Ordinatio

Against what is said in the first member [n.286]. If there were only one animal such that another in the universe would not be possible, still the vestige of it would not be the image of it (because a vestige would still not be a likeness of the whole but of a part, and an image is a likeness of the whole), and yet it would then not represent it confusedly, that is, according to an idea common to itself and others.

It will be said that it does [represent confusedly], just as now the sun is a universal, even though it were impossible for there to be many suns [cf. Algazel, Logic ch.3]. And the science that is about the sun is about it under the idea of a universal, and not about this sun; and so the intelligible species does represent the universal and not this particular, even though the universal can only exist in this particular.

Against this [n.290]: If it is respect of something insofar as it is a ‘this’ that the vestige is not an image, the proposed conclusion is obtained [n.289], and this when supposing, by whatever supposition, that nothing could be abstracted from ‘this’. But still, on this supposition, something could represent this whole as ‘this’, and something a part of this as ‘of this’.

Again, if the parts of animals diverse in species, which parts make an impression on what yields in a soft thing, were alike in quantity and figure, the vestige too would not lead to knowledge of them under the idea of species but only of genus. If in the same species there were parts of this sort unlike in quantity and figure, the vestige would lead to knowledge of the individual as ‘this’, though not of the whole as represented wholly. Therefore, species or not species is an accidental difference.

Concerning this point then [n.285], I say that a footprint is the likeness of a part of an animal, by which part a footprint is impressed on something yielding to it. But an expressed likeness of a part is not an expressed likeness of the whole, because not in accord with the idea of the whole in itself, nor even with that by which it is immediately known but only by argument, and herefrom because the thing represented is known to be some part of it. And therefore, if this supposition is false – for example, because the impressing thing were separate from the whole (as if a foot amputated from the body were impressing the footprint) – the soul would be in error about the whole to which the sort of part that impresses a vestige naturally belongs. It is plain too that, if the whole body were as impressed on the dust as the foot was impressed, this left-behind impression would truly be the image and likeness of the whole, just as now the vestige is the likeness of a part.

Applying this also to the issue at hand [n.281], it does not seem that the first distinction set down between vestige and image [n.286] is true, because no creature represents God save according to common concepts, and not according to special concepts, namely, concepts of the most specific species. So there is no difference between creature and creature in representing God in a common and non-common idea.

What is said too in the second member, that the vestige consists in the three relations [n.287], does not seem true. For although the idea of vestige states a respect, in the way in which a likeness is really a respect, yet, just as a likeness is not said to exist in a respect precisely but in something absolute in which the idea of likeness is founded, so too the idea of vestige seems not to exist in a respect precisely but in something on which the respect is founded. And the proof of this is as follows, because the vestige is a likeness of the thing of which it is the vestige, from which vestige, when known, the thing is known. Therefore, the vestige can be known naturally before that of which it is the vestige; but a relation cannot be known naturally before the term; therefore etc.

Again, as to what is said that the three respects belong to the three modes of relatives [n.287], this seems false. For the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5.15.1021a26-30, when setting down the difference of the two modes relative to the third, maintains that in the first two modes the relation is mutual, in the third not, but one thing is said relative to another only because the other is of it; and every relation of creature to God is non-mutual, but God is said relative to the creature only because the creature is relative to him; therefore every respect of a creature to God is according to the third mode.

Also, what he brings forward about the first mode of likeness [n.287] is not valid, because the likeness (which is of the thing exemplified to what exemplifies it) does not belong to the first mode, because it is not a likeness of univocity; rather it belongs to the third mode, as appears manifestly from the Philosopher [Metaphysics 5.15.1020b30-32], who puts the relation of knowledge to knowable in the third mode and, universally, the relation of measured to measure; and the exemplar has the idea of measure with respect to what it is the exemplar of; therefore etc.