Ordinatio

To the arguments for the opinions, in order. First, to the authorities of Augustine [nn.407-408], I say that the image which is posited by him to be in the spirit needs to be understood to be in the soul or in something of the soul as in a subject, and not precisely in a thus mixed body¹ – otherwise the conclusion would not follow that the image is nobler than every body, which however he himself says in Literal Commentary on Genesis 12.16 nn.32-33. Now what is in the soul or in something of the soul as in a subject is not the species which is commonly called ‘species’; that, rather, is received in an organ’s part which is a thus mixed body [n.471].² But what is received in the soul or a power of the soul is the act of knowing; therefore by image Augustine himself means such sort of act.

This gloss [n.504] is proved from his remark On the Trinity 11.2 n.3, where he maintains that the informing of the sense, which is done by the body alone, is called vision. And the informing is the species proper which is received in a part of the organ, namely in a thus mixed body; this is plain from what he says [ibid.] that “it is generated by the body alone that is seen” [n.461]. Just as therefore what is properly the image is called vision, so conversely can vision be called an image, and much more truly, because vision, in truth, is a certain quality, and the sort of quality that is a certain likeness of the object, and is perhaps more perfect than the prior likeness which is usually called a species.

On this understanding, the response to his authorities [nn.407-408] is easily made plain. For I concede that the body does not, as total cause, cause in the spirit the image that is sensation, but the soul causes it in itself with marvelous speed – not however as total cause, but it and the object. Hence he says there that “as soon as it is seen etc.”, indicating that the presence of the object is required in idea of being visible so that the soul cause vision in itself; and it is required only as in some way partial cause, as he himself expresses it in On the Trinity 11 ch.2 n.3 [n.413] that “vision is generated by the seer and the visible.”

This conclusion [n.506], thus understood, is proved by his first cited reason [n.407], because this conclusion, that “the agent is more outstanding than the effect,” is not an immediate one but depends on these three statements: ‘the agent is more outstanding than the effect’ and ‘the effect of the agent is the form and act of what undergoes it’ and ‘act is nobler than potency’. Where these propositions are true, there the proposition that Augustine takes is true [n.407]; but the proposition that the agent is more outstanding than the effect is only true of an equivocal and total cause. And some cause can be partially an agent for an effect more noble than itself, as an element in virtue of the heavenly bodies can act for the generation of a mixed body, which is nobler than the element acting as partial cause [cf. Scotus, Ord. I d.2 nn.333, 331].

From this [n.506] is clear the response to the second authority of Augustine On the Trinity 10.5 [n.408]. For the soul forms an image in itself, that is, a sensation – and from itself, that is, it itself is in natural potency to sensation and not in neutral potency, as a surface is in neutral and not natural potency to whiteness; and what he says, ‘from itself’, points to this naturality. And he is speaking there only of sensations, as is apparent, because he says there that “the parts of the soul that are informed by likenesses of bodies we have common with the beasts.” This is true of those parts that are informed by images, that is, sensations, extending the name of ‘image’ to sensation.

As to the first argument for the [first] opinion [n.409]: it concludes in my favor, because thinking, since it is a living operation, is not from a non-living thing as from a total cause; but a non-living thing can be partial cause of something living or of a living effect, just as the non-living sun is partial cause, along with the father, for generating a living son; and much more is this possible in the issue at hand, because here the more principal cause is life, as will be clear in the following question [nn.559-562].

When argument is made afterwards about perfect form [n.410], this argument concludes that it [the soul] has some activity with respect to its proper operation. But as to its seeming to prove total causality in it [the soul] with respect to its own operation – I reply that that form, by its own perfection, is ordered to having an operation about the whole of being, as is said in the third question of this distinction [nn.185-187]. But because it is not simply perfect, because it is not infinite, therefore does it not have the whole of being in itself. From its perfection, therefore, along with its imperfection, is concluded that it have some activity, and yet not a sufficient activity, for it could not have total causality of knowledge with respect to the whole of being unless it had the whole of being in itself. And therefore I say that more imperfect forms can well be total causes with respect to their own operations, because their operations are limited as to certain things, and having total activity with respect to these things does not prove any active perfection save a limited one. But in that perfect form, which is ordered to the whole of being, there cannot be posited such a causality with respect to knowledge of the whole of being (for then an unlimited active virtue would be posited in it). But a partial causality can be posited in it, and a partial causality in the object, so that it itself could thus cooperate with its own perfection as to any object whatever, and also any object whatever could cooperate with it – a great object for a great perfection of it, and a little object for a little perfection of it.

