, and consequently that its formal and adequate object is the thing as knowable in this peculiar and determinate way, namely through its causes, or through the aforesaid reasons.

74 The reason, however, for which we have recourse, in the present case, to this common consent of theologians and philosophers, is that formal and adequate objects have the character of first principles with respect to powers, or virtues, whether affective or intellectual, from the fact that their whole character is drawn from the objects as from a first root: first principles, however, are not so much to be proved as to be accepted from the common consent of the Doctors. Especially, since in the present case there is a peculiar reason on account of which the common verdict must be upheld, otherwise powers or virtues distinct from one another would easily be confused, by assigning to them in place of the proper one a single and same more universal formal reason, terminating in which they are one and the same power or virtue, nor could the opposite easily be shown by reason.

75 These things having been supposed, it will not be difficult to reduce to this form the fundamental reason for the assertion suggested by D. Thom. and Damascene. Since it is certain that knowledge is found in God properly and formally: therefore it looks to its own proper formal and adequate object, its own proper knowable, as such, that is, in this determinate way, namely as knowable through its causes, or formal reasons: therefore such knowledge will be virtually distinguished from God's understanding, as this constitutes his essence, and will be a true attribute with respect to it. The antecedent is clear from what was said in the second supposition. The first consequence, however, [follows] from what we said in the third supposition. For any virtue, potency, or act looks to its own proper formal and adequate object: therefore, since the formal and adequate object of knowledge is its own proper knowable as such, or as it is knowable in this determinate way, namely through its causes, or formal reasons, the consequence is that divine knowledge looks to this formal and adequate object.

From this also the second consequence is clear as regards its first part, namely the virtual distinction between God's understanding, as constitutive of his essence, and knowledge. For the aforesaid understanding looks to a distinct formal and adequate object, namely the essence, or divine being, under a broader reason, namely insofar as it is (let us say so) being, or divine intelligible, as we have said — but yet not insofar as it is intelligible in this determinate way, namely through a cause, or reason a priori. Then, because even in creatures the intellectual nature does not look, as its formal and adequate object, to its intelligible, as intelligible in this determinate way, namely through causes. Then also: because the divine essence, at least insofar as it is to itself the reason of passive intelligibility, according to which reason it is at least in the first place, and principally, the object of divine intellection, as constitutive of God, is not knowable through a cause, or reason a priori, as is clear from itself.

76 And lastly the same consequence, as regards its second part, namely that knowledge is a true attribute of God as constituted by his understanding, clearly follows from the first part of that same consequence and from the second supposition. Because that which is virtually distinguished from the divine essence cannot pertain to its intrinsic concept, as that concept is understood with attributes: from the fact that whatever pertains to the concept of the aforesaid essence constitutes only a single line of essence, and that which pertains to a single line, precisely, is one and the same most simple formality, without any virtual distinction, as we said in the treatise on the Vision of God, disp. 2, and as we shall assert more fully in the treatise on the Will of God, disp. 2, dub. 2: and consequently that which is virtually distinguished from that same essence cannot fail to follow upon it, as is clear from itself: and consequently, if it be an absolute reason existing formally and necessarily in God, as knowledge is, according to what we said in the second supposition, it cannot fail to have the character of an attribute, as is clear from the definition of an attribute brought forward in the second supposition.

It is confirmed. For in order that divine understanding, constitutive of God, be infinite and a pure act within its own line, or order, it is required, and is sufficient, that it be being by essence, and that of itself most formally it have the character of an intellectual virtue and of intellection tending to the essence, or to the divine being according to the general reason of its amplitude: that is, insofar as it is (let us put it so) divine intelligible, as we have said; even though it do not identify with itself, without virtual distinction, the knowledge of God: therefore, in order to constitute God, it is not necessary that it identify with itself, without the same distinction, divine knowledge: and consequently this will be an attribute with respect to it.

This last consequence follows from the first, as is clear from what has just been said. The first, however, follows from the antecedent. Since, as is clear from what we shall touch upon in tract. de Voluntate Dei, disp. 2, dub. 2, and as will be clearer from what is to be said in art. 4 of this question, that very thing, and nothing more, is required in order that the degree of understanding be constitutive of your God, which is desired in order that it be infinitely perfect within its own line. For since of itself it is constitutive of nature, as our Complutensians excellently expound from Arist. and D. Thom., lib. 1, de Anima, disp. 4, num. 28, and thereafter, the consequence is that, if it be purged of all imperfections, and consequently be infinitely perfect within its own line, it cannot fail to constitute the divine nature.

77 The antecedent, however, is proved. For just as, in order that created intellectuality, constitutive of created nature, for example the Angelic nature of Michael, may sufficiently constitute it, it is enough that it include the character of being by participation, or that involving potentiality in the character of being, and also the character of life and of a certain intellectuality admixtured with a certain potentiality: and lastly that it look to being in common, involving potentiality, that is, as abstracted from God and from creatures, and consequently taken in its whole amplitude: so, in order that divine intellectuality may sufficiently constitute the divine nature, it will be enough that it state all these things in the manner of a most pure act, and consequently that it state entity not by participation, which involves potentiality in the character of being, but entity by essence, and over and above the character of intellectual life in the manner of a most pure act, which is the same as understanding identified entirely without virtual distinction with the power of understanding; and lastly, that it also look, as by the manner of an adequate object, to being, which has the same purity as that which is taken in its whole amplitude (let us say so), namely the divine essence, or divine being, as we have said. For since the limitation and potentiality of the degree of understanding in created natures is sufficiently gathered from its real distinction from its intellection, it follows that a complete identity of the two, without any real distinction either actual or arising from the nature of the thing, or finally virtual, suffices for infinity and most pure actuality within the same line.

78 Confirmed, second. For from the fact that the will of God looks to the divine goodness in its whole amplitude, we infer that it is virtually distinct from his mercy, which looks to the same goodness in a determinate way, namely, in that it is determinately the reason of relieving misery: and moreover, from this virtual distinction we infer that mercy is, in our way of understanding, posterior to the will, as is clear from what we asserted in tract. de Voluntate Dei, disp. 2, num. 32: therefore also, from the fact that God's understanding, as it constitutes the divine essence, looks to it, or to the divine being, in its whole amplitude, or as it is divine intelligible, as we have said, and that knowledge looks to the same divine being in a determinate way, namely as it is the cause, or the formal reason of others, we infer that the aforesaid knowledge is virtually distinguished from divine understanding, as constitutive of God, and follows virtually upon it.

It is confirmed, lastly, by the final reason which we shall bring forward in favour of our assertion in tract. de Voluntate Dei, disp. 2, num. 34. For that reason, applied as it is in the present case (due proportion being observed), convinces this assertion excellently: and explains, as far as possible, the root of the matter.

§ IV. The arguments brought forward at the outset are met.

79 With the antecedent granted, according to what has been said, both consequences must be denied; and for the proof of the first, on which the proof of the second depends, it must be said that God's understanding, considered as pertaining to the intrinsic constitution of the divine essence, must be most perfect with an eminent and virtual perfection, both within all the lines of understanding and within the other lines besides: from the fact that it is the primordial line, bearing the character of nature, in which all other formalities and lines are rooted, and from which, in our way of understanding, they all flow: it is not, however, necessary that, taken strictly, it be most perfect within every line and the genus of understanding, so as formally to contain all the lines belonging to that genus; but it is enough that it have the highest perfection within its own line of nature, and that it reach the point of being identically, and with virtual distinction alone, scientific understanding.

This is explained. For within the genus, or (let us say so) the amplitude of understanding, there are several and diverse lines, because there are several and distinct formal and adequate objects considered by themselves: any formal and adequate object, however, gives origin, as it were, to one line. Whence something can be said to be most perfect in the genus of understanding in a twofold way: either because it formally comprehends and contains that whole genus, and all the lines of diverse species belonging to it: or because it is only formally, and infinite according to what is proper to it, within a single line according to the species of those several [lines] which are contained within that whole genus, even though if such a thing constituted the primordial line of the order of understanding, namely the line of nature, it would indeed have, not formally but radically and in potency, according to what is proper to it, all the perfection of the other lines.

Wherefore, since God's understanding, as it constitutes the divine nature, is not infinite in the genus of understanding, in so far as this denotes comprehending and formally containing that whole genus, or quasi-genus, and all its lines; but is only infinite in the genus of understanding, in so far as this signifies only that it is infinite within a single line, according to the species of those several which are contained within the whole genus of understanding, namely within the line of nature, it follows that it ought formally, and without any virtual distinction, to contain those things which pertain to this line, even though, because this line is the primordial and radical line, it ought, after the manner of a root, virtually to possess in advance the perfection of the other lines; whether those lines are contained under the order and genus of understanding, or under any other order: and consequently it will be necessary that, by the character of its most pure actuality, it identify with itself — with virtual distinction, however — both the line of knowledge and the other lines besides, so that, in the way just explained, it does not identify them, and is their quasi-root and fontal principle: we would conclude excellently that it would not yet be most perfect within its own line of nature; but otherwise if, in the manner of a most pure act, and in the way explained, it possessed the aforesaid.

80 At the first confirmation, the antecedent must be granted, and both consequences denied. And for the proof of the first, upon which the second rests, the antecedent must be distinguished: and if its meaning be that the comprehensive understanding of God requires that it reach, in him as in the cause, or in the formal reason a priori, all the attributes, and also all the possible creatures, so that the most formal reason of reaching all these things be the very essence, as it has the character of a cause, or of a reason a priori, this must be denied: but otherwise if its meaning be that it reaches all these things, and consequently that the essence is the cause, or reason, of them, so that the reason of reaching is another, more universal and more elevated, than we have already indicated. And lastly the consequence must be denied: because, for it to be legitimate, the antecedent would have to be true in the first sense.

It is therefore one thing whether the comprehensive understanding of God, simply by virtue of being such, must reach the divine essence, the attributes, and all the possible creatures, by knowing that the essence is the reason a priori of those and the actual cause of these; and another thing whether the most formal reason of reaching, both the attributes and the creatures, must be the very divine essence, as having the character of a cause and of a reason a priori. The first, indeed, is true: and so God's understanding, as it constitutes his essence, and is comprehensive of it, reaches all these things, from the fact that it is that immaterial thing which the divine essence is constituted by, and consequently it terminates in it with as much cognition as is demanded from the divine essence itself. The second, however, is false: because for the comprehensive understanding of God it is enough that it reach all these things under a more elevated and more universal reason, namely insofar as it terminates in all these things under the reason of the divine essence in its whole amplitude in the line of the intelligible object, or (let us say) insofar as it has the character of the divine intelligible, as we have said.

81 It makes no difference if one objects that the intellection of God, as constitutive of the divine nature, cannot be as great in the line of intellection as the divine essence in the line of the intelligible object, unless, insofar as it is constitutive of it, it be also scientific understanding: therefore, etc. The antecedent seems certain. Because the divine essence, as it is the intelligible object, demands to be known in both of the ways assigned: therefore, unless it be reached in both ways by the intellection constitutive of God as such, and consequently unless such intellection be most formally the knowledge of God itself, the aforesaid intellection will not be as great in the line of cognition as the essence itself in the line of the intelligible.

For we answer by denying the antecedent. And for the proof, the antecedent must be distinguished: insofar as it is the intelligible object, through an intelligibility that is precisely and entirely its first, and constitutes, as it were, the fontal and first line in the line of the intelligible object, is to be denied: insofar as it is the intelligible object, through an intelligibility that is not entirely the first, taken precisely, but [insofar] as it at the same time involves an intelligibility that is, as it were, secondary to it, and constitutes another, as it were secondary, line in the line of the intelligible object, is to be granted. And then, in the same proportional way, the consequent must be distinguished: how great it itself is in the line of the intelligible, through an intelligibility that is entirely primary, and constitutes the first and fontal line in the line of the intelligible object, the consequence is to be denied; through an intelligibility that is not entirely primary, taken precisely, but [insofar] as it involves another intelligibility, and another line already described, it must be granted.

Hence, however, it does not follow that such intellection constitutive of God is not comprehensive of him through an altogether first, per se comprehension, such as the divine essence demands as being first comprehensible; but only that it is not comprehensive of God through a (let us say so) first and second comprehension: this, however, is not inconvenient; nay, it implies the opposite. Because since the divine essence, as it is comprehensible in both ways, pertains to two lines in the line of the object, it cannot be reached through one and the same divine intellection pertaining to one line; but it demands two intellections virtually distinct, and pertaining to diverse lines, and consequently of such a condition that what one reaches through the manner of the reason under which cannot be reached by the other in this way; [what the other reaches] must be known by the first through the manner of the reason which, so that no objection from it may escape it.

At the second confirmation it is clear from what was said in the answer to the first.

82 At the second head, the antecedent must be granted: not indeed in such a way that in us it pertain to the concept of nature as being the root of acts of knowing, inasmuch as they are such reductively speaking, but inasmuch as they have the character of acts of understanding. And then the consequence must be denied. And for its proof, I grant the antecedent; the consequence must be denied. For from the fact that in us being radical and potential knowers pertains, in the way said, to the concept of our nature, and from the fact that this same thing, through the manner of a most pure act, must pertain to the concept of the divine nature, it does not follow that being actually and formally knowing be of the concept of that same divine nature, but only that being the root of knowing through the manner of a most pure act pertain to its quiddative concept: because this is what, through the manner of a most pure act, corresponds to our radical and potential virtue for knowing.

Just as from the fact that being radical and potential willing be of the concept of man, and this same thing through that same most pure act must be of the concept of the divine nature, it is not correctly concluded that being actually and formally willing be of its essence; but that being the root, through the manner of a most pure act, of willing — which is nothing other than being intelligent — pertain to the quiddative concept of God. And the reason is the same in both cases. Because neither volition nor knowledge is of the number of those formalities which have the power to constitute nature, but rather they necessarily presuppose nature as constituted: and therefore that which, through the manner of a most pure act, corresponds to our radical virtue for knowing and willing cannot be the actual volition or knowledge itself; but some other most pure act which, in this manner, is the root of these, namely primordial understanding, which constitutes the divine nature.

83 At the third, the antecedent must be granted, and the consequence denied. Because all those potencies, or (let us speak more accurately) all those ratios inadequate to the divine omnipotence, arise from the most pure actuality of the divine essence, and are ordered toward the same formal object. Now, although intellection, as constitutive of God, and as having the character of knowledge, agrees with God by reason of its highest immateriality, in the way, however, indicated above; nevertheless they do not belong to it with respect to the same formal object, as has been explained. And so they must necessarily be virtually distinguished.

84 At the fourth, the sequel must be granted, and the minor denied. And for the proof, I grant the antecedent; the consequence must be denied. For the proof of this consequence it must be said that, although intelligence in God, which corresponds in us to the habit of first principles, and which is an intellectual virtue, as D. Thom. teaches 1. 2, q. 57, art. 2, is carried to the divine essence as it is in itself, as to the reason which, and consequently agrees in this reason with God's understanding as constitutive of the divine nature; nevertheless it tends to it under a formally diverse reason. Because intelligence reaches that very essence as it is known per se. As in general any habit of first principles tends to those principles as they are known per se: and therefore, however perfectly and infinitely God's essence is reached by him through this light, or through intelligence, it yet never by the force of that light, according to what it brings from its quasi-differential reason, attains to the cognition (let us say so) of the conclusions which are, as it were, inferred from the divine essence: because all those things are outside the line of the object of this light, taken in the way just explained, from the fact that the aforesaid conclusions are known through something else, namely through the divine essence. Now God's understanding, as it constitutes him, tends to that same essence under a more universal and more elevated reason than we have already indicated.

We said by the force of it, etc. Because if the aforesaid light of intelligence is taken according to what is common, or according to what it includes in a transcendent manner, and is thus identified with the other divine formalities, it can also extend to the aforesaid conclusions.

85 It makes no difference if one objects that God's understanding, as constitutive of him, is the most perfect cognition and judgment about the divine essence: but it is not the cognition and judgment of it as known through something prior: therefore, as known through itself: and consequently such cognition and judgment will have the character of intelligence.

For we answer from what has been said. That although understanding, as constitutive of God, terminates in the divine essence as it is known per se specifically; it does not terminate in it as it is known per se reductively, that is, it is not known through the aforesaid understanding to be known per se; and again it is not known by it through any medium which is prior to it; nevertheless the most formal reason of knowing it is that it is known per se: because it does not terminate in it as known per se, but under another, more elevated and more universal reason, than we have already explained.

This solution is drawn from D. Thom. in the place cited, in these words: It must be said that the speculative intellectual virtue is that by which the speculative intellect is perfected for considering the true, for this is its good work. Now the true is considerable in a twofold way. In one way, as what is known per se; and in another way, as what is known through something else; but what is known per se has the character of a principle, and is at once perceived by the intellect: and therefore the habit perfecting the intellect for the consideration of such a true is called intellect, which is the habit of principles. Since these words must be taken in the formal sense, as is clear from itself, because in them the matter at hand is the distinction and the formal object of the intellectual virtues, they plainly indicate that the formal reason of the light of principles is to be drawn from the fact that it tends to its object, insofar as reductively and formally it has being known per se.

86 At the confirmation, the sequel must be granted as regards all its parts, except the first: because although God's knowledge is not virtually distinguished from wisdom, it is nevertheless so distinguished from the other intellectual virtues enumerated there. The reason, however, for which wisdom is entirely identified with the knowledge of God is this. First, because, as D. Thom. teaches, wisdom is the same as most perfect knowledge: and it is clear that the knowledge of God is most perfect. Then also: because it is proper to wisdom, on the testimony of the same Sacred Doctor, 1. 2, q. 57, art. 2, to consider the highest causes: and so it judges and orders all things fittingly, because a perfect and universal judgment cannot be had except by resolution to the first causes. Wherefore, since it is proper to divine knowledge to know through the highest causes, namely through the divine essence, as it is the efficient and exemplary cause of all things, whether actual or virtual, it therefore coincides with wisdom: as also in the Metaphysics the reason of knowledge and of wisdom coincide: because this knowledge proceeds through the highest, or most universal, causes.

87 The reason, however, on account of which the knowledge of God is distinguished from the other intellectual virtues enumerated there is that it has a formal object distinct from all of them. For art, as D. Thom. says in the question cited, 1. 2, art. 3, is a right reason of things to be made, as also prudence is a right reason of things to be done: yet in such a way that the former, on the testimony of the same Sacred Doctor in the same place, if taken precisely, confers the faculty of a good work, but not a right use of it, because the good of artificial things is not a good of appetite, but a good of the artificial works themselves: and therefore art does not presuppose a right appetite; whereas prudence, namely, not only confers the faculty of a good work, but also its use; or that it be rightly done in the moral order; and so it presupposes a right appetite. Now neither of them tends reductively and formally to its own object, insofar as that object is reachable through its causes, so that this be the most formal reason of reaching it, but only specifically, from the fact that both can reach the causes of the thing about which they are concerned; and [that] in the divine essence, as in the cause, they reach their material object, namely creatures: yet neither according to what is peculiar to it looks to the divine essence, as most formally it has the character of a cause and of a means for knowing the creature, so that in this consists their proper reason: but each one of them, according to what is peculiar to it, looks to the divine essence most formally and reductively speaking, as it has that highest actuality from which it follows that it is the reason of knowing and of being conversant with its material object, namely with creatures: so that this reason, as it were, formalizes the other reasons, and consequently draws out that reason of reaching its own object in the divine essence, as in a cause, from this, that it has the character of its proper knowledge, which seeks the opposite.

