Ordinatio

But against the second of these opinions [n.460] (which is sixth overall¹) there is argument specifically that it is false, both in the senses and in the intellect. In the senses because, if the species which is vison is one of the same idea as that in the medium, that in the medium will formally be vision; therefore the medium, in possessing it formally, will be seeing formally. But if, besides this species in sight that is posited to be vision, there is a species of a different idea from it and another of the same idea as that in the medium, the conclusion is gained – that although that which is vision be called a species, yet there is something else prior to it in the eye, and of a different idea; and it is the species, as it is commonly called, and so the species properly speaking will differ from vision.

If you say [Giles of Rome, On the Knowledge of Angels q.1] that the species in the medium differs from the species in the eye because of diversity of recipients – this is nothing because, just as whiteness is of the same idea in a horse and in a stone (and therefore each is formally white according to the same idea of white), so if that quality which is called the species is of the same idea in the eye and in the medium, then if it be of itself vision formally, vision formally will be in each; and whatever vision formally is in, that is formally seeing.

The principal thing too proposed [sc. n.471, that the sixth opinion, that species and vision are the same, is false] is plain, because in a blind eye that yet remains as mixed [i.e. physically constituted]² as it was before a species is caused; likewise in the eye of someone asleep, otherwise he would not be woken up by the presence of some surpassing visible thing (nor otherwise too would he be woken up by a surpassing sound if it were not first present in the ear), yet in these cases there is no vision. So too in a well-disposed eye there is received some species of the same idea as that which is in the medium, from the fact that the organ itself is of a similar disposition as the medium, on account of the transparency of each (from On the Soul 2.6.418b26-419a1); and it will not be vision formally³ but prior to vision.

But that this be false in the intellect [sc. as it has just been shown to be false the senses, n.473] is plain by putting together some of the things said by those who think thus. For they posit that there is no species different from the divine essence in blessed vision, and that beatitude consists essentially in vision alone; combine this statement that vision is formally the species, and it follows that our beatitude will be formally the divine essence.⁴ Therefore if this conclusion is unacceptable, let them either deny the premise that vision is the species, or posit that the divine essence has a species other than itself or that beatitude is essentially in something other than in the act of vision.

A response [sc. on the part of those who hold the sixth opinion]: where there is an intelligible species different from the object, it is intellection; but where there is not a species different from the object, there intellection is not the object; in beatitude, therefore, they would deny a species other than the object and the act, but it is not denied that it is other than the object.

On the contrary: of no object is the intelligible species other save only intellection, according to them [n.460]; therefore, of an object whose intellection is different from it there is an intelligible species; therefore a species in the vision of God must be conceded, as in the intellection of any other object.

A note about the relation of science to object. Note that of intellection to object (insofar as the object moves the intellect or more properly insofar as it is causative of intellection) there is a relation pertaining to the second mode of relatives [cf. nn.287-288], as of son to father or of generated heat to what generates it; the relation too of the intellect as movable to the object as to mover pertains to the second mode, as does the relation of heatable to heater.

But besides these relations of the second mode, there is another relation of intellection to object as of what is termed to what terms it. For intellection is not only from the object as from efficient cause, total or partial, but is to it as to what terms it, or about what it is.

The difference of these relations is plain [nn.477-478], because each is without the other. The first is without the second in the case of generated heat; the second without the first in the intellection of a stone, if it were to come to be in me immediately from God. The first relation is not identical, because the same absolute could come to be from a different cause; the second seems to be identical, because no act that is of a nature to be about an object could be the same and not have its term in the same object. The second is not related to any cause as cause because, when all causes are posited, there is besides this required in such an act something as the term of it. It is plain also by way of division: the term is not a form nor an efficient cause, as is plain; it is not an end, because the object, as it is first what the act is about, is not that because of which, being loved, the act is elicited; nor is it matter, for it is ‘about’ the object without being ‘in’ and ‘from’ it [cf. Scotus, Ord. Prol. n.188]. The second relation can be posited to be of the third mode [n.296], not because it is the relation of the thing measured, but because it is like it, for it is not mutual. For universally an act requires that which it is about, not conversely; nor does only the relation of what is measured belong to the third mode, but every similar relation, namely a non-mutual one, of which sort is the relation of the thing termed (in the way said) to the term of it. However, there also comes in here, between the same absolutes, the relation of measured to measure; but it can be posited as formally different from this relation of thing termed.

Against the third [“the second is not related to a cause as cause…”] and fourth [“an act requires that which it is about, not conversely…”]: how is a relation not to a cause identical with anything unless it depend essentially on a non-cause, and so the four causes would not suffice for the being of a thing? Again, it is able not to be when the act exists; how then is the relation identical?

These two questions [n.480] seem to prove that intellection is some absolute form like whiteness. For it is plain it is causable immediately by God; therefore, it does not essentially depend on it [the object] alone. When too the object causes, it [intellection] identically does not depend, because the same intellection could be caused from elsewhere (frequently too it is from a non-being).

And if you say it is a being in a species, the argument will be about the species, that it is an absolute form (or there is a regress to infinity), and it is not the terminating object but that is of which it is [sc. the form]. How then is the Philosopher [to be understood] in Physics 8.6.246a28-b27, and how the other things said about habits [sc. that they are not absolutes but relations, Categories 7.6a36-b6, 7b.23-33]? How therefore is the relation then an identical one, since it is able not to be when the act exists, or how is it real, since it is not a term [cf. Ord. I d.17 n.7]?

Again there is a difference posited between these relations [nn.477-479], because sometimes the intellect, in understanding, has a term at something by which it is not moved, to wit the divine intellect in relation to a creature or to intrinsic relations or to attributes⁵, although however only the essence moves to intellection, otherwise which would be the first object of it [the divine intellect]?

On the contrary: then the intellection of God would have a real relation to a creature or to another object; again, second, why is ‘one’ moving thing rather than ‘one’ terminating thing required for unity of act?

To the first of these two [n.484]: why cannot some relation of the third mode be only one of reason, just as is also that of the second, by which the divine essence is said to move its intellect, and conversely – and thus there would be no difference to Aristotle’s modes [of relations] in being of thing and of reason, but in mutual and non-mutual: and if mutual, in quantity and quality, substantial or accidental, in first act or second, such that any mode could be sometimes real, sometimes of reason?⁶