The other two arguments, namely about action as it is distinguished from making, and that action denominates the agent [nn.411-412], I concede. For I posit that the act of understanding truly remains in the agent which is its partial cause – not only in the agent supposit (such that it not go outside the supposit), but that it does not go outside the intellective part into the sensitive part, nor outside the intellective part into the appetitive part, nor outside its active principle into another power, but remains in the intellective part, which is its partial cause. And it is not necessary that action properly speaking remain in its total cause, but it is enough that it remain in its partial cause.

To the arguments for the second opinion [n.422]. Although it could there be touched on whether the causality that is attributed to the intellective part belongs properly to the agent intellect or the possible intellect, yet I dismiss the difficulty to another place [Scotus, Quodlibet 15 nn.13-20, 24; cf. n.554 infra.].

When it is proved [n.422] that the possible [intellect] cannot have any causality, because nothing the same acts on itself, I reply that that proposition is only true of a univocal agent, and that the proof of it, that then the same thing would be in act and in potency, is only conclusive when the agent acts univocally, that is, when it induces in the passive subject a form of the same idea as that by which it acts. For if it were thus to act on itself, then it would have at the same time a form of the same idea as that to which it is moved and would, while it is being moved to it, lack it; so it would have it and not have it at the same time – at least this follows about two forms of the same species or about the same form. But in equivocal agents, that is, in those agents that do not act through forms of the same idea as that toward which they act, the proposition that nothing moves itself does not have necessity. Nor does the proof of it, that something would be in potency and act with respect to the same thing, conclude anything, for there the agent is not such formally in act as the passive subject is formally in potency [cf. n.422]; and that the same thing is virtually such in act and formally such in potency is no contradiction.

This gloss [n.513] about univocal and equivocal agents is necessary because the Philosopher posited that what is moved is not only in the genus of quality but of quantity and ‘where’. And in quantity and ‘where’ no agent is univocal, because in the genus of quantity and ‘where’ there is no form that is the principle of inducing a similar form. Rather, to speak generally, any motion that is not to an active form is not from a univocal agent, because, from the fact that a terminating form is not active, no form of the same idea is a principle of acting. There are with the Philosopher, therefore, many motions from an agent not univocal but equivocal; and there an agent is virtually such in act as the patient is formally in potency.

If you argue that therefore in all cases the same thing could be in virtual act and in potency to a formal act, and so anything can move itself [n.513] – I reply that in this inference a non-cause is put as the cause, for from the general idea of virtual act and of potency for formal act there is no repugnancy, because if from this idea there were repugnancy there would also be repugnancy in anything at all. However in something with virtual act there concurs something else because of which it is repugnant to it to be sometimes in potency or actually such formally. An example: to be hot virtually in act and in potency formally do not of themselves include contradiction or repugnancy, and therefore in no subject do they include repugnancy, that because of this they could not exist together or one not exist there because the other does. However, the sun, which is hot virtually, cannot be hot formally, but this is not because of a repugnance between these things first. For Saturn is cold virtually and yet cannot be hot formally, so the virtual act was not in it cause of repugnance, but something else was that is common to the sun and Saturn, as that these are incorruptible bodies and heat is a corruptible quality.¹

But if you object that such metaphysical principles [as ‘nothing acts on itself’, nn.422, 513] should not, because of the fact they are general, be denied on account of some special difficulties, I reply: no principles are metaphysical that have many false singulars. But by understanding that nothing is in virtual act and in potency to a formal act, and that this repugnance is taken from the idea of act and potency, there are many singulars that are sufficiently plainly false, and from this it sufficiently follows that this is not a metaphysical principle. But that nothing is in formal act and in potency in respect of the same formal act is true, namely that nothing is thus at the same time in act and in potency.