88 And then, because, as the same D. Thom. teaches in the question cited, art. 6, three acts of reason are found with regard to things to be done, the first of which is to deliberate, the second to judge, the third to command; therefore for the first act a special virtue is posited, which is called Eubulia, and transferred to God it has to deliberate about means, with the imperfection of inquiry excluded, and to look to the divine essence, as by the manner of an object, or of the reason under which, and in the way just explained, is the reason of deliberating about means. For the second, however, two virtues are posited, namely Synesis and Gnome, as the Angelic Doctor teaches there: yet in such a way that Synesis judges according to common rules, and Gnome beyond those: and consequently both look to the essence of God, according as the reason, which we have already indicated, is the reason of judging in the manner proportionate to each of them. And likewise, because the proper act of prudence is to command, on the testimony of the Angelic Doctor in art. 6, cited above, it therefore looks also to that same essence of God, as in the same proportional way it is the reason of commanding. None, however, of the aforesaid virtues terminates formally and reductively in that same essence, as having the character of a cause, or of a reason a priori, of things to be known: and so all of them are distinguished from knowledge, as also from one another, on account of the distinct formal objects already explained to which they look. But on all these matters let D. Thom. be consulted throughout the question cited, q. 57, and 2. 2, q. 47, art. 4 and 5, and q. 49, as also q. 51, art. 4:

Nor against these does the proof of the minor brought forward there have force. For from the fact that the knowledge of God must be most perfect in the line of practical knowledge, it is inferred at the utmost that there must exist in God's intellect the most perfect reason, both with respect to all things to be done and to all things to be made; but not in the same way, and under the same formal reason under which the intellectual virtues already described have that: because knowledge looks to all these things as they are reachable through the essence of God, as it has the character of a cause, or of a reason a priori of them, but not so the aforesaid virtues. And so, although prudence, for example, is a virtue perfecting the practical intellect, and consequently a practical intellectual virtue, nevertheless, formally speaking, it is not practical knowledge.

89 At the last, with the antecedent granted, the consequence must be denied. And for the proof, the antecedent must be granted, both on account of the reason brought forward there, and also because in God there cannot be physical knowledge, taken formally: because knowing through a medium that concerns sensible matter signifies an imperfection to be banished from God. And then the supposition of the consequence must be denied, namely that the knowledge of God is infinite in the genus of intellection, in the way in which it is infinite in the genus, or within the line, of knowledge: because in the line of knowledge, which is only the single one, it is infinite as comprehending and formally containing all the perfection of that single line: but within the order and genus of understanding, under which several lines are contained, it is not infinite as comprehending and formally containing the whole perfection of all the lines, but as a single line, and as the formal reason contained under that genus. And so within that same genus of understanding there can be given a multiplied intellection contained under that genus, which pertains to diverse lines, as is clear from itself. Although it stand that the line of knowledge is identified with the other lines already mentioned, so that it is only virtually distinguished from them.

1 This twofold distinction, which the Angelic Doctor adduces in the article, is involved in several difficulties; and on that account it requires a disputation of its own.

Because the Angelic Doctor in the present article sets up the distinction proposed in the title of this difficulty, so as to draw from it at last that God is most highly intelligent, and therefore most highly knowing, the Thomists generally, and other theologians, in their commentaries on this article, ask whether the aforesaid distinction was rightly assigned by the holy Doctor; and we too, for this reason, raise almost the same question about whether it is true of divine knowledge.

§ I. Explanation of the title.

In order that the title may be better understood, it must be noted whether the thing in question is something distinct from its own form, or essence, and therefore has another form distinct from its own form; or whether it is, apart from its own form, of the form of some other thing, or of that form which is the form of another thing (so to speak) subjectively. For the first question, it is enough to observe that it has, besides its own form, or essence, within itself another accidental form, whether that form be communicated to it from something else, or arise from intrinsic principles, and whether it be the very same form and quiddity of some other thing or not. For the second, however, if we speak properly, altogether rigorously, and formally, it is required that it have, besides its own form, or essence, that very form which is in the other; so that there be no diversity on the side of form, even though they may be distinguished from one another on the side of their mode of being. For by the very fact that such a form is not the form which is, in the strict sense, in the other, but a distinct form on the side of form, it can indeed be the form of another thing efficiently; yet not (so to speak) subjectively: because the very same thing, without any distinction on the side of form held by the one, is not held by it as held by the other.

Hence in the title, deliberately, and adhering to the words of the holy Doctor, the question raised was whether it is proper to knowers, insofar as they are distinguished from non-knowers, that they have the form of some other thing; and not whether it is proper to them that they have another form distinct from their own form; so that by this the point intended to be denoted was not that any account be given of their having a form distinct from their own form, but that the very same form which is held by other things should also be in knowers, and that they should be distinguished only on the side of the mode of being, and not on the side of the form held.

2 And therefore, when in the same title it is asked whether it is proper to non-knowers to have their form alone, the word alone is placed to exclude the claim that they do not have the form of another thing: ¹ so that the very same form which is the form of another thing could not, in the strict sense as then imported, be in them together with their own form, precisely from the side of form; and not to denote that they have no form whatsoever distinct from their own, which is also at the same time diverse on the side of form from the form of another thing: as is seen in other material things, which indeed besides their own form can also have other accidental forms, whether flowing from intrinsic principles or communicated to them from elsewhere and extrinsically, as light is seen in air serving as a receptacle, and heat in water serving as a receptacle; yet although the aforesaid forms may be those of another thing, that is, of the Sun or of fire, as efficient causes, they are not nevertheless (so to speak) forms of another thing subjectively; that is, although they are the very same forms as those caused by the Sun or by fire, they are not the very same as those which are subjectively in the Sun or in fire; but on the side of form they are distinct from them. And so the heat of fire is one thing and the heat of water another: and the light of the air one thing, and that of the Sun another. Then it must be noted that, because these forms which are called by the holy Doctor forms of another thing are intentional forms, and it is thus collected that knowers can receive the form of another thing, from the fact that they can have the intentional species of that thing, as may be seen in this article; it follows that what is clear from this, and from what we have said in the treatise on the Vision of God, is the same as asking whether knowers, insofar as they are distinct from non-knowers, can have the form of another thing, as asking whether the species, or intentional forms, which knowers are naturally able to receive, are the very same forms as the objects which are represented through them and are known through those same means; so that although, for example, a man, or some colour, considered on the side of the thing, is distinct from itself as it is in its own intentional species, or is distinct from those species, as it is formally considered in representative being, yet on the side of form they should not be different, but that the very same colour, the same in number, considered on the side of form, which is considered on the side of the thing, should also be in the species, or in the vision by means of the species, even though taken in itself and on the side of the thing it has the natural mode of being; whereas in the vision it has the intentional mode of being.

3 For by the very fact that the species is, in the way explained, of precisely the same nature as the object, it cannot but be proper to knowers, insofar as they are distinguished from non-knowers, that they can have the form of another thing; since indeed they can have intentional forms, which are themselves the very forms and quiddities of another thing. Conversely, if the species are not the forms of another thing, or of a thing having a different mode of being, namely a natural one, then it cannot be proper to knowers that they have the form of another thing; since indeed, as we were saying, other things come to be only through intentional forms. And so it will be the same to ask whether knowers, insofar as they are distinct from non-knowers, can have the form of another thing, as to ask whether the aforesaid species, which knowers can receive, are the very same forms and natures as the objects, though under a different mode of being. And although in the treatise on the Vision of God, article 2, we have touched upon this very point, to show that it involves a contradiction against the granting that there is a created intelligible species proper to God as he is in himself, from the fact that the intelligible species is on the side of form of precisely the same essence as the thing represented through it, so that nothing is lacking to it save only the mode of its having that thing in natural being; and hence, since it involves that something created is of the same nature as God, it will involve also that there be an intelligible species proper to God himself, or his representative species as he is in himself; nevertheless, because we have treated of this there almost in passing, and could not meet with the many difficulties that well up on this and that side against the doctrine of the holy Doctor, we shall therefore discuss it here in its proper place, together with the other interpreters of the holy Doctor.

4 Lastly it must be noted that, although some think that this difficulty is rather about the name than about the thing, from the fact that the holy Doctor and his disciples, asserting that the intentional species are of the same reason and nature as the objects represented by them, are willing that they be of the same nature with them only in representative and intentional being, and that this is nothing else than that the aforesaid species represent those objects, which is indeed in no way denied by the adversaries; nevertheless, if it be examined closely, the aforesaid difficulty will be found to be not about the name, but very much about the thing.

For although the Angelic Doctor and his disciples are willing that the intentional species should represent their object, and intend nothing beyond that and what is involved in it; yet they infer from this very well that the intentional species is of the same nature as its object, though under a different mode of being, namely the representative; because they think that the aforesaid species cannot represent its object intentionally as regards its predicates, for example the quidditative, unless those predicates be univocally, or as being altogether the same and under some real mode of being, in that species and in the object alike, as will be clear from what is to be said in this difficulty; and therefore they assert that, by the very fact that a representative species of God as he is in himself is granted, the real and quidditative predicates of God must be univocally, or as being altogether the same, to be in God and in the species, though under a different real mode of being; and hence with them it is the same for the intentional species to represent its object as to show that object through a mode having the same nature as it, though distinct on the side of the mode of being.

5 On the other hand, the adversaries, although several of them grant that the impressed and the expressed species formally represent their objects; and although some grant this only to the expressed species and not to the impressed one, attributing to the latter only a virtual representation: yet they do not mean by this that, in order that a species may formally represent its object as regards its predicates, for example the quidditative, the very same predicates under some univocal mode, or as being altogether the same, ought to be contained in the object and in the species alike; in that sense indeed proportionate to it, that a man depicted on a wall, although he represents a true and living man, yet the predicates of a true and living man as such are not univocally the same under a real mode of being, both in that painting and in the living man himself, who is true. Hence, although they grant formal representation to the species, they do not grant that the aforesaid nature and the aforesaid predicates are found univocally, or as being altogether the same though under a different mode of being, in both; and in this consists the force of this difficulty.

§ II. The first manner of speaking is referred to.

6 The first manner of speaking is that of certain men who hold that the intentional species which knowers are naturally able to receive are not of the same nature and form as their objects, even though both the species and the object are considered on the side of form, as being distinct from those things which are said to differ only on the side of the mode of being; and therefore that knowers are not distinguished from non-knowers by the fact that they can have the form of another thing; whereas the latter are. Thus Albertus Magnus, On the Soul 2, tractate 9, chapter 11; Toletus, question 34; Rubio, treatise on objects and sensible species, question 4; Fonseca, Metaphysics 2, chapter 2, question 2, section 2; Molina, part 1, question 12, article 1; Vazquez, in the same place, article 2; Suarez, Summa Theologiae volume 3, tractate 3, On the Soul book 3, chapter 2, number 9, and in volume 1 of the Summa Theologiae, book 2, chapter 13, number 20; and many others.

This manner of speaking, as regards its second part, plainly follows from the first, from what we have said in the explanation of the title and in the cited place of the treatise on the Vision of God. As regards the first part, however, it is proved first by the testimony of the holy Doctor, question 8 on truth, article 11, against 3, in these words: It must be said that between the knower and the known no similarity is required of the kind that is according to congruence in nature, but only according to representation. For it is certain that the form of the stone in the soul is of a nature altogether different from that of the stone in matter.

Then it is proved by reason. Because the divine essence has the most perfect reason of an intelligible species with respect to creatures; and yet it is not of the same nature as they are, otherwise God would be of created nature: therefore it is not proper to an intelligible species to be the same form, or nature, as its object.

7 It is confirmed firstly. For if the divine essence, since it has the reason of an intelligible species with respect to creatures, were of the same nature as the creatures represented, it would be similar to them; since indeed things that are of the same nature must be similar to one another; but this is against that of Isaiah 40, where it is said: And to whom have you made him like. Neither is it against the doctrine of the holy Doctor, question 4, article against 4, ergo, etc.

It is confirmed secondly. Because the species of the highest Angels are the most universal in representing, so that they represent several specific natures essentially distinct from one another, as the theologians commonly teach about Angels in matter: therefore the aforesaid species cannot be of the same nature as the objects represented; therefore neither will the other species be the same in nature as their objects. This latter consequence is clear from the previous one. The previous one, however, follows from what precedes. Because a single and the same intelligible species cannot have so many complete natures pertaining to its intrinsic reason, nor can so many complete and entire natures constitute one and the same intelligible species.

Thirdly. Because two accidents otherwise could be at once diverse only as to number in the same subject; but this is repugnant, as we have said in tractate 1 on the principle of individuation, disputation 2, number 57: ergo, etc. The consequence seems clear. Because two species of two whitenesses cannot be distinguished more than numerically, if once they have the same numerical nature as their object, and yet these are received at once in the eye. That argument presses even harder in the case of intelligible species, which are such as to be made intermediaries by the intellection of singulars, as our Complutensians teach very well in their book on the Soul, disputation 18, numbers 77 and 99; and yet if these represent a twofold man, and are of the same numerical nature as their objects, they cannot be distinguished according to this reason more than numerically, and since they are received in the same spiritual subject, that is, in the intellect, they cannot but be received in precisely the same subject.

8 Fourthly. For sensible species, which are received in a medium or in a mirror, are not of the same essence as their objects: therefore neither are those which are received in the sensitive powers; and consequently neither is the intelligible species. This last consequence is clear from the parity of reason. The previous one, however, follows from what precedes. Because sensible species diffused from the sensible object into the power through a medium are of the same essence both in the medium and in the sensitive power: just as heat diffused from fire into the hand through a medium is of the same essence in the medium and in the hand; and likewise light communicated to the eye from the Sun, by means of a transparent body, is of the same nature in the intermediate transparent body and in the eye.

9 The antecedent, moreover, is clear. Because the intentional species which are in a medium do not confer on it that it have the form of another thing; because knowers alone are naturally able to have the aforesaid form: therefore it is a sign that the aforesaid species are not the forms of another thing, that is, of their own objects, or (which is the same for the present) that they are not of the same nature on the side of form and essence with them: since indeed any form, at least speaking naturally, communicates to its subject whatever it has in itself as that by which it has it; and so a form which does not confer on the subject that it communicate in the same nature, in the way explained, with another thing, is a sign that it is not of the same nature as that thing in the sense explained.

10 Fifthly. Because the intelligible species is a certain spiritual accident, whereas its object is often a substance: likewise the sensible species does not impede sensation, even though it be in the organ and in the sensitive power; whereas a sensible object placed above the sense does impede sensation: and finally a sensible species, for example that of sight, cannot be seen; yet the visible object can be seen well: therefore it is a sign that the species and its objects are not of the same nature and essence; otherwise those things which agree with the objects could not be repugnant to their species.

It is confirmed. For whiteness and blackness are contrary to one another, and therefore cannot be composed in one and the same subject; but the sensible species of these qualities do not have contrariety between them, and so they can be at once in the same part of a medium, or in the same visual power, as the philosophers commonly admit: therefore the aforesaid species and their objects do not have the same nature. The consequence is clear: because things which do not have the same properties do not share in the same nature; therefore, since the sensible species of whiteness and of blackness do not have their properties, that is, of being mutually opposed to one another, neither will they share in the very same nature with them.

11 It makes no difference if you meet with the position that species and objects are diverse on the side of the mode of being, though not on the side of form, in order that the species be an accident and the object have the reason of a substance; and likewise in order that the objects be contrary to one another, and, being placed above the sense, impede sensation, but the species not; because all these predicates do not agree with the natures of objects, unless they are under a determinate mode of being, that is, under a natural mode of being.

For against this is the fact that the intentional species cannot be diverse in reason from the objects on the side of the mode of being without also differing from them on the side of form and nature: ergo, etc. The antecedent is proved. For the mode of being in which they differ from the objects is that of being representative of them, as the philosophers commonly admit, and as will be clear from what is to be said in support of our opinion: but the proper differential and constitutive reason of the intentional species is that it be representative of its object; and so it was instituted by itself primarily for the sake of representing that object, as our Complutensians expound, On the Soul 3, disputation 18, number 28: therefore they cannot be distinguished from the objects on the side of the mode of being, or in representative being, without being distinguished on the side of form.

12 There is added, firstly, that when it is said that the species is of the same reason as the object, or that it is the same object under a different mode of being, either this different mode of being pertains to the nature of the species itself, taken formally, as the essential reason, or as its proper passion, or as a real accident of it? If the first or the second is said, the aforesaid species cannot but be essentially distinguished from the object: since whatever includes something essential which another does not include, or entails some proper passion which another does not bring, cannot but be essentially distinguished from it. The third, however, cannot be said. For just as the object is identified with its natural mode of being, and such a mode of being is more interior to it than any other proper passion of it, and therefore it cannot be compared with it after the manner of a real accident, so also the species will be identified altogether with its intentional mode of being, and this mode of being will be more interior to it than any other property of it, and so it cannot hold itself with respect to it after the manner of a real accident.

There is added, secondly. That if the intentional species and its object were distinguished on the side of the mode of being, but not on the side of nature and form, there would fall down that axiom most noted in the light of nature and universally true in created things, namely: that things which are the same to a third are the same with one another; but this cannot be admitted, as is clear from itself: ergo, etc. The consequence is proved. For then whatever the intentional species imported on the side of form would be identified with the mode of being of those same species, and likewise with the natural mode of being of the objects; and yet those modes of being themselves, that is, the intentional being of the species and the natural being of the objects, with which that nature would be identified, would not be identified with one another.

13 There is added, finally, that if there were altogether the same nature on the side of nature in the intentional species and in the object, then something more wonderful would be seen in created things than in the uncreated and what it is in itself; but this cannot be said, as is clear from itself: ergo, etc. The consequence seems certain. Because in the uncreated what is seen is only this, that the divine nature is the same in number in the three divine persons, and in each under a different relative mode of being; but if there were the same nature in the intentional species and in the object, then the very same nature would be in the object and in numberless intentional species; and what would be more wonderful still, not only would the same nature in number, taken in itself, be in them, but as supposed and terminated by its proper subsistence, as will be clear from what is said below; yet this cannot be found in the uncreated and what it is in itself: since indeed the divine nature, as it is in the Father and as terminated by Paternity, cannot be in the Son.

§ III. The opinion of Aristotle and of the holy Doctor is referred to, together with the testimonies of the most approved authors.

14 It must be said that the intentional species are of precisely the same nature, on the side of form and of nature, as their objects, and differ from them only in the mode of being, or that they are the very same essence as their objects under a different mode of being; and consequently that knowers are distinguished in this respect from non-knowers in that they can have the form of another thing, whereas the latter cannot.

This assertion, as regards its second part, plainly follows from the previous one, as is clear from what we said in numbers 2 and 3. Because knowers alone can receive the intentional species as being species, and taken formally, as will be clear from what is said immediately after: therefore, once the intentional species are the very forms and quiddities of their objects, the consequence follows that knowers alone can have the form of another thing. The consequence is clear: because among created things the same form and nature of another thing cannot be had except through intentional species. And so all who teach the same thing as regards the first part, and whom we shall refer to in number 17, hold this assertion as regards its second part.

