Ordinatio

In this question there is an opinion [Peter Olivi, Sent. II q.58] which attributes to the soul all activity in respect of intellection, and it is imputed to Augustine, who says in Literal Commentary On Genesis 12.16 n.32-33, because the image of the body is in the spirit, which is more outstanding than the body, therefore “is the image of the body more outstanding in the spirit than the body itself is in its own substance;” and there follows [ch.29], “Nor should one think that the body does something in the spirit, as if the spirit be subject, in place of matter, to the acting body. For in every way is the thing that acts more outstanding than the thing about which it acts, and in no way is the body more outstanding than the spirit; rather the spirit is more outstanding than the body. So although the image begin to be in the spirit, yet it is not the body that makes the same image in the spirit, but the spirit makes it in itself with marvelous quickness;” and there follows, “for the image, as soon as it is seen by the eyes, is formed in the spirit of the seer without interpolation.”

Again, On the Trinity 10.5 n.7, “The soul turns round and seizes images of bodies made in itself and of itself; for it gives for forming them something of its own substance; and it keeps in itself something free, whereby it may judge of such species; and this is the mind, that is, rational intelligence, which is preserved so that it may judge; for the parts of the soul that are informed with the likenesses of the body we feel we have in common even with the beasts.” Therefore, the soul itself forms in itself images of things known, as this cited authority says even more expressly.

Argument on behalf of this opinion is made by reasons as follows: An effect does not exceed its cause in perfection; “every living thing is better than a non-living thing,” according to Augustine City of God [9.6, 11.16, 7.3 n.1]; therefore a living operation can only come from a living or live principle of action. These operations of knowing are living operations; therefore, they are by the soul itself as by the reason of acting.

Again the more perfect a form is the more actual it is and consequently the more active, because to be active belongs to something insofar as it is in act; but the intellective soul is, among all forms, the most actual; therefore it is maximally active; therefore it has power by itself alone for its own operation, since more imperfect forms have power for this, as is plain of the forms of the elements and of certain mixed bodies.¹

Again, third, the Philosopher in Ethics 1 [1.1.1094a3-6] and Metaphysics 9 [9.8.1050a21-b1] and Physics 3 [3.3.202a22-24], distinguishes between acting and making, and he maintains that action properly speaking abides in the agent, as he illustrates about speculation there [Metaphysics 9]. Intellection, therefore, is properly an operation that abides in the agent; but it abides in the intellective part, therefore it will be from that part as from the agent.

Fourth, and it is the same, because action properly speaking, and as it is distinguished from making, denominates an agent; but ‘to understand’ denominates man as to his intellective part, therefore etc.

Against this opinion: That it is not the opinion of Augustine appears from the last chapter of On the Trinity 9.12 n.18, and chapter 30 ‘about small things’: “It must be clearly held that everything we know co-generates in us knowledge of itself; for knowledge is born of both, namely of the knower and the known etc.”¹ Again, ibid. 11.2 n.3, “Vision is generated from the seeable and the seer etc.” Again, ibid. 15.10 n.9 (as was said before [n.393]), “The knowledge formed by the thing that we know is the word.” Therefore, he intends to attribute some causality to the object.

There is an argument by reason in favor of this, because² when two causes prior to the thing itself, namely the efficient cause and the matter, are perfect in themselves and proximate and not impeded, the effect follows or can follow. Therefore if the soul is the active total cause of generated knowledge, and if it is disposed matter, or receptive subject, with respect to the same knowledge, and if it is always actually present to itself, then, since it is a natural cause, there will always be in it every actual intellection of which it is itself the cause – of which, moreover, it is by itself the cause; or at least there will be an intellection that it most strongly has the power for.³

By this are disproved the diverse ways that those, who posit this opinion [n.407], have of maintaining it. For if there be posited an object necessary in idea of sine qua non cause, or in idea of term or in idea of stimulant [e.g. Olivi, ibid. q.58, 72] – if there not be given it some per se causality (since the soul is always perfect in itself and proximate to what it acts on) nor any impediment newly removed – how will the fact be preserved that it [the object] is necessarily required, save by positing five kinds of causes?

Specifically, too, the point about ‘stimulating’ does not seem valid. For I ask what it is ‘to stimulate’? If it is to cause something in the intellective power, then the object causes something before the intellective power of itself acts. Therefore, the intellective power is not the total active first cause in respect of anything caused in it, but the object is as well. If ‘to stimulate’ not be to cause something in the intellective power, then the intellective power is not differently disposed in itself after the stimulation than it was before, and so it is not more stimulated now than it was before.

This argument [n.414] would, however, work in like manner, as it seems, against action of the will. Hence response can be given that when forms have an essential order as they are received in the same nature or power (and this whether by the same agent or by another), and given also that neither be the reason for receiving the other – never can the second be induced by the agent in the receptive subject of it unless the first has been induced already. An example about volition and delight: when positing that these are diverse really, never is the second received unless the first is received first; since however the second has a natural active cause [sc. the object] present to it before there is volition, in these sorts of ordered things is the major premise [n.414 init.] denied. The like holds of the intelligible species in relation to intellection, when positing the intelligible species not to be cause or receptive subject of intellection; the like holds of light in the medium [nn.471-473], if it does not act on or receive the species of color.

Note: it is said in another way [Olivi, ibid. qq.72, 58, 57, 23] that whenever the receiving of some form in its potential subject pre-requires of necessity the receiving of another form in its receptive subject, the major,⁴ that ‘a perfect agent proximate to its passive subject and not impeded is able to act’ [n.414], is false, understanding this of proximate power – and this whether the recipient of the prior form is the same power as the recipient of the later form (example: volition and delight in the will), or is the same nature (example: intellection and volition in the soul, when positing the will to be totally active with respect to willing), or both forms are received in the same supposit, not in a single nature or power (example: about phantasm and intellection, if an intelligible species be denied and the whole action be given to the intellect), or the prior and later form are received in different supposits (example: light from the sun in air and in water).

Nor is here preserved the proposition [n.418] that the prior form is active with respect to the later one, or is the reason for receiving it, as with light in the medium in respect of the species of color. For if this [example of light] be instanced in such cases [sc. the four listed in n.418], the instance is of no value, because there the proximate active or proximate passive principle would be lacking. In the four instances already set down [n.418] neither condition [sc. lack of active and of passive principle] is met, for neither is volition the active cause of delight but the object is, nor is it the receptive subject, but the will is. So in the other instances [n.418],⁵ according to those opinions.

Nor should it be said that the major [n.418] is true unless two effects are necessarily producible in an ordered way by the same agent; because this is also not true if there is necessarily an order between forms that can be introduced by diverse agents, as is plain in the instances set down [n.418].

Universally, then, any form that, for it to be received in its passive subject, requires another form to be first received in any subject and by any agent, never is the active principle of the second form in accidental potency for acting on the receptive subject of the second form, unless the prior form has already been induced. Therefore the later [second] form depends, as to its coming to be, essentially on something different from the per se causes of it in its own coming to be, which per se causes are agent and matter.⁶ This conclusion [sc. the previous sentence] can be conceded, because ‘first essentially’ does not belong only to the cause (the fact is plain in the treatise [by Scotus himself], On the First Principle ch. 1 nn.2-4), yet it⁷ is not with probability denied unless the priority of the other form be shown – either as it is active with respect to the second form, or as it is the reason for the receiving, or as it is the effect of a cause nearer to a common cause, or to a cause necessarily causings first.