And if you altogether contend that, even when speaking of virtual act and potency to formal act, it is a metaphysical principle – how were others so blind, and he [sc. Godfrey of Fontaines, n.422] alone seeing, that they could not conceive the idea of common metaphysical terms and from them apprehend the truth of such a proposition as he posits to be a metaphysical principle, which is not only not posited a principle by others, but is in many cases false, and never necessary by reason of the terms?

When, second, it is argued [n.422] about material and efficient cause that they do not coincide – this is true of matter that is in pure potency but not of matter in a certain respect, of which sort is a subject in respect of an accident. For it is necessary that something the same is sometimes matter and efficient cause with respect to the same thing – which is apparent because otherwise a property would not be predicated of a subject per se in the second mode. Proof: because if it [a property] is predicated of it [a subject] per se in the second mode, it [the subject] is the material cause of it [the property] as matter is in the case of accidents, because it [the subject] is put in the definition of it [a property] as an addition. If too it is a predication per se, then it is also necessary; but what is only a material cause with respect to something does not have necessity with respect to it; therefore, to save necessity, one must posit in the subject, besides a causality of matter, a causality of efficiency.

As to what is argued afterwards about opposite real relations [n.422], I say that some opposite relations are incompossible in the same nature, some not in the same nature but in the same supposit, some neither in the same nature nor in the same supposit. Hence a repugnance of them in the same thing cannot be proved by reason of real relations in general. Examples of the aforesaid: cause and caused in the same nature or in the same supposit are repugnant because if not, then the same thing would depend on itself. Producer and produced are not repugnant in the same nature if the nature can be communicated without division, of which sort is the divine nature; yet they are repugnant in the same supposit. Mover and moved are repugnant neither in the same nature nor in the same supposit, because here there is not posited an essential dependence of the sort they posit relations of cause and caused to be; nor there is it posited that the same thing is before it is, which the idea of producer and produced seems to posit; but there is only posited here that the same thing depends on itself as to accidental act, as the moved depends on the mover as to the accidental act that it receives from it. The incompossibility, therefore, of some real relations must be reduced to some prior incompossibility, and where that prior incompossibility is not found, there the incompossibility of opposite real relations will not be concluded.

This is also made more clear, because just as these relations of producer and produced, which are repugnant in the same supposit, can be founded on the same unlimited nature, as in the divine essence, so these relations of mover and moved, which have a much lesser repugnance, can be founded on the same somehow unlimited nature. And whatever is in potency to some act formally, and yet along with this has the same actuality virtually (as when the same thing moves itself), it is in some way unlimited; for it is posited to be not only capable of that perfection but as causing it. So there those opposite relations, because of a sort of unlimitedness, are very well compatible.

To their ‘Achilles’ [their key point, n.422], that ‘anything would move itself’, I say, as was argued against the first opinion when excluding a cause ‘sine qua non’ [n.415], that nothing is a total and perfect and natural effective cause of anything it but that, when it is proximate to the whole receptive subject and not impeded, it cause it. Now wood is always proximate to itself, and sufficiently so, and a perpetual impediment cannot be posited when fire is not present; because if this impediment be posited, let this [wood] be removed and it [fire] will not be; if that [wood] be posited, let it [fire] be removed; and so, by running through them singly, wood will be got present to itself and in no way impeded. Therefore, if it [fire] were the total active cause with respect to heat, and it [wood] is the total receptive cause, then it would always be hot, as a brute is always able to sense. Therefore, since could not be posited a non total causality because of an impediment, nor because of non-proximity, nor because of receptive subject, the conclusion will be that in wood there is not a total active causality, which is the point intended. So, therefore, not everything will move itself as total cause, because no cause, which does not always have its act, is a total natural cause of the act.

If you say, ‘at least I may say the wood is a partial cause, so that, when fire is present, it [wood] acts along with it [fire] for heating of itself in idea of partial effective and active cause’ – nor is this cavil of any value, because two partial causes are not posited with respect to the same effect when one of them precisely has the total effect in its own power, univocally or equivocally. Proof: for if one of them has the whole effect in its own power, it can produce all of it; therefore the other partial cause can produce nothing, or the same thing will be produced twice; but fire, which from the preceding argument [n.521] was proved to have activity with respect to heat in the wood, has in itself virtually the whole heat of the wood; therefore the wood here has no partial causality.

