Ordinatio

Second, the question is whether a science is called practical per se from order to action [praxis] as to its end. I argue that it is: In On the Soul 3.10 433a14-15 the Philosopher says: “The intellect becomes practical by extension, and differs from the speculative in its end.”

Again in Metaphysics 1.2.982a14-16: “The practical is less noble than the speculative, because it is for the sake of use.” This argument would not hold unless use was the end per se of that habit.

Again in Metaphysics 2.1.993b20-21 he says: “The end of the speculative is truth, but the end of the practical is work.”

On the contrary: In Metaphysics 6.1.10225b18-28 the Philosopher distinguishes practical sciences from speculative by their objects, as is plain; for he there distinguishes practical science, both active and productive, from speculative by its object and not by its end. Again, in Ethics 6.2.1139a3-15 he distinguishes the calculative from the scientific by the necessary and contingent object; therefore science is practical per se from its object; therefore not from action as from its end. Again, in On the Soul 3.10.433a26-30 he assigns good as the object of the practical, not any good but doable and contingent good; therefore, science is practical per se from its object; not therefore from action as from its end.

To solve these questions I take one general thing that is conceded by everyone, namely that the practical habit is in some way extended to action. One must consider therefore in particular: first, what the action is to which practical knowledge is said to be extended; second, in what way practical knowledge is extended to that action; third, by what knowledge has such extension.

I say first, then, that the action to which practical knowledge is extended is the act of a power other than the intellect, naturally posterior to intellection, of a nature to be elicited in conformity with right intellection so as to be right. The first condition is clear, because when standing precisely on acts of the intellect there is no extension of the intellect, because it does not tend outside itself save as its act has regard to the act of another power. And if you say that one act of the intellect is extended to another, being directed by it, the second act is not for this reason action as we are now speaking of action, nor is the first act practical knowledge, because then logic would be practical, because it directs in acts of discursive thought.

The second condition is plain, because acts not having an order to the intellect, of which sort are vegetative acts and acts naturally preceding the intellect, as sense acts, are not called actions, nor is practical knowledge said to be extended to them as they are prior to understanding. Similarly, the act of the power of sense appetite, insofar as it precedes the act of the intellect, is not action; for in this way it is common to us and the brutes. Nor is any knowledge practical in respect of these acts, save because it moderates these acts in some way and these acts follow the intellection moderative of them as they are moderated by it.

From these two conditions follows a corollary, namely that the action to which the practical habit is extended is only an elicited or commanded act of the will, for no other act from intellection or beside intellection is essentially posterior to intellection, for let any other act be given of the same idea as it is, it could be prior, as is plain by running through the acts of all the powers.

This is plain secondly thus: because action is an act that is in the power of the knower. The proof is from Ethics 6.5.1140b22, because an artisan needs a virtue for acting rightly; but he does not need a virtue with respect to what is not in his power; therefore an artisan has the act of making in his power; much more does the prudent man have action in his power, because he is formally virtuous. From this follows further: if all action is in the power of the knower and nothing is in the power of the will save either an elicited or commanded act, the proposed conclusion follows as before [n.230].

Against this condition: it seems that then some intellection will be action, because some intellection can be an act commanded by the will just as the act of another power is commanded by it. And then further: therefore the first condition is false, namely that action is the operation of a power other than the intellect. – I reply: although speculation be a certain operation and so action in an extended sense, yet in the way action is said to be the only operation to which the intellect can be extended, no understanding is action; and in this way is action taken when practical knowledge is said to be extended to action. When, therefore, it is argued that ‘understanding is commanded by the will, therefore it is action’, this does not follow, but what follows is ‘therefore it is action or practical’; for it is of a nature to be as it were accidentally denominated by the action to which it is extendable, but it cannot be the term of such extension. However, conversely, I do well concede that all action is an elicited or commanded act of the will. Hence, to infer from this second condition the opposite of the first is to commit the fallacy of the consequent, by positing the consequent.¹

Proof of the third condition. First from the remark of the Philosopher in Ethics 6.2.1139a22-25, that right choice necessarily requires right reason. This remark is not only true of choice taken strictly but, by parity of reason, of any right volition, because it requires the right reason in conformity with which it is elicited; but all action either is volition or follows volition, from the preceding corollary [n.230]; therefore all action, in order for it to be right, is naturally elicited in conformity with right reason. Second from the remark of Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.5 n.10, ch.7 n.13, that the intellect understands for itself and for other powers. Therefore, just as it can judge about its own act, so can it about the acts of other powers; therefore, it can about an act naturally posterior to its own act naturally judge before that act be elicited; and consequently, if it judge rightly, that act must be elicited in conformity with that judgment if it ought to be right.

From the two final conditions of action [nn.228, 229, 233] it follows that an act commanded by the will is not primarily action but as it were per accidens, because neither is it first posterior to intellection nor is it first of a nature to be elicited in conformity with right reason. Some other act, then, must be action first; that act is only volition, because through volition the commanded act has the said conditions; therefore the first idea of action is saved in an elicited act of the will. And then further: whenever something is first of such a sort when conjoined with another, it would still be of such a sort if it could be separated from that other; therefore if an act of will can be separated from the act of another power, it will be action when separated from that posterior act. But it is separated with respect to anything that can be the object of an act of will with respect to which there cannot be an act of another power, of which sort are all immaterial things; therefore about every such thing there is an act of will, and it on its own is action.

Second, the same is proved from the intention of the Philosopher On the Soul 3.10.433a17-18, where he inquires about the motive principle and, after he has concluded that there are two motive principles namely will or appetite and reason, he subjoins: “The intellect does not move without appetite, for will is appetite.” And consequently he says that the two appetites are sometimes contrary to each other: so it is to posit as it were one mover in species, because common to the two appetites is the idea of the intermediate species, namely the idea of appetite. Therefore he expressly means that just as the sense appetite has the idea of a motive principle along with sense and imagination, so the will has the idea of a motive principle along with intellect and reason. Therefore, just as an act of sense appetite without any transition to what is extrinsic is truly action when it follows an act of intellect, so an act of will, which is posited to be equally a motive principle, will truly be action, for it always follows an act of intellect; and this act too if it be on its own without a commanded act, nay if it be with an act in sense appetite opposed to the act which it would command, because it is, as having that sometimes opposed appetite, a motive and operative principle, whose operation is action.

From this article [nn.228-235] the second [n.227] is plain, for this extension consists in a double aptitudinal relation, namely of conformity and natural priority; as to priority, the thing is plain from what has already been adduced from the Ethics [nn.231, 233]; about conformity there is what is had in the same place, when he says that “truth of practical consideration is being confessedly disposed to correct appetite.”

I said ‘aptitudinal’ because neither relation is required to be actual. For the fact that an action actually follow the consideration that is conform to the consideration, this is altogether accidental to the consideration and contingent;¹ for if it were called action from actual extension, no action would be necessarily practical, but the same action would sometimes be practical, sometimes theoretical, which nothing is; therefore a double aptitudinal extension or aptitude for extension is enough.² This is made clear because practical knowledge is commonly conceded to be extended to action as directive to directed or as regulative to regulated. But knowledge’s being naturally prior to action and conformed to it is not its being conformed to action as to something prior, but its being conformative of action as of something posterior, or its being what action must be conformed to, which is for knowledge to direct and rule in action. And as to whether thus directing or conforming action to itself is some efficacy in knowledge with respect to action, see Ord. II Suppl. 25 q. un.

From this second point it is plain that the practical and speculative are not essential differences of habit or science or knowledge in general, because ‘practical’ asserts a double aptitudinal respect of knowledge (which is as it were something absolute) to an action as to its term, and the speculative takes away that double respect; but neither the respect nor its privation are of the essence of the absolute, but is as it were a division of the genus through the proper properties of the species, just as if number were divided into odd and even, and line into straight and curved. For to one knowledge the practical per se in the second mode belongs from the intrinsic cause of the predicate in the subject, and to another the speculative.³

[First opinion] – About the third article [n.227] there are opinions of which one is of this sort, that the intellect is called practical from one thing, and the act or habit from another. It is as follows: truth that is doable and that is not doable are specific objects, formally diverse, so they distinguish per se the things that per se have a respect to them, namely act and habit, which are called practical because they concern something doable. But the intellect is only called practical if it be operative, of which sort is only the intellect that apprehends order to a work – which it does not do unless moved by appetite for the end, such that the practical intellect includes in its act, not formally by the essence of the act but by connotation, an order that is necessarily toward desire explicitly of the end and implicitly of the things for the end; wherefore, since the ordering of what is speculable to a work is accidental to what is speculable (though its being orderable is not accidental to it), the difference between the speculative and the practical intellect proceeding from this will be accidental and in respect of something outside the intellect, although the difference of habits and acts is formal according to the formal difference of doable and non-doable object. Hence in On the Soul 3.10.433a14-15 it is said that the speculative and practical intellect differ in their end, and in Ethics 6.3.1139a29-31 that: “The good of the practical intellect is truth disposed conformably to right appetite.”

