Ordinatio

Finally, as concerns this matter of knowability, I ask whether any certain and sincere truth can naturally be known by the intellect of the wayfarer without a special illumining of uncreated light. I argue that it cannot: Augustine On the Trinity 9 ch.6 n.9, “Let us gaze on the inviolable truth from which we may define what sort of mind of man is due to eternal reasons.” And ibid. n.10, “When we approve or disapprove something rightly or not rightly, we are convicted into approving or disapproving by other rules abiding above us.” And ibid. n.11, “We grasp by simple intelligence an art ineffably beautiful above the acuity of the mind.” And in the same place, ch.7 n.12, “In that truth do we perceive the form by which all temporal things are made, and the thence conceived true knowledge do we have as a word in us” [cf. Henry of Ghent, Summa a.1 q.2].

Again On the Trinity 12 ch.2 n.3, “It belongs to a sublimer reason to judge of these bodies according to eternal reasons.”

Again, ibid. ch.14 n.23, “Not only of sensible things, located in their places, are there abiding unchangeable reasons etc.” And that his understanding there is about eternal reasons truly in God is proved by this, that in the same place he says, “it belongs to few to reach them;” but if his understanding were about first principles, to reach those does not belong to few but to many, because they are known and common to all.

Again ibid. 14 ch.15 n.21, when speaking of the unjust man who “rightly praises and blames many things in human morals,” he says, “By what rules does he judge etc.?” And at the end he says, “Where are those rules written, save in the book of light?” That book of light is the divine intellect. Therefore he maintains that in that light the unjust sees what is to be justly done, and that the light is seen in some impressed book or something impressed by the book, as he says ibid., “hence every just law is transmitted to the heart of man not by departing its origin but as it were by impression, as the image from a ring both passes into the wax and does not leave the wax.”¹ Therefore we see in the light by which justice is impressed on the heart of man. But that light is the uncreated light.

Again Augustine Confessions 12 ch.15 n.35, “If we both see the true, neither do you see it in me nor I in you, but both of us in that which is above the mind, in the unchangeable truth.” And there are many other authorities from Augustine, in many places, for proving this conclusion [several collected by Henry of Ghent, Summa a.1 q.2].

To the opposite: Romans 1.20, “The invisible things of God from the creation of the world are seen through the things that have been made when understood.” These eternal reasons [nn.202-204] are the invisible things of God; therefore, they are known from creatures; so, before the vision of them, a knowledge of creatures is possessed that is certain.

In this question there is an opinion of the following sort [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.1 q.2], that general intentions [sc. concepts] have a natural ordering among themselves. Let us speak about the two intentions that relate to the issue at hand, namely the intention of being and of true. The first intention is that of being, as is proved by what is said in the fourth proposition of On Causes, “The first of created things is ‘to be’,” and in the commentary on the first proposition, “‘To be’ is of greater inherence [sc. than truth];” and the reason is because entity is absolute, truth states relation to an exemplar. From this follows that being can be known under the idea of entity, though not under the idea of truth.¹ This conclusion is proved also on the part of the intellect: because being can be conceived in a simple intelligence and then is that which is true conceived; but the idea of truth can only be conceived by an intelligence that combines and divides [sc. terms in a proposition]; simple intelligence precedes composition and division.

And if a question be asked about the knowledge of being, or of that which is true, it is said [sc. by Henry] that the intellect can, of its pure natural powers, thus understand the true, of which the proof is because it is unacceptable for “nature to be without its proper operation,” according to Damascene Orthodox Faith III ch.15 n.234. And this is more unacceptable in a more perfect nature, according to the Philosopher, On the Heavens 2.8.290a29-35, about the stars [Henry, Summa a.24 q.1, Scotus Ord. Prol. n.76].² Therefore, since the proper operation of the intellect is to understand the true, it seems unacceptable that nature would not have granted the intellect the things that are sufficient for this operation.

But if we speak about knowledge of truth, the response is made that, just as there is a double exemplar, created and uncreated, according to Plato in the Timaeus 28-29 (namely the made and non-made, or the created and non-created; the created exemplar is the universal species caused by the thing, the uncreated exemplar is the idea in the divine mind), so there is a double conformity to an exemplar and a double truth. One is conformity to the created exemplar, and in this way did Aristotle [Metaphysics 1.1.981a5-7, Posterior Analytics 2.18.100a3-8; also Henry, ibid., a.1 q.1 ad 4] posit that the truths of things are known through their conformity to the intelligible species. And so does Augustine seem to posit in On the Trinity 8.4 n.7, where he maintains that we get the knowledge, general and special, of things collected from sensibles, according to which we judge the truth about each thing that confronts us, that it is of such and such sort.

But that through such exemplar, acquired in us, an altogether certain and infallible knowledge of truth may be had about a thing – this seems altogether impossible. And it is proved by a threefold reason, according to them [Henry, ibid., a.1 q.2]. The first is taken on the part of the thing from which the exemplar is abstracted; the second on the part of the subject in which it is; the third on the part of the exemplar in itself. The first reason is of this sort: the object from which the exemplar is abstracted is changeable; therefore, it cannot be the cause of anything unchangeable; but someone’s certain knowledge of something under the idea of truth is held in him through unchangeable reason; therefore it is not held through such an exemplar. This reason is said to be Augustine’s in 83 Questions q.9, where he says that “truth is not to be expected from sensibles,” because “sensibles ceaselessly change.”