As regards its first part, however, that is, that the species formally taken and the object have the same nature, and are distinguished only by reason of the different mode, in as far as that nature is in the object under a natural mode of being, whereas in the intentional species it is under an intentional and representative mode of being, is taught by Aristotle in his book on the Soul 2, text 121, and by the holy Doctor in the same place, lecture 24. Then also in Metaphysics 7, lecture 6, in the holy Doctor's words: Now those things are from art whose species is in the soul; and I mean by species whatever the being of anything was. These words are thus explained by the holy Doctor in the same place: He says therefore firstly that those things are from art whose productive species is in the soul; and by species he explains whatever the being of any thing was that was made through art, as whatever the being of a house was when a house is made.

15 And this very thing is taught by the same holy Doctor in Against the Gentiles 4, chapter 14, in these words: For it is manifest that if God understands himself, the whole fullness of him must be contained in the Word; and yet the substance given to the Son does not cease to be in the Father: because with us too the proper nature does not cease to be in the thing that is understood, from the fact that the word of our intellect has from the thing itself understood the intelligible containing the same nature in number. Then in the Theological Summa 8, article 4, in these words: The intelligible species is a likeness of the very essence of the thing, and is in a certain way the very quiddity and nature of the thing. And in order to explain why it is the quiddity and nature of the thing only in a certain way, and not absolutely and simply, he immediately added that it is such a quiddity according to intelligible being, and not according to natural being, which is in things.

Then in this article, where he shows that knowers have the form of another thing, because they are capable of receiving intentional species; but if these species were not the forms of another thing, the holy Doctor would reason badly when he inferred that knowers can have the form of another thing, because they can have intentional species. Then above, question 12, article 2. For, as we said there, it is collected from this that the intelligible and created species of God involves a contradiction, because the species is of the same nature as its object: so that if the object is pure act, having every perfection, the species must have this too.

16 Then in Against the Gentiles 3, chapter 49, and in question 2, article 1 and 3, when he says that the knower has the form of the known, because it has the species. Then in the Opusculum 42, chapter 7, at the beginning, when he says that the nature, for example, of an animal, taken in itself, is the same as that which is in the individuals and in the intellect by means of an intelligible species, though it be under a different state and mode of being in the intellect and in the individuals. Then in this work, part 1, question 80, article 1.

Then finally, question 2 on truth, article 2, where he teaches both parts of the assertion in these words: It must therefore be understood that a certain thing is found to be perfect in a twofold way. In one way, according to the perfection of its being, which belongs to it according to its own species; but since the specific being of one thing is distinct from the specific being of another thing, in every created thing that has this kind of perfection there is lacking as much of simple perfection as is found of perfection in other species: so that thus the perfection of anything whatever, considered in itself, is imperfect, like a part of the whole perfection of the universe, which arises from the perfections of the single things gathered together. Hence, so that some remedy might be given to this imperfection, another mode of perfection is found in created things, according to which the perfection which is proper to one thing is found in another thing: and this is the perfection of the knower, insofar as it is a knower: because according to this something is known by a knower which itself, the thing known, is in a certain way with the knower. And therefore in On the Soul 3 it is said that the soul is in a certain way all things: because it is naturally able to know all things, and according to this mode it is possible that the perfection of the whole universe exist in one thing.

Where, as you see, the holy Doctor distinguishes the mode of having the perfections of the universe according to the mode by which knowers have them, namely by means of intentional species, from the mode of having them in another way: and consequently according to natural being, or the natural mode; and he says that according to this last mode of being no created thing can have all the perfections of the universe; but otherwise according to that former mode, according to which knowers can have the perfections of others; indeed, if the species should be most perfect, all the perfections of the universe could be in them, insofar as all those can be in them through the mode of the known, or through intentional species, in which all their perfections are contained.

17 Nor do the explanations of these testimonies which the adversaries bring forward have any weight, as will be sufficiently clear to one who looks into them and into what we shall say remissively in the first reason in support of the assertion; and therefore they are deliberately omitted (in order that this may be said in passing).

The holy Augustine holds the same opinion in On Genesis 2, chapter 8, where he says that what is said in Genesis 1 of the firmament and the other things that are related, having been produced, to the effect that they were made twice, is this: that the firmament and the other things of this kind were made once in the angelic mind through their species, and besides in their own natures outside it; and consequently he clearly means that the intentional species of things and the things themselves are of the same nature and quiddity, although, as we were saying, they have a different mode of being.

Hence several, and very weighty, theologians commonly follow both Aristotle and the Angelic Doctor and the holy Augustine: Cajetan in the present place, and On the Soul 2, chapter 11, in the explanation of the first conclusion of Aristotle, § Around the same conclusion this occurs, and in this work, part 1, question 79, article 2, § as to the second. Ferrara, Against the Gentiles 1, chapter 44, and book 3, chapter 49. Durandus in question 2, distinction 49. Bannez, Zumel, Zanardi, Ripa, Nazarenus and Gonzalez in this article. Ledesma, on the perfection of God, question 8, article 4, in the explanation of the first reason for the second conclusion. Our Complutensians in their book on the Soul, disputation 18, number 40. And the Thomists in general.

§ IV. The opinion of Aristotle and of the holy Doctor is established by reasons.

18 The prior and fundamental reason in support of the assertion is drawn from what we brought forward from the Angelic Doctor in the preceding treatise, disputation 2, number 132, to prove that it involves a contradiction to grant that there is a representative species of God as he is in himself; and this can be proposed under this form. Because an intelligible species representing, quidditatively, a man, for example (which is the same thing we say of the expressed species, or of the word about it), represents formally the same man, and is similar to him: therefore it will bear a relation of similarity to him himself, and consequently it will be of the same nature as he is as to that in which it is similar to him, indeed not under a natural mode of being, but under another mode of being, that is, the intentional, or the intelligible. The antecedent is clear from what our Complutensians teach in their book on the Soul, disputation 18, number 26, and what we ourselves taught in the aforesaid treatise on the Vision of God, disputation 2, number 139, from the sources themselves.

The first consequence, however, is clear from the antecedent. Because things which represent another formally and quidditatively are similar to it in that in which they represent it; and things that are similar are said to bear a relation of similarity in that in which they are similar. The second, however, is clear from this. Because the relation of similarity is founded on an identity of nature as to that in which the extremes are similar; and so if an intelligible species representing a man quidditatively is similar to him in this, that it represents him, and this relation must be founded on the identity of that in which the similar things are similar, that is, on the quiddity which the species represents, then they cannot but, in the sense explained, be of the same nature.

And although the adversaries bring forward several and diverse solutions to this reason, since nevertheless, from what we said in the cited place, they remain sufficiently refuted, we shall say no further here. Yet let what was said there be consulted in general: because this reason, together with those we brought forward in the cited place, is confirmed, and is what most persuasively recommends the assertion of the holy Doctor and of ourselves.

19 The second and principal reason is drawn from the same Angelic Doctor, question 80, already cited. In order that it may be better grasped, it must be noted from the doctrine of the holy Doctor in the same place that, although in non-knowers only a single appetite is found, which is called the natural appetite, yet in knowers at least a twofold appetite is given, namely the natural appetite and, besides that, the animal appetite; and in men another, namely the rational, or the will together with the animal appetite. Between these appetites, however, the difference is this: that the natural appetite found in knowers tends only to what is connatural and proper to the thing of which it is such an appetite: as is clear from the natural appetite of weight for the place above, and of fire for the begetting of its like. But the animal or rational appetite is also directed toward other things, as when through this appetite we wish many good things for our neighbours, and many other things for ourselves which are not connatural to our nature.

From this, therefore, the following reason is derived. Because every inclination and appetite necessarily follows toward some form, as is clear by induction; but in non-knowers this appetite is so limited that it tends only to those things which are connatural to the proper form of the thing itself in which such an appetite is; on the contrary, the animal or intellectual appetite is not only directed, in its second act, to what is connatural and proper to the nature in which it is, but also to other things which are apprehended by sense or intellect: therefore it is a sign that non-knowers have only their proper form, whereas knowers have the forms of other things; not indeed in such a way that they have them under a natural mode of being, because this involves a contradiction, as is clear from itself and from what is said immediately after; but under the intentional mode of being, and by means of intentional species, which are the same as the represented object on the side of form and diverse in the aforesaid mode of being.

The major is admitted by the philosophers and theologians. The minor, however, is clear from the position set forth, which is also commonly received by them. The consequence, however, plainly seems to follow from the major and the minor. Because otherwise the inclination of a thing would exceed the form which such a thing has; and so it would follow toward that which is supposed, and yet would not follow: since indeed the proper inclination of a thing, following toward some form, cannot exceed that form, as will be clear to one who looks into it. Hence, just as it were repugnant that there be in non-knowers any inclination toward the goods connatural to some form, without that such form being in them in a manner proportionate to them; so likewise it will be repugnant that there be in knowers an inclination toward those things which are the proper goods of another form, unless such form be found in them in the proper mode of the knower, and so in a knowable and intentional way, or (which is the same thing) by means of intentional species.

20 From all of which it is clearer what we indicated above, namely that the intentional species is not so much to be said to be of the same nature as its object, as to be the essence and quiddity of that object under another mode of being, or to be the very object itself under a representative mode of being. For by a thing being said to be of the same nature as another, it is not necessarily removed that two individuals of the same nature be possible, as is clear from a twofold heat; but the species and the object cannot be of the same nature through the mode of a twofold individual participating in the same nature according to the species and diverse according to number.

And the reason is evident. Because if the intentional species represented the nature itself, for example the human, apart from individuating conditions, then, just as such an intentional species represents the nature itself in its fullness, and abstracted from the individuating conditions which divide it, so it cannot under the intentional and representative mode of being have that nature individuated, and by way of one of the individuals participating in such a nature, as is sufficiently clear from itself and from what we said in the cited place in the treatise on the Vision of God. If, however, that intentional species represents an individuated nature, then the very same numerical nature, as such, which is in the object under a natural mode of being, is in the species under another mode of being, namely the intentional, for the reasons stated, that is, because it very often happens that it represents formally not only the nature in some way, but the nature as it is individuated; and by means of that species and intentional form it can be, by itself and in the first instance, in the knowing nature, an appetite and inclination in it toward those things which are connatural and proper to its nature as individuated.

§ V. Observations very much to be noted, for the solution of the arguments of the opposite opinion.

21 In order that the arguments of the contrary opinion may remain far better and with great clarity resolved, it seemed good to point out in advance some things from whose full understanding everything that the adversaries object will easily and clearly collapse. In the first place, therefore, it must be noted that the name of a sensible or intelligible species is imposed to signify the same species, not only according to its own nature and according to what it is of the same reason as the object, but also as it is under a certain mode of being adapted and proportioned for the purpose of uniting the object itself with the power, drawing that object knowably toward the power itself. Just as also the name which is imposed to signify the object of that same species, for example this whiteness, represented by that same species, denotes the whiteness itself not only according to its essence, but also according to the natural and entitative mode of being which it has in itself, which is connatural to it as it is in itself; and therefore whiteness, simply and absolutely speaking, is said to mean the aforesaid whiteness under this natural mode of being, as we shall explain more fully from number 38 to 41 of this difficulty on the authority of Aristotle and the holy Doctor.

We said drawing that object knowably toward the power itself, not indeed in order to denote by this that the object must necessarily, according to its entitative being, be elsewhere outside the knower itself and be drawn through the species toward the knowing power itself; for the opposite of this occurs in the essence of an Angel, which has the reason of an intelligible species with respect to its own intellect, and in the order toward its own intellection; but in order to signify that even then the object and its nature is not united knowably, or in the being of an object, with its own intellect, except by means of the species, or by means of the very essence itself, insofar as it has the reason of an intelligible species; and so to be drawn knowably toward the power itself insofar as it is united with it by a new union, and united by a new relation.

22 Secondly, it must be noted that in the aforesaid sensible or intelligible species two orders of things and two kinds of being are contained: and each of these orders has its own proper constitutive principle; and each of these constitutives also declares its own or its own peculiar modes of being, under which it is. And therefore as many and as diverse predicates as this can be verified of the intelligible species, namely that according to one reason it is of the same nature as its object, as we were saying in number 14; and according to another it is diverse, as will be clear from what is said immediately after; and likewise that according to one consideration it is an accident and a certain quality, as we shall say in the next number; and according to another it can be a substance, as we asserted in the treatise on the Vision of God, disputation 2, number 135, and as will be clear from what is to be brought forward now: as also that according to a certain reason of its own it is limited and narrowed by the intellectual power in which it is received; whereas according to another, or rather according to that same one, it remains so ample, universal, and unlimited as if it were not united with the aforesaid power, as we were saying in the preceding disputation, number 22, and thenceforward; and so of the rest.

23 Thirdly, it must be noted that the first of the things found in the aforesaid species is the entitative and natural order and kind, as distinct from the intentional, or from intelligible being, taken formally; and to this entitative order and kind is assigned its own proper constitutive principle, and also its own proper mode of being, likewise entitative and natural. And so the intelligible species, representative, for example, of a man, considered in entitative being, declares the reason and the natural mode of an entitative and natural accident, and seeks a true inherence, and also its own peculiar individual reason, which although unknown we can describe and explain by this, that it is of such a condition that it has joined to it, after the manner of an inseparable accident, the intentional being of that same intelligible species; and at length it brings its own numerical nature, distinct from the numerical nature which is found in entitative being in any other intentional species whatever. And the reason for this notable fact is evident. Because cognoscible being, taken formally, must be founded on entitative and natural being; and consequently cognoscible being, formally accepted, which is found in the intelligible species, must suppose as its foundation the entitative being, and natural being of that same species: and since the aforesaid entitative being is not a substance but an accident, inasmuch as it is received in the intellect; and since the reason of this accident must be restricted by its own proper differential and individual reason, and also by a numerical nature distinct from any other which is found in another intentional species, as is clear from the terms themselves, it is necessary that the aforesaid species, according to entitative being, should declare the reason of an entitative accident, and also the individual and numerical reasons which we have already indicated. And at length, since the entitative order, beyond its proper constitutive principle, also brings its natural and entitative mode of being, it follows that the aforesaid species, representative, for example, of a man, as belonging to this order, must have its own natural mode of being corresponding to it, through which it is distinguished from that intentional and representative mode of being which the aforesaid quidditative predicates constituting that species would have, in entitative and natural being, in another species (if there were one) representing by itself in the first instance and directly the entitative and natural being of an intelligible species representing, for example, a man.

24 Fourthly, it must be noted that the aforesaid species, beyond this order and entitative being, contains also within itself another order and kind of being, the intentional, or (so to speak better) the order and kind of cognoscible being, taken formally; and with respect to this reason it has its own proper constitutive principle, and besides its own proper mode of being, indispensable and demanded from it by itself in the first instance. Because, as we were saying a moment ago, the name of the species, and the species itself, as it is under this concept, does not denote only its own quiddity and constitutive principle, which, as is clear from what has been said and will be clearer still from what is to be said, is nothing else, strictly and taken formally, save the very nature of the object which it represents; but it also declares a peculiar mode of being, under which the aforesaid nature is. Since, however, the aforesaid indispensable mode of being can scarcely ever be found without having another mode of being mixed with it, of which we shall speak immediately, it will almost always be mixed with that one.

Hence an intelligible species, representative, for example, of a man, considered in this way, declares as its own constitutive principle all the quidditative predicates of that same man which are represented through that same species. And then it brings its own mode of being, demanded of it by itself in the first instance, that is, such or such a degree of immateriality, so modified and purified that the nature of the object, such as it is under this purity so modified, can be drawn toward the intellectual power and united with it. And the reason is this. Since it is proper to the aforesaid intelligible species to draw the nature of the object toward the intellectual power and to unite it knowably with it, it is necessary that the aforesaid species contain within itself both the nature of the object itself and a mode of being so immaterial and modified that it is adapted for the purpose of this union being made; and finally that the aforesaid nature, contained there, be itself the constitutive principle of such a species considered in this way. Then because the species and the object must be the same, strictly and formally taken, as to their constitutive principle, as has been shown. And therefore, in accordance with the nature of the object which they represent, they are, or are not, of the same reason by themselves in the first instance, or diverse, according as that nature is the same or different.

25 Then also, because one must philosophize in the same proportionate way about the object and about its vicegerent, that is, about the species. And so, just as the object, for example a man, brings its own proper nature, and that as its own constitutive principle, and besides its own natural mode of being, so also the intelligible species, bringing the proper nature of a man under the aforesaid mode, will import it as its own constitutive principle, modified, however, by its own indispensable mode: for that mode, and the natural mode of being of the object represented through the species, and also the entitative mode of being which the intelligible species brings from matter, are unequal modes with respect to one and the same nature, for example the human, which, precisely because they are unequal, do not argue a distinction in it on the side of nature; but rather, just as in that conjunction in which the nature is under a natural mode of being, that nature absolutely, and speaking simply, has what it is itself to be primarily and by way of a constitutive principle imported, and that mode alone has, absolutely speaking, the reason of a mode; so, proportion being preserved, in that other conjunction in which the nature is under an intentional mode of being, that is, in a species, for example an intelligible one, one must philosophize.

26 Now the aforesaid indispensable mode of such or such a degree of immateriality, so modified that under it the species can sensibly or intelligibly unite the object with the power by drawing that object toward it, is scarcely ever found in creatures, unless that species and its immateriality be under another representative mode, which is a diminished mode of being. And therefore the same species almost always has joined to it the aforesaid representative and diminished mode, which is of such a condition that under it the same numerical Angelic substance, for example that of Michael, which according to its natural being is in Michael himself, may also be under this representative mode of being in the intelligible species of it which is in the intellect of Gabriel; and consequently may also be in that same intellect of the aforesaid Gabriel: yet under a natural mode of being, finite and limited, it cannot be in both. Yet since it is so that this representative and diminished mode of being does not pertain to the concept of an intelligible species in the being of a species formally taken, and is not its indispensable mode; although, as we shall say below in this very difficulty, by the very fact that this diminished mode is granted, it always brings concomitantly the reason of a species, for example an intelligible one, and its indispensable mode.

27 The reason, for which we have said that the immaterial mode of being so purified and purified that it can unite the object with the power by way of a species is scarcely ever found in creatures unless it has at the same time joined to it the representative and diminished mode of being, is this. Because a sensible object, such as it is in itself, has mixed with it much materiality and coarseness. And so it cannot be united with the power unless it be purified of this, and be under the diminished and representative mode, which is subtler and more purified. And likewise a created intelligible object never has immateriality, or an immaterial mode of being so purified and modified that it can, at least speaking naturally, by itself be united in the reason of an object and of an intelligible species, unless it be the very substance of the thinker compared with his own intellect, or the intellect itself and the other accidents of it, and unless all of these be in such a state that they do not depend for their being understood upon phantasms.

28 For although the very substance of the thinker, for example the Angelic substance, is purified from physical matter; nevertheless, because as we said and explained in the treatise on the Vision of God, disputation 2, number 47, it is not its own intelligibility, nor is it pure intelligible form; therefore although it can be united to its own intellect by itself in the order toward its own intellection, yet not with a foreign intellect, except as it is in an intentional species, and except (so to speak) that it be clothed with that representative and diminished mode of being. And so it does not have, according to itself, a mode of being so immaterial and so purified and modified as to have, with respect to any Angelic intellect whatever, for example, the reason of an intelligible species, unless the aforesaid mode of being be mixed in.