An example: the speculative intellect apprehends health as a fitting good, the appetite desires it, and there follows in some way the consideration of the practical intellect that health is to be acquired. With the desire for the end in place, then, the practical intellect proceeds discursively from the principle ‘that by which health can be better acquired is to be procured’, and its discursive process ends at the final conclusion of deliberation; and this whole discursive process, just as it takes its principle from apprehension of the desired end, which is the first object of the practical intellect, so it is that it does what has been discovered for the end, and therefore it presupposes will of the end and is ordered to the choice that follows deliberation.

Against this opinion – which, to speak briefly, consists in this, that it puts the distinction of the practical and speculative intellect in an end that is accidental to the object, but the speculative and practical habit differ and are distinguished by the formal difference of their special objects – the argument is that it is said of habits in Metaphysics 2.1.993b20-21: “The end of the speculative is truth, but of the practical a work.”

Likewise, the practical habit will in that case be in the speculative intellect, nor will the intellect be called practical by that habit, which seems unacceptable, because by every habit is that denominated which has it according to the nature of the habit.

They reply to the first argument [n.241] that the end of practical science is a work in potency and aptitude, insofar as its object is doable per se; but a doable object is considered according to this habit in general, which consideration is not enough for it to be subject to operation in act and in particular; because act is better than potency in good things, therefore is such a particular and actual consideration required; but the consideration is by a habit other than practical science, and that other habit is only in the practical intellect. To the second argument [n.242] the response is that it can be denominatively called practical, not simply but by understanding the denomination to be done by the habit

On the contrary: therefore, the practical habit and act can be in the speculative intellect, because a habit or act practical of its nature can be in the intellect without such relation to an act of will of the sort it [this opinion] posits. It would concede the consequent, but it would posit that another habit can be had in the practical intellect, generated from acts not only practical but from acts of the practical intellect.

On the contrary: a practical habit generated from practical acts would be enough for the same things for which the other habit would be enough that is generated by acts of the practical intellect, because the will that commands consideration for the sake of such an end does not give any other reason for consideration in directing, nor consequently for a habit generated by considerations.

Again, then many accidents of the same species will be in the same thing. For not on account of order or non-order of the will can a specific distinction be posited between this act and that, and similarly not between habits either.

Again, third, against the opinion in itself [nn.239-240] I argue thus: a subject is more denominated by a per se and essential condition of its accident than from an accidental condition of it; therefore, if the intellect can be called practical from an accidental condition of its habit, to wit from an order of the will ordering its act to something else, much more can it be called practical from the essential order of the act by which the act is said to be essentially practical. Therefore, the intellect seems to be called practical from the same thing from which the habit and act seem to be, although it not be said as accidentally of the habit and act as it is said of the intellect, with respect to which it is an accident per accidens.

[Second opinion] – In another way it is said that that from which habit and act are said to be practical is the end and the extension of practical knowledge to action, which is an extension to an end. On behalf of this opinion are the authorities set down earlier [nn.223-225].

There is also argument by reason. First as follows, because a habit is said to be practical either from the object or from the end. Not from the proper object because the intellect ‘is made practical by extension’,¹ which is not true save of the same intellect that is speculative and afterwards practical when extended to a work; therefore there can be a speculative and a practical consideration about the same object.

Second thus, because medicine is divided into speculative and practical, and yet it is about some same object, as about health or the body capable of health.

Again, an act is said to be practical because it is morally good or bad; goodness and badness of morals belong to an act from its circumstances; but among circumstances first and chief is the circumstance of the end; therefore etc.

Against this position I argue as follows: I ask, are habit and act said to be practical because of actual extension to a work or only because of an aptitudinal or habitual extension to a work? Not because of actual extension (as is had in the second article [nn.236-238] and as they concede), because then a workman when not intending to work would not have practical knowledge; therefore because of aptitudinal extension. But an aptitude does not belong to one nature which is repugnant to another save because of something absolute in such nature; for because this nature is such, for that reason does such aptitude belong to it; therefore it presupposes in the very consideration some intrinsic condition by which such aptitude belongs to it. This condition of consideration in itself is from another cause prior to it; but the prior causes of it are intellect and the object; therefore, the condition belongs to it from the intellect or some object.

If it be said that the end is the prior cause, rather the first among all causes, according to Avicenna Metaphysics 6 ch.5 (94va), and so from it can there be consideration of such a nature that such an aptitude belong to it, on the contrary: the end is not a cause save insofar as moving, when loved and desired, the efficient cause to causing the effect. But the said aptitude belongs to consideration whether the end is loved or not. For the said knowledge can be in the intellect however the will be disposed, nay if the will were not conjoined with the intellect. And so by the end as by the final cause the aptitude does not belong to knowledge; for nothing is present from some cause that is present when the cause is not causing. If you say that the end is apt to be loved before the aptitude is present in knowledge, on the contrary: this does not save what is proposed, because an effect has nothing from something causally because that something were of a nature to cause, unless it do actually cause; therefore knowledge does not get an aptitude, or the nature that such aptitude follows, from an end that is apt to cause, unless it do actually cause; nor does it actually cause as a final cause unless, as actually loved and desired, it move the efficient cause to acting; therefore etc.

Besides, the end either as elicited or had extrinsically makes the habit to be practical, or as considered and intended. Not as extrinsically elicited because thus it is posterior to the habit and in some way an effect; but an effect does not distinguish a cause. If as known, it thus has the idea of an object; therefore the object does the distinguishing. If as intended, this has already been refuted [n.253], because there is such knowledge before the end be naturally intended.²

Besides, not every end of practical knowledge is action. For some practical intellection is in respect of the action of a lower power, as for example of sense appetite or the motive power; but no act of a lower power is the end of an act of intellect, because nothing less noble is per se the end of the more noble; the act of understanding is nobler and more perfect than any act of any lower sense power.

It is said that, although intellection is nobler in being of nature than the operation of a lower power, yet not in the genus of morals, because it is morally better to act bravely than to think of acting bravely.

Against this in two ways. First, because it supposes something false, for the act of a lower power is not morally good save because it is conformed to right reason as to its rule; therefore rectitude of reason is the cause of such goodness in that act and not conversely; but the act of reason being thus right is its being good morally, just as intellection can be good morally. – The reason is confirmed because prudence is simply better than moral virtue as moral virtue is in sense appetite; therefore too the act of the former as it is the former’s is better than the act of the latter as it is the latter’s; therefore the former as practical, in the way that intellection can be practical is better than the latter is as practical or as good morally. From this it is plain that the proof about thinking is not valid; for when the excellence of one thing over another is being asked about, the best should not be compared to the lowest, but the best should be compared to the best or the simply so to the simply so. Therefore, just as it takes the best there, namely ‘to act bravely externally’, so should it take it in the intellect, ‘to command acting bravely in accordance with prudence’. This second is better also morally, because as being the rule it has formal goodness, which is rectitude proper; the other is only good materially, because it is not of itself morally good when one circumscribes its order to this rule and to the will commanding.

Second, the first response [n.256] does not seem to be to the purpose: for it is asking whence intellection is practical when not supposing it to be practical, especially since neither is supposition made about the first circumstance, which is the end, but it is being inquired into [n.248]; therefore, although the question is being asked about practical intellection and about the first circumstance by which it would be practical, it is only being taken as it is what it is in being of nature, so thus to distinguish it according to goodness of morals and of nature is nothing else than to suppose what is being asked for, and to distinguish something as it is considered precisely under one member of the distinction.

Therefore this opinion [n.248] is corrected by others and it is said that a habit is called practical from the end, which is practical consideration; for the proper end of any habit at all is its act. – But against this: If this consideration, which is the end of the habit, is practical, then it has a cause from which it is called practical; either then the cause is the end of that consideration, and this has already been refuted [nn.252-255]; or it is the object, and then it follows that the object is the cause, prior to the consideration, whereby the habit is said to be practical, and the proposed conclusion is got that by the object are both the habit, though mediately, and the act said to be practical.

[Scotus’ own opinion] – I concede, then, that the habit is not called practical by its proper act, because it too is practical by a prior cause. Nor is any habitual or actual knowledge practical per se because it is ordered to action as to an end; yet it can sometimes get its first extension, namely conformity to action [n.236], from the end of the action, not however insofar as it is end but insofar as it is object.

The first point here [about first extension] is plain. For sometimes the first practical principles are taken from the end of action, and so the end, as first cause of action, includes virtually all the knowledge in the genus, and so the knowledge itself gets from it its quiddity and aptitude.