The second reason is of this sort: the soul is of itself changeable and suffers error; therefore by nothing more changeable than it can it be set right or ruled over so as not to err; but such an exemplar in it is more changeable than the soul itself is; therefore the exemplar does not perfectly rule over the soul so that it not err.³ This reason is said to be Augustine’s in On True Religion ch.30 n.56, “The law of all arts etc.”

The third reason: no one has a certain and infallible knowledge of truth unless he have whereby he could discriminate the true from the likely true; because if he cannot discriminate the true from the false or from the likely true he can be in doubt that he is being deceived; but through the aforesaid created exemplar the true cannot be discriminated from the likely true; therefore etc. Proof of the minor: such a species can represent itself as itself, or in another way as the object, such as in dreams. If it represent itself as the object, there is falsity; if it represent itself as itself, there is truth. Therefore, through such species there is not had anything that sufficiently distinguishes when it represents itself as itself or as the object, and so neither anything that sufficiently distinguishes the true from the false.

From these is the conclusion drawn that, if it do happen that man knows certain science and infallible truth, this does not happen to him by looking at an exemplar taken from the thing by the senses, however much it be purified and made universal; but it is required that he look back to the uncreated exemplar. And then the mode of positing it is as follows: God does not as known have the idea of the exemplar by looking at which genuine truth is known, for he is known in a general attribute; but he is the reason for knowing as bare exemplar and proper idea of created essence.

But as to how he can be the reason for knowing and not be something known, an example is posited, because just as a ray of the sun is sometimes deflected at an oblique angle, as it were, from its source and sometimes is in direct line – what is seen in a ray deflected in the first way, although the sun be the reason for seeing it yet not as seen in itself, and of that which is seen in a ray in the second way the sun is so the reason for knowing that it is also known. When therefore this uncreated light illumines the intellect in, as it were, a direct line, then it is, as seen, the idea of seeing other things in itself. But the uncreated light illumines our intellect for this wayfaring state in an oblique line, as it were, and therefore it is for our intellect an unseen reason for seeing.

And a way is posited how [the uncreated light] may possess a threefold idea in respect of the act of seeing, namely of the light that stimulates, of the species that affects, of the character or exemplar that configures. And from this the conclusion is further drawn that a special influence is required, because just as that essence is not seen naturally by us in itself so, as that essence is exemplar with respect to some creature, it is naturally not seen (according to Augustine On Seeing God [Epistle 147 to Paulina ch.6 n.18]), for that it is seen is in God’s power: “if he wants, it is seen; if he does not, it is not seen.”

Finally is added that perfect knowledge of the truth is when two exemplar species run together in the mind: one inherent in it, namely the created one, the other flowing into it, namely the uncreated one; and thus do we touch on⁴ the word of perfect truth.

First. These reasons [nn.211-213] seem to prove the impossibility of natural certain knowledge. The first because if the object is ceaselessly changing, neither is it possible for any certitude to be had of it under the idea of the changeless, indeed nor could certitude be had of it in any light whatever, because there is no certitude when the object is known in a way other than it is. Therefore, neither is there certitude in knowing the changeable as unchangeable. It is plain too that the antecedent of this reason, namely that sensibles are ceaselessly changing, is false; for this is the option that is imputed to Heraclitus in Metaphysics 4 [4.5.1010a7-11].

Likewise if, because of the changeableness of the exemplar, what is in our soul could not be certitude [n.212], since whatever is put subjectively in the soul is changeable (even the very act of understanding), it follows that by nothing in the soul is the soul put right so as not to err.¹

Similarly, according to this opinion the inhering created species concurs with the inflowing species [n.217]. But when something concurs that is repugnant to certitude, certitude cannot be had. For just as from a proposition about the necesssary and a proposition about the contingent only a proposition about the contingent follows, so from something certain and something uncertain, concurring for some knowledge, no certain knowledge follows.

The same is plain also about the third reason [n.213], because if the very species abstracted from the thing concurs for every cognition, and no judgement can be made as to when the species represents itself as itself and when it represents itself as the object, then, whatever else concurs, no certitude can be had by which the true may be discriminated from the likely. These reasons, therefore, seem to prove the whole incertitude and opinion of the Academics.

And that this conclusion [n.222] is not Augustine’s intention I give proof: Augustine Soliloquies 1.8 n.15, “Everyone concedes without any doubt that the proofs of the sciences are most true.” And Boethius On the Hebdomads, “A common conception of the mind is what each approves when it is heard.” And the Philosopher in Metaphysics 2.1.993b4-5, “First principles are known to everyone like a door to a house, because as a door is open to view, though the interior of the house is not, so are the first principles known to everyone.”

From these three authorities [n.223] the argument goes as follows. What belongs to everything of some species follows the specific nature. Therefore, when each has infallible certitude of the first principles, and further to anyone at all the form of a perfect syllogism is naturally evident (from the definition of a perfect syllogism in Prior Analytics 1.1.24b22-24), but the science of the conclusions depends only on the evidence of the principle and the evidence of the syllogistic inference – therefore to anyone at all can naturally be known any conclusion at all demonstrable from self-evident principles.

Second it is clear that Augustine concedes the certainty of the things that are known by sense experience; hence he says On the Trinity 15.12 n.21, “Far be it that we should doubt to be true what we have learnt through the senses of the body; indeed through them we have learnt heaven and earth and sea and all that is in them.” If we do not doubt of the truth of them, and we are not deceived, as is plain, then we are certain of things known by way of the senses; for certitude is had when doubt and deception are excluded.