Especially because nothing can be united under a natural mode of being with a twofold intellect: because the aforesaid mode of being limits and narrows things, so that that which is the form of this cannot be that of that. And therefore, as we were saying in number 16, a remedy has been provided for this in the intentional being under a representative mode of being: so that the substance, for example the Angelic substance, may inform both its own and a foreign intellect intelligibly: and consequently then the aforesaid diminished and representative mode of being must necessarily be mixed in.

29 Why, however (in order thus to satisfy in passing a certain objection tacitly), it is possible that an intelligible and intentional species representing an Angelic substance, for example Michael's, should not itself be under its own diminished being, intelligibility as it is, and any more than the substance of that same Michael; nevertheless it may unite that same Michael, in the reason of an object, with a foreign intellect, namely Gabriel's; yet since Michael cannot of himself perform this office, it will be clear from what is to be said in the treatise on Angels, and from what we touched upon in the treatise on the Vision of God, disputation 2, number 248, that this is indeed clear. For as, in order that a thing be the very essence and existence without any distinction, it is required that it be pure act in the entitative order; so too, in order that a thing not merely be existence, but also in order that a thing be an object directly and by itself known as that which it is, and having a natural mode of being, and at the same time be an intelligible species of itself, which can be united with a foreign intellect, it is required that it be pure act in the intelligible order; and consequently that it be its own intelligibility, as we said in the aforesaid treatise on the Vision of God, disputation 2, number 47: but as to having precisely the reason of an intelligible species by itself and directly, as occurs in an intentional species having a representative and diminished mode of being, that is another matter.

30 The reason, however, for which we assert that the aforesaid representative and diminished mode of being does not pertain to the quiddital concept of the species in cognoscible being, taken formally, and is not its indispensable mode, is that the intelligible species, taken in the sense explained, demands only that it be the very nature of the object, and that it bring that mode of being so immaterial and modified that under it it can unite the object and its nature with the power, as the holy Doctor teaches above, question 12, article 2; but it is not necessary for this that the nature of the object be united with the power under a representative and diminished mode of being. And so when the object in this way of itself brings these two things, as occurs in the substance of an Angel with respect to its own intellect, then it does not need an intelligible species through which it would be united with the aforesaid intellect under a representative mode of being; but the very substance of the Angel, without this diminished mode of being, has the reason of an intelligible species. When, however, the object cannot of itself be united to the power, because it does not have that mode of immateriality so purified and modified as is required for the aforesaid office, as happens in the same Angelic substance, for example Gabriel's, with respect to the intellect of Michael, for the reasons given in number 28, then another intelligible species is necessary, through which the substance of Gabriel is united with the intellect of Michael under a representative and diminished mode of being; though even then this diminished mode is not indispensable and demanded by itself in the first instance, but in a certain manner by accident, insofar as it is considered with respect to the defect which is found in the mode of being immaterial, demanded by itself in the first instance, and this mode can sometimes be severed and separated from this diminished mode of being.

31 And this very thing can be explained further from the fact that the substance of Gabriel, considered in the being of a species formally, with respect to which reason it is united with its own intellect, and the intentional species of that same Gabriel, which resides in the intellect of Michael, with whom Gabriel cannot be united by his own substance, are of the same reason as to everything that is required for the aforesaid species taken in the sense explained, both on the side of its quiddity and on the side of the mode of being demanded of it as indispensable, as we said in the treatise on the Vision of God, disputation 2, number 107. And therefore, if Gabriel understood himself through an intentional species distinct from him and representing him quidditatively, then that intellection would be of the same species as it is now. And likewise, if a created species representing God as he is in himself quidditatively were admitted, then the beatific vision elicited by means of it would be of the same species as that very vision which is now elicited from the blessed by means of the divine essence through the mode of an intelligible species: and yet if the representative species of Gabriel, which is in the intellect of Michael, is taken according to the representative and diminished mode of being which it brings, it cannot but differ according to this from the mode of being which the substance of Gabriel imports as united with its own intellect in the reason of an intelligible species: for its mode of being cannot be the representative and diminished mode of being: therefore it is a sign that the aforesaid representative and diminished mode does not pertain indispensably to the intelligible species in cognoscible being, taken formally; whether as its quiddity, or as its indispensable mode.

We have said that it does not pertain to the intelligible species in cognoscible being, taken formally: because if it be taken, as is explained by this name and concept of an intentional and representative species, it is usually taken from common use as a species distinct from the object as to the mode of being, and involving a representative and diminished mode of being; and so, thus conceived, and as it is under this reduplication and signification, it must necessarily involve the aforesaid diminished predicate, as is clear from itself.

32 Whether, however, the aforesaid representative and diminished being, although it does not pertain to the concept of an intelligible species, nor is its indispensable mode, may nevertheless be an indispensable mode with respect to a sensible species as such; and whether this occurs because it is demanded by the force of its own line, or from other indispensable heads, though not from the force of its own line; and therefore, if by an impossibility a visible object were given so purified as the visible species itself, as many, whom our Complutensians report in their book on the Soul, disputation 10, number 6, confess of light itself, then, as they themselves also concede, it would be united of itself, without the diminished mode of being, with vision by way of an intelligible species, and in the order toward its own seeing. And so whether one must philosophize about the sensible species as such in this way or in that, is clear from what we have already indicated; and it will be clearer still from what we shall say.

From which also there remains solved a certain objection which perhaps might deter others, namely, that the intelligible species of its own accord and indispensably, from the force of its own line, declares the nature of the object with such or such a degree of immateriality, so modified and purified that it can unite the object with the power: therefore if representative and diminished being is required (as we were just saying) in order that the essence of Gabriel be united intelligibly with the intellect of Michael, it will follow that the representative and diminished mode of being of itself pertains to the concept of an intelligible species, coalescing (as we said in number 21) from the nature of the intelligible object and from the mode of immateriality required in order to unite the object with the intellectual power.

33 From what has been said, therefore, this objection remains solved. For just as in the opinion of some, a material substance, for example prime matter, has its entitative parts, and qualities also have theirs; and nevertheless these parts, considered in the being of parts, are not formally distinguished, but only materially, and by accident: because for the reason of entitative parts formally taken, only this is required, that one not be the other, and that they constitute a single integral, or quasi integral, entitative whole; whether this be of a material substance, or a quality, etc.; so also what is said of the formal, that indispensable mode which the intelligible species brings, is such or such a degree of immateriality, so purified and modified that it can unite the object with the power. But that this immateriality is brought, from the fact that the species brings a representative and diminished mode of being, or some other mode of being, for example a substantial one, is said of matter, and by accident. And therefore, as we were saying a moment ago, the intelligible species remains the same, and under the mode of being of immateriality already described, whether it be under the diminished mode of being or not; and the aforesaid mode of being of immateriality, as to the formal, which it brings when considered precisely, is of the same species and reason both in an intelligible species which is a substance and in an intelligible species which is an accident: and it has a diminished mode of being as often as the aforesaid species unite one and the same object, as is clear from what has been said.

34 Lastly it must be noted that, although on an reckoning of all the modes of being which, beyond the nature of the object, are found in the intelligible species, there are almost always at least the three already enumerated, nevertheless the Doctors frequently, while professing the natural and entitative mode of being, do not distinguish so precisely and under the names already mentioned that indispensable mode of being demanded from that same species; but they sometimes somehow confound it with intentional being, and a representative mode of being; yet they frequently also profess that both modes of being are in some way distinct from one another. And therefore they say what we were just saying, namely that the substance of Gabriel, insofar as it has the reason of an intelligible species with respect to its own intellect, is of the same reason as to everything that is demanded as indispensable for an intelligible species, as the intelligible species representing that same Gabriel and residing in Michael; although the substance of Gabriel does not have the aforesaid representative and diminished mode of being, yet it does have that due immaterial mode of being already explained, in which that indispensable mode consists.

And then, because each of the two modes of being is contained both under the intentional mode of being and also under the representative mode of being, they frequently assign beyond the natural mode of being only one of these two.

35 The reason, however, for which each of the two modes is included under the intentional mode of being, and therefore, when this being is assigned, both the modes already mentioned are assigned as well, is this. Because when the intentional mode of being declares the mode of the intelligible species, or of the word, corresponding to them formally and peculiarly, as they serve for the cognition, intention, or attention of the intellect (for all these amount to the same thing for the present), and the aforesaid species according to that mode of being demanded by itself in the first instance serves peculiarly and by itself in the first instance for the aforesaid attention, and according to the representative mode of being is also, in the way explained, peculiarly destined for it in that order: therefore each of the two modes of being is comprehended under the intentional mode of being.

Hence the aforesaid mode of being is wont to be formally distinguished in itself, taken in intentional being and in intelligible being, with respect to which reason it is wont to denote that mode of being demanded by itself and indispensably; and in itself, according to those things which it involves in some way by accident and materially; and with respect to this reason, it is wont among other things to denote the diminished and representative mode of being: which is almost always required, because otherwise the object could not be united in the reason of an object on account of the conjunction which it has with other reasons that prevent this union, although the aforesaid conjunction does not of itself and indispensably belong to it from the force of its own line, but from the force of other lines.

36 And likewise the reason, for which each of the two modes is involved under the representative mode of being, is this. Because representative being can be taken in a twofold way. Firstly indeed for the diminished, representative and ostensive mode of being, whose office it is that the species under it should have, by way of a principle by which to represent or show to the knowing power the object which is contained in it under it, and by this means of representation to unite that object with the same power. Or for a mode of being which is indeed not diminished, but of such a condition that the species under it should also have in some way to represent, by way of a principle by which, the object itself to the power, according as under it it has to show that object to the power itself, and to unite that same object with it, still more perfectly than if it were united by means of a representative mode of being, as occurs in an Angelic standing substance, which has the reason of an intelligible species with respect to its own intellect, and does not bring that representative mode of being. Wherefore, since under representative being both modes of representing, or of showing, are comprehended, it follows that, the representative mode of being being assigned, without restricting it to the diminished mode of being, these two modes of being, in a certain way distinct from the natural mode of being, are also involved there.

37 Fifthly, each of the two is found under the representative and diminished mode of being. Because although the indispensable intentional mode of being already explained is not always and indispensably conjoined with the representative and diminished mode of being, on the other hand this representative mode of being is conjoined with the indispensable mode of being of immateriality, and not just anyhow, but in such a way that the representative and diminished mode of being of itself in the first instance demands this conjunction: and therefore under the representative mode of being each of the two modes of being is intimated and included. Hence such a mode of being, taken adequately and not with precision, with respect to which reason it declares itself as identifying both the diminished being and that indispensable mode, declares of the formal, and more principally, the indispensable mode; though taken with precision, with respect to which reason it is usually more frequently signified under this name of the representative and diminished mode of being, it denotes only that diminished mode: and therefore the representative mode of being, adequately accepted, is also wont to be distinguished in itself according to what it imports of the formal, and according to what it does not bring of the formal. Just as also (in order to say this in passing) under intentional being there is also included and involved that nature of the object which is under that mode, and likewise under representative being: because although that nature can be without these modes, yet the modes cannot be without it: and therefore, if they are taken adequately, and according to what they demand by themselves in the first instance, then they more principally declare the nature than the aforesaid modes.

Wherefore for this reason we shall often use not only the names signifying natural being, and intentional being, and representative being, but likewise the names denoting a natural, intentional and representative mode of being: because under these are contained all the things that pertain in any way to the species; and from what has just been said it is clear what is contained under these names, and in what sense.

§ VI. The arguments of the contrary opinion are resolved apart from the last one.

38 To the first, which was taken from the testimony of the holy Doctor, an answer is given from what was said in the preceding §. As to how the holy Doctor speaks of the intelligible species, not indeed in intentional being and representative, as to the nature which he brings under this being, but of that in natural being, and entitative, with respect to which reason it has a quiddity distinct from itself, taken in the first way, and from the object represented through it.

Add that for the species to be of the same nature as the object in representative being is to be the same with it not absolutely and simply, but with an addition, and with a condition diminishing the mode of having such a nature, that is, in representative being, or (as the holy Doctor speaks) according to representation. Hence the holy Doctor rightly, speaking absolutely and simply, said that the species of the stone which is in the soul is of a nature altogether different from that of the stone itself: because in order that it be absolutely and simply of the same nature, it would have been required that it have the aforesaid nature under a natural mode of being, from the fact that intentional being, as distinct from natural being, is diminished being, and according to what, and with an addition; whereas natural and entitative being is otherwise. And therefore to be such a thing entitatively and naturally is to be absolutely and simply such; but to be such only intentionally, and under a representative mode of being, is to be such according to what, and with an addition, that is, intentionally such and representatively such. By which also it is sufficiently clear regarding the other testimonies which could have been brought from the holy Doctor.

39 It makes no difference if you say that intentional being is being more elevated than natural being, and entitative: therefore, once the intentional species is the very quiddity of its object under intentional being, and representative, then knowers, which receive the aforesaid species in themselves, will not only have the nature of the object absolutely and simply, but under a nobler mode of being than if they had it under a natural and entitative mode of being. The consequence seems legitimate. The antecedent, however, is clear from what has been said above. Because intentional being is less material, and consequently freer from matter, which is the root of potentiality and imperfection.

For the answer must be given that intentional being, taken precisely, is nothing except a more perfect and more elevated being according to what than natural being, and entitative; and therefore by reason of this greater elevation it can be extended to certain other effects which entitative being cannot reach. Nor does the opposite of this refute the proof of the antecedent. Because being which is freer from matter is, other things being equal, nobler than that which is more material; but otherwise when the other things are not equal, as occurs here. Hence although a spiritual accident be less material than a material substance, it is not therefore absolutely and simply nobler than it, from the fact that the other things are not equal.

40 And this can be explained and confirmed from the fact that the intentional form, although it be of the same reason as the form which is under natural being, or rather be itself under another mode of being, nevertheless does not simply denominate the subject, as the intelligible species, or the sensible species of whiteness, does not simply denominate that subject white. Then because this is what Aristotle teaches in On the Soul 2, text 121, saying: that the intentional species of a certain thing is the same essence as that of which it is the species, not insofar as it is called such, but insofar as it is such. Which is the same thing as to assert that the aforesaid species is the same as the form of which it is the species, yet does not absolutely and simply denominate as that form does. Then also, because a denomination is made from a form according to its own proper and connatural perfection; but the form in an intentional species does not have the conditions owed to its own proper and connatural mode of existing, that is, the natural mode, but those proportioned to the mode of being of knowers: and therefore it neither denominates the subject, nor is it itself so denominated absolutely and simply speaking, but with an addition, that is, in cognoscible or intentional being: therefore it is a sign that the form, as it is under the aforesaid intentional being, and consequently the aforesaid being, is surpassed absolutely in perfection by natural being, and is being what is diminished. For a form under a mode of being that is not diminished, especially if it be permanent, cannot but simply denominate that subject, and be denominated such.

41 To the second, the major and the minor having been granted, the consequent must be distinguished: and the consequence must be granted if it is understood of the species taken together with its primary object; but it must be denied if it is understood of the same species compared with its secondary object, which the aforesaid species represents after the manner of a cause, as occurs in the divine essence. Wherefore, although a species representing something as a primary object must be the same as it as to the form represented, it is not necessary that it be the same in this way with the secondary object. For when it represents the primary object by itself, and by its own reason, and as it is such, it must be of the same nature as it, though under another mode of being. But when it represents the secondary object aforesaid by the reason of another object represented by itself in the first instance, it need not be of the same nature as that object, but with the object by whose reason it represents the secondary one. Add that, at the very least, it is enough for the reason of the species that it should contain eminently, or virtually, the nature of its secondary object, as is seen in the divine essence with respect to creatures, although this aforesaid containment is not always necessary.

42 To the first confirmation, it is clear from what has just been said. Because, as Ferrara noted well in Against the Gentiles 2, chapter 98, when a form is eminent and contains eminently the form and nature of another thing, it is not of the same reason as it, nor ought it to be properly and speaking rigorously to be similar to it; whereas on the other hand an inferior form contained in it can have a similarity with it; and so although creatures may be similar to the divine essence, the divine essence is nevertheless not similar to creatures.

And this the holy Doctor explained very well in question 1, article 2, in the body of distinction 19, saying that a form is said to belong to a thing when it has it fully and according to every reason; and so when two things have some form fully, then both are similar to one another. But if the form be full in one and diminished in the other, then the thing which participates in such a form in a diminished way is similar to the other, and not conversely; just as a painting is similar to a man, but not conversely. But the form in which and by which God understands all things, that is, his essence, is full and perfect only in God himself; in other things, however, it is found only in a diminished and minute way, and according to an analogous participation or imitation; and therefore created things are said to be similar to him in the same way, although God is not similar to any creature.

43 To the second confirmation, for now the answer is given by conceding that the intentional species of the highest Angels represent, distinctly and formally, several and diverse specific natures: yet so that these have themselves after the manner of a secondary object, and that the other, more universal reason, in which all those agree and under which they are contained, has itself after the manner of an object represented by itself in the first instance, as Nazarenus noted well in volume 3, in part 1, question 55, article 3, controversy 1, notable 6, referring to Cajetan and Ferrara. For since the aforesaid intentional species are of a higher and more eminent order, and are said in a peculiar sense to be participations of the divine essence, as having the reason of an intelligible species, it follows that, just as the divine essence, from the fact that it is most perfect in the reason of an intelligible species, can represent several and diverse secondary objects, diverse in species and as to their own, although its own primary object is only one, so also the aforesaid intentional species can, in a proportionate way, have several and diverse secondary objects, and have their primary object be one only.

Now it does not follow from this that these intentional species are formally of the same quiddity as each of the natures represented by them, and as they are distinct from one another, but that they are of the same nature as that reason which is represented by itself in the first instance, in which all agree; and besides that they contain eminently and in a surpassing way those natures which are diverse in species, or (which is the same thing) that they are a reason surpassing them: because although they represent them according to their own, they nevertheless represent them in a secondary way, and by the reason of another thing represented by itself in the first instance. But we shall return to these matters in the treatise on Angels.

44 To the third, the answer is given that if we speak of the intelligible or sensible species, whether as to representative being, or (so to speak better) as to the representative mode of being taken with precision, or as to its material and natural being, it is already clear from what we said in tractate 1, disputation 2, numbers 73 and 74, and from what our Complutensians teach in their book on the Soul, disputation 18, question 6, what is to be said, and how that mode of being and the entitative being of the aforesaid species are essentially distinguished, as Cajetan taught and proved learnedly in part 3, question 35, article 5.

If, however, we speak precisely of the numerical nature, as it emerges under the indispensable mode of being in the intentional species, then it is not incongruous that two natures diverse only as to number be in the same subject, or intellect: because, as we touched upon in the preceding disputation from number 22 to 26, and as we shall say here from number 72 to 84, sense and intellect are not compared with the aforesaid species, at least thus taken, as a subject in the strict sense, nor is the intellect itself individuated from them according to this reason, but from the represented nature itself, not just anyhow, but connoting that it is under a natural mode of being. Why a nature thus taken should radically individuate a sensible species accepted in the sense explained, is clear from what we said in number 21 and from number 38 to 41.

