Ordinatio

To the first argument for the opposite [n.333]. First it is apparent that the argument is not cogent, because if it were valid it would prove, against every opinion, that a universal can in no way be understood [n.348]. For whatever that be by which the universal is represented, it will represent like the way it would if it had been impressed by the object; but if it were impressed by the object, it would be impressed by a singular, because an act is singular, as argued [n.333].

Therefore I reply that there can be some idea of acting and some idea of agent. Singularity is the condition of an agent, not the idea of acting; but the idea of acting is the form itself in the singular, according to which the singular acts. When, therefore, the proposition is taken that ‘any species that is generated by something represents it according to the idea according to which it is generated by it’, if this is understood about the idea of what generates, it is false; if about the idea of generating it can be conceded; and then it does not follow that it represents it under the idea of a singular, but under the idea of nature, because the idea of nature is the idea of generating.

But this response does not suffice, because thus does it seem that the species in the senses would represent the universal, not the singular, because the idea of generating species in the senses is not singularity but the idea of nature [n.90]. Therefore, I respond generally that when a species is generated by something as by a total cause, it represents it under the idea under which it is generated, speaking of the idea of generating; and it also concomitantly represents it under the idea of what generates, or at least not under an idea opposite to the idea of what generates. Therefore, the species in the senses does not represent the object under the idea of the universal (which is a condition opposite to the idea of a singular that generates). But the object is not the total generating cause with respect to the intelligible species, because the agent intellect acts along with it as another partial cause; and therefore the thing generated by these two can represent the object under the opposite idea of singularity, which is the idea of what generates.

To the second [n.334], about presence,¹ I reply that the object with respect to the power first has a real presence, namely the sort or proximity that could generate such a species in the intellect (which species is the formal idea of intellection); second, through the species generated, which is the image of what generates, the object is present under the idea of the knowable or of the represented. The first presence naturally precedes the second, because it precedes the impression of the species through which the second presence formally is. When, therefore, the proposition is taken that ‘the species in the intellect is not the cause of the presence of the object’, I say that it is false of presence under the idea of the knowable, at least in abstractive intellection which we are now speaking about. And when it is proved that ‘the object is present first before the species’, that is true of the real presence by which the agent is present to the thing acted on. And I understand this as follows, that in the first moment of nature the object is in itself, or in a phantasm, present to the agent intellect; in the second moment of nature, in which these are present to the possible intellect as agents to what they act on, a species is generated in the possible intellect; and then, through the species, the object is present under the idea of the knowable.

As to the third [n.335], Augustine On the Trinity 14.6 n.8² posits that memory is habitually of many known things together, as is plain there about someone skilled in many disciplines or sciences etc.; therefore it is necessary, according to every opinion, to posit many known things habitually in the memory; and these things, as they are there, are in some way the cause with respect to generated knowledge, according to Augustine – and a natural cause only, as far as they precede act of the will. Therefore, if the argument were valid it would, according to every opinion, prove actual knowledge of many things at once.

Therefore I respond as was said about the first thing known in the second question of this third distinction [n.73] that of whatever species the singular moves the senses more strongly first, its phantasm is impressed more efficaciously and moves the intellect first. And as to that first act, it is not in our power what we understand (for according to Augustine On Free Choice 3.25 n.74, it is not in our power what things seen we are touched by); but once the act is in place, actual knowledge of whatever is habitually known is in our power (this will be spoken about in Ord. I d.6 nn.6-7). When, therefore, it is said that this species can either move to intellection or cannot, I say that it can; but if another species moves more strongly, this one is impeded so that it does not now move. Afterwards, however, the species of whatever is habitually known can, by command of the commanding will, move to knowledge.

To Algazel [n.335] I say that the likeness is not valid, because here is taken away that which is the reason for incompossibility there. This is proved by Aristotle Metaphysics 7.7.1032a32-b3, and by the Commentator Metaphysics 7 com.23, where they maintain that the ideas of opposites are not opposites in the intellect.

To the fourth [n.336] I say that the intellect is not only really acted on by the real object that imprints a real such species, but also acted on with an intentional act by the object as it shines forth in the species. And that second being acted on is reception of intellection, which is from the intelligible insofar as it is intelligible, shining forth in the intelligible species; and that ‘to be acted on’ is ‘to understand’, as will be plain in the next question [nn.401, 537].

When you deduce further that intellection is not a motion of the thing to the soul, it does not follow, because the impression of the species is a certain motion of the thing toward the soul insofar as the thing has being in that species. The intellection too that follows the impressed species is a motion of the thing toward the soul, insofar as through intellection the object has actually known being in the soul, which before it only had habitually.