It is also plain, third, that Augustine concedes certitude of our acts, ibid., “Whether one sleeps or is awake, one lives, because both to sleep and to see in dreams belong to him who is alive.”

But if you say that ‘to live’ is not second act but first act, there follows ibid., “If someone say I know that I know I am alive, he cannot be deceived,” even when reflecting however often on the first thing known [sc. ‘I know that…’]. And ibid., “If someone say ‘I want to be blessed’, how is it not impudent to reply, ‘perhaps you are deceived?’,” and by reflecting there “the ‘I know I want’ endlessly etc.” Ibid., “If anyone say, ‘I do not wish to err’, will it not surely be true that he does not want to err?” “And other things,” he says, “are found that avail against the academics, who contend that nothing can be known by man.” There follows ibid., about the three books Against the Academics, “he who has understood those books will be moved not at all against the perception of truth by their many arguments.”

Again, ibid. ch.15 n.25, “Things that are so known that they could never be lost also belong to the nature of the soul itself, of which sort is that we know we live.”² So the first point is plain [n.218].³

As to the second article [n.218], so that the error of the academics have no place in any knowables, one needs to see how one should speak about the three aforesaid knowables [nn.224-228] – namely about principles known per se and conclusions, and second about things known through experience, and third about our own acts – whether it be possible for infallible certitude of them to be had.

[About the knowledge of principles and conclusions] – As to certitude about principles, then, I say as follows: the terms of principles known per se have such an identity that the one evidently necessarily includes the other, and so the intellect, combining the terms from the fact it apprehends them, has in itself the necessary cause of the act of combining’s conformity with the very terms of which it is the combining, and has also the evident cause of such conformity; and so necessarily plain to it is the conformity whose evident cause it apprehends in the terms. Therefore, there cannot be in the intellect an apprehension of the terms and a combining of them without there being a conformity of the combining with the terms, just as a white thing and a white thing cannot be without there being a likeness between them. Now this conformity of the combining with the terms is the truth of the combining; therefore, the combining of such terms cannot be without being true, and so there cannot be perception of the combining and the perception of the terms cannot be without there being perception of the conformity of the combining with the terms, and so perception of the truth, because the first perceived things evidently include perception of this truth.

This reason is confirmed through a likeness, from the Philosopher Metaphysics 4.3.1005b29-32, where he maintains that the opposite of a first principle cannot arise in anyone’s intellect, namely the opposite of this principle ‘it is impossible for the same thing to be and not to be’, “because then contrary opinions would exist in the mind together;” which is of course true of contrary opinions, that is, of opinions formally repugnant, because an opinion opining ‘it is’ of something and an opinion opining ‘it is not’ of the same thing are formally repugnant.

So I will assert in the issue at hand some repugnance of understandings in the mind, though not formal repugnance. For if knowledge of whole and part stands in the intellect, and the combining together of them, then, since these include, as by necessary cause, the conformity of the combining with the terms, if the opinion stand in the intellect that this combining is false, cognitions will stand that are repugnant, not formally, but one cognition will stand with another and yet it will be the necessary cause of a cognition opposite to it, which is impossible. For just as it is impossible for white and black to stand together (because they are contraries formally), so is it impossible for white to stand together with what is precisely cause of black so necessarily that it cannot be without it without contradiction.

When certitude about first principles is had [nn.230-232], it is plain how it will be had about conclusions inferred from them, on account of the evidence of the form of a perfect syllogism; for the certitude of the conclusion only depends on the certitude of the principles and on the evidence of the inference.

But will not the intellect surely err in this knowledge of principles and conclusions, if all the senses be deceived about the terms? I reply that, as far as concerns this knowledge, the intellect does not have the senses as cause but only as occasion. For the intellect can have of simples only knowledge received from the senses, but, once the knowledge is received, it can by its own virtue combine the simples together. And if by reason of such simples the combination of them is evidently true, the intellect will by its own virtue and that of the terms assent to the combination – not by virtue of the senses from which it exteriorly takes the terms. An example: if the idea of ‘whole’ and the idea of ‘being greater’ is received from the senses, and if the intellect put together this proposition, ‘every whole is greater than its part’, the intellect will by its own virtue and by that of these terms assent indubitably to this combination, and not only because it saw the terms conjoined in the thing (the way it assents to this complex, ‘Socrates is white’, because it sees that these are united in the thing). Rather I say that if all the senses from which such terms are received were false, or if (and this counts more for deception) some senses were false and some were true, the intellect would not be deceived about such principles, because it would always have in itself the terms that were cause of the truth; as suppose that on someone born blind were miraculously impressed in a dream the species of white and black, and suppose these species remained afterwards when he was awake, the intellect by abstracting would combine from them this proposition, ‘white is not black’, and about it the intellect would not be deceived although the terms be received from erring sense; for the formal idea of the terms, which has been reached, is the necessary cause of the truth of this negative proposition.

[About knowledge through experience] – About the second knowables, namely things known through experience [n.229], I say that although experience not be had of all singulars but of many, and not always but often, yet someone with experience does infallibly know that it is so always and in all things, and this through this proposition residing in the soul, ‘whatever happens for the most part from a non-free cause is the natural effect of that cause’. This proposition is known to the intellect although it had taken its terms from erring sense, because a non-free cause cannot produce non-freely an effect for the most part, the opposite of which it is ordered to, or which it is not ordered to by its form. But a chance cause is ordered to producing the opposite of a chance effect or not to producing it; therefore nothing is a chance cause of an effect that is frequently produced by it, and so, if it not be free, it will be the natural cause.¹ And this effect comes about from the cause for the most part. This is taken from experience because by finding such a nature now with this sort of accident now with that, what is found is that, however much there were a diversity of accidents, always was such effect following this nature. Therefore, not from something accidental to this nature but from the nature itself in itself does such an effect follow.