To the issue at hand then: because the soul is not always in act with respect to any intellection whatever (although, however, it is receptive of any intellection whatever, and is itself proximate to itself and not always impeded), the conclusion is that it is not the total active cause but there is something else; that something else is concluded to be the object, because when it is present the effect follows, when it is not present the effect cannot be had. Therefore some sort of causality first is concluded to be in the object; and not total causality, because the object, on account of its imperfection, cannot have intellection, on account of its perfection, totally in its power, and so it is concluded that, along with the object, is required some other partial active cause – and not some cause other than the intellective power because, when it concurs with the object, there is intellection. So therefore is it here proved that there are two partial active causes, and in many other cases that nothing the same moves itself, either totally or partially. This argument too, which is held for the Achilles [n.522], does not seem very efficacious; for this seems to be a certain defensive move, by diverting [attention] from the side of the opponent to the side of the respondent; for, because of their lack of arguments, they assume the sort of form that respondents do, so that those who respond [to them] make an argument to prove something necessary, namely that wood does not heat itself.

An objection to the response [n.521] of the Achilles is because wood will not heat itself unless something else be present ‘sine quo non’ [sc. fire], just as for you the will does not make itself to will save when an object is present through cognition. If you also argue that one of them [sc. fire] will always heat something else, because it has the power of heating, the response is that it will heat itself before something else, and this first only if the ‘sine qua non’ cause is present. Or perhaps it will never heat something else, just as neither does the will make another will to will. For, having conceded that some action of the genus of action is immanent, will it be said that any is, or why not?

The Achilles is removed in another way: when diverse pieces of wood similarly disposed are present to fire, they all become hot; when the same object is present to diverse wills, they are not all similarly made to will (City of God 12.6); therefore here the fire acts, and not there the object, because then it would act equally on every will.

An objection against this [n.525] is because if wills are not similarly affected when a sine qua non cause is present, this is because for you they act freely. Pieces of wood when a sine qua non cause is present act naturally; therefore, prove that fire here is a cause other than a sine qua non cause. But all that is said [in reply] is that wood is natural, the will not.

Argument in a third way [nn.521, 525] against the Achilles [sc. ‘anything would move itself’]. Whatever is acted on, it is acted on by something; when therefore it cannot be acted on by itself, it is necessary to posit that it is acted on by something else. The will cannot be acted on by something else (not speaking of God), both because then volition would not be in its power and because then some other moving thing, disposed in the same way and with respect to the same passive subject, would have power indifferently for both opposites; for the will can will and not will the same thing presented to it in the same way. Therefore, it is necessary to attribute to the will principally the motion of itself to act of willing, because it alone has the indifference in acting proportioned to such passive subject. But wood does not have an indifference in acting proportioned to itself in idea of passive subject; for it is receptive of disparate qualities, and also contrary ones, any of which when made intense corrupts it. Nor does it have so many univocal principles, as is plain, because too nothing univocally moves itself; nor does it have a single univocal principle, because how would it be so unlimited, unless by saying that anything at all has power for all the qualities it is susceptible of, even those corruptive of it? In the will whatever it is capable of is an operation of it and some sort of perfection.

For the third and fourth opinion [nn.450-451] there are no arguments adduced to which it may be necessary to reply. He who wants to hold the belief about the first simple act and about the second of distinct knowing, or the statement of the second opinion [n.451, of Henry] that the species ‘inclines’, let him believe it. For him who does not believe it, since it is not an article of faith, let this be shown by reason [nn.452-453].

