Ordinatio

Speaking first, then, of the order of origin, one must look first at actual cognition, second at habitual cognition. [About actual cognition]. As concerns the first, I premise two things, the first of which is that a concept simply simple is a concept that is not resoluble into several concepts, as the concept of being or of ultimate difference. Now I call a simple concept, but not a simply simple concept, whatever can be conceived by the intellect in an act of simple intelligence, though it could be resolved into further concepts that are separately conceivable.

I premise, second, that it is one thing to understand something confused and another to understand confusedly. For the confused is the same as the indistinct, and just as there is a double distinguishability relative to the issue at hand (namely of an essential whole into its essential parts and of a universal whole into its subjective parts), so there is a double indistinction, namely of the two aforesaid wholes relative to their parts. A thing confused, then, is understood when something is understood indistinct in one of the two aforesaid ways. But something is said to be confusedly understood when it is conceived as it is expressed by the name, distinctly when it is conceived as it is expressed by the definition.

With these points understood, I will first set down the order of origin in actual knowledge of things understood confusedly. And as to this I say that the first thing actually known confusedly is the most specific species, a singular of which moves the senses more effectively and more strongly first,¹ and this on the supposition that it is present to the senses in due proportion. Hence if you posit some case in which the senses do not sense first the specific nature (as that it is not at once apparent whether a color is reddish or green), and consequently the intellect will by that sensation not immediately apprehend the specific nature, I always posit an undue proportion of the singular to the senses – either because of an imperfection in the power, which this visibility of such nature as nature exceeds, or because of a defect in the medium (of light or something of the sort), or because of too great distance.

Hereby is plain an answer to this objection: ‘two eyes at the same distance from something red, of which one immediately perceives the redness, the other confusedly; therefore the specific nature is not at once sensed in due proportion,’ – Response: what is due for one eye is not due for the other, because of a lack of proportion in the thing acted on.

On the contrary: if [the object] generates a species of red up to point a, and beyond point a generates a species of color at least confusedly representing red, let the eyes be beyond a, neither eye will see the red distinctly. – Response: whatever holds of the medium (whether the proper species is in it everywhere or a confused species beyond a certain distance), at least in a less well disposed eye, other things being equal, the species will be more confused, at any rate beyond a determinate distance.²

I prove the proposed conclusion as follows [n.73]: a natural cause acts for its effect according to the utmost of its power, when it is not impeded; therefore it acts first for the most perfect act that it can first produce. All the things that come together for this first act of the intellect are merely natural causes, because they precede all act of the will – and they are not impeded, as is plain; therefore they first produce the most perfect concept they are capable of; but that is only the concept the species of the most special produced thing. But if some other concept, namely the concept of something more common, were the most perfect that they were capable of, then, since a concept of what is more common is more imperfect than the concept of the most specific species (as a part is more imperfect than the whole), it would follow that they would not be capable of a concept of the species, and so they would never cause that concept.

Second as follows, because (Avicenna, Metaphysics 1 ch.3) metaphysics is last in the order of teaching. Therefore, the principles of all other sciences, and their terms, can be conceived before the principles of metaphysics. But this would not be the case if it were first actually necessary for the more common concepts to be conceived before the concepts of the most specific species; for then being and the like would have to be conceived first, and so it would follow rather that metaphysics was first in the order of teaching; therefore etc.

Third, because if it were necessary to conceive the more universal concepts first before the concept of such and such species, then, with the senses posited in act about the singular that moves the senses and the intellect being free of it, it would be necessary to posit a long time before the species of this sort of first sensed singular was conceived; for it would first be necessary to understand, in order, all the common predicates said of the ‘what’ of the species.³

As to the first of these three reasons [n.76], note that the order in generatings through the imperfect as intermediary responds here, otherwise a definitive concept would be first caused by the object (for the object is capable of that), or it will never cause. Why is a definitive concept not caused first? What of perfection for any cause of the concept is acquired through discursive reasoning, through division, etc.? – Response: a definitive concept is an explicit concept of several partial concepts, so each must be understood first – first in nature at least, and for us first in time, because a single concept is made known to us through its parts.

