Ordinatio

To the question then [n.108] I say in brief that no natural object of our intellect can be posited on the basis of such virtual adequacy, for the reason touched on against the primacy of a virtual object in God or in substance [nn.127-128]. Either then no first object will be posited, or one must look for a first object that is adequate because of the commonness in it. But if being be posited as equivocal to created and uncreated being, to substance and accident, then, since all these are per se intelligible to us, no first object of our intellect seems able to be posited either because of virtuality or because of commonness. But by positing the position I set down in the first question of this distinction, about the univocity of being [nn.26-55], the fact that there is some first object of our intellect can be in some way preserved.

To understand this I first make clear of what sort the univocity of being is and to what things it extends [nn.131-136, cf. n.45], and second from this I make clear the issue at hand [sc. about being and the first object of the intellect, nn.137-151].

As to the first point I say that being is not a univocal term said of the ‘what’ of all per se intelligibles, because not of ultimate differences, nor of the proper features of being. – A difference is called ultimate because it does not have a difference, because it is not resolved into a concept quidditative and qualitative, determinable and determinate, but there is only a qualitative concept of it, just as an ultimate genus has only a quidditative concept.

The first claim, namely about ultimate differences, I prove in two ways. First as follows: if differences include being univocally said of them, and these differences are not altogether the same, then they are entities diverse as to something the same. Such are differences properly, from Metaphysics 5.9.1018a12-13, 10.3.1054b25-27. Therefore, the ultimate differences will be properly different; therefore they differ in other differences. But if those other differences include being quidditatively, the same follows about them as about the former; and so there would be a regress to infinity in differences, or a stand will be made at some differences that do not include being quidditatively, which is the conclusion intended, because they alone will be ultimates [see also n.136 below].

Second as follows: just as a composite being is composed of act and potency in the thing, so a composite concept per se one is composed of a potential and actual concept, or composed of a determinable and determining concept. Just as therefore the resolution of composite beings stops ultimately at simply simples, namely at ultimate act and ultimate potency, which are diverse first, such that nothing of one includes anything of the other (otherwise this one would not be act first, and that one would not be potency first, for what includes something of potentiality is not act first) – so in the case of concepts it must be that every concept that is not simply simple [n.71], and yet is per se one, is resolved into a determinable and determining concept, such that resolution stops at simply simple concepts, namely at a concept determinable only, so that it include nothing determining, and at a concept determining only, which does not include any determinable concept. The concept determinable only is the concept of being, and the concept determining only is the concept of ultimate difference. Therefore, these will be first diverse, such that one include nothing of the other.

The second, namely the issue at hand about the properties of being [n.131], I prove in two ways. First as follows: a property per se in the second mode¹ is predicated of the subject (Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a37-b5); therefore, the subject is put in the definition of the predicate as something added (from ibid. and Metaphysics 7.5.1031a2-14). Being therefore falls into the idea of its property as something added. For being does have its own properties, as is plain from the Philosopher in Metaphysics 4.2.1004b10-17, where he maintains that, just as a line qua line has properties, and number qua number, so there are certain properties of being qua being. But being falls into the idea of them as something added; therefore it is not per se in the first mode in their quidditative idea. This is also confirmed by the Philosopher in Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a34-b5, ‘On the status of principles’, where he maintains that per se predications are not converted; because if a predicate is said per se of a subject, the converse is not said per se but per accidens. Therefore if this predication ‘being is one’ is per se in the second mode, the predication ‘one is being’ is not per se in the first mode but per accidens as it were, as this proposition ‘what is capable of laughter is man’.

Second as follows: being seems to be sufficiently divided (as regard division into the things that include it quidditatively) into uncreated being and into the ten categories and the essential parts of the ten categories. At least it does not seem to have more things quidditatively dividing it, whatever may be the case about these divisions. Therefore if ‘one’ or ‘true’ include being quidditatively, being will be contained under some one of them. But being is not one of the ten categories, as is plain; nor is it of itself uncreated being, because it belongs to created beings. Therefore it would be a species in some genus, or an essential principle of some genus. But this is false, because every essential part in any genus, and all the species of any genus, include limitation, and thus anything transcendent would be of itself finite, and consequently would be repugnant to infinite being, and could not be said of it formally, which is false, because all transcendent(al)s state perfections simply and belong to God supremely.

