Ordinatio

[Reasons on the part of the representing phantasm] – First I argue as follows: a species has, from the fact it is the sort of species it is, the sort of idea of representing it has, and this in respect of the object under the sort of idea of what is represented. Therefore, while the same species remains, it does not have two representative ideas, nor is it representative with respect to two ideas in the representable thing. But to understand an object under the idea of universal and singular requires a double representative idea or idea of representing, and in respect of a double idea of what is formally representable. Therefore, while the same thing remains the same, it does not represent in this way and that; therefore the phantasm, which of itself represents the object under the idea of a singular, cannot represent it under the idea of a universal.¹

Response [Henry of Ghent, Summa a58 a.2 ad 3]: the same representative in different lights represents an object under different ideas, just as phosphorescent things in daylight represent themselves under the idea of things colored, in light at night under the idea of things luminous.

To the contrary: This representative thing is naturally something first in itself before it represent [anything] in this or that sort of light; for because it is the sort of species it is, therefore does a light agree with it in which it may represent one thing and not another. Otherwise, one would posit, or could posit, that the same species would represent color and sound (but the species as it is in vibrating air represents sound, and as it is in illumed air it represents color), and thus no distinction between the representative things could be shown. Therefore, in the prior stage one must understand a unity of the species in itself before there follow on a unity of the representation and of the object representable by it insofar as it is represented in it or through it. And so something that is the same in this prior stage cannot have a diverse idea of representing, nor can it represent under different ideas of being representable. There is a confirmation, because light does not represent formally, nor is it the formal idea of what is representative, but is only that in which something is represented. Also it seems that the more perfect the light, the more precisely and distinctly in it does that shine forth which the representative thing represents.²

Nor is the example [n.353, of phosphorescent things] of any value for the issue at hand. Rather it is to the opposite, because either two qualities are in such a body, as light and color, one of which multiplies itself in a greater present light, the other in a lesser one, when no other thing moves [the senses] more efficaciously; or each at the same time multiplies itself in a greater light, but what moves more efficaciously is perceived and what moves less efficaciously is not perceived (just as the stars multiply their rays by day and yet are not seen, because something else brighter moves sight more efficaciously); or if there is a single sensible quality in such a body, it causes diverse representatives in different light, namely one in greater light, another in a lesser light. And so it is always the case that there is not the same representative of the object under diverse idea of being representable, however much one and another light come together.

If you reply [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.34 q.5] that the same thing according to the same quality can be similar to diverse things, as one white thing according to the same whiteness is similar to diverse white things – this is nothing to the purpose, because in relations of an essential order there cannot be different things in something that are dependent on two things in the same order; as, for example, of the same measured thing on two measures in the same order, or of the same participating thing on two participated things in the same order, or of the same effect on two total causes in the same order (as was proved in the question about the unity of God previously [Ord. I d.2 n.73]). Therefore, in this relation, where there is not only likeness but imitation and passive exemplification, it is impossible for the same absolute to be referred to diverse things, and thus there cannot be the same species in idea of representing in the case of diverse things under the idea of diverse things.

Second as to the first way³ I argue as follows, because something representative that represents, according to its whole power, something under one idea cannot at the same time represent the same thing or another thing under another idea of object. But the phantasm, in which the universal is understood [cf. n.349], represents, according to its whole power, the object as a singular to the imaginative power, because then there is actual imagination of the object in the singular. And it is plain that this is according to the whole power of the phantasm, because otherwise the imaginative power could not, through the phantasm, have as perfect an act about the object as the object has a nature for being represented by the phantasm; therefore, the phantasm cannot then represent the object under another idea of the representable.

Again, why cannot there be in the imaginative power an act in respect of an object universal in act if there can be a species there in respect of such an object, since the act is a certain species?

[Reasons on the part of the agent intellect]. In the second way⁴ I argue as follows: the agent intellect is a purely active power, according to the Philosopher On the Soul [3.5.430a11-15], both because it is “that by which making all things is” and because it is compared to the possible intellect also “as art to matter;” therefore it can have a real action. Every real action has some real term. That real term is not received in a phantasm, because the thing received would be extended, and so the agent intellect would not transfer it from order to order, nor would [the thing received] be more proportioned to the possible intellect than the phantasm is.⁵ Nor too does the agent intellect cause anything in phantasms, because [a phantasm] is not its passive object, according to the aforesaid authorities [the Philosopher, ibid.]; therefore it [the agent intellect’s real term] is only received in the possible intellect, for the agent intellect is receptive of nothing. That first caused thing cannot be posited to be an act of understanding, because the first term of the action of the agent intellect is the universal in act, because it transfers from order to order; but the universal in act precedes the act of understanding (as was assumed already in the antecedent [n.349]), because an object under the idea of object precedes the act [n.350].⁶ The argument here is not that the phantasm together with the agent intellect cannot cause an intellection, but that it cannot cause an intellection of a universal unless it first causes a species – because the universal in act too precedes by nature the intellection of itself, and the universal is the first term of it.