I speak, secondly [n.69], about actual knowledge of things distinctly conceived, and I say that this is the converse of the general concept, because the first thing thus conceived is the most common, and those closer to it are prior, those further away are posterior. I prove this as follows: because from the second premise [n.72] nothing is distinctly conceived save when everything is conceived that is in the essential idea of it; being is included in all lower quidditative concepts; therefore no lower concept is distinctly conceived unless being has been conceived. Now being can only be conceived distinctly, because it has a simply simple concept. It can therefore be distinctly conceived without other things, and other things not distinctly conceived without it being distinctly conceived. Therefore being is the first concept that is conceivable distinctly. From this follows that what is closer to being is prior, because knowing distinctly is obtained through the definition, and the definition is inquired into by way of division, starting from being up to the concept of the defined thing. Now, in the case of division, the prior concepts occur first, as genus and difference, wherein a more common concept is distinctly conceived.

Second I prove that metaphysics (according to Avicenna as cited before [n.77]) is first in the order of knowing distinctly, because it has to certify the principles of the other sciences; therefore its knowables are the first distinctly knowable things. Nor does Avicenna contradict himself in this, that he places it last in the order of teaching and first in knowing distinctly. For (as was plain from the question about propositions self-evidently known [Ord.1 d.2 n.19]) the principles of the other sciences are self-evidently known from a confused concept of the terms; but when metaphysics is known, there is afterwards the possibility of investigating the quiddity of the terms distinctly. And in this way are the terms of the special sciences not conceived, nor their principles understood, prior to metaphysics. Thus, too, can many things be clear to metaphysico-geometry that were not known to geometry previously from its confused concept. An example: a geometer qua geometer uses for his self-evident principles only those that are evident at once from the sort of confused concept of the terms that comes from sensibles, as that ‘a line is a length’ etc., without caring what genus line belongs to, as whether it be substance or quantity. But now, after geometry and the other special sciences are known, metaphysics about the common concepts follows, and from these common concepts a return can be made, by way of division, to investigating the quiddities of the terms in the special sciences so known. And then, from the quiddities so known, the principles of the special sciences are known more distinctly than before. Also known are many principles that were not known before from the confusedly known terms. And in this way is it plain how metaphysics is first and how not first.

But, when comparing the order of conceiving confusedly with the order of conceiving distinctly, I say that the whole order of conceiving confusedly is prior, and therefore what is first in that order [n.73] is simply first, and the proof of this is from the aforesaid authority of Avicenna [n.77] about the order of metaphysics to the other special sciences.

Against this an objection is made, because in Physics 1.1.184a21-22 it is said “confused things” (that is, the more universal things) “are known first”, which is plain because “children first call all men ‘father’, later they discern each individually.” Therefore, the child knows its father first under the idea of man before under the idea of this man.

This same fact does Avicenna prove about something seen from a distance, because someone is known first under the idea of body before that of animal, and under the idea of animal before under the idea of man, and under the idea of man before under the idea of this man.

This seems also because, in arguing, the way of composition is prior to the way of resolution. Therefore, so is it in simple conceptions.

To the first [n.83] I say that, as the confused is twofold, namely the ‘universal whole’ and the ‘essential whole’, so each is first in its own order. But the ‘simply first’ is that which is first in the order of knowing confusedly, because the natural process from imperfect to perfect is through a middle. Now knowing confusedly is a sort of middle between not knowing and knowing distinctly, and therefore knowing confusedly comes before knowing anything distinctly. – And as to what he [Aristotle] says about the child [n.83], I concede that the species is understood first before the singular (I said that the species is the first intelligible [nn.73-78]); but the argument does not hold of genus and species, for whiteness is conceived actually before color is in the order of confused knowledge, because color under the idea of color is not known save under the idea of a greater abstraction than is the abstraction of whiteness from this whiteness; and this greater abstraction is more difficult, because from things less alike.