Thirdly can it be argued (and herein is confirmed the first argument [n.132] for this conclusion [n.131]), because if ‘one’ includes being quidditatively, it does not include being precisely, because then that being would be a property of itself. Therefore it includes being and something else. Let that something else be a; either then a includes being or it does not. If it does, ‘one’ would include being twice, and there would be an infinite regress. Or, wherever a stop will be made, let that last thing, which is of the idea of ‘one’ and does not include being, be called a. ‘One’, by reason of the included ‘being’, is not a property [of being], because the same thing is not a property of itself, and consequently that other included thing, which is a, is the property first, and is such that it does not include being quidditatively. And so, whatever is a property first of being thereby does not include being quidditatively.²

As to the second article [n.130] I say that from these four reasons [nn.132-135,with n.136 as a fifth complementing the first] it follows – since nothing can be more common than being and being cannot be a common univocal term said in the ‘what’ of all per se intelligibles (because not so said of ultimate differences, nor of their properties) – it follows that nothing is the first object of our intellect because of its commonness in the ‘what’ as to every per se intelligible. And yet, this notwithstanding, I say that the first object of our intellect is being, because in it there comes together a double primacy, namely of commonness and virtuality; for every per se intelligible either essentially includes the idea of being, or is contained virtually or essentially in what essentially includes the idea of being. For all genera and species and individuals, and all the essential parts of genera, and uncreated being, include being quidditatively; but all ultimate differences are included in some of these essentially, and all the properties of being are included in being and in its inferiors virtually. Therefore, the things for which being is not a univocal term asserted in the ‘what’ are included in those for which being is thus univocal. And thus is it plain that being has a primacy of commonness as to the first intelligibles, that is, to the quidditative concepts of genera and species and individuals, and of the essential parts of all of these, and of uncreated being. And being has a primacy of virtuality as to all intelligibles included in the first intelligibles, that is, as to the qualitative concepts of ultimate differences and of proper properties.

But as to the supposition I made [n.137], that there is a commonness of being said in the ‘what’ to all the aforesaid quidditative predicates [n.137] – this is proved about all of them by the two reasons set down in the first question of this distinction [nn.27, 35] to prove being’s commonness to created and uncreated being. So that this may be clear, I go through them in some way: The first as follows: for as to any of the aforesaid quidditative concepts [n.137], it is possible for the intellect to be certain that it is a being while in doubt as to the differences that contract being to such concept;¹ and so the concept of being as it belongs to that concept is other than the lower level concepts that the intellect is doubtful of, and other such as to be included in each of the concepts under it, for the differences that contract them presuppose the same common concept of being that they are contracting.²

The second reason I treat of as follows: just as it was argued [n.35] too that God is not knowable by us naturally unless being is univocal to the created and the uncreated, so can it be argued about substance and accident. For if substance does not immediately move our intellect to an intellection of itself but only the sensible accident does, it follows that we will be able to have no quidditative concept of substance unless some such concept can be abstracted from the concept of an accident; but no such quidditative concept is abstractable from the concept of an accident save the concept of being.

And as to the supposition made about substance [n.139], that it does not move our intellect immediately to an act about itself, the proof of this is because whatever, when present, affects the intellect,³ the absence of it can naturally be known by the intellect when it is not being affected – as appears from On the Soul 2.2.425b21, that sight is perceptive of darkness, namely when light is not present and when therefore sight is not then being affected. Therefore, if the intellect is naturally moved by substance immediately to an act about that substance, the consequence would be that when substance were not present it could be naturally known not to be present, and so it could naturally be known that the substance of bread is not in the consecrated host on the altar, which is manifestly false.

Response: the proof [n.140] rejects intuitive knowledge of substance, because about that is the major true, but not about abstractive knowledge, which does not fail because of a real absence of the object (so neither is absence perceived).

Again, what is assumed about the senses [n.140] is dubious; since the senses do not retain the species in the absence of the object, nor receive the species of darkness, how will they be able to know darkness?