But further must be noted that sometimes experience of a conclusion is received, as that the moon is frequently eclipsed, and then, with the conclusion supposed because it is so, a cause of such conclusion is looked for by way of division. And sometimes advance is made from experience of the conclusion to principles known from the terms, and then from such principle known from the terms can the conclusion, known previously only by experience, be known more certainly, namely with the first kind of knowledge, because known as deduced from a principle known per se [nn.229-230] – the way this is per se known, that ‘a dark body interposed between a perspicuous body and the light is preventing the multiplication of the light to such perspicuous body’. And if it has been found by division that the earth is such a body interposed between the sun and the moon, this will be known most certainly by a demonstration ‘because of which’ (because through the cause), and not only by experience, in the way this conclusion was known before the finding of the principle.

Now sometimes there is experience of a principle, so that it is not possible to find by way of division a further principle known from the terms, but a stand is made in something true for the most part, whose extreme terms are by experience known to be frequently united, for example that this herb of this sort of species is hot. And there is no other middle term found prior by which the property may be demonstrated ‘because of which’ of the subject, but a stand is made in this as something first known because of experience. Although then uncertainty and fallibility may be removed by this proposition, ‘an effect for the most part of a non-free cause is the natural effect of it’, yet this is the last degree of scientific knowledge. And perhaps there actual knowledge is not had of the union of the extreme terms, but aptitudinal knowledge. For if the property is an absolute thing other than the subject, it could be separated from the subject without contradiction, and the experienced person would not have knowledge because it is so, but because it is naturally apt to be so.

[About our acts] – About the third knowables, namely our own acts [n.229], I say that there is certitude about many of them just as there is of things known first and per se, which is plain from Metaphysics 4.6.1011a3-9, where the Philosopher says of the arguments of those who say that all appearances are true, that those arguments ask “whether we are now awake or sleeping; and all such doubts have the same force; for they make it an axiom that there is a reason for everything.” And he adds, “they are seeking a reason for things of which there is no reason, for there is no demonstration of a principle of demonstration.” So, for him there, ‘we are awake’ is known per se like a principle of demonstration; nor is it an objection that it is contingent because, as was said elsewhere [Ord. Prol. n.169], there is an order in contingent things, that some [contingent] is first and immediate, else there would be a process to infinity in contingent things, or some contingent would follow from a necessary cause, each of which is impossible.

And just as there is certitude about being awake as about something known per se, so also about many other acts that are in our power (as that ‘I understand’, ‘I am hearing’), and about others that are perfect acts. For although there is no certitude that I am seeing a white thing located outside, or in such a subject or at such a distance, because an illusion can happen in the medium or in the organ and in many other ways, yet there is certitude that I am seeing, even if an illusion happen in the organ. And this seems most of all an illusion, namely when an act of the sort that is of a nature to be brought about by an object present is brought about in the organ not by an object present. And so if the power had its own action when such a position is posited, truly would that be there which is called vision, whether it be an action or a passion or both. But if an illusion were to happen, not in the organ proper, but in something close to it which seems to be the organ – as if an illusion were not to come about in the bundle of nerves, but in the eye itself an impression were to come about of a species of the sort that is naturally brought about by a white thing – still vision would see, because such a species, or what is of a nature to be seen in it, would be seen. For it has distance enough as regard the organ of sight that is in the bundle of these nerves, as appears in Augustine On the Trinity 11.3 n.4, that the reliquies of things seen remaining in the eye are seen with the eyes closed; and in the Philosopher On Sense and Sensed Object 2.437a23-26, it appears that the fire [sc. the ‘flash’], which is generated from a violent upward raising of the eye and multiplied, is seen up to the shutting of the eyelid. These are true seeings, though not the most perfect, because here there is sufficient distance from the species to the principal organ of sight.

But how is certitude had of things that are subject to acts of sense, as that something outside is the sort of white or hot it appears? I reply: Either the same things about such an object appear opposite to diverse senses, or they do not, but all the senses that know it have the same judgment about it.

If in the second way, then certitude of the truth is had of this sort of thing known through the senses, and through this preceding proposition [n.235], that ‘what comes about for the most part from something, that something is the natural cause of it, provided it not be a free cause’. Therefore, when from this present something such a sort of change of the senses happens for the most part, it follows that the change, or the species generated, is the natural effect of such a cause; and so such external thing will be white or hot, or something else of the sort that is of a nature to be presented through the species that is for the most part generated by it.

Now if diverse senses have diverse judgments about some external seen thing – as that sight says a stick is broken part of which is in water and part in air, that sight always says the sun is of less size than it is, and that everything seen from a remote distance is smaller than it is – in such things there is certitude about what is true and which sense is erring through a proposition resting in the soul that is more certain than any judgment of the senses, and through the concurring acts of several senses; so that always some proposition sets the intellect right about the acts of the senses, which is true and which is false; and in this proposition the intellect does not depend on the senses as on a cause, but as on an occasion.

An example. The intellect has this proposition resting in it, ‘no harder thing that is broken by the touch of something soft yielding to it’. This is so per se known from the terms that, even if the terms were taken from the senses, the intellect cannot doubt of it; indeed, the opposite includes a contradiction. But that the stick is harder than water and that water yields to it, this each sense states, both sight and touch. It follows, therefore, that the stick is not broken as the senses judge it broken; and so the intellect judges which sense errs about the breaking of the stick and which does not through something more certain than any act of sense.

