Ordinatio

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.