Ordinatio

Against this opinion. According to it, the agent intellect causes nothing that may be formally in a phantasm, but there only happens a removal of an obstacle through some spiritual contact of this sort of light with the phantasm and, when this removal has been carried out by virtue of the agent intellect, the informing of the possible intellect takes place [cf. supra n.361, Godfrey, ibid. 5 q.10].

From this it follows that nothing in the intellective part (and this as the intellective part embraces the agent and possible intellects) will have in any way the idea of something active, whether as agent or as idea of acting, with respect to any intellection at all or with respect to the object of intellection, and thus only a phantasm is disposed effectively to intellection. Or if there is another efficiency there, by which an irradiating or illumining of phantasms may take place, that efficiency will be precisely of God himself, who has created such light in the possible intellect. Nothing other than God, therefore, is actively disposed in regard to any intellection save only a phantasm.

This seems unacceptable, because it very much cheapens the nature of the soul. For a phantasm seems able to cause no perfection in the intellect that surpasses the nobility of it [sc. of the phantasm], because an effect does not exceed its cause but falls short of it, especially an equivocal effect. Therefore nothing is caused in the intellect precisely by a phantasm, the way this opinion posits. For every intellection is either more perfect than a phantasm or there be none in man.¹

Again, second, from this position it follows that an angel (in whom such distinction in subject cannot be posited), could have no new intellection, however much he have many objects habitually present to him. Indeed, an angel can have no intellection effectively save from God, because if the opposite is posited the intellect will be moved by itself, or agent and patient will not be distinct in subject.²

This does he seem himself to concede, because he posits that the claim ‘an angel can have a new intellection’ is merely a matter of belief.

But this is not a way out. For nothing believed is repugnant to a conclusion following from true principles. And from this principle, ‘agent and patient are necessarily distinct in subject’, it necessarily follows that an angel cannot have, from himself, any intellection actively. Therefore, if the opposite of this conclusion is believed, the principle from which the conclusion follows will be false. This is plainer about ‘willing’, for it is clear that an angel did not have his first ‘willing of bad’ from God; so the agent there was indistinct in subject from the thing acted on.

Third, it follows that one should not posit any habit in the intellect because, according to this opinion, it is required, and suffices, for ordered understanding that phantasms occur in an ordered way and that, as occurring, they move the intellect in ordered way. But that they occur in ordered way cannot be done by a habit in the intellect, because nothing in the thing acted on gives ordered moving to the mover. Or at any rate they can occur in ordered way through a habit in imagination without any habit in the intellect; therefore etc.

There is a confirmation, because, according to them, for this reason is a habit in the will denied, because it moves easily in conformity with the intellect. Therefore by similarity, since the intellect is moved, according to them, by phantasms in the way phantasms occur, a habit in imagination will suffice for the fact they move in ordered way. These three [nn.428-433] I weigh [sc. as objections against these thinkers].

But other arguments too are made against them. First as follows:³ if a phantasm causes effectively every intellection, and if a natural cause does nothing save according to the nature by which it is in act, a phantasm will never cause any action in the intellect save one that is conform to the phantasm; and so it will never cause a false composition repugnant to the ideas of the extreme terms of which there are phantasms in the imaginative power. Or if in some way it is possible, as they reply [Godfrey, Quodlibet 10 q.12, 5 q.12], that through one of the opposites being can its opposite be known, this is only because through one true composition can the intellect know that the opposite is false. But will that phantasm never cause as true some false intellection, or conversely? And if you say that a phantasm falsely represents objects, therefore it causes a false intellection in the intellect – there follows that, when the same phantasm remains, it can never cause an opposite assent, and so the intellect will not be able to apprehend the same complex now as true, now as false.

Again, second, intellection according to the Philosopher is an immanent action [Metaphysics 9.8.1050a14-b1].

They reply [Godfrey, Quodlibet 9 q.19] that ‘to understand’, according to the grammatical way of signifying, signifies action and ‘to be understood’ passion; yet in reality ‘to understand’ is undergoing and ‘what is understood’ is agent. But what may ‘to understand’ have of the idea of action? They say [ibid.] that ‘to understand’ does not signify anything as it has being in the subject in itself and absolutely, but as if something tending to a second thing as to an object, or as to a term; “and because it is a mark of action to proceed from an agent and to tend to a thing acted on, therefore such perfections” – which in reality are passions, that is, abiding in what is denominated by them by way of action – “are said to be immanent actions.”

To the contrary. The philosopher, when distinguishing action from making, Ethics 1.1.1094a3-6, 6.4.1140a1-6, Metaphysics 9.8.1050a21-b1, assigns diverse principles and properties to action and making, which would not be necessary if his meaning were that what he assigns to be an action were a passion; for then it would not be necessary to assign it a proper active principle. For it would not be necessary for prudence to be active, in the way art is a habit of making, if action were nothing but a certain form received in something else (as in that which is called an agent).