45 To the fourth, the answer is given by denying the antecedent. And as to the proof, the antecedent having been granted, the consequence must be denied. For although we grant that any form communicates to a connatural and capable subject whatever it has in itself as that by which it has it, it is not therefore necessary that it communicate to a subject which it regards rather as a medium than as a subject, and which for that very reason is not capable of all the formal reasons that are found in the aforesaid form, as occurs here. For sensible species received in a medium or in a mirror regard it rather after the manner of a medium than after the manner of a subject, and inhere in it not in order to be established there, but in order that they may be able to reach their own connatural subject, or quasi subject. And therefore the aforesaid species are received in a medium, not indeed according to intentional being, and representative, of which it is not capable, but only according to natural being, and entitative: and consequently they do not confer on it that it have the form of another thing. The reason, however, for which the aforesaid medium is not capable of receiving the intentional and representative being of a species, is that it comes to the same thing to unite the species according to this being and to constitute that which it is joined to in the first complete act, on the side of the object required, in the order toward knowing the aforesaid object.

Nor is there wanting some example by which this very thing may be made clearer. For in a moral act, for example the paying of a debt owed, there is found an order of nature, as distinct from the moral, and at the same time a moral order: and each of these orders has its own proper specificator; and according to the probable opinion of many, such an act can remain such an act as pertains to the natural order without remaining so as it pertains to the moral order, as when it is done without any deliberation. If, therefore, the aforesaid act can persevere as it regards one order without remaining the same as it regards the other order, why could the same intentional species, as it pertains to the entitative and natural order, as distinct from the intentional, not inform some medium according to this reason, without informing it as it pertains to the aforesaid intentional order; and bring its proper nature of its object, from the fact that the aforesaid medium is incapable, on its own part, of this latter union, but not of the former?

§ VII.

The last argument is resolved.

46 To the last, which needs a fuller solution, the antecedent must be granted as to all its parts: yet so that as to the first, in which it is said that the intelligible species is a certain spiritual accident, and that its object is often a substance, it be understood of the intelligible species in entitative being, and natural, and not in intelligible being, and representative. And then the consequence must be denied. In proof of which it must be said that things which agree with objects on the side of form and nature cannot be repugnant to intentional species; but those things which agree with them as they are under a material and entitative mode of being, as occurs here, are repugnant. For that a sensible object placed above the sense should impede sensation, or should be able to be felt as an object, that which belongs to it not just anyhow, but as it is under its own material and natural mode of being. And so it is no wonder that it does not agree with a sensible species, which under a different mode of being is the form and nature of the aforesaid object.

By which also it is sufficiently clear regarding the confirmation. For whiteness and blackness are not qualities contrary to one another unless they are under a material and entitative mode of being, and not precisely by reason of the nature and form imported; nor indeed by reason of a representative mode of being: and therefore their intentional species are not incomposable in the same subject or medium.

47 Hence the holy Doctor, in the last lecture of On Sense and Sensible, near the middle, solves this very same confirmation from Aristotle in these words: This objection, however, Aristotle removes in his book on the Soul, when he says: And it is impossible for white and black to be at once, and therefore neither can the species suffer them. And he hints at the solution by this, that it belongs to this, namely to sense, and to intelligence, or the intellect. From which it can be understood that it does not hold altogether in sense and intellect as it does in natural bodies. For a natural body receives forms according to natural and material being, according as they have contrariety in themselves. And therefore the same body cannot receive whiteness and blackness at once; but sense and intellect receive the forms of things spiritually and immaterially, according to a certain intentional being, since they do not have contrariety. Hence sense and intellect can receive at once the species of contrary sensible things: something like which can be seen in the transparent, which in one and the same part of itself is altered by white and by black: because the alteration is not material, according to natural being, as has been said above.

Where it is also to be considered (in order to say this in passing, and at the same time to show how rightly these things cohere with what we said in the answer to the third), that the holy Doctor deliberately said only that the alteration which takes place in a medium through white and black can be in the same part of the medium, from the fact that that alteration is not material according to natural being; but he did not add that it is according to cognoscible being, representative, taken formally. Because, as we were saying in the cited place, species are not received in a medium formally in cognoscible being, and as they are representative, whether according to the nature which they represent; but only in entitative being: although not in the material and coarse entitative being which the sensible objects themselves have; but according to a more elevated immaterial being, that concerns matter less, and finally of such a condition that it does not conflict in the same medium, and also subject, with the being which is still entitative and natural, and elevated from matter, which the species of blackness brings with it.

48 And this composability of intentional species representing diverse natures, which according to the natural mode of being which they have between themselves are incomposable, can be further elucidated by the discourse which the holy Doctor adduces in the place recently cited, and also Aristotle in Metaphysics 7, where the holy Doctor also, lecture 6. For after the Philosopher had put forth the words related above by us, that is: Now those things are from art whose species is in the soul; and I mean by species whatever the being of anything was, he immediately explained how, although certain artificial forms are incomposable with one another, as they are under a natural mode of being in themselves, yet not as they are in the intellect; although there also is the quiddity of such forms, which are otherwise incomposable with one another, he added: For in a certain way the species of contradictories is the same, that of privation, namely, which is the substance of the opposite, such as health of sickness, for sickness is shown to be the absence of that.

49 Which words the holy Doctor thus explains in the same place. He says therefore firstly that those things are made by art whose productive species is in the soul. And by species he explains whatever the being of any thing was that was made through art, etc., and so he immediately subjoins: But this form, which is in the soul, differs from the form which is in matter. For the forms of contradictories in matter are diverse and contrary; in the soul, however, there is in a certain way one species of contradictories: and this because the forms in matter are properly being of the things formed. But the forms in the soul are according to the mode of the cognoscible and the intelligible; and the being of one contrary is removed by the being of the other; but the cognition of one opposite is not removed by the cognition of the other; rather it is aided. Hence the forms of opposites in the soul are not opposed; nay rather the substance, that is, whatever the being of privation was, is the same with the substance of the opposite (understand this after the manner of a surpassing reason, which of itself in the first place brings the nature of the positive opposite, although it hints at and representatively signifies the privation itself, as is clear from what we said from the same holy Doctor, articles 9 and 10 of this question, and in this very difficulty). Just as the same (the holy Doctor continues) is the reason in the soul of health and of sickness. For sickness is known through the absence of health. But health, which is in the soul, is a certain reason, through which health and sickness are known.

Wherefore the solution given there, both for this last argument and for its confirmation, understood in the way explained, is the best possible. And as to the proof to the contrary, the antecedent must be denied. In proof of which, the major having been granted, in accordance nonetheless with what we said in the preceding §, the minor must be denied, if it be understood of the species in the reason of a species formally taken, and of representative being, as it calls the diminished mode of being, or according to which it is distinguished from the form which is contained there under that mode of being: because, as is clear from what has been said, the form and the nature contained there is what is established as the constitutive principle of the aforesaid species.

50 Nor does the point touched upon there stand in the way of this, namely that the intentional species are instituted by themselves in the first instance for the sake of representing. For, as our Complutensians teach in the cited place, it must be understood of the same species insofar as they declare the nature represented, and under a representative mode of being.

From which, as to what is added in the first place, it must be said that this representative mode of being neither pertains to the nature of the object, nor to its intelligible species formally considered in cognoscible being, as something essential, or as a proper passion; but as a mode of being of it: which is compared to it, taken in itself, after the manner of an accident predicated of it, virtually distinct from it: since indeed, as we were just saying, the very same nature of whiteness, or of light existing on a wall under a natural mode of being, is not there under a representative and diminished mode of being, and is in an intentional species under the aforesaid representative mode of being, and not under a natural mode of being.

Hence the aforesaid light, on the side of form and nature, and taken with precision, abstracts from this, that it is being under a natural, intentional and representative mode of being, and declares the essential predicates of light insofar as they abstract from this, that it is being itself and an act outside of the transparent, as the transparent is (by which the proper reason of the light, as it is under a natural mode of being, is explained); or from this, that the very same predicates are being intelligibly or sensibly the act of the transparent; or from this, that the very same predicates are contained there as the principle of sensing or understanding that same light, as it is an act of the transparent outside itself.

51 Nor is there an obstacle in the point adduced there, to prove that this mode of being cannot be compared, after the manner of an accident, with the nature in the intentional species representing it. And the reason is this. For although this representative mode of being is in a certain way more interior than the proper passions of such a nature, according as it is less distinguished from it, as often as the aforesaid nature is under it; yet it falls short of the reason of a proper passion on account of what we were just saying, that is, because a nature can altogether be connatural in something without it: as when it is under a natural mode of being, but not under a representative one.

To that, however, which is added in the second place, the answer is given that that axiom is maximally and universally true in created things, as often as certain things are identified with a certain third thing, as it is under a natural, finite and limited mode of being; but not as often as they are identified with a third thing according as it prescinds from a mode of being both natural and intentional and representative. For as it is proper to the divine essence, because it is divine, that the three divine persons should be identified with it, according as it declares its own natural mode of being, and yet should not be identified with one another, so it is proper to any nature that, according as it prescinds from these diverse modes of being, its own proper natural mode of being and the representative mode of being should be able to be identified with it; although these are not identified with one another. And the reason is this. Then because, as we were saying from the holy Doctor, as it is proper to the divine nature to be in the three persons, so it is proper to any nature that it can be in itself and outside itself, and at the same time in the intellect by means of a species; and as the divine persons are opposed to one another, so in created things the natural mode of being of the object represented through the species and the representative mode of being have between them their own incomposability.

52 Then also, because, as we were saying from the holy Doctor, question 1 on truth, article 2, this intentional and representative being, diminished, has been provided as a remedy for the defect and the limitation which natural being, and the mode of being of it, import in created things, insofar as according to the aforesaid being the very same form and nature, according to what it says on the side of form, cannot be precisely in itself and in knowers diverse from itself; yet well under the intentional and representative mode of being, and consequently just as the aforesaid form, when it is in itself and under a natural mode of being, is identified with that mode of being, so when it is in the species and under the intentional and representative mode of being, it must be identified with it: yet the aforesaid modes of being, which that nature has in the species and retains in itself, are not so far identified with one another, as is clear from itself.

We said so far, in order to denote that the natural mode of being also, as it holds itself on the side of the thing represented, and is represented together with the nature through the species, and so as it is under the representative mode of being, emerging in the intentional species, can also be identified with the representative mode of being, as will be clear to one who looks into it: yet then it holds itself more after the manner of a represented object than after the manner of the pure and precise mode of being.

To that, however, which is added in the last place, the consequence must be denied. And in proof of which it must be said that it is far more wonderful that the very same nature, as it is under its own natural mode of being, should be identified in the three persons with them, according as they have a natural mode of being, than that any nature, according as it prescinds from a mode of being both natural and intentional, should be identified with the natural mode of being and with numberless other intentional and representative modes of being, however individuated and supposed such a nature may be, provided that a nature so individuated and supposed be considered under the said precision. And the reason is this. Because the former requires an infinity in the nature; whereas the latter does not, as is sufficiently clear from what has been said.

Whether knowers not only have the form of another thing, but also that other things come to be, through identity, in intelligible being, that is, in representative being?

53 We raise this difficulty for the same reason for which we raised the preceding one. For in truth, in this article, in order to show more plainly and more clearly that God is most highly intelligent, and therefore most highly knowing, the holy Doctor not only says that it is proper to knowers to have the form of another thing, but also, as we shall explain presently, gives us to understand that other things come to be through identity in intelligible being. Therefore, since a more exact account of the mode of having the form of another thing, which is what belongs to knowing things, as well as of many other things pertaining to the order of the knowing and the knowable, depends very much on the decision and the sifting of this difficulty, we therefore raise it here together with the holy Doctor's disciples, and shall endeavour to discuss it accurately. And although in the treatise on the Vision of God we have touched upon some things pertinent to this matter; yet because it was not possible there to meet the many objections brought by the adversaries against the doctrine of the holy Doctor, nor to explain exactly the mind of the same holy Doctor, we must therefore treat of this here, in its proper place.

§ I. Some things are premised for the explanation of the title.

54 But since it is certain that knowers do not need to have the form of a natural thing in entitative and natural being, but in representative or intelligible being, so likewise there can be no doubt that the same knowers do not become things knowable in entitative and natural being, ¹ in so far as this being is distinguished from representative being, that is, from intelligible being; therefore we do not doubt whether knowers absolutely and simply, or in natural and entitative being, become other things, but with this addition, namely in intelligible being.

On the other hand, since it is the same for other things to come to be knowers in intelligible or representative being as for those same things to come to be under that mode of being which they have in the intelligible species, from the fact that it is only under that mode of being which they have in the species that they agree with things known, or knowable, so as to acquire that other, different mode in representative being, that is, in intelligible being; therefore it comes to the same to inquire whether other things come to be knowers in intelligible or representative being; as to ask whether the aforesaid knowers are the very same intentional species themselves, taken in intelligible or representative being, so that not only do they have, in some way, such species, but are so intimately united with them, considered in the way just described, that under the said mode of being they become the very same with them through identity, and consequently that they also become, under the same representative or intelligible mode of being, the very same with the thing known, which otherwise in natural being is outside the intellect.

55 For since such a thing and its intentional species, taken in the way described, are of one and the same nature, or (as we would speak more properly) the intentional species of that thing is the very form and quiddity of such a thing, it comes to the same for knowers to become under a different mode of being the very same intentional species, as regards the represented nature which it bears, and for that same nature to become under the aforesaid mode of being, which otherwise under the natural mode of being is outside the intellect.

Although there be wisdom in this. For the species is that by which the intellect is united with its object, because it is that by which the intelligible is rendered; whereas the object is that which, being united, is intelligible as that which it is, because it is intelligible as that which it is; ² and consequently, if the identity of which the title treats is granted once for all, then such identity will be with the object as with the term, which is its; and with the species it will be (so to speak) as with the term by which, and by whose power; or as the vicegerent of the object, in which its nature is contained, as though in a vicegerent and representative, intelligibly, and in the way explained above.

We have added, however, in the title that particle, In intelligible being, that is, in representative being, because although the Doctors very often confound the one being with the other, and seem to use either name as a synonym, and we too have sometimes taken either being for the same as they have; yet they are not altogether the same, as we touched upon in the treatise on the Vision of God, article 2, and as we have explained more fully from no. 24 to 38 of this disputation.

§ II. The first opinion is referred to.

56 The first opinion denies that things become known by identity with those things, even in representative or intelligible being, or (which is the same) that they become, or are, the same by identity with the intentional species, considered in any way whatsoever. This is held by all whom we named in the preceding difficulty as being of the contrary opinion.

It is proved first by the testimony of the holy Doctor in 1. dist. 35. quaest. 1. art. 1. ad 3, in these words: It must be that this species, which is understood in act, perfect the intellect in potency, from the conjunction of which there results one perfect thing, which is the intellect in act: as from the soul and the body there results one thing, which is man having human operations. Hence, as the soul is not other than the man, so the understood in act is not other than the intellect actually understanding, but the same: yet not so that that species becomes the substance of the intellect, or a part of it, unless a formal part, as likewise the soul does not become the body.

Where, as you see, in the same way he denies that the species of a thing understood, or the thing understood itself, becomes the same with the intellect, as he denies that the soul becomes the body. Therefore, since the soul, considered in any way whatsoever, does not become the body by identity, however much it be united to it, so likewise no species will become the intellect by identity in any respect, and consequently neither can the intellect become by identity the very same species of the thing understood, as is evident from itself.

57 It is confirmed, and explained. For the intelligible species, for example, considered in any way whatsoever, is not united to the intellect except in that way in which an accident, or a form, is united through inherence, or information, with its own subject: therefore the intellect cannot become the same by identity with that same intelligible species, taken in any way whatsoever, and consequently neither can it in any respect become the same by identity with the thing understood. This second consequence is evident from the first, and from those things which we were saying in the explanation of the title, § 1. The first, however, plainly follows from the antecedent.

Since a subject receiving through inherence, or information, some form does not become such a form by identity:

and thus fire, receiving its own heat through inherence, does not become heat, nor does matter

Peter, receiving the very same form by which Peter is constituted, becomes the aforesaid form identically. The antecedent, however, appears plain. For the intelligible species is drawn out of the potency of the intellect according to all that it has; otherwise it would be created according to something of itself: therefore, according to all that is in it, it is united to the intellect in no way other than that in which an accident, or a form, is united with its own subject: since a form, drawn out of the potency of its subject according to all that it has, is not united with it otherwise than in this mode, as is clear by induction.

It is confirmed secondly. For the natural form is more efficacious than the intentional form, since the former has more of entity and perfection than the latter: but the natural form cannot be so intimately united with its own recipient that such a recipient be drawn by it to the point of becoming the form itself, or conversely:

therefore neither will the intentional form be able to be so intimately united with its own recipient that one be made the other: and consequently they will not be made the same by identity in intentional being.

58 It makes no difference if, with Cajetan, in the place cited below, you answer that the species can be considered either in entitative and natural being, or in representative or intelligible being:

and according to the first ground that it inheres, or informs, a subject, and consequently that it cannot be made the same by identity with it on this ground; yet it is otherwise according to the second. For according to the latter, it has accidentally and materially what it is as substance, or as accident.

For it is sometimes an accident, as happens in us, and in any Angel with respect to things distinct from itself; sometimes, however, it is a substance, as appears in the Angelic substance and in the divine essence, which have the character of an intelligible species with respect to themselves: and so, thus considered, it will not have being in the intellect by way of an inhering form, or of one truly informing through information and requiring a real actual distinction between the form actually informing and its own recipient, but by another, higher and more eminent mode, namely by uniting itself with it through identity.

For the contrary is the case. Then, this doctrine cannot be applied to the sensitive powers, and to their intentional species:

because visible species, for example, cannot but be accidents, from the fact that a visible object is not of itself able to be united to the sight, as happens in the Angels with respect to the knowledge of themselves, and in the blessed with respect to the knowledge of God: and so it is necessary that they be united through some quality which acts in their place and immediately influences into the vision, and consequently that they be united through such a quality.

59 Then too; because, still speaking of intelligible species and of our intellect, from this solution one can only gather that the intelligible object, taken formally, does not have it, of the intelligibility itself as it were, to be united to the intellect by inherence, or by a true information excluding union through identity: (since the essence of an Angel is not united through inherence with its own intellect, nor the essence of God with the divine intellect, whether by inhering or by some information excluding identity) yet not that the intelligible, taken formally, is not united to the human intellect through the inherence of intelligible species considered in any way whatsoever: therefore the force of the argument made is not weakened by the strength of this solution.

The consequence is plain, but the antecedent must be proved. For as from the fact that the intelligible species is sometimes infinite, as in

God, and sometimes finite, as in us, it does not follow that the intelligible species connatural to the human intellect is abstracted from finitude, or infinitude, but only that the intelligible species, so taken, abstracts from created and uncreated, and prescinds from this or that, namely from being finite or infinite:

so likewise from the fact that the same species is free in God from any mode of union excluding identity, and does not sometimes import inherence in the Angels, it does not follow that the intelligible species of the human intellect, taken in any way whatsoever, does not seek inherence, since that species has of itself and intrinsically not to be pure acts, as happens in God: and that at least for this standing the substance of the soul is not united with its own intellect by itself, in the character of an intelligible species, as happens in the Angels.