The second point [about the end as object] is plain. For practice gives the aptitude, or the sort of nature possessing the aptitude, for this reason, because as first object it includes the principles and, by means of them, the conclusions, so it includes the whole of practical knowledge; but not insofar as it is end: first because from the end as end is no nature or natural aptitude got unless the end is loved and desired and so is moving the efficient cause [n.253]; but before it is naturally loved it includes the said principles and conclusions; for the truth of a necessary practical principle does not depend more on the will than does the truth of a speculative principle, nor do the conclusions necessarily inferred from such a principle; – second because anything else that would virtually include such knowledge would in the same way give such conformity to the knowledge, to wit if the action itself were first in the genus to include such knowledge, or that which the operation is about, as sometimes happens and as was touched on in the response to the third argument in the first question about the subject of theology [n.185]; for man is perhaps the subject of both moral and medical science – but happiness or health is not – because the idea of the end of each is included in the idea of what the action is about.

If it be said that the first practical principles are always taken from the end, therefore the end always first includes the knowledge of them virtually, – if the conclusion were conceded, yet it would hold not insofar as it was end but insofar as it was object, and then it could be said that man is the end both of health and of natural happiness, as was touched on in the preceding response [n.262]; but man is not at any rate the proximate end of action, because, if the conclusion were denied, the antecedent taken universally would have to be denied, for taken particularly it is true, namely when the idea of the end is not deduced from anything pertaining to practical knowledge [n.314].

Or the antecedent could be expounded in another way thus: ‘the first principles [are always taken from the end]’ is true among principles that are taken from the moral circumstances on the presupposition of an act good in its kind, because thus is the object not a circumstance. In another way, when taking the act bare, the object too is a circumstance; and by this the antecedent seems to be refuted: for that from which is taken the altogether first circumstance of the act considered bare seems to be prior to anything else, and thus the object by which the act is first specified so as to be called good in kind of act (being qualifiable further by the other circumstances so as to be fully moral), seems to be altogether first in practical knowledge. But it is not necessary now to pursue the question whether this conclusion holds or not, because its place is in the third book (Ord. III Suppl. d.26 q. un. n.10; d.38 q. un. nn.4-5; also II d.7 q. un. nn.11-13, 24-28; d.40 q. un. n.3) [cf. n.362]). Briefly then as to this article [nn.239, 227], I say that practical knowledge does not first get the extension belonging to it from the end insofar as it is end, for the reasons adduced above [n.262].

From this the solution is plain to the second question posed [n.223], whose negative part I hold [sc. science is not said to be practical from its order to the end], but the first relation, namely conformity [n.236], it has per se from the object, which is either rectitude of practice or something virtually including that rectitude, and therefore action is conformable to that knowledge so as to be right, because knowledge is of such known thing.

But as to the other relation, namely priority [n.236], it is doubtful whence it belongs to knowledge. I say that necessarily some intellection naturally precedes action, as is plain from the first article [nn.229-233]; and in this respect posteriority belongs to action and priority to knowledge from the idea of the powers that are ordered naturally in acting, namely intellect and will. But that prior intellection is not always practical, but only when it is determinative of rectitude or of the determinate rectitude of the action, and that either virtually or formally. But when there is in the preceding apprehension no virtual or formal determination about the rectitude of the action, although there be priority there, yet conformity there is lacking, because it is not the knowledge to which action should be conformed in order to be right, because it shows nothing determinate about the rectitude of action.¹ It can then be said that, although absolutely from the nature of the intellect and of the will knowledge is prior, yet the fact that conform knowledge, that is, conformative knowledge [n.237], is prior, this comes at the same time from the object and from the order of the powers and of the acting power, for although the object determine the intellect to knowledge of rectitude naturally before the will wills, and although the will in some way receives its rule from elsewhere, yet not apprehension alone but conform apprehension precedes action. But this happens whenever the determinate rectitude of action is a necessary knowable, either as a principle through the intellect or as a conclusion through science.

The things that have now been said, namely about whence the double relation, that is of conformity and of priority, belongs to practical knowledge, they are to be understood in a general way, unless it be necessary to add something on behalf of the divine intellect, namely that the acting power, to whose action the conform knowledge is prior, be in some way determinable, or conformable to another as to a rule in its acting, from somewhere else; which, whether this be required for knowledge or not, will be touched on in response to the fourth objection that will be made against the principal solution of the question [nn.324-331].

But when determinate rectitude belongs contingently to action, then there is no object determining the intellect to knowledge of determinate rectitude before the will wills, and this when speaking of intellect and will in general, for the contingent thing is not determined to either part in advance of every act of the will. But when making comparison specifically to this intellect and this will, the conform knowledge, which determinate knowledge of rectitude precedes, can precede the action, and the one which it does not precede cannot; but it can precede in all and only the intelligence whose will is not the first determinant of rectitude for the action.

An example of what has been said: The rectitude of this act ‘to love God’ is necessary and is included in the idea of God virtually; this action is also not only of a nature to be preceded in every intelligence by apprehension, but also by conform apprehension, namely the apprehension to which the action must be conformed so as to be right; so it is from the object which of itself primarily determines the intellect to know the determinate rectitude of the action, and from the order of the intellect and the will in acting, that this knowledge is obtained which is prior to action and conform, and thus in any other action that determinate rectitude necessarily belongs to. But the rectitude of this action ‘to worship God in the sacrifice of the altar’ is contingent; for sometimes the act is right, as it is now, and sometimes not, as it was in the Old Testament; and therefore there is not any object determinative of the intellect to knowledge of this rectitude in advance of every act of the will, and so neither does the knowledge precede, as conform knowledge, every act of the will. Yet it does precede the act of some will, to wit of that will alone which does not first determine rectitude for this action, of which sort is the human will. For this rectitude is determined by the divine will, which accepts now this sort of cult or act, and at another time another one.

Now that these points have been seen, it is necessary to respond to the first question [n.217], where there are five ways holding the negative side of the question [sc. that theology is not a practical science]. [First way] – One way speaks thus, declaring that there is a double act of the will, one perfecting the will, the other being perfected by it, as is maintained by Henry of Ghent in his Summa and see it in a.8 q.3 ad3.^[Interpolation [from Henry of Ghent: “First act is with respect to the end and is the perfect operation which the will elicits within itself and unites itself to the last end; second act is with respect to things that are for the end, hence it is a good action by which the will tends to something else outside itself, just as is any action directive to the end. In the first act the will does not need something directive but mere showing of the end is sufficient; for there is speculation in it only so as to show perfectly to the will the object of its operation so that it may at once tend to it with a perfect operation. Now such act simply looks to speculative knowledge. In the second act the will needs something directive, and this pertains to practical science, because in it there is speculation to direct action, which is proper to practical science. But the act that is perfected by the will is not the end of this science (unless the end is under an end) but another one which perfects the will: and from this does this science have that it is most perfectly speculative, because the act principally intended in this science is an act of the will about the end, in which it does not need a directive act but only a showing of the object. Therefore, it is not practical science, but only simply speculative, since in its own principal act it does not need a directive act.’ So Henry of Ghent, ‘For this way’ etc. [n.271].”]

For this way there is the authority of Augustine in his sermon On Jacob and Esau (Sermon 88 ch.5 n.6): “All our works,” he says, “are for the purpose of purifying the eye whereby God is seen.”

Again, it can be argued thus: something directive is not required save where there can be error; practical science is directive, therefore the science of the blessed is not practical, because the blessed cannot err; therefore, neither is our science practical, because it is the same as that of the blessed.

Again, it can be argued according to his understanding elsewhere [Henry of Ghent, Summa a.36 q.4]: God does not have practical science; but he most of all or alone has this science; therefore etc.

Against this I argue, and first I lead the idea of their position to the opposite, in four ways. First thus: although the will cannot err about the end displayed in a universal way, yet it can err about the end displayed in a particular way; therefore, in order for it to act rightly about the end displayed in a particular way, direction is required. The showing of the end in theology is of the end not universally but in particular, because the showing of it universally belongs to the metaphysician.¹

Further, a directive habit is not posited because of the substance of an act but because of its circumstance, as temperance is not posited because of the substance of the act of eating, or of another act of the sort, but because of its circumstance; therefore, although the will were determined to the substance of an act tending to the end in particular, yet direction would be required as to the circumstances of the act, to which the direction that is about the substance of the act does not extend. – From these two reasons the argument is made that wherever it is possible in action to err and to act rightly, there practical knowledge is necessary for giving direction; in this action, which is love of the end as it pertains to theology, error happens in two ways, as the reasons show, both by reason of the object in particular and by reason of the circumstances of the act; therefore etc.