Similarly, on the other part [sc. the size of the sun, n.242], that a quantity applied to a quantity is altogether equal to it, this is known to the intellect however much the knowledge of the terms be taken from an erring sense; but that the same quantity could be applied to something seen near and far off, this do both sight and touch say; therefore a quantity seen near at hand or far off is equal; therefore the sight when saying it is smaller is in error.

This conclusion [n.244] is proved from principles known per se, and from the acts of two senses knowing for the most part that it is so. And so, whenever reason judges the senses to be erring, it judges this not through any knowledge precisely acquired from the senses as cause, but through some knowledge occasioned by the senses, in which it is not deceived even if all the senses be deceived [n.234], and by some other knowledge, acquired from a sense or senses ‘for the most part’, and these are known to be true by the proposition often cited [nn.235, 237, 241; n.228n], namely that ‘what is brought about for the most part etc.’²

As to the third article [n.218], a response must be made from the preceding [nn.230-245] to the three reasons [of Henry, nn.211-213].¹ To the first argument [n.211], as to the point about the change of the object, the antecedent is false;² nor is it the opinion of Augustine but the error of Heraclitus, and of his disciple Cratylus who did not want to speak but to move his finger, as is said in Metaphysics 4.5.1010a7-15. And the consequence, given the antecedent were true, is not valid, because still, according to Aristotle, could certain knowledge be had of the fact that all things were continually moving. Also, it does not follow that, if the object is changeable, then what is produced by it is not representative of anything under the idea of the unchangeable [n.211]; for the changeability in the object is not the reason for generating [knowledge], but the nature of the object itself that is changeable. The thing generated by it, therefore, represents the nature per se. If, therefore, the nature, whereby it is nature, have some unchangeable relationship to something else, that something else through its exemplar, and the nature itself through its exemplar, are represented as unchangeably united; and thus, through two exemplars, generated by two changeable things – not insofar as they changeable but insofar as they are natures – knowledge of the unchangeability of their union can be had.

Although it not generate insofar as it is changeable, yet, if it is changeable, how is there an unchangeable relation of it to something else? I reply: the relation is unchangeable in this way, because there cannot be an opposite relation between the extremes, neither can this relation not exist once the extremes are posited, but it is destroyed by the destruction of the extreme or the extremes.

On the contrary: how is a necessary proposition affirmed if the identity of the extremes can be destroyed? I reply: when the thing does not exist, there is no real identity of it. But then, if it is in the intellect, there is identity as it is an understood object, and it is necessary in a certain respect, because in such existence the extremes cannot be without such identity. However, that [identity] is able not to be, just as the extreme is able to be non-understood. Therefore, it is a necessary proposition in our intellect in a certain respect, because it cannot be changed to the false; but it is not simply necessary save in the divine intellect, just as neither do the extremes have an identity simply necessarily in any being save in that being understood.

It is plain too that something representative that is in itself changeable can represent something under the idea of the unchangeable, because the essence of God under the idea of the unchangeable will be represented to the intellect through something altogether changeable, whether it be a species or an act; this is plain through a likeness, because through the finite can something under the idea of the infinite be represented.

To the second argument [of Henry, n.212] I say that in the soul a twofold changeability can be understood, one from affirmation to negation and conversely, as from ignorance to knowledge or from non-intellection to intellection;³ another from, as it were, contrary to contrary, as from rectitude to deception or conversely. Now as to any object the soul is changeable in the first way, and by nothing formally existing in it is such changeability taken away from it. But it is not changeable with the second changeableness save as to the complexes [propositions] that do not have evidence from the terms. But about those that are evident from the terms the soul cannot be changed with the second changeableness, because, once the terms themselves are understood, they are a necessary and evident cause of conformity with the terms of the composition that has been made [n.230]. Therefore, if the soul is changeable from rectitude to error, absolutely, it does not follow that by nothing other than itself can it be set right; at least it can be set right as regard the objects about which the intellect, once the terms have been apprehended, cannot err.

To the third argument [of Henry, n.213] I say that if it had any appearance [of truth], it would conclude more against the opinion that denies the intelligible species,⁴ because the species that can represent something sensible as an object in dreams would be a phantasm, not an intelligible species. Therefore, if the intellect use a phantasm alone whereby the object is present to it, and not any intelligible species, it does not seem it could discriminate the true from the likely true through anything in which the object is lucid for it. But if one posits a species in the intellect, [Henry’s] reasoning is not valid, for the intellect cannot use the species [sc. as opposed to a phantasm] for itself as object, because it cannot use it when sleeping.

If you object that, if the phantasm can represent itself as the object, then the intellect, through that error of the imaginative power, can err, or at any rate it can be bound so as not to be able to operate, as is plain in dreams and the mad [n.213] – it can be said that, though the intellect be bound when there is such error in the imaginative power, yet it does not err, because it does not then have any act.

But how will the intellect know, or how then will it be certain, when the imaginative power is erring, whose not erring is, however, required for the intellect not to be in error? I reply. This truth rests in the intellect, that a power does not err about an object proportioned to it unless it is indisposed. And it is known to the intellect that the power of imagination is not, when awake, indisposed with such an indisposition as makes a phantasm represent itself as an object; for it is per se known to the intellect that, when thinking, it is awake, so that the power of imagination is not bound during wakefulness the way it is in dreams.

