Ordinatio

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.