60 Secondly, and principally, the same opinion is proved, and at the same time a solution is given which weakens this argument as well as the remaining arguments of this opinion. For the intelligible object, or the object of any power as such, has of itself that which of itself it seeks from the power to be found in it: now the human intellectual power seeks of itself that the object, and consequently the species bearing its place, be not united to it by identity, but by inherence and information: therefore the aforesaid object, and consequently its intelligible species, taken formally and in intelligible being, or in representative being, will have this very thing.

The major, together with the consequence, is acknowledged.

The minor, however, is proved. For our intellect is in the lowest grade of intelligibility:

therefore, since the divine intellect is in no way in a receptive potency with regard to the first act, or the second, namely the intelligible species and the intellection, and the Angelic intellect is in potency with regard to the second act, though not with regard to the first act, from the fact that it has naturally congenitally born in it the intelligible species of all the things of the whole universe, it follows thence that our intellect, which is in the lowest grade of intelligibility, of itself and intrinsically has what it is in a receptive potency with regard to the first act, namely the object, and the intelligible species bearing its place in its stead: and consequently of itself and intrinsically it seeks that the object, and therefore the aforesaid species taken formally, be not united to it by identity, but by way of an inhering and informing form: since it is in a receptive potency really separable from its form, and that which is so in potency seeks of itself to be united with it through the middle of inherence, and not through identity, as is clear by induction.

61 That argument, applied with due proportion, seems likewise to convict the point at issue concerning the Angelic intellect: for its intellect is so related to the intelligible species, naturally congenitally born in it and taken formally and in intelligible or representative being, that it can be separated from them, so taken, at least by the divine power: whereas it is established that there is no argument greater than this for a real distinction between two things united to each other, and consequently for a union not so intimate as to reach identity, than that they can be separated from each other: therefore, and so forth.

It is confirmed first. Because the created intellect, before it is united with the object and with the intelligible species of that object, taken in representative or intelligible being, was really distinct from each of them: therefore, after it has been united with them, it will remain distinct from them: and consequently it is not united with them by identity. The antecedent, and this second consequence, are quite clear. The first, however, follows from the antecedent in part. For things which have once been distinct cannot be so united to one another that they be one and the same by identity, provided that each of the two remains with its own entity, as happens here: for the whole reason on account of which they were formerly distinct was their own entity: and so, if this remains in each of the two, they cannot but remain distinct.

62 It is confirmed secondly. For the intelligible object often does not exist while it is being understood: therefore a true, real union and identity cannot then intervene between it and the understood. The consequence is plain. Because nothing can be united, and much less made identical, with a thing that does not exist.

It is confirmed thirdly. For for this reason the substance of the bread, when the consecration has been performed, becomes the Body of Christ, because the bread does not remain, but is converted into the Body of Christ: therefore, when the union has been made between the intellect and the object, and the intelligible species taken formally, all these remaining with their own entity, the consequence will be that they cannot in any respect be so united that they become one and the same by identity.

63 Thirdly. For however much the intellect be united with the intelligible species, it states a real relation of the third kind towards the intelligible object as such: therefore it cannot become one with it through identity: and consequently neither with the intelligible species of the same, taken formally, which according to this ground is the very quiddity and reason of its object. This last consequence is clear from the first. The first, however, from the antecedent. For a real relation seeks terms really distinct. The antecedent, however, seems certain. For the intellect, however much it be united with the intelligible species taken formally and in the most formal way and in intelligible being, is compared with the intelligible thing as its own intellectual power, and as complete with respect to its own object: and any complete power is referred to its own object by a real relation of the third kind, namely the measurable to its measure: therefore, and so forth.

64 Fourthly. For either the essential predicates of the species, still taken in representative being, become essential predicates of the intellect, or they do not? If the first, then the intellect, which is pure potency in the genus of the intelligible, will be essentially act, and form in this order, which is against the nature of pure potency, to which it cannot befit to be united by way of an essential predicate, so as to include act, or to be an act of that order in which it has the character of pure potency: just as it were repugnant that prime matter be act, or essentially include act in the entitative and substantial order, from the fact that it is itself essentially pure potency in this order. But if it is said to be the second, then the intellect is not made one and the same by identity with the intelligible object, or with its species, still considered in intelligible being: for those things which are one and the same by identity have one and the same essential predicates: for if they had the aforesaid predicates from the nature of different things, they could not be one and the same by identity.

Fifthly. For here there presses the point which we touched upon above, namely that from the opposite it follows that the intellect of Peter and of Paul are identified with each other, which is plainly false. The consequence is plain. Because things which are the same with a third are the same with each other: but each of the two intellects is identified with the same intelligible object, and with the same species taken formally, as happens when each of the two understands the same nature: therefore each of the two will be identified with each other.

65 Lastly. For the divine essence is united with the intellect of the blessed in the character of an intelligible species, and of intelligible being taken formally: and nevertheless the intellect of the blessed is not united with it by identity: therefore the intelligible species, or the intelligible object as such, is not united with the intellect by identity. The consequence and the major are evident from themselves. The minor, however, seems plain. Then, because one and the same cannot be at once, and by identity, created and uncreated, as seems clear from the very terms: otherwise it would be at once finite and infinite, as well as being by essence and by participation. Then too: because it involves that something created have so great perfection; that it represent the divine essence as it is in itself, as is established from what we said in the treatise on the Vision of God, article 2: therefore it will be far more repugnant that it be the same by identity with the divine essence, taken in any way whatsoever: for no less is required for this, that something be the same by identity with the essence of God, than for this, that it represent it as it is in itself: therefore, if the former is above all the capacity of a created thing, the latter, which is subsequent to it, will also exceed its capacity.

§ III. The opinion of Aristotle and of the holy Doctor is chosen.

66 Nevertheless it must be said that things become known by identity with the things known, not indeed in natural and entitative being, and consequently not simply and absolutely, but in some way, or with an addition, and according to something, that is, under another mode of being, namely under representative being, or intelligible being: or (which is the same) that they come to be through identity, and in the way signified above in no. 55 and explained more fully in no. 83 and following of this difficulty, the very same intentional species, not indeed in the being of the thing, but taken in intelligible being, or representative being, according to which ground they say that the object itself is under another mode of being.

Thus Aristotle, 3. de Anima, text. 37, in these words: Now, having recapitulated what has been said about the soul, let us say again that all those things which are are in some way the soul: for they are either sensible things which are, or intelligible things. Now knowledge is, in some way, the things knowable, but sense is the sensible things.

These words the holy Doctor explains as follows, lect. 13: He says therefore first, that now, recapitulating what has been said about the soul, in order to show what was proposed, we say that all things are in some way the soul. For all things which are are either sensible things or intelligible things; but the soul is in some way all the sensible and the intelligible things: because the soul is sense and intellect, or knowledge; but sense is in some way the sensible things themselves, and the intellect the intelligible things.

Where, as you see, both Aristotle and the holy Doctor attribute to sense and to the intellect that, in some way, that is, in intelligible or representative being (which, taken strictly, is being according to something), they become the same by identity with the sensible or intelligible thing: for as is evident from what was said in the preceding section, it holds that when a form is not identified in some way, that is, according to some being, with that to which it is united, then it cannot be said to become that, or to be the very form itself according to some being: just as for this reason matter united to its form, or fire to its heat, are not said to become, or to be, the aforesaid form.

67 The same Aristotle taught this also in text. 38, saying: Now it is necessary that either the things themselves, or the species, be: the things themselves indeed are not. For a stone is not in the soul, but the species is; where the holy Doctor, in the lecture cited, says: He shows that the soul is all things in a different way than the ancients supposed, and he says that if the soul is all things, it is necessary that it be either the things themselves which are knowable and sensible; as Empedocles posited that we know earth by earth and water by water, and so of the others, or that it be their species; but the soul is not the thing itself, as they supposed: because a stone is not in the soul, but through the species of a stone. And in this way it is said that the intellect in act is the understood in act itself, in as far as the species of the thing understood is the species of the intellect in act. That is, in as far as the species of the thing understood, which is the same with it according to nature, is also the species of the intellect in act, identified with it in the character of species.

And lastly the Angelic Doctor teaches this very thing in this article, and in De veritate, quaest. 2. art. 2, and 1. contra Gent. cap. 44, and often elsewhere. And thus they follow this opinion: Cajetan in this article and in quaest. 79. art. 2; Zumel, and Bannez in the present question, whom he cites, and whom Gonzalez follows in the present disputation 34, sect. 2, no. 13; the same opinion is also held by Nazarius in this same article, and by our most learned Magister Petrus of Corneto, the most brilliant luminary of the Carmelite family, in the present disputation 1, dub. 4, no. 23; and lastly the younger and more approved Thomists teach this very thing in common.

68 The assertion is explained. For we mean with the holy Doctor only this much: that since there are in the intentional species those two genera of being, explained in the preceding difficulty, namely entitative and natural being, and intentional being taken formally and in intelligible being: thence it is that the aforesaid species is united with the power in a twofold manner according to this double being. Indeed, in such a way that according to the former it is united either through inherence, or in that way in which a substantial subject is united with its accident, as happens in the Angelic substance with respect to its own intellect: but according to the latter being it is united with that same intellect so intimately that they remain identified with each other, and in the proportionate way in which, in the probable opinion of many, motion is so intimately united with its term that, by this very fact of affecting it as it were, it remains identified with it. Although there is a great diversity between the example and the thing of which we are speaking, as will be evident from what is said below: and therefore we shall bring forward, at no. 87, another example well suited, and (so to speak) expressing this thing to the life.

§ IV. The true opinion of the Philosopher and of the holy Doctor is supported by a fundamental ground.

69 The first and fundamental ground of this assertion, however, has been touched upon above, and is hinted at by the holy Doctor in this article and in 1. part. quaest. 50. art. 2. ad 2, and in other places cited. It can be reduced to this form. For knowers ought to be united with the things known, as they have being in the intelligible species taken formally, and under that mode of being which they have in it, or (which is the same, although it was hinted at above in no. 55) with the aforesaid species so accepted, by an immaterial and more elevated union, at least according to something, than is the union by which natural forms are united with their objects: therefore things known, as they have intelligible being in the intelligible species and under the aforesaid mode of being, or the species themselves taken formally and in the way described, are not united with the knowers by means of inherence or information: therefore they are united with them in a certain way through identity, and with such an addition, namely in representative being, that is, in intelligible being.

This last consequence is plain from the former. For a form, as united formally, in the character of a form (as happens here, from the fact that the species is united with the intellect in the character of an intelligible form) is not united except by a union which is either through inherence or information, or is at length such as to reach union through identity. For from the very fact that a real actual distinction intervenes there in some order, true inherence or information cannot be absent from it: since that form truly communicates itself through the mode of a form to its own recipient, and such a recipient truly receives it, and these things cannot be exercised between the form and its recipient, which remain really and actually distinct, without there being there the true and proper causality of the form, and true and proper inherence or information, as is evident from itself and by induction: therefore, if a form, or an intelligible species, is not united with the knowers through inherence or information, it is united with them through identity: and since such a union is not in entitative and natural being, but in representative being, that is, in intelligible being, which is a being after a manner and according to something, namely in the intelligible order, it will follow that such a union is not through identity simply and absolutely, but through a certain such identity, namely within the line of representative being, or of intelligible being.

70 The first consequence, however, is evident from the antecedent. For that greater elevation, by which a thing, or an intelligible species, is united with a knower, consists in this, that it is so united with it that the knower does not limit and constrict it to the point of its being in intelligible being, this, and not the very form which in natural being is in the thing known, as is clear from what was said in the preceding disputation, no. 22, and from what is to be said from the number following to 84 of this disputation: and therefore, if such a species represents any nature fully and universally, according as in potency it embraces all individuals, it does not restrict it to the point of its being, as regards the nature, according as it is under that representative being, this and individual, as is evident from what was said in disput. 1, no. 23 to 26: therefore it is a sign that this union is not through inherence or information: since, as we said there, a form which is united through inherence or information is limited to the point of its being this, and not that very thing which is in another, and likewise to the point of its being this and individual, as regards the nature it bears.

The antecedent, however, is sufficiently clear from what was said in the place just cited, no. 20, and following. For as knowers as such are immaterial, and elevated above the conditions of matter, so they ought to be united with the things, or forms, which are knowable, by an immaterial and more elevated union, which is above the conditions of union through the mode of matter, and of a subject taken formally.

71 This is explained by the ground which the holy Doctor hints at in that quaest. 2. de veritate, in the article cited. For intentional being, that is, intelligible being, is a being elevated in the way described, and ample and indeterminate of itself, in so far as it does not prevent the form under it from being the very same which is in another under natural being: and so the aforesaid being is provided by nature as a remedy for natural and entitative being, which indeed is so constricted and limited that according to it the same form cannot be in more than one: therefore that which is united of itself and directly to intentional being, if it is considered formally and in the being of the term of this union, must not have concurrence with it through the mode of subject and matter, but through another, more elevated mode, and consequently must be identifiable as a term with the form with which it is united.

The antecedent is evident from what was said above in the place just cited. The first consequence, however, seems to follow from the antecedent. For just as the form itself abstracts from its being from the conditions arising from the character of matter and of a subject as such, namely from the determination and limitation already described, and consequently, in a peculiar manner, and more than other natural forms, is elevated above it and its conditions, so it demands that that to which it is united should in a peculiar manner abstract from the character of subject, of matter, and of a power taken formally: and consequently that it should not have concurrence through the mode of subject and of power, as happens with respect to the other spiritual forms, and those taken in natural being: although otherwise, materially and accidentally, it can have the character of subject or of power, so as to be able to receive that same species and intelligible form taken in entitative and natural being.

The second consequence, however, is evident from the former. For as we were saying above, although something can be united through the mode of a pure term, and not be united through information, inherence, or identity, as is evident in the subsistent Word united in the character of a term with the humanity of our Lord Christ; yet nothing can be united with another in the character of a form, whether natural or intelligible, and consequently in the character of the power of acting, without being united either by inhering or by informing, or by a union so intimate that it reaches at the same time union through identity in the way explained, as we touched upon in the treatise on the Vision of God, art. 2: but the intelligible species does not seek to be united purely in the character of a term, both because this union, if it be at all pure of all information, asserts infinity, as is evident in the aforesaid union of the Word with humanity; and also because the intelligible species is united in the character of the power of acting: therefore it must necessarily be united through the aforesaid union through identity which is demanded by an intelligible form, that is, by an intentional form as such.

72 It makes no difference if you object that a sensible species, such as the species of whiteness united to the sight, is singular and individual not only in natural being, but also in representative being, that is, in sensible being, as is evident from itself: therefore, according to either being, it ought to be united to the sight as to a subject and as to a power. The consequence is plain: because a subject is the reason of the individuation of forms.

For the answer is given by granting the antecedent and denying the consequence, if it is understood of forms that can be seen, such as are under the intentional or intelligible mode of being: for these, so taken, are individuated from the object represented, which exists outside: and so whenever they represent the very same object, they are numerically the same in intelligible being, that is, in representative being, or (which for the present comes to the same) as regards the nature contained there. And therefore all sensible species representing this one whiteness, which in this one wall resides according to natural being, are on the side of form and of nature one and the same species numerically: just as the nature of whiteness which is found in all of them is one and the same under the aforesaid being, as has been explained.

73 From this also a greater confirmation of our ground is deduced. For if several species represent one and the same individual only, then all those species, as regards the nature contained there, are numerically the same, as we were just asserting; and if they represent two individuals differing only numerically, then as regards those same natures intelligibly contained in the same species, they are diverse only in number; otherwise those species would not be altogether of the same character on the side of form and of nature: therefore it is a sign that such species, as regards the natures intelligibly contained there, and as they are under that mode of immateriality indispensably required by the force of their own line in order to unite the object with the power, are not received in the intellect as though in a subject; otherwise they would be individuated from it, and the earlier of those species received, or united, in different times could not be numerically diverse, nor could the later ones be at the same time in the same intellect: for, as is clear from what we said in the treatise on the principle of individuation, disput. 2, no. 57, two forms, accidents, or natures differing only in number cannot be in the same subject as such, from the fact that they are individuated from it so taken: therefore it will also be a sign that the aforesaid species, taken as regards the nature and the intelligible mode of being which they assert as indispensable, are so united with the intellect that they are united with it through identity, not indeed absolutely and simply such an identity, and consequently not in entitative being, but with an addition, namely in the intelligible order: for as is clear from what has been said, no other union remains over and above this one.

§ V. The same opinion of Aristotle and of the holy Doctor is established by another ground.

74 Secondly, the assertion is proved by another ground, which we also hinted at above, and which is hinted at by the same holy Doctor in the present question. For a species, for example an intelligible one, if it be taken formally and with strictness as to what lies within its own line, then it has only accidentally and materially what it is as substance, or as accident, in entitative and natural being: therefore it will also have only materially and accidentally that it be united through inherence or information, which is able to effect a real actual distinction between the form and the thing informed, or that it be united with the intellect through the mode of a substantial subject sustaining it: therefore, if we attend to the union which strictly belongs to it within its own line, it will be only through identity within that same line, namely in intelligible being. This second consequence plainly follows from the former, as is clear from what we were just saying.

The first, however, is evident from the antecedent. For that which is to inhere belongs of itself only to a form which is of itself an accident in entitative being: as also that which is to inform through a true and proper information, requiring a distinction between the form and the thing informed, and different from inherence when taken strictly, or to sustain the intellect through the mode of a substantial subject, belongs only to forms, or to natures, which are substantial in entitative being: and therefore these forms alone, whether accidental or substantial, are limited, as we were saying in this disputation, no. 71, and in the preceding one, no. 22, by those things in which they are received; and those substantial natures alone, such as they are in entitative being, limit the forms which they receive: from the fact that forms are limited only by a subject to which they inhere, or which in the way described they inform; and consequently, if these alone are limited, they alone also will inhere, or will inform in the way described: therefore, if the intelligible species is only accidentally and materially an accident, or a substance, in entitative being, the consequence will be that it inheres or informs in the way described only accidentally and materially.

75 The antecedent, however, is proved. Then, because the intelligible species is sometimes a substance, sometimes, however, an accident, in entitative and natural being; yet so that the species which is an accident in entitative being can be of the same whole nature as that which, in the character of an intelligible species, it shares with a species which is a substance in entitative being, if it represents the same object: as with the substance of the Angel Gabriel, which has the character of an intelligible species with respect to its own intellect, and with an intelligible species which is an accident in entitative being and represents that same Gabriel, and exists in the intellect of Michael, as we were saying in no. 34. And therefore, if it were granted that the substance of Gabriel were united of itself, in the character of species, with the intellect of Michael, just as it is united of itself with its own intellect, then Michael would understand in the same way, and would elicit the same and entire intellection according to reason, with such a substantial species, as he does now when he comes to know Gabriel through a species which is an accident in entitative being.

76 Then too: because although a natural being, as it is distinguished from the intentional, is divided of itself, and contracted by being of itself, or in another, in entitative being; nevertheless intelligible being, taken formally, and considered purely within its own line, is not contracted or divided of itself by these two modes of being of itself, or in another, in the entitative order, or by reason of the substance, or of the accident of this order, but according to a greater or lesser immateriality of itself, and intrinsically demanded from it, and according to a different object considered of itself in the first place, or contained there.