Against the first [n.141]: abstractive cognition necessarily presupposes that, sometimes, the real presence is had of the thing that abstractive cognition, or the species (which is the principle of abstractive cognition), remains over from. He who has only seen the eucharist never had the real presence of the object that is, mediately, the cause of abstractive intellection. Someone else who saw other bread did have it. Therefore, the first will not have cognition abstractive from bread, the second will – which is immediately against experience, because each can experience in himself a like act of understanding bread. If it be said, in shameless denial, ‘suppose the first one afterwards saw other bread, then he will afterwards be capable of the abstractive knowledge of bread that he was not capable of before’ – he experiences the opposite in himself, for he is disposed now in like way as before. Again, he who can know an absent object abstractively can intuitively know it when it is present in existence; and if you know the substance of something known abstractively, then you know it intuitively when it is present; and then the absence etc. [“of it [substance] can naturally be known by the intellect when it is not being affected,” n.140].

To the objection about the senses [n.142]. Darkness is known by argument – not by sight but by the power arguing thus, ‘the eye is looking, and it is not blind, and it is not seeing; so there is darkness’. The fact is plain. When one of the three premises is omitted the conclusion does not follow. None of the three propositions is grasped by sight as knowing it or the conjunction [‘is’] or division [‘is not’] of the extreme terms (because neither is the third one [‘it is not seeing’], which it more seems true of). Because sight does not know its own act when it is present;⁴ therefore it does not know the privation when the act is not present. There is an explanation for Aristotle’s remark that there is sight of darkness [n.140]; because it is privation of sight’s object; therefore it is cause of its not being affected, and so darkness is perceived, not by sight but by another power using the privation of act in the sight for presence.

So no quidditative concept of substance caused by substance immediately is naturally had, but only one that is first caused by or abstracted from accident; and it is only a concept of being.

By the same fact is proved also the proposed thesis [n.139] about the essential parts of substance. For if matter does not move the intellect to an act about matter, and if the substantial form does not either, I ask what simple concept of matter or form will be had in the intellect. If you say that it is some relative concept (as of a part), or a concept per accidens (as of some property of matter or form), I ask what the quidditative concept is to which this per accidens or relative concept is attributed. And if no quidditative concept is had, there will be nothing to which this concept per accidens may be attributed. – But no quidditative concept can be had save one impressed by or abstracted from what moves the intellect, namely by or from an accident; and it will be a concept of being. And so nothing will be known of the essential parts of substance unless being is something common univocal to them and to accidents.

These arguments [nn.27-44, 138-139] do not include the univocity of being said in the ‘what’ as to ultimate differences and properties [nn.132-136]. This is shown about the first argument [nn.27, 138], because: either the intellect is, as to some such [ultimate difference or property], certain that it is a being (doubting whether it is this one or that one), yet not certain that it is a being quidditatively but is as it were by predication per accidens. Or in another way, and better, any such concept is simply simple [n.71], and so cannot be conceived in some respect and be unknown in another respect, as is plain from the Philosopher, Metaphysics 10.10.1051b25-28, about concepts simply simple, that there is no deception about them, as there is about the quiddity of complex ones. This is not to be understood as if simple understanding may be formally deceived about intellection of a quiddity, because there is no true or false in simple intellection. But about a composite quiddity it is possible for simple understanding to be deceived virtually: for if the idea is in itself false, then it includes a false proposition virtually. But what is simply simple does not include virtually, proximately, or formally a false proposition, and so there is no deception about it; for either it is attained totally, or it is not attained, and then it is altogether unknown.⁵ About no simply simple concept then can there be certitude as to something of it and doubt as to something else of it.

Through this too is plain [the response] to the second argument set down above [n.35], because such a simply simple is altogether unknown unless the whole of it in itself be conceived.

In a third way too can response be made to the first argument [sc. in addition to what is said in n.147, about the argument in n.27], that the concept about which there is certitude is different from those about which there is doubt. And if that certain same concept is preserved with either of the doubtful ones, it is truly univocal as it is taken with either of them. But it is not necessary that it be present to both of them in the ‘what’. But either it is so, or it is univocal to them as a determinable to what determine it [sc. as ‘being’ is determinable by the ‘in itself’ or ‘in another’ that determine it to substance or accident] or as a denominable to what denominate it [sc. as ‘being’ is denominable by the ‘undivided’ or ‘divided’ that denominate it as ‘one’ or ‘many’; cf. n.133].