To the other point [n.84], from Avicenna, I say that when an object is not nearby in the due way it does not move [the senses] to a knowing of itself under its most perfect idea but under some imperfect one. And then the intellection, following the sensing of such object, needs to be the sort of universal that, under the idea of the singular, the senses were of. But when the object is in the right proportion for being able to move the senses under its own proper and perfect idea, then the intellect, following such senses, has knowledge of such object first under its specific idea confusedly before under the idea of its genus confusedly – not that the more imperfect real idea, from which the genus is taken, be the reason for moving [the senses] when it is more distant, and the more perfect idea, from which the difference is taken, be the reason for moving [the senses] when it is less distant (rather the reason for acting from a greater distance is a more effective active idea), but the specific form is the reason for its imperfectly assimilating [the senses to itself] from a great distance and for perfectly assimilating [them] from a proportionate distance. It does not follow then that ‘color generates no species of itself’, but that ‘it does not do so then, but only this whiteness does or this blackness’, not the ‘this’ but the nature.

How will it be, then, with the intelligible species of the more universal and the less universal [n.61]? It can be said that both are generated by the same phantasm.

Or in another way: the more universal, as it is virtually contained in a lower universal [n.365 infra], is generative of the intelligible species, because it is per se intelligible thus – not of the sensible species, because it is not thus sensible, for the senses are of the existent as it is existent.

Against this [n.89]: for you [sc. Scotus] the senses are not of the singular but of the nature in the singular [n.87]. Again, even if there be posited a proper sensible species and a proper phantasm of whiteness and another proper to color, yet there cannot be posited one proper to quality or to being, because these, in this indifference, surpass the genus of sensible things, and cannot as such shine forth in a phantasm – and yet it is of them the proper intelligible species are caused. Not caused therefore by diverse phantasms, nor by themselves as they are distinct, existing virtually there [sc. in the singular], because under these ideas they are not there in a way that represents them, nor in a way that does not represent them, as is plain. Therefore it is that way [sc. as generated by the same phantasm, n.88].

To the third [n.85] I say that on both sides there is a process from what includes to what is included, in the case of simples [= concepts] just as in that of complexes [= propositions] –. But in the case of simples what includes is lower, in the case of complexes what includes is the principle in respect of the conclusion.

[About habitual and virtual knowledge] As to habitual or virtual knowledge [n.71] first I explain what I understand by the terms. I call knowledge ‘habitual’ when the object is thus present to the intellect in idea of intelligible in act, so that the intellect can immediately have an elicited act about it. I call knowledge ‘virtual’ when something is understood in something as part of the thing understood first, but not as the thing first understood, just as when ‘man’ is understood ‘animal’ is understood in ‘man’ as part of the thing understood, but not as the first or total understood thing which is the term of the intellection. This is properly enough called ‘the thing virtually understood’ because it is close enough to the thing actually understood; for it could not be more actually understood unless it were understood in an intellection proper to it, which would be an intellection of it as of first and total term.

As to this habitual and virtual knowledge I say that the more common things are by way of generation known first. The proof is because, just as diverse forms perfecting the same perfectible thing in a certain order are of a nature to perfect it more mediately and more immediately, so if the same form contain in itself virtually the perfection of the ordered forms it will perfect the perfectible in, as it were, a like order of nature: just as if the form of body, of substance, and the rest were different forms, and if the form of substance were to inform the thing first and then the form of body were to etc.,⁴ so if one form virtually include all of them, it will, as it were, first perfect matter under the idea of substance before it does so under the idea of body, and always in this way of generation will the more imperfect be prior because the process is made from potency to act. Therefore, just as several concepts, more common and less common, habitual or virtual, are of a nature to perfect the intellect by way of generation, such that the more imperfect is always prior – so if one concept virtually include all of these concepts, it will perfect under the idea of the more common and universal concept first before under the idea of the particular concept. – This about the idea of origin or generation.

On the contrary: why is it not similar in actual knowledge? – Reply: here [in the case of habitual knowledge, n.93] such things are ordered according to nature in moving [sc. the intellect], but in duration they are simultaneous; not so there [in the case of actual knowledge], but successively, and the more potent one moves [the intellect] more strongly and prevents the others from then moving it there; not so here.⁵