And the reason is. For just as intelligible being imports, formally speaking, only that it is immaterial being and able to be united in the character of the object with the intellectual power; so likewise, of itself, it is divided only according to a greater or lesser immateriality, already described, and according to a distinct object considered of itself in intelligible being and united with the aforesaid intellectual power; but not according to the character of being of itself, or in another, in the entitative order.

§ VI. The first argument of the first opinion is resolved together with its confirmations.

77 The arguments of the former opinion touch upon several matters in the way of the holy Doctor which are sufficiently subtle, and not without difficulty, if they are not taken exactly; and they bring with them therefore a longer discourse and explanation, so that the wondrous doctrine of the Angelic Doctor, which they put forward for its solution, may be understood exactly: and therefore each of these arguments, whose solution requires the greater part of this explanation, will be resolved separately in its own particular section.

To the first, therefore, which is sought from the words of the holy Doctor, it is plain from what we have often said in this and the preceding difficulty, namely that a species, an intelligible species, for example, belongs to two orders according to the different formalities it has, namely to the entitative and natural order, in so far as it is distinguished from the intelligible or representative order, and at the same time to the intelligible order; and that according to the former ground it can inhere or inform, or at length be informed by its own intellect, as may be seen in the essence of an Angel when joined with its own intellect and taken in entitative being. On the other hand, if it be considered in the character of an intelligible species, in so far as it strictly pertains to the intelligible order, then it does not seek the aforesaid modes of union which accompany it accidentally and materially, but a more elevated mode of union, and one so intimate that in a certain way, that is, in intelligible being, it remains identified with the intellect to which it is united. Hence the holy Doctor, attending to these different modes of union which belong to the intelligible species, sometimes asserts that it is united through inherence and information, and that the species so united remains distinct from the intellect in which it is, and which it informs, as in the place cited, in the argument, and in this quaest. art. 2, and quaest. 55. art. 1. ad 2, quaest. 85. art. 2. ad 1, quaest. 87. art. 1. ad 3, in 2. dist. 3. quaest. 3. art. 4, in 4. dist. 49. quaest. 2. art. 1. ad 10, de verit. quaest. 8. art. 6, de spiritualibus creaturis, art. 8. ad 14, quodl. 11. art. 2; sometimes, however, that it is the same with the intellect, and that the thing understood, through its union with that species, becomes the very species in the way described, and the thing understood itself, as is clear from the places cited in no. 63 and 64.

78 Indeed, because an intelligible form, at least a created one, is not united in the character of an intelligible form with the intellect without first being united with it in some entitative being by one of the assigned modes, from the fact that the aforesaid union is as it were the road to that more intimate union in intelligible being; therefore the holy Doctor sometimes says that an intelligible form, or a thing understood, is not united with the intellect, or is the same with it, except in so far as it is actuated and informed through it: for, as we were saying, that union is not reached except in so far as there is a passage through this one.

From this also it is understood how rightly Aristotle and the holy Doctor, 3. de Anima, text. 38, compare the soul to the hand: because just as the hand, in the words of the Angelic Doctor there, lect. 3, is the organ of organs, because the hands have been given in place of all the organs which have been given to the other animals for defence, or attack, or covering; for a man prepares for himself all these things by his hand, so likewise the soul has been given to man in place of all forms, so that man may be in a certain way the whole being, in as far as through it, and through the reception of the intelligible forms taken in entitative being, man arrives at this, that he be united with his own intelligible forms, and with the things understood, through that closer and more intimate union which is made through identity in intelligible being: and consequently he arrives at this, that he be all things intelligibly.

79 From this, with respect to the first confirmation, it is plain that the antecedent must be denied. And with respect to the proof it must be said that an intelligible form, which is an accident in entitative being, is not drawn out of the potency of its subject of itself, in so far as it is an intelligible form and has the pure or strict character of such a form: but that it is only drawn forth together with the drawing forth of itself taken in entitative and natural being: and for this it is enough that it be identified with the aforesaid entitative and natural being, which is what is said of it materially. Hence it is not necessary that it be created according to something of itself, or that it be united to the intellect through inherence according to intelligible being taken formally: because, in order that it be produced both as regards entitative being and as regards intelligible being, it is enough that it be drawn out with respect to the former, and be drawn out together with it by reason of it: and for this co-drawn-forth it is not required that it inhere in intelligible being; but it is enough that, in the way hinted at, the entitative being and intelligible being of the aforesaid species be identified.

80 With respect to the second confirmation, it is likewise plain from what has been said how, although as regards union through inherence or information the natural form is more efficacious than the intelligible one; yet as regards that kind of union through identity in a certain way, that is, in intelligible being, the intelligible form is more efficacious than the natural one, and that this efficacy does not belong to the form by reason of a greater entity, but by reason of suchness (so to speak) of the very same form, consisting in this, that it be an intelligible form as such.

Hence the solution given there for this first argument, and its confirmations, must be admitted, understood in accordance with what we have said both in this and in the preceding difficulty: and thus the Thomists are rightly of one mind in saying that in the union of any intelligible species, at least a created one, there intervenes there a twofold union: one in entitative being; the other, however, in intelligible being: and that with respect to the former union the intellect has concurrence through the mode of a subject, properly and formally taken: but otherwise with respect to the latter, as we shall explain more fully in no. 83 and following; for as we were saying above, through the former union the intelligible form is limited as regards entitative being to the point of its being this, and not that: but through the latter, which is made according to intelligible being, the aforesaid form is not limited to the point of its being this and not that, or to the point of its being involved in intelligible being together with individuating conditions; as happens when the aforesaid species represents a universal nature, and one taken universally.

81 Wherefore, with respect to the first objection brought against the solution given there, it must be said that it is one thing that a sensible species cannot but be an accident and a quality in entitative being; and it is another thing whether, considered strictly, in so far as it pertains to the sensible or knowable order, and taken in the most formal sense in the character of a species, it is a formal and per se accident in entitative being: and although the former of these is true (whether this be laid down of itself, through the mode of the material reason, and as the foundation of those things which pertain to the line of a sensible species; or be sought from other headings, of which we treat elsewhere), the latter, however, is otherwise. From this latter, indeed, it follows very well that although absolutely speaking it inheres and is united through inherence; yet not that, with this addition, that is, in the sensible or knowable order, taken strictly, it is not united through identity, and in the way described with the sense.

With respect to the second objection, however, the antecedent must be denied. And with respect to its proof, the antecedent having been granted, the consequence must be denied. And the reason for the difference of this is drawn from what has been said. For an intelligible species, by the fact that it is finite or infinite through its essence, is varied in the character of a species taken in the most formal sense, as is evident from itself: because it is necessary that the grade of immateriality demanded of it of itself be varied: but by the fact that it is a substance, or an accident representing, or showing, the same object, and in the same grade of immateriality, it is not varied essentially in the character of an intelligible species, as is clear from what was said in no. 31: from the fact that, as is clear in the treatise on the Vision of God, disp. 2, no. 107, it is not necessary that the grade of immateriality demanded of it of itself be varied. Which indeed sufficiently indicates that an intelligible species is only materially and accidentally a substance, or an accident, and is united through inherence. And so, if it were granted as impossible that there should be, in this same difficulty which we were touching upon, a created species representing God as he is in himself, which were an accident and at the same time had infinite immateriality; then, these two impossibilities being granted, such an intelligible species would not be specifically distinguished in the character of a species from the divine essence, which is an intelligible form.

82 Nor does it tell against this that it is added there, namely that a species connatural to the human intellect can neither be a pure act (which we willingly admit) nor even be the very substance of the soul, at least for this standing, and consequently that it must of necessity be an accident and be united through inherence.

This therefore does not tell against it. For from this it follows only that the species connatural to man must necessarily, for this standing, have inherence in entitative being joined to it; but not that they inhere in intelligible being, taken formally: indeed, not even that this inherence and the accidental entitative being are demanded of themselves by the intelligible being of the same species; but that they are sought from one source and from other headings. And therefore the soul when separated can understand itself of itself, and consequently the intelligible being proper to its own substance, such as it has of itself the character of a species; it does not seek on this ground that it have an accidental entitative being as something joined to it and identified with it, but rather this is repugnant to it thus considered.

§ VII. The second argument of the first opinion is dissolved together with its confirmations.

The second argument no less than the preceding one touches upon the doctrine in the way of the holy Doctor, which is sufficiently subtle and requires a longer discourse; and therefore it is dissolved separately in this section 7.

83 To the second, therefore, the principal one, the answer must be given by granting the major and denying the minor, understood with respect to the intelligible species of the human intellect, taken formally in intelligible being of species. And with respect to the proof, the antecedent must be granted, as also the first consequence understood with respect to the aforesaid species in the being of the thing. And then the second consequence must be denied in the sense already described. For its proof, it is clear from what has been said how the human intellect, properly and formally speaking, is not in a receptive potency as such with respect to intelligible species formally considered, and considered precisely in so far as they pertain to the intelligible line; but is compared to them so taken as a term identifiable with another term, with which it is born to be identified; with this limitation at least, however, that as regards created species, if these are once united according to entitative being by an entitative union excluding identity according to this being, then they can be united intelligibly, and through the identity already explained, according to intelligible being. But these things are explained from the root in the solution which follows.

84 With respect, however, to what is added in this same argument, namely that the point at issue is also proved in the Angelic intellect, the major must be granted and the minor, understood universally, denied. For from the fact that some things can be separated from each other it does not universally follow that they were really and actually distinct before the separation in every order in which they are separable; and consequently neither is it universally collected that they are not actually and really identified in every order by an identity excluding a real actual distinction within the aforesaid order: but it is only universally collected either that a real actual distinction intervenes there, and before the separation, in every order, if the intellect is set aside; or that there is such a distinction in one order, and in another a real potential distinction: and consequently an identity of such a condition in that order, that it be compatible with the aforesaid distinction: and thus those things which were formerly identified by this lowest mode of identification may afterwards be found not to be identified, if they are once separated from each other.

Wherefore, from the fact that the human intellect naturally, and the Angelic intellect supernaturally, can be without intelligible species and objects, even if all these things are considered in intelligible being taken formally, it is not rightly collected that in the intelligible order such intellects are not identified with intelligible species and objects in the way explained, but that this identity is only the lowest identity within this intelligible order, and compatible at the same time both with a real actual distinction in the entitative order, and also with a real potential distinction within the intelligible order, and consequently with the condition that, the separation having been made, such an identity should perish.

85 This very point is explained from the root. For as our men of Complutum, in the book on Generation, disp. 5, no. 67 and 68, deduce from Aristotle and the holy Doctor, and as they expound in no. 71 and 72, beyond the virtual real distinction, such as that which is found between the animal and the rational, and beyond the real actual distinction such as that by which two waters discontinuous from each other are distinguished, another real potential distinction must necessarily be admitted in the way of the holy Doctor, namely of those things which, though actually and really they are the same, are nevertheless really potentially distinct: because they can be separated from each other, and, the separation having been made, remain actually and really diverse. And likewise, beyond the identity excluding virtual real distinction, such as is found in the more common opinion of the theologians between the intellect and the divine intellection, and beyond the identity admitting only the virtual distinction such as is seen between the animal and the rational, the lowest identity of all in the character of identity must necessarily be given, namely the real potential one, which consists in this, that although the terms be really and actually distinguished, they are nevertheless really potentially the same.

86 To the point at hand, therefore, the intellect, united with the intelligible object by means of its species, becomes the same with them through identity, not indeed in entitative and natural being, but with an addition, that is, in the intelligible order the lowest of all in the character of identity: and thus it becomes the same with them through an identity which excludes a real actual distinction within the intelligible order, and arising from this same order; but not a real actual distinction in the entitative order, nor a real potential distinction in the intelligible order. For from the reasons given above from no. 69 to no. 77, it cannot but be actually identified with them in the intelligible order, and because they are separable from each other, they must be identified through an identity which is compatible with a real potential distinction, and which, when they are actually separated, perishes, so that a real actual distinction must remain, even in the intelligible order, between them, and a real potential identity in this same order between them themselves. As also, for the reasons we have often indicated, they cannot but be actually, and with the intellect set aside, distinct in entitative being.

87 Hence, from the fact that the Angelic intelligible species can be separated supernaturally from its intellect, and that human species are separated naturally from the intellect of the name, it does not follow that they are not actually identified in the intelligible order, and in the way described, with their own intellects while they are joined with them, but that this identity, still in the intelligible order, has the conditions already explained.

And all these things can be elucidated by a well-suited example, that of a material substance, for example the form of water, which, although in its whole it has a distinction of entitative parts arising from quantity, as from an intrinsic formal cause, or an inhering one; yet within the line of the substance, taken strictly, that is (which is the same), of itself it does not formally have the aforesaid distinction of parts: and consequently neither the parts, which would be formally the substance, as Aristotle and the holy Doctor and a very large number of his disciples hold, nor the reasons drawn from the same Aristotle and Angelic Doctor, do our men of Complutum show in the book on Generation, in the disputation cited, from no. 32 to 47.

88 And so, the two waters having been divided, their substantial forms are then quantitative and substantial, and consequently in fact diverse both within the line of quantity and of substance, although they are then still in potency, to the end of being the same through identity within the line of substance alone, but not within the line of quantity, as the same Complutenses explain from no. 69 to no. 73; and then, the aforesaid waters having afterwards been joined together by a single and the same quantity, then although they must always, however much they be joined, be themselves accidentally distinguished, and their substantial forms by reason of quantity, and within its line, and consequently by reason of it there must intervene a distinction of integral parts, or of the same character; nevertheless, as the aforesaid Complutenses expound in the disputation cited from no. 67 to 69 and following, from the very fact that those waters and their forms are joined according to quantities, and are sealed by one and the same quantity, their substance, and the form of each of the two, according to those things which they call substantial, and consequently strictly taken within the line of substance, cannot but become one and the same through identity; so that they are not distinguished by a real actual distinction, and one formal and substantial, or arising from a substantial principle, but nominally, and by quantity: otherwise, as is proved there, the form of that water would have entitative parts which would be formally the substance, whose opposite is supposed here, and is shown in the place cited.

89 So, then, in the present case, proportion being preserved, we must philosophize concerning the species and the intelligible object when compared with the intellect. For, if they are once separated, they remain in each order, namely both in the entitative and in the intelligible order actually diverse, but in potency, or (as we would say better) capable, so that in the intelligible order, but not however in the natural order, they are identified: yet if they are actually united in the natural order, then although they are still united, they remain in this order really and actually distinct; yet by that very fact they are united intelligibly, and remain the same through identity in the intelligible order.

This can further be elucidated by the example of motion and its term, which in the probable opinion of many, whom the Complutenses mention in the book of the Physics, disp. 16, no. 24, are distinguished only actually and virtually while they are united, and yet even then they differ really and potentially, by at least a real negative distinction on the side of one term and a positive one on the side of the other, as many will have it: for they can be separated really, so that the term remains while the motion perishes, and then they differ by the aforesaid actual distinction; and likewise, when they thus differ, they are one and the same, not indeed really and actually, but really and potentially, in as far as from the very fact that motion and term are given in act, they are immediately identified with each other.

90 With respect to the first confirmation, it is plain from what has been said that the antecedent must be granted and the consequence denied, if it be understood of a real actual distinction. And with respect to the proof, the antecedent, understood universally, must be denied: because there are several things of such a condition as to preserve identity in potency together with a real actual distinction in some order, from the fact that they are afterwards unifiable in such a way that they can be identified.

Nor does the proof there adduced in the opposite sense convict the opposite. For the entity of the aforesaid terms is only the reason of the actual distinction between them as long as they are separated: and so, strictly by reason of their own entities taken materially, they are not distinguished actually and really, but by reason of theirs, in so far as they are separable from each other in the intelligible order. Hence their entities, separated really and actually from each other, are positively distinguished. On the other hand, if they be united intelligibly, or if the intelligible species give to the intellect that it intelligibly have the form of the thing understood, and consequently if the intellect in the oblique line bring to bear this close assistance and communication of the intelligible form, it must be identified with that same form taken in the direct line: just as from the very fact that a living being and its pre-existing matter connote that new matter acquired by nutrition and sealed to the same numerical quantity which the aforesaid living being has, the pre-existing matter is identified in it, in the way explained, with that new matter taken in the direct line, which it acquires through nutrition. Which is the same, with due proportion, that we say of motion and its term in that probable opinion; although for the present, that is, as regards the identification of the intellect and the species in the intelligible order, it is necessary that in created things, in the way touched upon above, this be sought through a mode which is as it were a road, demanded from other headings, so that they be united by a real natural union excluding identity in this order, and this union being supposed, straightway that other more intimate union follows.

91 And this very thing can be explained by the example already adduced, of the duplication of water actually divided from another. For their forms are not distinguished numerically by their entities taken materially and strictly accepted: for these, taken materially, remain after they have been identified, but by those same forms formally accepted, that is, according as they are sealed to a distinct quantity, as the Complutenses explain in the disputation cited from no. 69 to 73. And so, as they expound there, from the very fact that they are joined, and are first sealed to one and the same quantity, they can be identified substantially, and strictly as regards substantial things.

Hence it makes no difference if you object that these things do not hang together with those which our Complutenses teach universally in the book of the Physics, disp. 16, no. 28, namely that those things which can be really separated must be distinguished with the intellect set aside: and therefore they say there that motion differs from the term with the intellect set aside, because the term remains while the motion perishes.

For the answer is given, in the first place, by saying that there is a special reason in motion and its term, on account of which in them that rule is universally true: namely, that whenever one can be without the other, an actual distinction there intervenes, with the intellect set aside, between them: either because the terms, formally and taken in themselves, differ with the intellect set aside, as happens in motion and its term; or because they necessarily and indispensably involve something, by reason of which they must actually be distinguished with the intellect set aside, although formally, the union having been made between them, they do not have such an actual distinction, but indeed a potential one: as happens both in the intelligible species, which by reason of entitative being, which it necessarily involves, must really differ from the intellect, and also in nutrition, where that of matter, for example, which is united anew with the living being and is identified within the substantial line, and strictly as regards substantial things with the pre-existing matter, involves a new part of quantity, by reason of which it is really distinguished from the pre-existing matter.

92 With respect to the second confirmation, let it be answered that although the intelligible object often does not exist in itself, it always exists in its species, which is its power and its representative, in which it is intelligibly contained. And therefore this union is made in the species taken formally, as in the term by which of the union and identification; but in the object as in the term which: just as for fire, for example, to act, as the term which, and as heat, as the term by which, it is enough that it have left in it its own power, and that the fire itself in that very thing, as in its own power, remain. For by that very fact it has (so to speak) union with its effect, and produces it: just as a principal cause is united with its own effect, and attains it.

93 With respect to the third confirmation, it is clear from what our Complutenses teach in the place cited, no. 73, that the antecedent is true with respect to that peculiar mode of becoming other through identity by which bread becomes the Body of our Lord Christ: but not if it be understood universally of any mode of becoming other through identity, and in intelligible being. Thus something can become other through identity in a twofold manner. In one manner, transubstantiation, that is, conversion, in the way in which such a transubstantiation and conversion is made in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. In another way, however, by pure identity without conversion: from the fact that although the same entities as before, which were distinct, may remain materially, yet not formally: because they have again something, by reason of which they can be identified either in natural being or in intelligible being, as we said happens in the twofold form of water formerly distinct and divided, and afterwards joined together under the same quantity, and considered in the cognitive potency and in its object as existing in intelligible being.