And there is a confirmation of the reason, because it is [commonly] posited that the agent intellect makes a universal from a non-universal, or makes understanding in act from understanding in potency, as is said by the authorities of the Philosopher [On the Soul 3.5.430a14-17] and of the Commentator [Averroes, On the Soul III com.18]. Since the universal as universal is not anything in existence, but is only in something as representing it under such an idea, these words [‘makes a universal from a non-universal etc.’] will only have meaning because the agent intellect makes something representative of the universal out of that which was representative of the singular, however much the ‘out of’ be materially or virtually understood. Real action is only terminated at something representative of the object under the idea of the universal; therefore the real action of the agent intellect is terminated at some real form in existence that formally represents the universal as universal, because otherwise its action could not be terminated at the universal under the idea of the universal.

Here, about the action of the agent intellect, Godfrey of Fontaines [Quodlibet 5 q.10] removes what gets in the way by separating the quiddity from singularity, not in its being but in its acting on [the agent intellect]. And it does not act on the phantasm, nor on the possible intellect, but touches virtually on the phantasm. This is expounded as follows: in the phantasm there is a ‘what’ [sc. its quiddity] and a ‘this’ [sc. its singularity]; in the light, co-created with the possible intellect, the ‘what’ is the mover of the power so illumined, the ‘this’ is not. An example: if white and sweet are together, the white moves the illumined medium, the sweet does not; therefore, the light abstracts the color from the sweet and separates it as far as moving [the sense] is concerned, and moves aside what gets in the way [sc. the sweet] into something that does not move [the sense].

On the contrary. Either the ‘what’ as it is in the phantasm has sufficient active power to move the possible intellect to an intellection of the universal, and the result is that the universal is not the term of action of the agent intellect. Or it does not [have sufficient power], and another agent is required properly acting in that way, the way that properly active power is lacking to the ‘what’. Again, the ‘this’, the ‘what’ conjoined, is not an obstacle – just as neither to the being of the ‘what’ so neither to its being mover of the intellect. Again, what removes an obstacle has an action prior to the action of that from which the obstacle is removed; grant that [prior] action here, and on what [does it act]? And toward what term? – But this argument is solved by the ‘This is explained as follows’ [n.361], because the argument [here n.362] is against what properly removes [an obstacle], not against what disposes a passive subject for receiving.

Again second, according to this way [the second way, n.351], because the agent intellect in idea of active element does not exceed the possible intellect in idea of passive element; therefore, whatever is caused by the agent intellect is received in the possible intellect. Therefore, the first term of action of the agent intellect is received in the possible intellect, and so since the first action of the agent intellect is to the universal in act, this universal, or that by which it has such being, is received in the possible intellect.

[Reasons on the part of the more and less common] – According to the third way [n.351] I argue as follows: a less universal habit and a more universal habit are distinct proper habits, otherwise metaphysics as metaphysics would not be a habit of the intellect because it would be about the object the most universal as to all other objects. But it is possible to use a more universal habit without using any other less universal habit, just as it is possible to have an act of understanding about what is more universal (in the way it is considered by that habit) without having an act about what is less universal. But an act of understanding about what is more universal is not had unless it [what is more universal] is present to the intellect under that sort of idea. Therefore, what is more universal can be present to the intellect through something other than that through which there is in the intellect the presence of something less universal. But if an object were precisely understood in the phantasm, the more universal would never be present save in the less universal, because never present save in an imaginable singular. Therefore etc.

Again lastly as to this way [n.351]: the more universal is never apprehended according to its total indifference when it is apprehended in its inferior.⁷ For the total indifference of the more universal is according to the fact that, as conceived, it is the same as any of its inferiors; but never is the more common as conceived in some inferior the same as each inferior, but precisely the same as that in which it is conceived. Therefore, any universal conceived in a singular, or the more common in the less common, is not conceived according to its total indifference; but the intellect can conceive it according to its total indifference; therefore, the more common is not precisely conceived in the less common, or the universal in the singular, and so not the universal precisely in the phantasm. For a phantasm is only properly of the singular, and this insofar as it is a singular of the most specific species – and this if the phantasm is impressed by something properly approximate [cf. n.73].