Hence in brief: being is univocal in everything. But in non-simply simple concepts it is univocal when said of them in the ‘what’. In simply simple concepts it is univocal but as determinable or denominable, but not as said of them in the ‘what’, because this includes a contradiction [nn.132-136].

From these points [nn.129-150] is apparent how a double primacy comes together in being, namely the primacy of commonness in the ‘what’ as to all non-simply simple concepts, and the primacy of virtuality (in itself or in what is under it) as to all simply simple concepts. And that this double concurrent primacy suffice for being to be the first object of the intellect (though it have neither of the primacies precisely as to all per se intelligibles) – I make this clear through an example: because if sight were per se cognitive of all properties and differences of color in general and of all species and individuals, and yet color were not included quidditatively in the differences and properties of colors, sight would still have the same first object that it now has, because, by running through them all, nothing else would be adequate to it. So the first object would not then be included in all its per se objects, but every per se object would either include it essentially or would be included in something essentially or virtually including it. And thus would a double primacy come together in it, namely primacy of commonness on its own part and primacy of virtuality in itself or in its inferiors [sc. what fall under it]. And this double primacy would suffice for the idea of the first object of such power.⁶

Argument is made against this univocity of being [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.28 q.3, a26 q.2, a.21 q.2 ad 2]: Through the Philosopher Metaphysics 3.10.998b22-24, because, according to him there, being is not a genus, because then, according to him in the same place, difference would not be per se being; but if being were something common said in the ‘what’ of several things differing in species, it would seem to be a genus.¹

Also the same [Aristotle] in Metaphysics 4, at the beginning [4.2.1003a23-35, b11-14], maintains that being is said of beings as healthy is said of things healthy, and that metaphysics is one science, not because everything it is about is said ‘according to one thing’ but ‘with reference to one thing’, namely not univocally but analogically. Therefore, the subject of metaphysics is not univocal but analogical.

Also the same [Aristotle], Metaphysics 7.1. …18-20, 4.1030a23-27, b2-3, says that accidents are beings only because they are of being, as logicians say that ‘not-being is’ and ‘the not-knowable is knowable’, and as a vase is said to be ‘healthy’. In all these examples there is no univocity of that which is said of many things.

And Porphyry, Book of Predicables 3, “If someone call all things beings, he will be naming them,” he says, “equivocally.”

Again, Physics 1.2.185a20-21, against Parmenides and Melissus, “The beginning is that being is said in many ways.” And he [Aristotle] argues that if all things are one being, then either this one being or that, which would not follow if being were univocal, just as this does not follow: every man is one man, therefore he is this one man or that one man.²

Again by reason: if being were univocal to the ten categories, then it would descend into them through some differences. So let a and b be two such differences: either then these two include being, and then in the concept of any most general genus trifling repetition is included; or these are not beings, and then non-being will belong to the understanding of being.³

To the first argument [n.152]. Although it is not necessary that the arguments of Metaphysics 3 assert what they conclude, because the Philosopher is intending there to argue to opposite sides of the questions he is disputing (as he himself says by way of preface in the introduction, 3.1.995a24-b4); yet two opposite conclusions cannot be reached unless one or other argument is sophistical (hence his Commentator [Averroes, Metaphysics 3 com.3] says that, in the first argument for the first question there disputed, there is a fallacy of the consequent: ‘if contraries belong to the same science, then non-contraries do not belong to the same science’⁴), – although this argument too [n.152] one should specifically not hold to be conclusive. For he infers in the same place [Metaphysics 2.3.998b26-27], “wherefore if ‘one’ or ‘being’ is a genus, no difference will be either ‘one’ or ‘being’,” (I ask, either he intends to infer that the difference ‘being’ or ‘one’ will not be per se in the first mode, and thus is the conclusion not unacceptable as far as ‘one’ is concerned; or he intends to infer the negative absolutely, and then the consequence is not valid; for it is not the case, if ‘rational’ is a difference with respect to ‘animal’, that it follows that ‘rational is not animal’ but that ‘it is not per se animal in the first mode’) – yet when holding that this argument [n.152] is valid, it proves rather the opposite than the conclusion intended. For it removes from being the idea of genus, not because of equivocation (on the contrary, if being were equivocal to the ten genera, there would be ten genera, because the same concept, by whatever name it be signified, has the same idea of genus), but it removes the idea of genus from being because of being’s excessive commonness,⁵ namely because it is predicated of difference in the first mode per se, and from this could be concluded that being is not a genus.