But an objection against the stated certitude about acts is still made in this way: ‘it seems to me that I am seeing or hearing, when however I am not seeing or hearing; so there is no certitude about this’.

I reply. It is one thing to show against someone who denies a proposition that the proposition is true; it is another thing to show to someone who admits it how it is true. An example from Metaphysics 4.3.1005a29-6a18: the Philosopher does not introduce, against someone who denies the first principle [sc. the principle of non-contradiction], the unacceptable result that contrary opinions would simultaneously exist in the soul [n.231] (the deniers would concede this themselves as presupposed); rather he brings in for them other unacceptable results, more manifest to them though not in themselves. But to those who receive the first principle he shows how it is known, because it is such that its opposite could not come into the mind; which he proves because then contrary opinions could stand together. Such a conclusion is there more unacceptable than the hypothesis [sc. ‘its opposite could not come into the mind’].

So here. If you allow that no proposition is known per se, I refuse to dispute with you, because it is clear that you are impudent and are not convinced, as is plain in your actions, the way the Philosopher objects, Metaphysics 4.3.100535-6a18: for, when dreaming about getting something that is as it were close by and waking up afterwards, you do not pursue it as you would pursue it if, being awake, you were close to obtaining it. But if you allow that some proposition is known per se, and that an indisposed power can err about anything (as is plain in dreams), then, so that some proposition may be recognized to be known per se, there must be a possibility of it being known when the power is disposed and when not, and consequently a possibility for knowledge to be had about our acts that the power is thus disposed, that that is known per se which appears known per se to it.

I say then to the form of this caviling [n.254] that, just as it appears to a dreamer that he sees, so could the opposite appear to him of a principle of speculation that is known per se; and yet it does not follow that that principle is not known per se, and so it does not follow that it is not per se known to a hearer that he is hearing, for an indisposed power can err about both, but not a disposed power. And when it is disposed and when not is per se known – otherwise it could not be known that anything else was per se known, because it could not be known what will be per se known, whether what the intellect assents to when disposed in this way, or what it assents to when disposed in that way.

About the fourth article [n.218], against the conclusion of the opinion, I argue as follows: I ask, what does he understand by certain and sincere truth [n.214]? Either infallible truth, namely without doubt and deception; and it was proved and made clear above, in the second and third articles [nn.229-257], that that can be had by pure natural powers. Or he understands by truth that which is a property of being, and then since being can be naturally understood, so also can true as it is a property of being; and if the true then, by abstraction, truth too, because any form that can be understood as it is in its subject can be understood as it is in itself and in abstraction from the subject. Or, in another way, he understands by truth conformity to the exemplar; and if to the created exemplar, then the proposed conclusion is plain [sc. n.202, that truth can be known without the aid of uncreated light]. But if to the uncreated exemplar, conformity to that cannot be understood save in the exemplar as known, because a relation is not known if the extreme is not known. So what is posited, that the eternal exemplar is the reason for knowing and is not known [n.214], is false.

Further, second as follows: everything that simple understanding understands confusedly it can know definitively, by inquiring into the definition of that known thing by way of division. This definitive knowledge seems most perfect, belonging to simple understanding. Now from such most perfect knowledge of the terms can the intellect most perfectly understand the principle, and from the principle the conclusion; and in this does intellectual knowledge seem to be completed such that there does not seem to be necessary knowledge of truth beyond the aforesaid truths [above here in n.259].

Again, third: either the eternal light, which you say is necessary for having sincere truth [n.215], causes something naturally prior to the act or it does not. If it does, then either in the object or in the intellect. Not in the object, because the object, insofar as it has being in the intellect, does not have real being but only intentional being; therefore it is not capable of any real accident. If in the intellect, then the uncreated light does not move to knowing sincere truth save by means of its own effect; and thus does the common view [Alexander of Hales, Thomas Aquinas, Bonaventure] seem as equally perfectly to posit knowledge in uncreated light as does this position [above], because it posits it to be seen in the agent intellect, which is an effect of the uncreated light and more perfect than that created accidental light would be. But if the uncreated light causes nothing before the act, then either the light alone causes the act, or the light does along with the intellect and object. If the light alone, then the agent intellect has no operation in knowledge of sincere truth, which seems unacceptable. For this operation is the most noble in our intellect, therefore the agent intellect, which is the noblest intellect in the soul, should in some way concur in this action [cf. Ord. Prol. n.52].¹ And this unacceptable result too, which is inferred there, is proved in another way from the preceding opinion [n.260 init.], because, according to him who thinks thus [Henry, Summa a.3 q.4], an agent using an instrument cannot have an action exceeding the action of the instrument; therefore since the virtue of the agent intellect is not capable of knowledge of sincere truth, it follows that the eternal light, when using the agent intellect, will not be capable of the action of this knowledge of sincere truth, such that the agent intellect may have the idea there of instrument [cf. Ord. Prol. n.51]. If you say that the uncreated light along with the intellect and the object cause this sincere truth, this is the common opinion, which posits that the eternal light causes, as remote cause, all certain truth. Either then this opinion [of Henry] will be unacceptable or it will not disagree with the common opinion.

To the question [n.218], therefore, I say that, because of the words of Augustine, one must concede that infallible truths are seen in eternal rules, where the ‘in’ is taken objectively, and this in four ways: either as in the proximate object, or as in what contains the proximate object, or as in that by virtue of which the proximate object moves [the intellect], or as in the remote object.