Further, third: that of which the love is principally intended outside the genus of knowledge, of that the knowledge is principally intended inside the genus of knowledge; but love of the end for them is principally intended outside the genus of knowledge; therefore, knowledge of the end is principally intended inside the genus of knowledge. But in any science is principally intended knowledge of the first subject of it, therefore the end is the principal subject of this science. From the end are taken practical principles; but practical principles conclude to practical conclusions; therefore this science, which first intends love of the end outside the genus of knowledge, is practical.

Further, to the same genus, according to action or speculation, belong the principles and conclusions; for practical conclusions are resolved to practical principles, not speculative ones; therefore since knowledge of the end is directive in acts about what is for the end, and since knowledge of what is for the end is a sort of conclusion concluded in knowledge of the end as of a sort of principle, then if knowledge of what is for the end is knowledge of practical conclusions, the knowledge of the end will be practical, because it is of a practical principle. Thus is plain the response to this way’s first reason [n.270], because it takes what is false (as though the will were determinate of itself), which the first two reasons prove [nn.274-275]. Likewise, if the will were determinate, yet still the knowledge would be practical, as the two final reasons prove [nn.276-277].

To the authority they appeal to [n.271] (it seems to conclude that the vision of God is the end of this science, which they do not concede) I reply that the authority is speaking of these external operations, which are fastings, vigils, and prayers; yet any external act is of a nature to be conformed to any interior act by which it has its goodness, and also of a nature to be ordered to some interior act, and finally to an act of willing.

To the third [n.272] I reply: an agent intends per se to induce a form and does not intend the removal of a contrary save per accidens. Thus, a habit per se directs, but it per accidens excludes error; and if the habit is perfect it is not compatible with error, nay if it is compatible it is not perfect. Therefore, although the blessed be not able to err, it does not follow that they do not have also a directive habit, because, if it were per impossibile removed, they could err, but once it is posited, all error, because of the perfection of it, is excluded.

Discussion of the fourth [n.273] will be given below, after the solution of this first question, by solving the fourth objection against it [nn.324-331].

[Second way (n.270)] – The second way, although it could rightly and not rightly be elicited, yet denies that love of the end is action because it is not about a contingent object. For the Commentator says on the Ethics [Eustratius, Explanations of Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics 1 ch.1 3E] that action is operation according to choice; choice is only about the contingent, from Ethics 3.4.1111b29-30, because it is deliberative appetite; deliberation is only about the contingent (Ethics 3.5.1112a21-22, 30-31). From this too is the description of action posited in the first article of the solution [n.228] proved to be insufficient, because it omits the precise object. Consequently, this way says that no knowledge is practical that is extended to volition of the final end alone, because this end is not a true contingent.

Against this way is the fourth reason set down against the preceding one [n.277]. Again, in truth action is that operation to which appetitive virtue inclines, because any such virtue is a habit of choice, from Ethics 2.6.1106b36-7a2, and choice is action, as will be shown against the third way directly [nn.287-289]; but to love of the end not only does charity incline but also acquired love, which is appetitive virtue, because the acquired habit or appetite is in agreement with right reason. The motive for this way will be solved in the solution of the second principal reason for the first question [nn.346-351].

[Third way (n.270)] – The third way posits that either volition is not properly action but only the act posterior to it is, or if it is action, it is not so save in order to some commanded act of a lower power, to wit of the sense appetitive or the motive power or the like.

For this third way it is argued that all action follows choice. The proof is from the Philosopher in Ethics 6.2.1139a31-32: “The principle of an act is choice, not for the sake of which, but the source of motion,” that is, not the final principle but the effective one; the effective principle naturally precedes the effect; therefore etc.

Further, a practical habit is generated from actions; but a practical habit is generated from acts that follow choice; therefore, they are actions.

Again, the Commentator on the Ethics [Eustratius, id. 1 ch.1 3E] says: “Action is operation in accord with choice;” therefore action follows choice.

Against this, that not only an act which follows choice is action, the proof is because in Ethics 6.2.1139a33-34 the Philosopher says that choice is not right without right reason and the habit of virtue; therefore virtue is per se required for right choice; but it would not be required if it were a habit generated from acts posterior to choice, because it would not then incline per se save to the acts posterior to choice. Therefore, the argument proceeds under another form, because a habit is generated from the same acts to which it inclines, from Ethics 2.1.1103b21-23; but moral virtue per se inclines to right choice, because, as is clear from its definition in Ethics 2.6.1106b36-7a2, virtue is “a habit of choice” etc.; therefore moral virtue is per se generated from choices, and as a result not only the acts following choice are actions.

Further, not only is it false to deny that choice is action, which is argued by the reason just given, but, as was proved in the first article [nn.230, 234], an elicited act of the will is first action, and a commanded act is so only because of it; therefore if a choice be on its own, without order to commanding an act, to wit because of the lack of matter for the external act, it alone will be truly action. This is made clear thus: someone without money, to whom however money is presented in imagination before the choice of any action be an effective principle or a principle for commanding someone, if he choose to distribute the money liberally were he to have it, then, as to the act and habit of virtue, no further prosecution [of the act] or distribution is required, because when some object has been presented in imagination that there could be an act of liberality about, the choice is had completely from which liberality is generated or which is elicited from liberality; nor is there required any further prosecution [of the act], or anything external, or any order to what is external, if the matter of the external act be lacking.

Further, this order can only be of a cause for causing the ‘because’ of the effect; but it seems unacceptable that a cause in itself not be of itself such as is prior to the effect but only because it is actually ordered to bringing about the effect, since a cause gets nothing from the effect, nor from its order to the effect.

Then to the authority from the Ethics [n.284] I say that in the same place the Philosopher at once adds: “But of choice (supply: the principles are) appetite and reason that are for the sake of something” (that is, practical). Also, in order for choice to be right, virtue is required in appetite; hence there follows: “Choice (namely right choice) is not without moral habit.” Therefore, virtue has an elicited act more immediate to it than the act of which choice is principle as giving command; for the elicited act of the will, which is choice, is a good act before the external act commanded by good choice is good. The proof is given by the Philosopher; for he immediately adds (after the remark ‘nor is choice without a habit’): “For a good act is not without custom.” But if this is the major premise to prove what he said before about choice, let this minor premise be assumed under it, ‘good choice is a good act’. I concede, therefore, the authority that affirms choice to be the principle ‘from which’ of an act, because an act commanded by choice is also a moral act; but from this it does not follow that it alone is an act or action, nay rather choice is a prior action, on account of which it too is a good action.

To the second [n.285], if the major is true, I say that a practical habit is generated from choices, as was said above about someone choosing frequently to give liberally [n.288]; even without the commanded act, should the means not be available, liberality can be generated in him. But because, when the commanded acts are impossible, the will does not commonly choose rightly often about the matter of these acts – because that which is believed impossible for someone either he does not will or wills weakly, according to Augustine [On the Trinity X.1 n.2] – therefore commonly the practical habit which is virtue is not generated without the commanded actions subsequent to the choices; it is however not generated from those subsequent actions but from the choices, where moral goodness exists formally; in commanded actions it only exists materially.

To the third [n.286], to the Commentator, it is necessary that the ‘according to’ not be there an indication of efficient cause if the description has to be convertible with the thing described, as was already proved by Aristotle in the Ethics [n.290]; but the ‘according to’ must be understood effectively or formally, or let choice there be taken for liberality or for controlling power, or let choice be taken for the eliciting of an act of willing which is not choice or any volition. But every action [praxis] is action in the genus of action in accord with the choice, as though in accord with its active principle, whether the action be choice or what follows choice, because action in the genus of action is reduced to an effective principle.

These three ways [nn.270, 281, 283] posit that theology is purely speculative, notwithstanding the fact that it be extended to love of the end – whether the will is as it were naturally determined to that when a showing of it precedes [n.270], or whether the will is freely and contingently related to it (not however about a contingent and doable object [n.281]), or third whether it is related in any way at all about any object at all, not however by doing it, that is, not however in its order to the commanded act, but by stopping at the first elicited act [n.283].

But that such extension does not prove it is practical is persuasive because then any knowledge would be practical, because some delight or love accompanies any knowledge at all.

Likewise in Ethics 10.9.1179a22-24, the happy man “is most dear to God,” and yet the Philosopher posits that happiness to be speculative and not practical.

Against this conclusion, common to these ways, it seems to follow that there is some operation in the power of man such that it is truly a human act and yet is not properly speculation or action, to wit love of the end; the consequent seems unacceptable.

Further, that directive knowledge in any volition is not practical, since ‘truth is agreement with right appetite’, seems unacceptable, because such truth is the proper work of the practical mind, from Ethics 6.3.1139a29-31.

What is added about delight [n.294] is nothing to the purpose, because since delight is a passion naturally consequent to perfect operation, whether it be about the speculation or the thing speculated about, from this is no practical knowledge posited because of extension to delight, because neither is it action properly speaking; this will be touched on in Ord. III Suppl. d.15 q. un. But to love and desire a known object, and this circumstanced in such or such way, is truly action, nor is it naturally consequent to apprehension but is can freely be rightly or not rightly elicited.