And to see how this is be true [sc. supra n.158: “it removes the idea of genus from being because of being’s excessive commonness”] – although however it was said before [nn.131-133] that being is not predicated of ultimate differences per se in the first mode – I draw a distinction in the case of differences, that some difference can be taken from the ultimate essential part, which is a different thing and a different nature from that from which the concept of genus is taken, just as if a plurality of forms be posited and genus be said to be taken from the prior essential part, and specific difference from the ultimate form. Then, just as being is said in the ‘what’ of the essential part from which such specific difference is taken, so is it said in the ‘what’ of such difference in the abstract, such that, just as this is said in the ‘what’: ‘the intellective soul is a being’ (taking the same concept of being according to which it is said of man or of whiteness), so is this in the ‘what’: ‘rationality is a being’, if ‘rationality’ is such a difference. But no such difference is ultimate, because in such difference are contained many realities in some way distinct (with the sort of distinction or non-identity that I said in the first question of the second distinction exist between essence and personal property [Ord. I d.2 nn.388-410] – or a greater distinction, as will be explained elsewhere [Ord. II d.1 q.4 n.25, a.6 n.5, IV d.11 p.1 a.2 q.1 n.54]). And then such a nature can be conceived in a certain respect, that is, in respect of some reality and perfection, and in a certain respect not known – and therefore a concept of such a nature is not simply simple [n.147]. But the ultimate reality or real perfection of such a nature (from which ultimate reality the ultimate difference is taken) is simply simple; this reality does not include being quidditatively but has a concept simply simple. Hence if such a reality be a, this statement ‘a is a being’ is not in the ‘what’, but is per accidens, and this whether a state the reality or the difference in the abstract that is taken from such reality.

Therefore did I say before [nn.133, 150] that no difference simply ultimate includes being quidditatively, because it is simply simple. But some difference, taken from an essential part (which part is the nature in the thing, different from the nature from which genus is taken) – that difference is not simply simple and it does include being in the ‘what’. And from this fact, that such a difference is a being in the ‘what’, it follows that being is not a genus, because of the excessive commonness of being. For no genus is said of any inferior difference in the ‘what’, nor of the difference that is taken from the form, nor of the difference that is taken from the ultimate reality of the form (as will be plain in Ord. d.8 p.1 q.3 nn.16, 14); for always that from which the concept of genus is taken is in itself potential with respect to the reality from which the concept of the difference is taken – or with respect to the form if the difference be taken from the form.

And if you argue against this [Averroes, Metaphysics IV com.3] that, if ‘rational’ includes being quidditatively, and if any like difference does (which, namely, is taken from an essential part, not from the ultimate reality of it), then, by adding such difference to the genus, there will be trifling repetition because ‘being’ will be said twice⁶ – I reply that when two things inferior to a third are so related that one denominates the other [e.g. ‘white animal’], the term common to them in particular [‘being’] denominates itself. Just as ‘whiteness’, which is inferior to being, denominates ‘animal’, which is inferior to being, and therefore, just as this statement ‘the animal is white’ is denominative [‘white’ denominated from ‘whiteness’], so ‘being’, which is superior to ‘white’, can denominate ‘animal’ [sc. as in ‘the animal is being-al’⁷], or denominate being taken particularly for animal [sc. as in ‘the animal-being is being-al’]. For example, if the denominative were ‘being-al’, this proposition would be true ‘some being is being-al’. And just as I concede an accidental denomination there without trifling repetition – nor yet does the same thing, conceived in the same way, altogether denominate itself [sc. ‘being is being-al’ is not trifling repetition nor is ‘being’ altogether the same, or conceived in the same way, as ‘being-al’] – so here with ‘rational animal’. For in ‘animal’ being is included quidditatively [sc. ‘animal-being’] and in ‘rational’ being is included denominatively [sc. ‘rational-being-al’]; and just as ‘rationality’ is a being, so ‘rational’ is denominated by being. So there would be trifling repetition here, ‘rationality animal’ [= ‘rational-being animal-being’], not here, ‘rational animal’ [= ‘rational-being-al animal-being’]; just as there would be here, ‘whiteness animal’ [= ‘white-being animal-being’], not here, ‘white animal’ [‘white-being-al animal-being’].