However, these two opinions, namely the third and fourth, which seem opposed to each other, are in agreement and in conformity with each other, and this as follows: for acting is required a formal idea of acting and idea of agent; the agent is the supposit, the idea of acting is the form elicitive of action. In the first action on the possible intellect, then, is required a phantasm, but the ‘what it is’, shining forth in the phantasm, is the idea of acting, and this insofar as the ‘what it is’ stands in the light of the agent intellect and is penetrated by the light and is embraced by the agent. And by this idea of acting the first thing impressed on the possible intellect is the beginning of a scientific habit, which beginning is not the intelligible species nor the form that moves to act of understanding, because the object in itself is present insofar it shines forth in the phantasm, for the phantasm is present to the intellect because it is everywhere in the body. So some other species is not required whereby the object may be thus present, nor anything holding the place of the object or representing it. However, the first impression has the idea both ‘by which’ and ‘what’ with respect to intellection: ‘by which’ because by it the intellect is in proximate and accidental potency to an act of understanding, just as a body is by its weight in potency to ‘where’; and it is ‘by which’ also in this regard, that it remains in the intellect when the intellect is prevented from actual intellection. It is also the ‘what’ because it occurs first (just as, according to Avicenna, On the Soul p.2 ch2, the first thing sensed is the species) – not as the terminating object, but as what, not by comparison but by continuation, leads to the object. In this way, then, do the first and second opinion [of Henry, nn.450-451] agree as to this, that the first denies the species and the second admits an inclination preceding the act.

But as to this point, that the first opinion [n.450] posits the intellect to be passive with respect to the first act and active with respect to the second act, and that the second opinion [n.451] seems to posit that the soul itself elicits the act – these agree in this way, because when on the possible intellect such an impression has first been made, the intellect itself meets with such action on it, because everything acted on strives, when meeting an agent, to preserve its being. Augustine also maintains this in On Music 6.5 n.11, where he speaks of the numbers that come to us, and of other numbers.¹ And, in this meeting, the intellect imbibes the confused intellection and transmits it within into itself and then receives it from itself more intimately than it could receive it from the object. Also, the intellect meets with the impression, thus intimate, a second time, and in that second meeting it immerses itself in it by penetrating it – and in this is the intellect’s distinct and perfect knowledge.

However it may be with these opinions which this middle view strives to expound, there is argument against much of what is here said [nn.529-530]. As to what it first posits, that the ‘what it is’ shining forth in the phantasm is the formal idea of acting for the phantasm [n.529] – on the contrary: how is anything the idea of acting for something which it is not in formally? Or if the way in which the ‘what it is’ be posited in the phantasm, since it is the being of it in a certain respect (because the being of what is represented), and is not there according to any being of existence, how will the ‘what it is’ according to this being be the formal idea of doing some real action? And thus, since the phantasm by which this being belongs to it is not the principal cause of acting according to them [Henry etc., n.529], neither is the ‘what it is’ according as it exists in the phantasm the principal idea of acting, which is against them.

Besides this, I ask what is it that ‘the what it is stands in the light of the agent intellect’ [n.529]. If it is nothing other than that the agent intellect is in the soul and that in the imagination of the same soul there is a phantasm, then, as long as the phantasm is in the imaginative power, the penetrating and surrounding take place, and so will exist in a madman and a sleeper, which he whose opinion is being expounded denies. If it is something other than that the two are together, some new action takes place whose new term will not be in the phantasm; therefore, it will be in the possible intellect. Therefore the ‘what it is’ does not act by any penetration (which penetration would precede the action ‘what it is’), but it only acts along with the agent intellect by causing some new impression in the agent intellect. This is what that other first opinion says [sc. of Scotus himself, nn.366, 381-382].

If you say that the other opinion posits an impressed intelligible species [nn.339, 349, 370], this one does not but posits the beginning of a sciential habit – on the contrary: this opinion posits that the impression is the principle by which the intellect is in accidental potency [n.529], although however it was first in essential potency. If the intelligible object is, by this impression, not present more than it was before, no more is it now in accidental potency than before. If it is present in any way now that it was not present in before, that in which it is present now is the intelligible species. This is even more apparent from the fact that it is posited that it meets with it first as with something displaying the object on account of natural continuation with it [n.529]. This could not be unless the object were to shine forth in it, and so had the idea of a species.

Similarly, this fact that the beginning of the scientific habit is said to precede is not true, because a habit properly speaking, as the Philosopher says in Ethics 2.1.1103b21-22, is generated by some elicited act; and just as the ultimate degree of a habit is generated from the ultimate act, so is the first degree from the first, so that any degree of a habit is posterior to some act. Therefore, that which is simply first in the possible intellect is not something of the habit itself. This is confirmed according to the opinion of the doctor who is being expounded, because he posits the beginning to be the whole essence of the habit.