What is added about the happy contemplative, that he is most dear to God [n.295], is not made compelling by the authority, for it speaks passively as it were, the happy man ‘is most loved by God’, not actively, as is plain there; for it adds: “if the gods have any care for human things, it is reasonable that they (supply ‘the gods’) take joy in what is best and most like them; but this is the intellect,” and then: “to those therefore who love this (that is, the intellect) it will be reasonable for the gods to give reward, as to their friends,” etc.

But, setting that authority aside, is it the case that the happy contemplative is most loving according to Aristotle in the way that to love is distinguished from to be delighted, whether about the object speculated on or about the speculation? – I reply: in Metaphysics 12.7.1072b3 he holds the first mover moves as something loved; therefore a lower intelligence loves the first mover, and yet he would place its happiness in speculation, as is plain from Ethics 10.8.1178b7-32; therefore he himself comprehends under speculation not only delight but loving. Therefore, neither because of extension to that will the knowledge be practical, according to him, but speculative.

But why then is he not held to this result, since the idea of practical and of speculative science is adopted by him? – and so the first two ways, denying it [sc. that theology is practical] in positing theology to be speculative, do well posit it, even according to the Philosopher – I reply: the ‘to love’ that he would posit in the intelligence he would posit to be in the will by natural necessity, so that it would not happen there that it errs and acts rightly, so that, with respect to it, the knowledge would be only ostensive, not directive, either as to the object in particular or as to any condition of it or any circumstance of the act of willing.

The theologians would not speak in this way about the act of love of intelligible creatures in regard to God in particular and as to the circumstances of the act, as was argued against the first way in the first two reasons [nn.274-275]. If therefore he [= the Philosopher] had agreed with us, positing that loving the end can freely and rightly and not rightly be elicited, and that it cannot be rightly elicited unless it is elicited in conformity with a right reason not only showing the object but also bidding it to be thus elicited, perhaps he would, with respect to such, have posited a practical knowledge, because a knowledge in agreement with right appetite. Therefore, it is better for the theologian, who must disagree with him in the minor premise, by consequently saying he disagrees in the conclusion, than to agree in the conclusion that he himself [= the Philosopher] would not posit if he were not holding the minor along with the theologian.² When, therefore, you say that we get from him the idea of practical and speculative, it is true, and we agree in the major premise that it [= theology] is speculative, which although it were extended to love as pointing out the object, yet in no way would it be directive in the act as it can be circumstanced or as it is of this object in particular; but the minor that he himself assumes under the major we have to deny in the case at hand.³

[Fourth way] – And therefore there is a fourth way, which says that theology is affective. Which can be understood in a good way if affective is set down as something practical; but if it is set down as a third member, distinct from the practical and speculative, it is in this way contrary to what was said in the first article, where it was shown that love is truly action [nn.228-235], and also against many authorities that believe precisely that science is divided into the practical and the speculative, and there is no third member.

[Fifth way] – The fifth way says that theology is contemplative. For this way Augustine is adduced in On the Trinity 12 ch.14 n.22, where his meaning is that wisdom is in respect of contemplation, science in respect of action; since, therefore, theology is properly wisdom and not science, it will not be practical but contemplative. I reply that Augustine in On the Trinity 12 ch.4 n.4 says that the two parts of the soul, the superior and the inferior, are only distinguished according to their functions; and in each there is a trinity (but in the superior the image of the Trinity), and yet only the superior is contemplative, because it has regard to things eternal. Therefore, the contemplation of which he speaks is not distinguished from speculation within the genus of science; for the contemplative contains memory, intelligence, and will, and so in the contemplative there can be an extension outside the genus of science, just as there can be in the active, that is, in the inferior part, which regards temporal things, and it too contains a trinity. If then it is contemplative as Augustine speaks there, it is not for this reason prevented from being practical if it is extended to practice in the superior part.

[Another opinion] There is another opinion, discordant from the preceding ones in its conclusion that science is speculative and practical. The proof for it is twofold. One way is as follows: just as a teaching in which there are some things written about law and other things about philosophy would be speculative and practical, whether they were written in separate books or intertwined and mixed, so too in this teaching [of theology] speculative and practical things are treated of together, not in separate books and chapters but intertwined and mixed; therefore it is speculative and practical.

Again it is proved in this way, because no speculative knowledge treats more distinctly of doable things than the knowledge of them is necessary for speculation, nor does any practical science treat more distinctly of things to speculate than is required the knowledge of them because of the action it is extended to; this science treats more distinctly of doable things than is the knowledge of them necessary for speculation, and more distinctly of things to speculate than is the knowledge of them required for practical knowledge; therefore it is speculative and practical. – The major is plain, because things to speculate are considered in practical science only on account of practical consideration, and doable things are considered in speculative science only on account of speculative consideration. The minor is plain, because this science treats of doable things as distinctly as if it were precisely about them, and of things to speculate as distinctly as if it were precisely about them.

Against this it is argued as follows: a habit that does not get evidence from its object is not distinguished according to distinction of objects (for then it would be necessary to posit two infused faiths); this habit [of theology] does not get evidence from its object, therefore it is not distinguished according to distinction of objects; therefore it is not two habits because of the distinction between things to do and things to speculate.

Further, although the said opinion about two habits could have some probability about theology as it is handed down in Scripture, yet about theology in itself, whose subject is the divine essence as this essence (as is said about the subject of theology [n.167]), it does not seem probable; for about that object, since it is most truly a single knowable, some knowledge truly one is of a nature to be first had about it; if another be granted which is not about it but about some other first thing, that other knowledge will not be theology in itself. Therefore, theology is a habit simply one, although perhaps there could along with it exist in Scripture some knowledge that is about some other subject.

Again, it is plain that the order of sciences with respect to eminence stops at one thing alone, because there cannot be two sciences first simply; that single and sole eminence I say is theology, which alone is first about the first subject of theology.

Further, I take the reason for it [n.306] to the opposite conclusion: that knowledge is practical in which determination is not made of things to speculate about more than the knowledge of them pertains to practice or practical knowledge; this knowledge [of theology] does not treat of things to speculate on more distinctly than the knowledge of them is required for directing practical knowledge or practice; therefore etc. – Proof of the minor: any knowledge at all of the conditions of the desirability of the end, and of the conditions of the things that are for the end insofar as they are for the end, and third of the conditions of whatever is of this sort or of other things, about which conditions the operative power can err unless it be directed, is necessary for practical knowledge; no knowledge is here here handed on about the end or about what is for the end without being of this sort; therefore etc. Or at any rate it is possible for an ignorant will to err about them, as will be said in the solution of the third objection [n.322] against the principal solution of the question.⁴

The assumption is plain, because all of the conditions handed down about the end are rather of a nature to show the desirability of the end, and the conditions of the things that are for the end are of a nature to show rather the things ordered to the end.

To the argument [n.306], it is plain that the minor is false. For proof I say that the end known and the things for the end could not be treated of so distinctly without the whole knowledge being practical for a created intellect, because the whole of that knowledge is of a nature to show the end under the idea of desirability and to show the things that are for the end under the idea of their order to the end, or whatever a non-directed will could err about.

[Another opinion] – Another opinion holds the same conclusion, but posits along with this that theology is one habit simply.⁵

[On the theology of necessary things] – To the question [n.217], therefore, I reply that since an elicited act of will is most truly action, even if no commanded act accompanies it (as is plain from the first article [nn.230, 232, 234-235]), and since extension of practical knowledge consists in conformity to action and in aptitudinal priority (this is plain from the second article [nn.236-237]), it follows that that knowledge is practical which is aptitudinally conform to right volition and is naturally prior to it; but the whole of theology necessary for a created intellect is thus conform to the act of the created will and prior to it; therefore etc. – The proof of the minor is because the first object of theology is virtually conform to right volition, because from the idea of it are taken the principles of rectitude in volition; it also determines the created intellect to knowledge of the determinate rectitude of the action as to all necessary theological things, naturally before any created will wills them, otherwise they would not be necessary; therefore from the first object follows both the conformity and the priority of theology to volition, and thus extension to action, from which extension knowledge itself must be called practical. A confirmation of this reason is because, since the first object of theology is the ultimate end, the principles too in the created intellect taken from the ultimate end are practical principles, therefore the principles of theology are practical; therefore the conclusions too are practical.

If objection be made against this from what was said in the preceding question, where it is said that God is not the first subject here as end but as this essence [nn.167, 195]; but the principles taken from the end as it is end are practical; therefore etc.

Again, knowledge of the ultimate end is not immediately conform to, nor of a nature to be conform to, the eliciting of action; therefore it is not proximately practical.