For understanding of the first [n.261], I say that all intelligibles have intelligible being by act of the divine intellect, and in them do all truths about them shine forth, such that the intellect understanding them, and understanding by virtue of them the necessary truths about them, sees these necessary truths in them as in their objects. And they, insofar as they are secondary objects of the divine intellect, are truths because in conformity with their exemplar, namely the divine intellect; and they are light because manifest; and they are unchangeable there and necessary. But they are eternal in a certain respect, because eternity is a condition of what exists, and they do not have existence save in a certain respect. So then, first, we can be said to see in eternal light, that is, in a secondary object of the divine intellect, which object is truth and eternal light in the way explained.

The second way [n.261] is likewise plain, because the divine intellect contains these truths as a book, just as the authority of Augustine says, On the Trinity 14.15, that ‘these rules are written in the book of eternal light’ [n.205], that is, in the divine intellect insofar as it contains these truths. And though the book not be seen, yet the truths are seen that are written in that first book. And to that extent could our intellect be said to see truths in the eternal light, that is, in the book as in what contains the object.¹ And the other [n.262] of these two ways seems to be of the meaning of Augustine in On the Trinity 12.14 n.23, that “the idea of a square body remains incorruptible and unchangeable etc.” But it does not remain such save as it is a secondary object of the divine intellect.

But against the first way [n.262] there is a doubt. For if we do not see these truths as they are in the divine intellect (because we do not see the divine intellect), how will we be said to see in the uncreated light from the fact we see in such eternal light in a certain respect, which light has being in the uncreated light as in the knowing intellect?

To this the third way [n.261] responds, which is as follows: they, as they are the secondary object of the divine intellect, only have being in a certain respect; but any true, real operation does not belong to anything that is precisely a being in a certain respect by virtue of itself; but if in some way it does belong to it, this must be by virtue of something to which being simply belongs. Therefore, it does not belong to these secondary objects to move the intellect precisely save by virtue of the being of the divine intellect, which is being simply and by which these [secondary objects] have being in a certain respect. So, therefore, we see in eternal light in a certain respect, as in the proximate object [n.262]; but in the uncreated eternal light we see in the third way, as in the proximate cause by whose virtue the proximate object moves [the intellect].

Following on from this too it can be said that, as to the third way [n.265], we see in eternal light as in the cause of the object in itself; for the divine intellect produces them, by its own act, in intelligible being, and by its own act it gives being of this sort to this object and of that sort to that object, and consequently it gives them such an idea of object, by which ideas they afterwards move the intellect to certain knowledge. And, that it could properly be said that our intellect sees in the light because the light is the cause of the object, is apparent through a likeness; for we are properly said to understand in the light of the agent intellect, although however that light is only the active cause or what makes the object in its own act, or by virtue of which the object moves, or both.

This double causality, therefore, of the divine intellect (that it is the true uncreated light, namely which produces secondary objects in intelligible being, and that it is that by virtue of which do also the produced secondary objects actually move the intellect) can as it were integrate one third member [nn.261265], because of which we are said truly to see in eternal light.

And if it be objected against these two ways that integrate the third member about the cause [n.267], that then it seems rather that we would be said to see in God so willing, or in God as he is will, than in God as he is light, because the divine will is the immediate principle of any extrinsic act – I reply: the divine intellect, insofar as it is in some way prior to act of the divine will, produces these objects in intelligible being and so seems, with respect to them, to be a merely natural cause; for God is a not free cause with respect to anything save that which, in some way prior to itself, presupposes the will according as it is an act of will. And just as the intellect, as prior to an act of will, produces objects in intelligible being, so it seems as prior cause to cooperate with the intelligibles for their natural effect, namely so that the intelligibles, as apprehended and combined, may cause the apprehension’s conformity with them. It seems therefore that it includes a contradiction for some intellect to form such composition and for the composition not to be in conformity with the terms (though it is possible for it not to compose the terms); for although God voluntarily co-act so that the intellect compose or not compose the terms, yet when the intellect has composed them, so that the composition be in conformity with the terms, this seems necessarily to follow the idea of the terms that the terms have from the intellect of God that causes those terms naturally in intelligible being.

And from this appears how no special illumining is necessary for seeing things in eternal rules, because Augustine does not posit that truths are seen in them save those that are necessary by force of the terms. And in such truths there is the greatest naturalness of both the remote and the proximate cause as regards the effect, namely of both the divine intellect for the objects moving [the intellect] and of the objects for the truth of the complex [the proposition] about them. And also, though there not be as much naturalness for perception of the truth that ‘the opposite includes a contradiction’, yet there is naturalness on the part of the proximate cause when the remote cause is co-assisting with it, because the terms when apprehended and composed are of a nature to cause the evidence of the conformity of the composition with the terms naturally. And if it be posited that God act along with the terms with a general influence for this effect not, however, with natural necessity; still, whether there is a general influence or, what is more, a natural necessity of influencing for the terms toward this effect, it is plain that a special illumining is not required.

The assumption about what Augustine means is plain from what he says in On the Trinity 4.35 n.20 (he is speaking about the philosophers), “Some of them were able to raise their mind’s gaze beyond all creatures and to attain, in however little part, the light of unchangeable truth, and they mock the fact that many Christians, living by faith alone, are not yet able to do it.” Therefore, he maintains that Christians do not see the things of faith in the eternal rules, but that the philosophers do see many necessary things in them.

Also ibid. 9.6 n.9, “Not just any man’s sort of mind etc.” [cf. n.202], as if he were to say: contingent things are not seen there but necessary ones.