As to what is said further about ‘meeting’ [n.530] – I reply: ‘meeting’ is not well assigned, nor is it to Augustine’s intention. For what is acted on when it ‘meets’ an agent strives to preserve itself and to act against an agent corrupting it; this agent acts for the preservation and perfection of the passive subject, so, for this reason (that it may preserve itself), it does not ‘meet’ it. Nor is it the intention of Augustine; for he maintains that the soul, when meeting an effect made in the air in the ear, more strongly agitates the air, and in this way causes a hearing that the sound alone did not cause. This ‘meeting’ then is a ‘co-acting’. And then I respond briefly to the arguments of Augustine. When an impression of a sensible species is made on the organ, or of an intelligible species made on the intellect, the soul ‘meets’ it through such power, that is, so that along with the impressed species it ‘co-act’ for some more perfect act than the species of itself alone could cause.

And when it is added further about that double meeting, that it first meets with the action that as it were touches it, later with the imbibed effect [n.530], I ask what these metaphorical words signify. If they signify that by the second meeting something more perfect is caused than by the first, and that it perfects more intimately (as matter is said to be more intimately perfected by a more perfect form that more actuates it), then in the second meeting the effect is not taken over inwardly more than before; but the soul, co-acting with the effect, causes something more perfect, which is more intimately in the soul than the effect first caused.

To the authority of the Philosopher On the Soul 3 [n.457], that “to understand is to undergo,” which is adduced for the fifth opinion,¹ I say that the Philosopher spoke about the powers of the soul in common, insofar as they are that by which we are formally in second act, namely about the senses insofar as they are that by which we formally sense and the intellect insofar as it is that by which we formally understand. But we formally understand by the intellect insofar as it receives intellection because, if it cause it actively, yet I am not said to understand by the intellect insofar as it causes but insofar as it has intellection as its form. For to have a quality is to be of that quality, and so the fact the intellect has intellection, or receives it (which is the same thing), is to be oneself understanding. We understand, therefore, by the intellect insofar as it receives intellection; therefore, the Philosopher, speaking thus of the intellect, necessarily had to say it was passive, and that ‘to understand’ is ‘to undergo something’, that is, that intellection, insofar as it is that by which we formally understand, is a certain form received in the intellect. But we do not understand by it insofar as it is something caused by the intellect, if it is caused by it, for if God were to cause it and were to imprint it on our intellect, we would by it no less understand.

Just as I have spoken about intelligence actually [n.537], so do I speak about knowing habitually – that the intellect is that by which we know habitually insofar as it receives a habit, not insofar as it causes it, if it causes it.

I say, therefore, that all the authorities [of Aristotle] that speak for the passivity of the possible intellect can be expounded about it insofar as by it we know habitually, or insofar as by it we cognize actually, and in this way I concede that it is passive. And if it be active, yet not according to this idea; but it is an accident of it that it is active according to this idea. Now the authorities [n.457] affirm of the intellect what is true – not speaking of the intellect under the idea of something active, but asserting that it has the idea of something receptive, although they do not say that it is not active. Now a place from an authority does not hold negatively [sc. it must not be taken as denying what it does not say].

And from these same points [nn.537-539] is response made to the authority about essential and accidental potency [n.457]. For the intellect is not in essential potency because there is lacking to it some idea of causality insofar as concerns its own part, but the intellect is in essential potency when there is not present to it another partial cause that needs to be present for the purpose that action follow; and when that partial cause is proximate to it, it is in accidental or proximate potency to acting.

But the authority by which it is said that the possible intellect is nothing of the things that are before it understands [n.457] requires a different exposition – which authority, however, others so far treat of as to say that the possible intellect is in pure potency in the genus of intelligibles, as matter in the genus of beings. This is not the intention of the Philosopher, because a potency for an accident is never founded save on a substance; now an intellection or an intelligible species is not a substantial form but an accident; therefore what is immediately receptive of it is something in substantial act, or at least that is which is mediately receptive of it (and then what immediately receives it will be some accidental act, in the way a surface is related to whiteness). Therefore, the possible intellect, according as it is that in which intelligible form or intellection is received, or is that according to which the species is received in the soul, will not be a pure potential but will be something in first act, although the respect itself of potency is not anything in act. For when I speak of a potency receptive of whiteness, I am not speaking of a potency that states a respect to whiteness; for that respect is not anything in act, because neither is the whiteness that it is for anything in act either, and a respect does not exist without a term. But that in which the power is or is said to be is something in act, as a surface is receptive of whiteness. So it is here. Although in advance of intellection the power, which is a respect to intellection, is not, before act, anything in act, as neither is the intellection to which it is, yet that in which the power is or is said to be, which is what is receptive of intellection, is something in act, and it is the possible intellect.

