Ordinatio

To the question [n.401] I reply that actual intellection is something in us not perpetual but possessing being after non-being, as we experience. Of this it is necessary to posit some active cause, and in some way in us, otherwise it would not be in our power to understand when we want, which is against the Philosopher, On the Soul 2.5.417b24.

And it appears here that it is necessary that the soul and a present object come together, and this in an intelligible species, as was said in the preceding question [n.370], because it is in another way not present as actually intelligible, speaking of the sensible and material object.

I say then that of this intellection the object is not the total active cause, either in itself or in its species, as appears from the first reason against the second opinion¹ [n.429], and also because then the image in the mind as it is mind could not be preserved, because nothing of the mind itself would have the idea of parent.

Nor is the total cause of intellection the intellective soul, or anything of it formally – on account of the reason made about the four causes² against the first opinion [n.414], which reason explains the reason of the Philosopher in On the Soul [n.486], that was touched on when arguing for the main point to the first part³ [n.401]. For this are added other probabilities as well.

First,⁴ because then the act would not be a likeness of the object; second, because then it would not be distinguished essentially on account of the distinction of the object, because an essential distinction is not from what is not a cause.

Third, because neither would there be a simply more perfect intellection of a more perfect intelligible (on the supposition of equal effort on the part of the intellect on this side and that), which is not true; because when a total cause operating more efficaciously is posited, a more perfect action follows; and thus, if the soul were total cause, whenever it were to act on its own part more perfectly and with greater effort, it would produce a more perfect intellection, and so an intellection of God would not be more perfect than an intellection of a fly, which is against the Philosopher in Ethics 10.8.1178b7-32, who locates happiness in contemplation of the most perfect object.

It seems also, fourth, that then there would be an infinite activity in the intellect, insofar as the intellect is active with respect to all intellections. Because for one intellection is required some perfection in the cause of the intellection, and for another intellection of another idea is required as much perfection, or greater, because containing virtually two perfections of the proper causes, in this case and that. Therefore, what has this and that intellection will be more perfect than what has that one alone, and so what as total cause [of all intellections] has infinite such intellections is infinite in perfection.⁵

Likewise, fifth, it would not be seen how any total science would be contained virtually in the object if the intellective soul alone were to have causality with respect to the act and the habit.⁶ Of these five probabilities [nn.490-493], the third and fourth [nn.491-492] can be pondered.

From these points [nn.486-493] the question is solved as follows: if therefore neither the soul by itself nor the object by itself is the total cause of actual intellection (and they alone seem required for intellection), it follows that these two are one integral cause with respect to generated knowledge. And this is the opinion of Augustine, On the Trinity, 9.12 n.18, as was cited when arguing against the first opinion, “It must be clearly held” [n.413].

But as to how this is to be understood, I draw a distinction about several causes coming together for the same effect.

For some causes come together on an equality, as two people pulling some same body. Some are not on an equality but have an essential order, and this in two ways. Either thus, that a superior move an inferior such that the inferior does not act save because moved by the superior, and sometimes such inferior cause has from the superior the virtue or form by which it moves, sometimes it does not but has the form from something else, and from the superior cause only actual motion for producing the effect. And sometimes the superior does not move the inferior, nor give it the power by which it moves, but the superior has of itself a more perfect power of acting and the inferior has a more imperfect power of acting. An example of the first member of this division: about the motive power that is in the hand, and a stick and a ball. An example of the second: if the mother is posited to have active virtue in the generation of offspring, she and the active power of the father come together as two partial causes, ordered causes indeed, because one is more perfect than the other; but the more imperfect does not receive its causality from the more perfect cause, nor is the total causality eminently in the more perfect cause, but the more imperfect cause adds something insofar as the effect can be more perfect from a more perfect and a more imperfect cause than from a more perfect cause alone.

To the point at issue. An intelligible object (present in itself or in an intelligible species) and the intellective part do not come together as causes on an equality for intellection, for then one would have an imperfect such causality and the other would supplement it. And if one were perfect, it could have in itself singly the total causality of both, just as, if the motive power of one were perfect, it would supply the virtue of the other; and then the species would be as it were a certain degree of intellectivity, supplying the degree of intellectivity lacking to the intellect; and then, if the intellect were to become perfect according to such degree, it could have an act of understanding without a species and without an object, which is false.

