Ordinatio

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