Ordinatio

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.