Again, the first object virtually includes conformity to right action, but not the knowledge thus conform alone; otherwise there could not be speculative science about it, which seems unacceptable. For how is this truth practical ‘God is triune’ or ‘the Father generates the Son’? Therefore, the first object includes some speculative knowledge. Therefore, from the virtual conformity of the first object to action it does not follow that theology is practical, since the truths most theological insofar as theology is distinguished from metaphysics are speculative.

Again, then the science of God, which is about the same first subject, would be practical, and it seems that the idea of the solution to the question [n.314] could be applied to the divine intellect just as to the created one.

To the first [n.315] I say that the respect of the end is not what the principles in any science are taken from, but the absolute subject is on which the respect is founded; that subject is ‘this essence’.

To the second [n.316] I say that what virtually contains conform knowledge is virtually conform, and thus is practical knowledge, because practical conclusions have practical principles; but the knowledge proximate to this one which is about the end is knowledge of enjoyment of the end, and it is of the nature to be formally conform to the action of enjoyment.

To the third [n.317] I say that the first object only includes knowledge conform to right volition, because by virtue of it nothing about it is known that is not either rectitude of some volition or virtually includes knowledge of such rectitude. And I concede what is inferred as unacceptable in the consequent, that about it there can be no speculative science; for necessarily knowledge of it and of anything intrinsic known through it is aptitudinally conform to action and prior, if what is known is necessary.

When objection is made about those truths, which seem to be most truly theological and not metaphysical, ‘God is triune’, ‘the Father generates the Son’ [n.317], I say that these truths are practical. The first indeed virtually includes knowledge of the rectitude of love tending toward the three persons, such that if an act were elicited about one of them alone, excluding another (as an unbeliever would elicit it), the act would not be right; the second includes knowledge of the rectitude of the act which is about two persons one of whom is thus from the other [Ord. I d.1 p.1 q.2 n.2, 5, 11].

And if it be objected against this, that nothing save an essential is reason for terminating an act of love; but theology is more properly about the personals than about the essentials, because many essentials can be known by the metaphysician; therefore theology as distinguished from metaphysics as to what is most proper to it is not practical. The proof of the first proposition is that otherwise there would be some idea of lovability in one person that would not be in another, which is false, because then no person would be blessed in himself. I reply: an essential is absolutely the idea of terminating an act of loving as ‘that because of which’, but the persons terminate an act of loving as whom are loved. For it is not sufficient for rectitude of the act that it have the fitting formal idea in the object, but there is also required that it have the fitting object in which such formal idea exists. So, besides the knowledge of rectitude which includes the essential in the act of loving God, the personals include the further proper knowledge of the required rectitude.

As to the fourth [n.318], it could be conceded that the theology of God about necessary things is practical, because in his intellect the first theological object is of a nature as it were to generate the knowledge conform to right volition that is naturally prior to the volition. That it is conform is plain. That it is also prior is proved because the intellect first naturally understands the first object before the will wills it; therefore naturally prior to volition it can have all the knowledge sufficient for it virtually included in the understanding of the first object; of such sort is any necessary knowledge whatever of the first object. The consequence supposed is plain, both because, with all will per impossibile excluded, the intellect could have all sufficient knowledge virtually included in the understanding of the first object, since that understanding precedes all volition; – and because the divine intellect is not discursive; so it does not naturally understand the first object before it understands anything virtually included in it as to knowledge; therefore, if it understands the first object before the will wills anything, it understands anything as to knowledge that is included in the first object before the will wills (this second proof of the consequence is less strong).

If it be objected that the divine will will not be the first rule of itself in its act if its act is preceded by the knowledge to which it should be conformed in acting so as to act rightly; the consequent seems unacceptable, because it takes away the supreme freedom of the divine will if it is determined by another, and not first by itself, to its first act. But if all its acts are preceded by practical knowledge, it will be determined to its first act by the intellect, because it cannot dissent from it; for then it could sin.

Again, it was said above [nn.300-301] that the Philosopher consequently speaks well if the intelligence naturally loves God when seen; therefore a knowledge that shows God is not practical. Let there be a like consequence about God naturally loving himself.

Again, what directs is a cause in respect of what is directed, so there is a real distinction between them; but there is no such distinction of God’s intellection to his willing. A confirmation of the reason is because, when it is understood that an act of will has already been elicited, the intellect is not directing, for it only directs about something to be elicited as if prior to it; but in God the willing of himself does not follow the will’s existence, so his willing is never there something as it were to be elicited but is always as it were elicited; therefore etc.

It seems here that, in consequence of what has been said [nn.274-277, 310-312, 314, 319-320, 322-323], one must say that, when one takes rule for what gives right guidance in action, the first rule is the ultimate end, which virtually first includes the knowledge of the necessary rectitude of any action, just as the first object of speculative science first includes knowledge of truths of speculation. But this first rule, which is the end, makes right in ordered way the intellect and will as these powers are of a nature to act rightly in ordered way, such that it first as it were generates knowledge conform to right action before right action, or before it makes action right; and thus, while the power is acting, there will be another power previously right, so that the consequent inferred in the first reason [n.325] seems it must be conceded. When it is rejected [n.325], one could say that, just as universally freedom stands along with previous apprehension, so supreme freedom stands along with the most perfect previous apprehension; but the most perfect apprehension of action includes knowledge of the conformity when it necessarily belongs to action.

When it is further argued that it would be determined by something else [n.325], one must deny this by speaking of the determination that is done by a sufficient agent. For although it could not disagree with knowledge that is right and prior to action, yet this is not as if the intellect be by its knowledge a sufficient cause actively determining the will to act, but is from the perfection of the will, that it is only of a nature to act in conformity with the prior power in acting, when that prior power acts first perfectly about its object, that is, when it knows first as much as it can know. But I say this for contingent things, of which the divine intellect does not have all the knowledge possible to it before all act of the will; therefore, as to those contingent things, it is not necessary that it act in conformity with the prior power, because it does not first conformably know such object. But as to knowables necessary of themselves it always happens otherwise, because they contain the most perfect knowledge of themselves without an act of will.¹

Now although this response [n.328-329] seem to avoid the argument [n.325], and although the subsequent arguments [n.326-327] could be avoided, yet one must say otherwise, that necessary theology in the divine intellect is not practical, because there is no natural priority of intellection to volition that is, as it were, of the conformative to what needs to be conformed or of directive to something that needs to be directed: because once any knowledge whatever of rectitude of the action has been posited, although it could of itself conform a conformable or directable power from elsewhere, yet not the divine will with respect to its first object, because it is rectified of itself alone with respect to the object, for either it naturally tends toward it or, if it tends freely, it is not of itself in any way as it were indifferent to rectitude or as it were in any way from elsewhere possessed of it, such that determinate knowledge of rectitude is not necessarily prior to volition as if the volition require it so as to be rightly elicited; but it only pre-requires the ostension of the object; and the knowledge that is of itself directive it does not pre-require as directive but only as ostensive, such that if ostension alone of the object could precede volition and knowledge of the necessary rectitude of the action could follow (as will be said of action about contingents [n.333]), volition would be equally rightly elicited then and now. Therefore, intellection is not now prior and conformative or regulative.

To the argument, therefore, that proves the priority of knowledge of rightness to right action [n.324], it can be replied that though there be some priority of intellection to volition, yet it is not in such way prior that it require right cognition to be prior to action, because such priority is of rule to ruled, of which sort there cannot be when the will is in every way rule of itself in acting. The sum of this controversy about the science of God with respect to himself, whether it be practical, consists in this: if the knowledge, which of itself would be directive in action (given that the rectifying or acting power in the knower were directable in acting), be practical from the fact alone that thus it would be directive, or not practical from the fact that the doing power in the knower is not directable – let him who holds either one of the sides speak accordingly.

[About the theology of contingents] – From this is introduced the second article of the question, namely about the theology of contingents, whether it be practical [nn.314, 324, 330; 1 d.38 q. un. nn.1-4]. I say that in that intellect alone can the theology of contingent things be practical which can have determinate knowledge of the rectitude of action before all volition of the understander or before the elicited action, because only there is this theology of contingent things able to be or is conform to action and prior to it. Of such sort is every created intellect, because of no created understander does the will first determine the contingent rectitude befitting its action.

But in the divine intellect contingent theology cannot be practical if one holds onto these two points, namely that practical knowledge and the action to which it is extended ought necessarily to belong to the same supposit,² and that of God as operating there is no action save volition (not positing in him a third power other than intellect and will), for no knowledge conform to action or to contingent right volition precedes in the divine intellect its right action or the volition of God, because by volition is such rectitude first determined to such action.