Again, third, a habit is not posited precisely for undergoing something, and above all in a passive thing supremely disposed to form. For what is in itself supremely disposed for receiving has no need to be facilitated for receiving. But the intellect is supremely disposed for any intellection whatever, because it has nothing contrary. Therefore, it would not be necessary to posit any habit in the intellect if it were precisely passive with respect to intellection. Proof of the first proposition [sc. supra n.439, “a habit is not posited precisely for undergoing something”], because a habit is ‘what we use when we want’, and a habit “perfects the haver and renders his work good etc.,” Ethics 2.4.1105b25-26, 1106a15-17. All these attribute some activity to habit.

Again, fourth, how would the intellect engage in discursive reasoning, by syllogizing and arguing, if a phantasm cause every intellection? For it does not seem intelligible how phantasms, when occurring, are cause of all discourse.

Again, fifth, how will logical intentions, or relations of reason, be caused? For, if a phantasm causes every intellection, any intention caused by it will be real, because that is called a real intention which is immediately caused by the thing, or by a species representing the thing in itself. Therefore, no intellection will cause logical intentions or relations of reason, because the intellect will be able, by no act of itself, to compare one object with another, which comparing causes a relation of reason, or a second intention, in an object.

There is a confirmation, because when the intellect compares a to b according to the sort of relation that there is between them from the nature of the thing, it does not cause a relation of reason, for example when it compares them as different or as contrary, or as whole and part, or the like. Therefore, by the comparing alone is a relation of reason caused, which neither in its being nor in being known is consequent to the extremes from the nature of the extremes. Therefore, the extremes are not the cause of the act of comparing.

Again, sixth, how does the intellect reflect on its act,⁴ and how will this be in the power of the reflecting power? For if a phantasm, when causing some intellection, naturally has to cause a reflection on that intellection, by parity of reason [it naturally has to cause] a reflection on the reflection, and so ad infinitum, as Augustine says On the Trinity 15.12 n.21 [cf. n.227]. But if it does not have to cause a reflection but only an absolute act, and if afterwards another phantasm occur, no reason seems capable of being assigned as to how there could be any reflection on any act.⁵

Of these last six reasons, the first [n.435] is not compelling against them [Godfrey et al.], because it queries a difficulty common to every opinion. For whether a phantasm is posited to be an active cause of intellection, or an intelligible species is, or the intellect (since each of them is a principle of acting naturally, not freely), it can always equally be queried how opposites can be caused in the intellect, as for example now a true opinion or knowledge about something, and now a false opinion or error about the same.

The second reason [nn.436, 438] is not compelling, for prudence is posited to be an active principle on account of another act, which is ‘action’, to which its proper act is extended as rule is to thing ruled – just as the proper act of an art is extended to another act, which is ‘making’, although however neither habit is a principle properly active in respect of its act.

Hereby [n.445] to the third reason [n.439], because a habit inclines a thing acted on as a prior form to a fitting posterior one, as is said elsewhere about habit [Scotus, Ord. I d.17 p.1 qq.1-3]. For although a passive thing is of itself supremely disposed through removal of the opposite, yet not by apposition of something fitting. The remark from Ethics 2 [n.439], that [a habit] renders the work good etc., must be understood to mean that it does not render it so by effecting but by inclining [Scotus, ibid.].

The fourth [n.440] coincides with the third one considered [nn.433-434], namely how a habit disposes phantasms to occur in ordered way in discursive reasoning, unless the habit be placed in the imaginative power, not in the intellect – which perhaps he would concede.

The sixth [n.443] only queries how it is in our power which intellection we have through another, and what the act is known by on which we reflect. The first, to be sure, is because of the will, and the second too is through the vestige left behind by the act; or otherwise through a phantasm, which first displays the object but secondly is caused by the object. Yet it is not necessary that it actually cause intellection of intellection, except when the will gives command. So after the vestige has been left behind, a reflex act is able to be had elicitively by it, the will giving command; and it is able not to be had, the will commanding another intellection.

The fifth [nn.441-442] seems to need pondering if ‘no comparison is a relation of reason that the extremes are of a nature to cause in the intellect’. For if this proposition is true, then although intellections of compared simples may be caused by the extremes, yet not the comparison that is in the comparing act by which a relation of reason is caused in the extreme term. It could be said that some relation follows the extremes in the thing, and that it follows in knowledge when the extremes are known – as in the case of contrariety and the like. And this relation is real. The other relation does not follow the extremes in the thing, and not necessarily in cognition either. Yet the extremes themselves can cause an act of comparison elicitively, when the will commands it. And when the act of comparing has been caused according to the sort of respect that does not follow the extremes in the thing, a relation of reason is caused.