To the other thing [n.153] that is said about Metaphysics 4, I say that the Philosopher in Metaphysics 10.2.1054a9-11 concedes that there is an essential order among species of the same genus, because he maintains there that in a genus there is one first that is the measure of the others. Now things measured have an essential order to the measure, and yet, notwithstanding such attribution, everyone would concede that the concept of a genus is one, otherwise the genus would not be predicated in the ‘what’ of several things differing in species. For if the genus did not have one concept, different from the concepts of the species, no concept would be said of many things in the ‘what’, but each concept would only be said of itself, and then nothing would be predicated as genus of a species, but as the same of the same.

Similarly, the Philosopher in Physics 7.4.249a22-23 says that ‘equivocations are latent in a genus’, because of which there cannot be comparison according to genus. However, there is no equivocation as far as the logician is concerned, who posits diverse concepts, but there is equivocation as far as the philosopher is concerned, because there is no unity of nature there. So therefore to all the authorities that there might be on the Metaphysics and Physics, which would be on this subject, could an exposition be given because of the real diversity of the things that there is attribution in, with which, however, there stands a unity of concept abstractable from them, as was plain in the example [n.162]. – I concede then that the whole of what accident is has an essential attribution to substance, and yet from this and from that one can a common concept be abstracted [n.145].

To what was said from Metaphysics 7 [n.154] I reply that the literal text of the final paragraph on that material solves all the authorities from the Philosopher (the text which begins there ‘But clearly that…’, 4.1030b4-12). For the Philosopher says there that “what is first and simply definition and the ‘what it was to be’ belongs to substances; and not only to them but to other things does it belong simply, yet not first.” And he proves it there, because the idea that signifies the ‘what’ of the name is the definition [n.16], if that of which the idea is per se is per se one. “But ‘one’ is said as being also is said,” and understand ‘per se being’; and “per se being, this one indeed, signifies ‘this something’, and another signifies quantity, and another quality” – which is true of ‘being per se’, because in Metaphysics 5.7.1017a22-27 he divided ‘being per se’ into the ten categories: so each of them is one per se, and so the idea of them is a definition. And he concludes this there, “For which reason there will be an idea and definition of man, and in another way as of white and of substance” – because of substance per se and first, of white simply and per se but not first, of white man in a certain respect and per accidens. Hence in that chapter he treats principally of such ‘being per accidens’, of which sort is ‘white man’, because there is of it no definition. ‘Being’, therefore, or ‘what’ or ‘has a definition’, and any of these, is simply said of accident or of attributes as also of substance, but not equally first. And notwithstanding the ordering, there can well be univocity.

As to Porphyry [n.155], he himself adduces someone else, saying “he speaks equivocally.” Who ‘speaks’? Aristotle, of course, about whom Porphyry is speaking. A place where Aristotle said this is not found in the Logic. In the Metaphysics he says it, as has already been adduced and expounded [n.164]. If someone want to treat of Porphyry’s authority – how his argument from the authority of Aristotle is of value for his purpose – it could be expounded, but I do not wish to dwell on it.

As to what is argued about Physics 1 [n.156], I reply: for destroying the opinion of Parmenides and Melissus [sc. the opinion that everything is one] “the beginning” is to accept that being is said ‘in many ways’, not ‘equivocally’, but ‘in many ways’, that is, ‘about many things’. One must inquire which of these things they mean. Just as, if they were to say ‘everything is one animal’, it would be against them to distinguish ‘animal’ and to ask which animal they mean, either that all animals are “one man or one horse” [Physics 1.2.185a24]. Again, when you say the argument of the Philosopher would not be valid against them if being were univocal, I reply that the consequence [‘either this one man or that one man’, n.156], when descent is made under a predicate standing for [its instances] only confusedly, does not hold formally, but there is [a fallacy of] figure of speech and a fallacy of the consequent.⁸ Yet if they did mean, as the Philosopher imputes to them, that ‘all things are one’ not speaking of ‘one’ confusedly but of some determinate one thing, then on the antecedent so understood [‘if all things are one being’] it does indeed follow that everything is this one thing or that one thing.⁹