The first point is true, for if any knowledge at all about the action of another be practical, then my knowledge about this, which is ‘God creates the world’ or about this, which is ‘an intelligence moves the heavens’, will be practical. At least this seems to prove that practical knowledge cannot belong to a lower intelligence or understander when something else is operating according to that action or, by parity of reasoning, belong to a higher or an equal if it do nothing for the action of the operator; but if it do do something, already does the superior have its proper action with respect to which its knowledge is practical.

Again, if practical knowledge has any causality with respect to the action to which it is extended, and is not of a nature to have such causality save first in respect of the action that is in the one who understands, the thing proposed [n.333] seems to follow.

On the contrary: therefore, about the same thing one intellect would have practical knowledge and another speculative, if action were possible to one intellect and not the other. It can be said that perfect rectitude of action includes the circumstance of the one operating and also the other circumstances, so that without it there is no rectitude. For if ‘God is to be loved’ is taken, unless it be added by what, namely by the will, it is not a practical truth completely, because God is not to be loved by a brute; therefore this perfect truth ‘God is to be loved by God’ is practical in any intellect whatever; thus too this one, ‘man should sometimes fast’, is practical not only to a man who knows it but also to an angel and to God; so also is this practical for man and God ‘the heaven is to be moved by an angel’, – and I concede as unacceptable what the first proof infers [n.334].

And if it be objected that the priority of practical knowledge to action is not preserved – for love with respect to himself is right before a man or an angel could understand ‘God is to be loved by God’ – I reply: this priority ought to be from the object and the intellect, that is, that it naturally determine the intellect to knowledge of determinate rectitude of action, namely as far as it is of itself in advance of action; in this way this object is of a nature to determine any intellect whatever to the knowledge ‘God is to be loved by God’ as far as it is of itself in advance of action, although some intellect, because of its own imperfection, is not determined before the acting power, because of its own perfection, acts.

To the other objection [n.336] I say that just as the will can be a superior cause with respect to the action of the moving power, not however any will at all with respect to any power at all, for example, not my will with respect to the motive power of an angel, but when it is in the same subject, so that if it be a practical cause with respect to action, this is in the same understander and the same operator; nor is it necessary that in another it be non-practical, save by taking practical strictly for what is immediately applicable to a work to the extent it depends on the identity of supposit of knower and doer, which sort of immediacy is denoted by the infinitive that signifies action when construed with the verb ‘to know’ – for in this way it is conceded that only God knows that he loves himself infinitely, although an angel may know that he is to be infinitely loved by himself.

He who thus responds must from the beginning concede that every truth about the actions of created agents is known by some acting intellect, because all of them, whether by the object if they are necessary or by something else if they are contingent, are of a nature to be first conform to actions or first to determine the rectitude of action before actions be elicited. But all truths about divine volition, when necessary indeed are practical, but not when contingent, because before the elicited action to which they are extended, they do not have conformity, because no determination of rectitude; for example, God knows practically that man should repent and the angel should move, but not that God must wish a holy man to repent or an angel to move.

If you ask of what sort theology of contingents is in itself, when not compared with this intellect or that, it can be said that it is such in itself as it is from its object; but it is not from its object conform to action in advance of every action, because from the object no determinate knowledge of contingent rectitude is of a nature to be had; therefore from its object it is not practical, therefore it is speculative, if these sufficiently divide knowledge [n.303]. Congruent with this is that in the divine intellect it is denied to be practical [n.333]; for a thing seems to be such in itself as it is in a perfect instance in the genus, not as it is in an imperfect one.

If it be objected that then knowledge speculative in itself is practical for someone, to wit for a created intellect, therefore the practical is not repugnant to the speculative, I reply: to be speculative from the object is to be per se speculative; so, to be practical from an object that sufficiently determines the intellect to knowledge of rectitude – and if sufficiently then prior to volition – is to be per se practical. In this way are these two opposed, as also these ‘not-extendable to action’ and ‘extendable to action’. But to be practical from something other than the object, to wit from an extrinsic cause, as from the will determining the intellect to knowledge of action, is to be accidentally practical; so I concede that the theology of contingent things is practical for us, though in itself it is speculative.

Against this: that to which one opposite per se belongs the other opposite belongs to neither per se nor per accidens; therefore knowledge per se speculative is not practical either per se or per accidens. I reply: although the antecedent could be expounded of per se in the first or the second mode, not however in the third mode insofar as it states the same as the solitary [Posterior Analytics 1.4.73a-34-b10], yet I concede that in no mode of inhering does the opposite inhere of this predicate which is ‘per se practical’ or of this predicate ‘per se speculative’, because contingent theology per se in the second mode is per se practical or speculative, such that both the inherence is per se and the predicate is determined by the ‘per se’. But per accidens to be practical per accidens is not opposed to that, just as to be black simply and to be white in some respect are not opposed; for ‘in some respect’ and ‘simply’ determine predicates as denominative. If it is argued ‘it per se is per se speculative, therefore it per se is speculative’, I concede it, nor to this predicate is the predicate ‘per accidens practical’ opposed.

But if the other of these two [n.333] that this response holds [n.340] be not held, then it can be conceded that contingent theology, although it not be in itself practical because not so from its object, yet in every intellect created and uncreated it would be practical per accidens, because it can in the divine intellect be conform to action before the action be elicited by a created will; for the intellect of God knew that the adult sinner in the New Law ought to be ground down before the sinner is ground down. And by not holding to the first of those, the knowledge of God about the action of some other actor is practical; by not holding also to the second of them, to wit by positing the acting of God extrinsically to be an action of his different from the volition of God formally, although the divine intellect did not know that a must be created before his will will it, yet he did know before he create, and so conform knowledge precedes the external action, although it is not conform from the object but from elsewhere.

This at any rate I hold to, that the theology of contingents is not per se practical or from its object; yet for a created intellect it can be per accidens practical, and this in the intellect doing the understanding to which it belongs to act according to the action for which rectitude is determined by the divine will. But as to whether it is practical for the divine intellect, it is plain by holding those two positions [n.333] or the opposites [n.343] what should be said as a consequence. These three things, however, seem probable: first, that the practical is regulative in the action of what is contingent, and second that it is regulative of the power of the doer who is rectifiable from elsewhere than from himself, and third that in God there is no power of doing save will. From the first and third it follows that if divine knowledge were practical, it would be rectificative or regulative in divine volition; but this is false from the second of them [n.333], because the will of itself first rightly elicits willing with respect to the first object, but with respect to second ones, which it is of contingently, it is determined from itself alone, not by any preceding knowledge of rectitude.

To the principal arguments of the first question. To the first [n.217] I say that faith is not a speculative habit, and that to believe is not a speculative act, nor is vision that follows believing speculative but practical; for the vision is of a nature to be conform to enjoyment and it is first naturally had in a created intellect so that right fruition may be elicited in conformity with it.

To the second [n.218] one must say that the contingent thing that practical science is about is the end or what is for the end; but in doable things action is the ultimate end according to the Philosopher in Ethics 6.2.1139b3-4; therefore, the contingency of action suffices for the object of practical science.

Against this is argued, first, that science is of necessary things; therefore, there is no science about contingent things. The antecedent is plain from the definition of ‘to know’ in Posterior Analytics 1.2.71b15-16.

Likewise from Ethics 6.2.1139a3-15, the scientific is distinguished from the ratiocinative by reference to the necessary and the contingent [n.226], therefore all the habits of the scientific part are about the necessary; but science is a habit of that part; therefore etc.

Further, if theology is about the contingent doable, therefore it is habit active with true reason; but, as is said in Ethics 6.5.1140b20-21, this is the definition of prudence; therefore theology is prudence, not science.

To the first [nn.347-348] I reply: about contingent things there are many necessary truths, because it is a necessary conclusion that an act that is contingently elicited should be such as to be right; about it, then, there is science as to the conclusion necessarily deduced, although it is in itself contingent as far as it is elicited by its proper power. The response then is plain to the authority of the Philosopher in Posterior Analytics [n.347]: science is of something necessary said about the contingent, and so necessary truths are included in the understanding of the contingent, or they are deduced about something that is contingent by reason of some prior necessary thing [Posterior Analytics 1.8.75b24-25, 33-36; n.212]. Through this same point to the authority of the Philosopher in the Ethics [n.348]: because the habit of the ratiocinative part is about an act insofar as it is contingently elicited; but the scientific habit or science is about the same thing insofar as something about it is necessarily deduced. If it be objected that there is not the same object for a scientific habit and for a ratiocinative one, there will be discussion about this below [n.351], as to how there can be the same object for several habits, though not the same habit for several objects.