§ VIII. An answer is made to the remaining arguments of the former opinion, except the last.

94 With respect to the third, the antecedent is to be let stand, and both consequences denied. And with respect to the proof of the first, on which the force of the second depends, it must be said that it is enough that the intellect, united with the intelligible species, as well as the intelligible species itself, be really distinguished from the object according to the diverse modes of being which they possess, and which pertain to the line of nature; in order that it may be said of it in a real sense: we have said, pertaining to the line of nature, because if such modes belonged to another line, they would not suffice for the aforesaid relation, just as because the personal property in divine things does not pertain to the line of nature, but to another line, the divine persons, in which the same nature is, do not have in it a real relation of similarity. The reason, however, on account of which those modes which nature has in itself, and in the intelligible species, pertain to the line of nature, is clear from what is found in divine things: where the reason of divine nature, in so far as it has the natural and intelligible mode of being, pertains to the same line, and therefore these things are not there even virtually distinguished, as will be more clear from what is to be said in the following disputation. Hence, just as from the fact that intellection and intellect pertain in divine things to the same line, and consequently are not virtually distinguished, we conclude that although in created things they are really distinguished, they nevertheless constitute there only two parts of the same line, that is, two partial lines, from the fact that in those same created things that line is involved with imperfections; so the same thing, proportion being preserved, will have to be said here.

Add, moreover, that it can also be said that just as between two created persons subsisting in the twofold human nature there is a real relation of similarity in the aforesaid natures: because the reason for founding this relation is a distinct one, namely a nature diverse in number, which is in them; and otherwise it is between two divine persons subsisting in the divine nature, on account of the greatest identity in nature which they have. So likewise between the object and the representative species of that object, for example between this whiteness and its species, there is no real relation of the measurable to the measure: just as neither is there a real relation of similarity; but only a relation of reason, whether of the measurable or of similarity, as happens in divine things: because the nature which is in each of the two is, on the side of form and of nature, one and the same. Hence from this heading, and from the absence of the aforesaid real relation, but not of the relation of reason, the identity in nature between the species and the object, already explained, is proved more than diversity in it.

95 With respect to the fourth, let it be answered that when the union already described has been made between the species and the intelligible object on the one hand, and between the intellect on the other, then neither do the essential predicates of the intellect become essentially essential predicates of the intelligible species, nor conversely: because by this manner of speaking it is denoted that one passes into the nature of the other, or that one most formally becomes another, which nevertheless does not happen here; but they are only the same identically, retaining a virtual and a real potential distinction, which is not at all inconvenient for the present, as has been explained.

Hence, although pure potency in the genus of being cannot become the very substantial form which it receives, so as to remain the same with it either essentially or identically, as is rightly said in this argument, it is otherwise with pure potency in the intelligible genus, which is called pure by reason of the arguments made, because it does not essentially include acts and forms, that is, intelligible species, not however because it does not yet have, in this order taken strictly, adequately and in the way touched upon from no. 100 to 102, the character of a form, or because it cannot be the same with them by the identity already described, admitting the distinctions explained.

96 Wherefore, if, once for all, as we touched upon above, the matter is to be spoken of in the formal sense, and per se, the intellectual power, when compared with the object and with the intelligible species, is not united with it in intelligible being as a receptive potency with an act, and a form properly and strictly receivable; otherwise it would limit it, the opposite of which we have shown in the preceding disputation, no. 22, and in this one from no. 71 to 84; but as an intellectual power with its object and intelligible form, demanding from itself another more intimate union than that which is made through the aforesaid reception, and as one term identifiable of itself with another, which demands to be united with it according to this pure reason; or as an imperfect form, existing in imperfect being, which becomes the very same under perfect being by an identity compatible with the distinctions already described.

97 And the reason is. For just as the intellect is not adequately, and in perfect being, an intellect as long as it has within itself the species of its object, because it is not adequately, and in perfect being, such, as long as it is completely intellectual, and it does not have this as long as it is united with the species, so as long as it is not united with it, it will not be adequately, and in perfect being, an intellect: and because it is not united with the aforesaid species in intelligible being except in a mode more immaterial and more elevated than that by which natural forms are united in natural and entitative being, therefore, as we brought in from no. 69 to 72, it is united with it through the identity already described in intelligible being, and consequently, and in the very way in which a form in imperfect being becomes the very same in perfect being.

Not otherwise, proportion being preserved, than happens in the form of a plant, which does not have sufficient quantity, nor (so to speak) sufficient substantial portions of that same form identified with each other, so as to be under the due quantity in order to operate, and it acquires them through nutrition. For then, as the Complutenses explain in the place cited, no. 47 and 48, and in other places cited there, the pre-existing form is not united with that substantial thing which comes anew to it as a receptive potency with its own act, nor as an integral part with its co-part, if we attend strictly to that union according to what it has within the genus of substance; but as a term identifiable with another term, and it becomes that, in the way in which the imperfect form, which did not previously identify that substantial thing which it acquires, becomes the perfect form identifying what was lacking to it.

98 We have said, if the matter is to be spoken of in the formal sense, and per se, on account of those things which we said above in no. 67 and 78. We have added, however, the words per se: partly on account of the things which we were just saying. Also in order to denote that if the species were so elevated that it did not demand, in the way described in the number just cited, namely in entitative being and through the mode of act and potency, that union which happens in the divine essence, then even then they would not be compared materially with each other through the mode of a power properly receptive and of an act properly received in entitative being; but the intellect would be compared with it in the way in which an imperfect form (that is, not having the perfection of which it is capable, in the character of a form) is compared with that with which it becomes the perfect form, and as a term identifiable in the intelligible order with another term: and in the last place (as many hold probably, of which we treat elsewhere) they would be compared with each other in entitative being through the mode of a pure term and of a terminable thing: from the fact that the species in entitative being prescinds from the character of a form or of a term, although in the character of species in intelligible being it must obtain the true and proper character of an intelligible form, because it is the reason of acting that specifies the intellection. Although, as we have often said, this character of a form does not demand information which draws an actual distinction in intelligible being, but a union so intimate, or a mode of informing and actuating so elevated and so intimate, that it be really identified in this order with that term with which it is formally united:

99 With respect to the fifth, the consequence must be denied. Because it is argued from the identification of the terms with some one thing in intelligible being to the identification of those same terms in natural being: a manner of arguing which is still of no avail in created things; although from the identification of two things with some third thing under natural being it is rightly customary to argue in created things to the identification of those same things with each other. For as we touched upon above, just as the divine nature is of itself common, and communicable to many, in natural being, so likewise, for example, the human nature is of itself common, and communicable to many intellects, taken under intelligible being: from the fact that by them it can be understood itself. And just as, because the divine nature is common in the way described to many persons, none of these taken individually is adequately identified with it, and for the same reason none of them is identified with the other persons with whom the divine nature is identified, so for this very reason no one of those intellects will be adequately identified with the human nature under intelligible being: and therefore neither will the intellects themselves remain identified with each other.

100 It makes no difference if you object that if the intellect is compared to the form, or to the intelligible species, as though it were the very form, it is compared with it under perfect being, as we were saying in no. 96, then the intellect will also be a form in intelligible being, and thus from the identification of two intellects with the intelligible species it will rightly be collected that such intellects are identified with each other: because we do not pass over to another genus, namely from intelligible being to natural being; but we always stay within the intelligible order, that is, among the forms pertaining to this order.

For the answer is given by saying that the intelligible order can be taken either generally, according as it embraces the whole intellectual order, and those things which are demanded of it per se and formally, whether they be species, or intellect and intellection, or object, and so forth. Secondly, more strictly, according as it includes only those things which pertain to the intelligible order on the side of the object, that is, the intentional entities alone; but not those which on the side of the power and of the cognitive faculty hold their ground.

If, therefore, the intelligible order is taken in the former way, then it is as it were integrated from things pertaining to the entitative and natural order, in so far as they have the power of understanding, and from things looking to the intelligible order, according as that order says only those things which on the side of the object hold their ground: although these two things, of which such an order is integrated, are of such a condition that they can be identified with each other. But if it is taken only in the latter way, then it says only intelligible being, that is, intentional being, in so far as it is distinguished from natural being.

101 On the other hand, because the intellect, in so far as it is adequately an intellect, that is, in so far as it completely has the character of a perfect form in the intelligible order, denotes a perfect form contained under the intelligible order in the former way, which is identically the very intelligible species, and the very power of understanding; and consequently it denotes a form which has something of the entitative and natural order, namely that which on the side of the power is required for understanding, and something of the intentional or intelligible order, in so far as it is distinguished from the natural; therefore, as often as it is deduced that the intellect is identified as regards the powers of understanding which hold their ground on the side of the intellect, from the fact that they are made one with some third thing, namely as regards the species and the understood nature, so often it is argued from the identification in intentional being, and in intelligible being taken strictly, in so far as it is distinguished from natural being, to the identification in natural being: a manner of arguing which is defective, as has been shown.

Nor does it tell against this either if you press the point that if the intellect, as it is a certain term of this identification, denotes natural and entitative being, in so far as this being is distinguished from intentional and intelligible being, and the species, as it is the other term, denotes intentional and intelligible being, in so far as it is distinguished from natural being, there is no reason why this union and identity should be in the intelligible order rather than in natural being: for as it were it is integrated from two terms, of which one pertains to the natural order, and the other to the intelligible order taken strictly.

For the answer is given by granting that this union and identity is natural on the side of one term, and intentional and intelligible on the side of the other; but because the root of this identification is that intelligible term, namely the intelligible species, therefore this union and identification is in the intelligible order.

§ IX. An answer is made to the last argument of the opposed opinion.

102 With respect to the last, let the major be granted, but the minor denied. And with respect to the first proof, let it be said that although nothing can be at once created and uncreated through identity in natural being, that is, being by essence and by participation, nor conversely can it have that identically, yet even in intelligible being this is not so while excluding the real potential distinction between the two, because this is proper to God alone; otherwise, however, in intelligible being together with the aforesaid real potential distinction.

The reason for which is. Then, because a created thing to be in this way through identity something uncreated is to be that very thing by participation, from the fact that the divine essence is united to it gratuitously in the character of an intelligible species: and this, however, is not at all inconvenient, as is evident from itself.

103 Then too: because this union through identity, now explained, is, all things considered, less, and of less perfection, than the personal union, and that in natural being, according to which the divine Word is personally united to humanity, although this union is not through identity in the aforesaid natural being, but through composition of term and terminable thing. Therefore, just as it is not inconvenient that that composite be something created as regards the human nature taken strictly, and something uncreated as regards the person, so neither will it be repugnant that the intellect, having been made the same intelligibly with the divine essence and taken adequately, be at once something created as regards that which it has of itself, and something uncreated as regards the intelligible form to which it is united, with which it is identified intelligibly.

Lastly, then; because the intellect also is not identified infinitely with the divine essence in intelligible being, but finitely; for it is not constituted through it in the first act in order to see it infinitely, but finitely: and although it is repugnant for the finite to be identified infinitely with the infinite, it is not so for it to be identified finitely. Just as it cannot be united infinitely with it; it can, however, be united finitely, and consequently have all those things which follow from such a union, among which for the present the aforesaid identity is counted, as has been shown.

104 With respect to the second proof, however, the antecedent must be granted and the consequence denied. For its proof it must be said that although, in order that something in intelligible being be the same with the divine essence through an identity excluding a real distinction in potency, or through an identity through which it is united infinitely with it, that is, is identified infinitely, no less is required than for this, that it represent that essence quiddatively through the mode of an intelligible species; because infinite immateriality and having being by essence are required for both.

On the other hand, for this, that something be intelligibly the same, in the way just explained, with the essence of God, less is required than for this, that it be able to have the character of an intelligible species with respect to it. Because for the latter thing, a correspondence in the grade of immateriality and being by essence are required, as we said in the treatise on the Vision of God, art. 2; but not for the former, only that the divine essence be united in a finite manner and separably, at least by the divine power, with the created intellect in the character of an intelligible species, for which infinite immateriality is not required in the aforesaid intellect, but it is enough that it be elevated by the light of glory, as we explained in the place cited.

105 It makes no difference if you object that, according to what is to be said in tract. 4. disp. 1. no. 21, intelligere is the very existence in the intelligible order both of the intellect and of the intelligible species: therefore, if the created intellect is the same through identity with the divine essence in the intelligible order, the intellection, that is, the blessed vision, will not be able to be the existence of the intellect in this order, and not to be an existence in the same order with respect to the divine essence identified with it: because things which are the same must exist through the same existence: therefore, since it is repugnant for the divine essence to exist through created being, it will also be repugnant that it be united through identity in the intelligible order with that same intellect.

For the answer is given by saying that the antecedent is to be understood when that intelligible species is not infinite, and is not presupposed as existing perfectly in that same order: the opposite of which happens here.

Thus it is one thing for an intelligible species to have to exist in the intelligible order through intellection; and it is another thing for it to have to exist through whatever intellection is actively elicited by it, so as to receive within itself its formal effect. For the former is universally true: and so likewise the divine essence in the character of an intelligible species exists through the uncreated intellection of God himself: but the latter is not to be admitted universally, when the species is of such a condition that it always and incessantly has one intellection adequate to it, and of the same immateriality, elicited from it of itself in the first place, through which it exists, and which it then influences into other intellections, inadequate to it and of lower immateriality, secondarily and, as it were, accidentally: because what is presupposed as existing adequately in some order cannot have another existence in the aforesaid manner in that order. Wherefore, since the divine essence is compared in this way through the mode of a species with the vision of the blessed, it cannot exist through it in this manner.

106 On the other hand, since it holds that the same essence is in some way the reason of the created intellect in order that it exist intelligibly through the blessed vision, from the fact that unless it were united with it the aforesaid intellect could not exist through that intellection: because any form of any order must either give to its recipient, or quasi-recipient, the existence which it has, or, if it does not give it, because the recipient is a secondary recipient and incapable of it, from the fact that such an existence is a vital operation demanding infinite power for eliciting it, and nothing can exist vitaliter through it without eliciting it, as happens here; then the aforesaid form must be in some way the reason of another existence, through which its secondary subject, or quasi-subject, exists in that order.

And this can be explained by the example of a subsistent, which, although while it is finite, is not only the reason of receiving immanent operations which arise as from a principle, by which the nature it terminates is constituted; but also, according to the probable opinion, are received in it itself, as in a subject; yet if such a subsistent is infinite, as happens in our Lord Christ, then human operations, to which the aforesaid subsistent has concurrence secondarily, are not received in it, but in the nature: although the nature would not receive them unless it were terminated by such a subsistent; and consequently, in a certain way, and in the sense described, it is the reason of their being received. So, then, here, proportion being preserved, we must philosophize with respect to the divine essence as it has the character of an intelligible species, and of the vision of the blessed, as it is the existence of the intelligible order. We have said: to which the aforesaid subsistent has concurrence secondarily, because through the former it has the influx into the other operations, which are not proper to the human nature, but to the divine, from the fact that through the former it terminates it.

107 Nor does it tell against this that it is added in this objection, namely that the created intellect in the intelligible order is the same with the divine essence, and thus that both cannot but exist through the same existence. For from what has been said it is clear: because this identity is not adequate, and consequently is compatible with a real potential distinction between them: but a real potential distinction is sufficient (at least in the most eminent form, which of itself transcends and is inseparable from its own existence) in order that, notwithstanding the identity, it may be the reason of the intellect's existing through another existence, that is, through the blessed intellection, even though it itself cannot exist through it, that is, receive its formal effect, on account of the incapacity which it has for such an existence and formal effect to be received.

108 Nor does it tell against this either if you press the point further, that at least from this it follows that the divine essence in the character of an intelligible species exists identically through the vision of the blessed: which, however, does not seem to be admissible.

For the answer is given by saying that it can be understood in a twofold way that the divine essence exists identically through the vision of the blessed. In the first way, so that it is denoted that the reason of existing is identity alone, even though in reality the divine essence itself receives within itself the effect of such an existence, as happens in the obediential potency, and the hypostatic union, which the humanity of any man has, in order that it be assumed by the Word; which, as we have set out in the treatise on the Vision of God, is of the hypostatic order, and is formally distinguished from the human nature, in so far as it has the natural potency to subsist through its own subsistent. For this potency exists identically through the natural existence of such a humanity. Because although the whole reason of so existing is that identification, yet in reality it receives within itself secondarily such an existence, and it itself participates in its effect; and therefore it does not need another existence through which it exists.

In the second way, so that it is signified only that it is identified intelligibly with the created intellect existing through such a vision, even though in no way does it itself, either per se or accidentally, either primarily or secondarily, either by reason of the aforesaid identity or by any other reason, exist through such an intellection, or receive within itself the formal effect of this intelligible existence, but with respect to this, the mode of existing through it and of receiving such an effect within itself is the same as if it were not there: and this sense is true, and must necessarily be granted. We must however speak cautiously, and admit this with the aforesaid limitation expressly introduced, so that it may not seem to be granted that former mode of existing identically through such a vision, which must be rejected altogether, since it openly conflicts with the utmost purity of the divine essence. Hence, absolutely speaking, the consequence must be denied, from the fact that the former mode of identification is hinted at in the absolute mode of expression.

109 Nor does it matter either if at length you press the point that if the divine essence, as it has the character of an intelligible species with respect to the intellect of the blessed, does not exist through the same intelligible existence through which the intellect himself exists, then they would not constitute one and the same in the intelligible order: which, however, seems false; because they make one more than matter and substantial form do, as the Philosophers hold in common, following Averroes: therefore, and so forth. The consequence seems certain. Because things which make one and the same of themselves exist through the same existence in that order in which they constitute one; and therefore from humanity and the divine Word there coalesces one and the same of itself, because they exist through the same existence.

For the answer is given by distinguishing the consequence: They would not constitute one and the same in the intelligible order, understood of an identity of that kind, must be denied; that it be of that kind formally, it passes: but those things which are thus one can exist with a multiple existence. Nor does the proof of the minor tell against this: because this unity in intelligible being is only according to something and is greater than the unity of the whole which matter and form constitute: it is clear, however, that for this it is enough that it be the union through identity already explained.

110 Add, moreover, that the consequence can also be denied, understood with respect to a unity of itself, taken even formally. Because for this union it is enough that one term be not united to the other as it is existing, and conversely, and that one be to the other, in the way explained, the reason of existing, and finally, that that which has been the reason of existing to the other should exist in some way mediate and remote through that existence. Not indeed because it receives within itself such an existence through another, and its effect, in the way in which a middle substance receives accidents through quantity, or an obediential potency through a natural thing with which it is identified, and exists through its existence; but because that term, which is the reason of existing to the other, in reality actuates and informs the other term, and it cannot exist otherwise than by so acting. Just as, as we were just saying, the subsistent of the Word terminating humanity receives accidents remotely, not because it receives them within itself, as the created subsistent receives them according to the probable opinion; but because humanity can receive the aforesaid accidents only when thus terminated: and therefore humanity and the Word constitute one and the same of themselves in the character of the receptive term of the accidents.

Conclusion. God understands himself by himself.

1 After the question whether it is? concerning intellection and divine knowledge, we have fittingly come to the question what it is. But since every act of understanding and of knowledge takes, at least according to our mode of understanding, its character — or as it were its quasi-character — from its primary object, therefore, so that what it is may be explained, intellection and divine knowledge, we now dispute concerning its primary object.