Therefore, these two come together as having an essential order. Not however in the first way [n.496], because neither does the intellect give to the object or the species the idea of their causality (for the object is not of a nature, in itself or in its species, to cause intellection through something that it receives from the intellect but from its own nature), nor does the intellect receive its causality from the object or the species of the object, as was proved in the first argument against the second⁷ opinion [nn.429, 488]. They are, therefore, causes essentially ordered, and in the last way [n.496], namely that one is simply more perfect than the other, such however that each in its own proper causality is perfect, not depending on the other.

If argument is made against this [n.498], that in such essentially ordered causes neither of them is the perfection of the other, therefore the intelligible species will not be the form of the intellect itself – similarly, to the same point, if [the species] be the perfection of the intellect and the whole be the reason for acting, then a single operation (namely intellection) will not have a single formal idea of acting – and similarly, from a being per accidens (of which sort is this whole, intellect possessing a species) there will be one per se operation, which is unacceptable, for whatever is not a being per se one is not the formal idea of acting – response:

To the first [n.499]: it is accidental to a species (insofar as it is a partial cause with respect to the act of understanding concurring with the intellect as the other partial cause) that it perfect the intellect; because although it does perfect it, yet it does not give it any activity pertaining to the causality of the intellect. An example: the motive power in the hand can use a knife, insofar as it is sharp, for dividing up some body. If this sharpness were in the hand as in a subject, the hand could use it for the same operation and yet it would be an accident to the hand (insofar as there is motive power in the hand) that there was sharpness in it, and conversely, because sharpness would give no perfection to the hand pertaining to motive power. The point is plain, because the motive power is equally perfect without such sharpness, and it uses sharpness in the same way when sharpness is in something else joined to the hand (as a knife), just as it would if sharpness were in the hand. So it is in the matter at issue. If the species could be existent within the intellect without inhering by way of form – if it existed within in that way or could be sufficiently conjoined to the intellect – these two partial causes, intellect and species, mutually conjoined with each other, would be capable of the same operation that they are now capable of when the species informs the intellect. This is also apparent when positing⁸ some intelligible object without a species. For the object is a partial cause and does not inform the intellect, which is the other partial cause; but these two causes, when proximate to each other without the informing of one by the other, cause, by the due proximity alone, one common effect.

If this second case is posited, not without cause is it perhaps impossible for an accident⁹ that is the principle of something immanent and not transitive to be sufficiently joined to a passive subject, unless it be in it subjectively – which is why it is called an accident.¹⁰ Surely the divine essence in the intellect of the blessed is a principle of intuition, which is not immanent in the essence, nor in anything of which it be the form? Likewise, charity in the fatherland is a principle of its own intuition, and yet it is not in the intellect intuiting it. Therefore intellection is an immanent action, taking ‘action’ for ‘operation’.

On the contrary: there is not in this way one action immanent and another transient. I reply, then, and say that there is a division of the term into the things signified. In one way is act in the genus of action immanent in the other cause, namely the intellect, and with respect to it is it immanent; but not so with respect to the remaining one, namely the object.

By the same argument [n.500] is plain [the answer] to the second objection [n.499], because in any single order of cause it is necessary to posit one per se cause with respect to one effect, and one idea of per se causing (thus the intellect in its order of causality is one, and has one formal idea of causing; and the species or object in its order of causing is one special cause, and has one idea of causing). But it is not necessary that a total cause, according as it embraces all partial causes, have one idea of causing save in oneness of order. But if with unity of order there concur unity per accidens, this is accidental, but unity of order is per se. An example: the sun in its order of causing has one idea of causing with respect to offspring, and a father in his order of causing is one cause of one idea; but the total cause that embraces sun and father does not have any single formal idea of causing (just as it is not one cause) save by unity of order. And if it happen that causes thus ordered have, besides unity of order, a unity per accidens (insofar namely as one is accident to the other), this does not belong to them per se insofar as they are ordered causes.