It is not, then, with the Philosopher that the possible intellect is nothing in act the way they take it [n.541 init.], but one must expound the authority in this way: we naturally understand first the things that first occur from phantasms, as was said in the second question of this distinction [nn.73, 187]. Nothing, therefore, can we understand in proximate potency before the intellection of something imaginable; therefore we cannot understand the intellect before the understanding of another intelligible; therefore neither can the intellect be understood by us before the understanding of another intelligible; therefore the intellect is not intelligible before the intellection of some other thing. Just as the first antecedent is true [“we naturally understand first…from phantasms”], so also is the consequence [sc. the series of consequents up to the final one of “the intellect is not intelligible before…of another intelligible”]. For that reason, therefore, the remark ‘it is not anything of the things that are before it understands’ [n.541, 457] namely ‘of the intelligibles’, must be understood not because before it understand it is nothing in act, but because it is not anything that could in proximate potency be understood by us before having the understanding of another [intelligible], on account of our natural intellection, which begins now from phantasms [n.187].

When argument is next made [n.458] about likeness, that it is the reason both for making and for acting, I say that in someone who makes well the form is the idea of the making, by which the maker assimilates the thing made to itself; but in action nothing is produced save the action itself, for action is the ultimate term and does not have another term. And, therefore, there is no need that in an agent the idea of acting be in how the producer is assimilated to some second product or the agent to the object about which it acts, because it does not assimilate it to itself.

And if you say at least that is the idea of acting in which the agent assimilates the product to itself, namely the action itself – I do indeed concede that the species, which is the likeness of an object and by which the intellect is assimilated to produced knowledge, is some idea of generating; but it is not the whole idea, nor even the principal idea, as will be clear in the following question [n.562]. But, when two causes come together, in the nearer one a formal likeness suffices and in the remoter one a virtual or equivocal likeness; and thus the intellect, as a sort of superior cause, is assimilated virtually to intellection; the species, as a sort of nearer cause, is assimilated to it univocally, as it were, and formally.

When argument is later made about the indetermination of the intellect to diverse acts and objects [n.459], I reply that some indetermination is material, because of defect of act, and some is indetermination of the agent, because of unlimitedness of active virtue, as the sun is undetermined as to generating many things. Something indeterminate in the first way does not act unless it be determined by some act, because otherwise it is not in sufficient act but in potency. Something indeterminate in the second way is determined by no form other than itself, but it is determined by itself to producing whatever effect it is of itself indeterminate to, and this when the passive recipient is present – just as the sun, when a passive subject is present, generates anything generable by the fact it is of a nature to be generated. The indetermination of the intellect is not the indetermination of passive potentiality in its order of causality, but is the indetermination of an as it were unlimited actuality; and therefore is it not determined by a form that is a determinate idea of acting for it, but only by the presence of the object, about which determinate object intellection is of a nature to be determined. Or it could be said in another way that, just as a superior cause is determined to acting (as the sun to generating a man when a man concurs as agent, and an ox when an ox concurs), but not by some form received in itself, so the intellect, which is a superior and unlimited cause, is determined to this object when a particular determinate cause concurs, as to acting about this object when this species concurs. Now an inferior cause does not² effectively determine a superior indeterminate cause, nor formally, as an idea of acting, but it determines it like this, that is, the indeterminate active superior power produces something determinate when such a determinate inferior power concurs.

There is an opinion that the intellect is the principle of intellection as to substance, but that the object is the principle as to modification or specification of act. On the contrary: nothing is the principle for nothing; intellection, when modification or specification is bracketed, is nothing; therefore etc. The major is understood of a nothing that includes a contradiction. The minor is proved because the intellect is first by nature precisely something possible to be; but an intellection without the fact that in the same now of nature it is of some object, is a contradiction, otherwise intellection would be a merely absolute form.³