To the second [n.349] I say that it would prove that moral science is prudence, for moral science is a habit active with true reason. Therefore, I say that the definition of prudence must be understood of the proximate active habit, of which sort is the habit acquired from acts. Hence, as art is related, in respect of makeable things, to the habit of the expert, so is moral science, in respect doable things, related to the habit of prudence, because the habits of art and of moral science are as it were remote to giving direction, since they are universal; but the habits of prudence and of the expert, because they are generated from acts, are particular and proximate to giving direction. This exposition is necessary, otherwise there would be no practical science, because any practical science is a habit of doing or of making; the conclusion, however, is unacceptable and contrary to the Philosopher in Metaphysics 6.1.1025b25, as it seems, and against Avicenna in Metaphysics 1 ch.1 (70ra), and against other authors.

To the third reason [n.219] I say that Boethius understands by theology metaphysics. And as to the fact he says it is about the substance of God, I say that God is considered in that science insofar as it is possible for him to be considered in acquired sciences.

To the other [n.220] I say that it is a mark of nobility in an inferior that it attains what is superior, according to the Philosopher in Politics 7.14.1333a21-22. Hence the sense power of man is nobler than the sense power of a brute, because in man it is ordered to the intellective power. A mark, therefore, of nobility in a science is that it is ordered to the act of a nobler power. But the Philosopher does not posit any science to be conform to the action of the will about the end, because he did not posit the will to have an action about the end but as it were a certain simple natural motion, and therefore he posited that there can be no nobler science by conformity to the end; if however he had posited some action about the end, he would not have denied, as it seems, that practical science in respect to that action was nobler than speculative science about the same thing, for example, if there were some speculative science about what moral science is about, he would not say that the speculative science was nobler than the moral science. But we do posit that there is true action about the end, to which knowledge is of a nature to be conform, and therefore that practical knowledge about the end is nobler than any speculative knowledge. Therefore, the first proposition of the argument [n.220], which seems it can be taken from the Metaphysics, although the Philosopher not expressly say it, is to be denied.

To the first proof of it [n.220] I say that what is for its own sake is nobler than what is for the sake of some act inferior to itself; but whatever he posits as practical is for the sake of something lower than speculative consideration, because it is at least about some object lower than what he posits as the object of speculative consideration; and therefore any practical science that he posits is less noble than something speculative. Now what is for the sake of some other act, nobler than its own proper act, is not, because of such order, less noble; for then our sense power would be less noble than the sense power of the brute. To the second proof of the denied proposition, when the discussion is about certitude [n.220], I say that any scientific knowledge in respect of its object is equally certain proportionally, because any science makes resolution to its immediate principles; but it is not equally certain in quantity, because these principles are more certain knowables than those. So everything that the Philosopher posits practical science about is a less certain and perfect knowable in itself than what he posits some speculative science about; therefore some speculative science according to him is posited to be more certain than any practical science in quantity. Now we posit the doable knowable, that is, the attainable by operation, which is truly action, to be in itself most knowable, and therefore science about it is neither in quantity, as neither in proportion, of certitude exceeded by any other science.

To the other reason about necessary existents [n.221] I say that this science was not invented for the sake of extrinsic necessities but for intrinsic ones (as namely for the order and moderation of passions and actions), just as moral science, if it were invented after all extrinsic necessities had been possessed, would no less be practical. Now this science was not invented ‘for escaping ignorance’, because many more knowables could be handed down in so great a quantity of doctrine than have here been handed down; but here the same things are frequently repeated, so that the listener may more efficaciously be induced to the doing of the things that are here made convincing.

To the arguments of the second question. To the authority of the Philosopher in On the Soul [n.223] I say that he is speaking there of the end as known; for the intellect that is calculating for the sake of something is calculating for the sake of the end as known and as it is a principle of demonstration.

To the second authority from the Metaphysics [n.224] I say that the practical is not for the sake of use as per se end; yet it does have some relation to use, such that use is its per se object, or something that virtually includes use, of which sort the Philosopher did not posit there to be any being save a being for the end; and every such object is less noble than an object of speculation; and therefore such order to action proves the ignobility of the practical with respect to the speculative.

To the third from the Metaphysics [n.225] I say that the speculative and practical have diverse ends speaking of per se ends within the genus of knowledge, but those ends do not first distinguish them, but there is a prior distinction from the objects, as was said before [nn.252-255, 259, 265-266].

To the reasons for the opposite position when argument is given against distinction through objects: To the first [n.249] I say that a speculative habit and a practical habit cannot be about the same object. – But when the opposite is proved through the remark of the Philosopher in On the Soul that “the intellect is made practical by extension,” I say that the Philosopher does not say this, namely that the speculative intellect is made practical by extension; but Aristotle, when he posits three grades of intellect, of which the first considers speculables only, the second considers doables, not by commanding to pursue or flee, he says that “by extending itself further it wants to pursue or flee,” so that this extension is of intellect imperfectly practical to consideration perfectly practical, to wit from apprehension of things terrible to a complete command about them, prescribing flight or pursuit. A concession, however, that the speculative intellect is made practical is not to the purpose, because ‘speculative’ and ‘practical’ are accidental differences of the intellect, although they are essential differences of habits and acts, and therefore habits and acts are not extended.

To the other about medicine [n.250], someone says that the universal habit is speculative but when from it the particular habit is acquired, it then becomes practical. – On the contrary: then from speculative principles a practical conclusion would follow, which is unacceptable.

Therefore it must be said in another way that, when there are extreme opposites, the more something departs from one of the opposites, so much the more does it approach the other; the most actual idea of the practical does the consideration have that is of a nature to be immediately conform formally to the action to be elicited; therefore the more something departs from this, so much the more does it approach the speculative; therefore the universal habit, which is not of a nature to be immediately conform to action, can be said in some way to be speculative with respect to some habit that is immediately of a nature to be conform to the action to be elicited. In this way art could be set down as a speculative habit with respect to the habit of the expert, because art, as being a more universal habit, is not so immediately directive, as appears from Metaphysics 1.1.981a14-24, “the artisan will frequently err, the expert will not err.” In this way can medicine be distinguished into the speculative, which namely is about universal causes and cures, which knowledge is more remote from the action to be elicited, and into the practical, which is about particulars and things closer to action and more immediately conform to the action to be elicited. However, in truth the more universal knowledge, which is called speculative comparatively, is simply and most truly practical, because it virtually includes the particular knowledge formally conform to action.

To the other about goodness and malice [n.251] I say that not every good act is good first from the circumstance of the end as end, nay some act is good from the circumstance of the object, to wit when the end is object, and there the circumstance of the end as object first gives rectitude to the act [nn.263-264]; for the act is simply good from the object alone, as ‘to love God’ is simply good without other circumstances. Therefore it is false that from the end as the end is distinguished from object is the first goodness of the moral act taken, nay it is false in a second way, because, although an act about a being for the end have the end for first circumstance, yet from the object there is a prior goodness, by which an act is said to be good in its kind; there is a third response, directly to the purpose [n.362], because although a circumstance formally circumstances action so that it be good, yet it does not formally circumstance practical understanding; for the intellect does not command an act moderately or in a middle way, so as to be circumstanced by this circumstance to give command moderately, but the intellect gives command according to the utmost of its power; but the ‘commanding’ is right from the principle, and the principle is taken from the first object.

Against that [n.362] is that the distinction is not through objects. The proof is because everything formally of a certain sort is of that sort through something intrinsic to it, therefore, if a habit is formally practical, this is by something intrinsic to it; but this is not the object; therefore etc. Example: the sun is not formally hot although it is virtually hot.

Further, the object does not distinguish the habit save as an efficient cause; efficient causes do not distinguish the effect by species, because an effect the same in species can be from causes diverse in species, as a hot thing the same in species is generated equivocally and univocally by fire and by the sun.

To the first [n.363] I say that to be practical states something intrinsic to knowledge just as an aptitudinal respect states something intrinsic to the foundation, and that some knowledge is naturally apt to be referred, that is, by a nature intrinsic to knowledge, which nature it has from the object as from an extrinsic cause. I say then that a habit is practical by what is intrinsic as by a formal cause, but by the object, which is extrinsic, as by an efficient cause.

To the second [n.364] I say that although from essentially ordered causes, one of which is univocal and the other equivocal, there can, when each is causing, be an effect of one idea, as is exemplified of heat, when however proximate efficient causes of the same order to the effect cause something insofar as these causes are distinct, especially if each is univocal with the effect (whether the univocity is complete or diminished), there cannot be from such distinct causes an effect of the same idea. I say univocity is complete when there is likeness in the form and in the mode of being of the form; I say univocity is diminished when there is likeness in the form although it have another mode of being, in the way that the house outside is from the house in the mind of the builder (hence the Philosopher calls this generation ‘in some way’ univocal, Metaphysics 7.9.1034a21-25). Because therefore the object is proximate cause with respect to knowledge and is univocal, although in a diminished way, it follows that the formal distinction of objects, since these cause knowledges insofar as they are distinct, necessarily proves a formal distinction of knowledges.