And ibid. 4.16 n.21 he argues against these philosophers: “Is it because they contend most truly that all things come to be by eternal ideas that they were therefore able to espy in those very ideas how many kinds of animals, how many seeds of individuals, there are in the origin?” etc. “Surely it was not by unchangeable science that they searched all these things out, but through the history of places and times, and they believed what was experienced and written down by others?” Therefore, he means that it is not through eternal rules that they know the contingent facts that are known only through the senses or believed through histories; and yet a special illumining is more required in things believed than in necessities known; indeed in the latter most of all is a special illumining taken away, and a general illumining alone suffices.

On the contrary: what then is Augustine saying in ibid. 12.14 n.23, that “it belongs to few to reach the intelligible reasons by the mind’s gaze” [cf. n.204], and in 83 Questions q.46 n.2, “only pure souls attain to them”?

I reply: this purity must not be understood as purity from vices, because in On the Trinity 14.15 n.21 he maintains that the unjust sees in eternal rules what the just thing to be done is; and in chapter 15 from ibid. 4 already cited [n.270] he maintains that philosophers see the truth in eternal rules without faith; and in the same question [83 Questions q.46 n.1] he maintains that no one can be wise without knowledge of the ideas (in the way they would perhaps concede that Plato was wise). But this purity must be understood to be by raising the intellect to considering truths as they shine forth in themselves, not only as they shine forth in a phantasm.

One needs to consider here that the external sensible thing causes in the imaginative power a phantasm that is confused and one per accidens, namely representing a thing in quantity, in figure and color and other sensible accidents. And just as a phantasm represents only confusedly and per accidens, so do many perceive only a being per accidens. Now the first truths are precisely such from the proper idea of their terms, insofar as the terms are abstracted from everything conjoined to them per accidens. For this proposition, ‘the whole is greater than its part’, is not first true as ‘whole’ is in stone or wood, but as ‘whole’ is abstracted from everything to which it is per accidens conjoined. And an intellect, therefore, that never understands a totality save in a per accidens concept, as in a totality of stone or wood, never understands the genuine truth of the above principle, because it never understands the precise idea of the term by which the principle is true.

It therefore belongs to few to reach eternal ideas, because it belongs to few to have understandings per se, and to many to have such per accidens concepts. But these few are not said to be distinguished from others on account of a special illumining, but either on account of better natural endowments (because they have an intellect that abstracts more and is more perspicacious), or on account of a greater investigation whereby someone equally endowed reaches a knowledge of the quiddities that another, who does not investigate, does not know. And in this way is understood Augustine’s comment, On the Trinity 9.6. n.11, about someone seeing on a mountain, and seeing the cloudy air below and clear air above. For he who only ever understands per accidens concepts in the way a phantasm represents such objects as per accidens beings, he is, as it were, in the valley, surrounded by cloudy air. But he who separates out quiddities, understanding them precisely in a per se concept, which quiddities, however, shine forth in the phantasm with many other accidents adjoined – he has the phantasm beneath him, like the cloudy air, and is himself on the mountain top, to the extent he knows the truth and sees the true up above, as the higher truth, in virtue of the uncreated intellect that is the eternal light.

In the last way [sc. the fourth, n.261] it can be conceded that pure truths are known in the eternal light as in a remote known object, because the uncreated light is the first principle of speculative things and the ultimate end of practical things; and therefore are from it the first principles taken, both the speculative and the practical. And for this reason is the knowledge of all things (both speculative and practical), taken through principles from the eternal light as known, more perfect and purer than the knowledge taken through principles in their proper genus. And in this way does knowledge of all things pertain to the theologian, as was said in the question about the subject of theology [Ord. Prol. n.206]; and it is more eminent than any other knowledge whatever. In this way is the pure truth said to be known, because through it is known what is truth only, not having anything of non-truth intermixed; for it is through the first being, from which as known the principles of knowing in this way are taken. But anything else whatever, from which the principles of knowing in general are taken, is defective truth. In this way does only God know all things in their purity alone, because, as was said in the question about the subject of theology [Ord. Prol. nn.200-201], only he knows all things precisely through his essence; every other intellect can be moved by another object to know a truth by virtue it [Ord. Prol. nn.202, 206]. For to know that a triangle has three angles [equal to two right angles] as this is a certain participation in God and possesses such order in the universe that it expresses more perfectly, as it were, the perfection of God – this is to know that a triangle has three angles etc. in a nobler way than to know it through the idea of a triangle [sc. a plane figure bound by three straight lines, Ord. I d.2 n.27]. And to know in this way that one should live temperately for attaining ultimate beatitude, which is by reaching God’s essence in itself, is to know this practical knowable more perfectly than to know it through some principle in the genus of morals, as for example through this, that one should live honorably.

And in this way does Augustine speak of the uncreated light as known, On the Trinity 15.27 n.50 where, speaking to himself, he says, “Many truths have you seen, and truths that you discerned by this light which, as shining on you, you saw by. Raise up your eyes to the light itself, and fix them on it if you can; for thus will you see how distant the nativity of the Word of God is from the procession of a gift of God.” And a little later, “These and other things has this light shown to your interior eyes. What then is the cause why, with gaze fixed, you will not be able to see it, save surely your infirmity?” etc. [cf. n.187].

From what has been said [nn.262-278] the answer is plain to all the authorities of Augustine for the opposite [nn.202-206]; and according to one or other of the stated ways of seeing ‘in’ [n.261] can the authorities of Augustine that occur on this matter be expounded.