Ordinatio

Next I ask in particular whether there are there only two intrinsic productions. That there are not two I argue thus, because of one nature there seems to be one mode of communicating, according to Averroes, Physics VIII com.46.

This is proved by his reasons in the same place: First, because of a second matter there is a second form, otherwise there would not be a proper form for this matter;¹ but matters corresponding to diverse agents and productions belong to diverse ideas, which is plain in generation by propagation and putrefaction, because the thing propagated is generated from semen, while the other is not but from some putrefied body; therefore etc.

Second he argues in this way, by inferring from that supposition [n.213] that the same species would then be from nature and from chance; from which he infers that a man could be generated from the seed of an ass and from an infinite number of matters. Now he proves the first consequence to be unacceptable because what happens by chance is opposed to what happens by nature, and for that reason no species is by chance, because things found to exist by chance are monstrous. All of this is manifest of itself. But if a nature were to have diverse modes of communicating, then according to one mode of communicating a species can be by nature and according to another mode of communicating it can be by chance or by fortune.²

Again, an argument for the conclusion of the Commentator [n.212] is as follows, because of changes diverse in species there are terms diverse in species; therefore if there are communications or productions of another nature there are also terms of another nature.

Again that there are not only two productions I prove because the Philosopher, Physics 5.1.224b7-8, distinguishes nature and intellect as diverse active principles; the idea of both is truly found in God, because neither includes imperfection, and internally, because neither is productive externally; therefore besides the production of will there will be another two productions internally.

This is also proved by the Philosopher, Metaphysics 9.2.1046b1-11, where he expressly seems to say that a rational potency is capable of opposites, because science is of opposites. If then the intellect of its nature is indeterminate as to opposites, and nature is determined to one thing, then the intellect will have a different idea of being principle than nature does; therefore etc.

Further, the power of the will is free, therefore its production too is free; therefore it is not determined to one thing, but it can of its liberty be to opposites or of opposites; but only a creature can be and not be, not however a divine person; therefore the will is only a principle of producing creatures, but not a divine person.

To the opposite: If there are not two produced persons only, then there will either be more persons than three or fewer persons than three, which is false. Therefore those authorities by which it is shown that there are only three persons in divine reality show that there are only two produced persons.

I prove this as follows: [The first principal reason] – Whatever is of its formal nature a productive principle is, in whatever it is, without imperfection; but perfect memory or, what is the same, this whole ‘intellect having the intelligible object present to itself’, is of its formal nature a productive principle of generated knowledge [n.310], and it is plain that such memory is in some divine person and is so of itself, because some divine person is not produced; therefore that person will be able through such perfect principle to produce perfectly.¹

I argue further: no production through perfect memory is perfect unless it be of knowledge adequate to that memory or that intellect with respect to such object; but to the memory or intellect of an infinite divine person no knowledge is adequate with respect to the divine essence as intelligible save an infinite one; because that intellect comprehends the infinite object, therefore some divine person can through memory produce infinite knowledge. Further, but the knowledge will exist only in the divine nature, because no other thing is infinite; therefore in divine reality there can through memory be a production inwardly. But, further, if it can be then it is; both because there ‘possible being’ is ‘necessary being’, and because that principle is productive by way of nature; therefore necessarily. The consequence is plain, because it cannot be impeded, nor does it depend on something else in acting; but everything acting from necessity of nature necessarily acts, unless it is impeded or depends on another in acting.

The major of the first syllogism [n.221]² is clear, because what does not of itself agree with a productive principle that is productive in it, can exist only for one of two reasons: either because of the principle’s imperfection in it,³ or because the principle, as received in it, exists by a production adequate to it, as is true of the generative power if it exist in the Son, and of the inspiriting power if it exist in the Holy Spirit; but each of these reasons is excluded by what is said in the major⁴ ‘of itself’ [‘of its own formal nature’], because nothing has of itself a productive principle unless it have it without imperfection and also not communicated by a production belonging to such a principle.

The proof of the minor of the first syllogism [n.221]^{5 6} is because this belongs to every created memory; not however whence it is created or imperfect, because imperfection is never the idea of producing or communicating being, because this belongs to it from perfection, not from imperfection.^{7 8}

The major of the second syllogism [n.222] is made clear thus: for just as there is no perfect memory with respect to anything intelligible unless the object is present in its idea of being actually intelligible, insofar as it can be present to it as an intelligible, so there is no perfect offspring of such memory unless there is as much actual knowledge of the object as can belong to such an intellect with respect to such an object; and I call that knowledge adequate to such an intellect with respect to such an object.

This [n.221] can be argued of the will, because the will that has an actually known object present to it is, by its own idea, productive of love of such a produced object.

[Response to the first principal reason] – On the contrary I bring an instance against this reason [n.221], so as to make it clearer. And the major indeed of the reason I concede. But to the minor let it be said that the whole thing is not of itself a productive principle, but only when the intellect can have of itself a produced knowledge; but this is when it can have a knowledge other than itself by which it is perfected; but an infinite intellect cannot have a knowledge distinct from itself by which it is perfected, and so it does not seem that a productive principle should be there posited.

And this reason [n.227] is confirmed, first because a generated knowledge would be posited in vain, second because it is impossible to posit it.

Proof of the first point [n.228]: in us there is a necessary generated knowledge, because by it the intellect is perfected, which would without it be imperfect; but an infinite intellect, although it have an object present to it, is however not formally perfected by generated knowledge but by ungenerated knowledge, the same as it really, by which it formally understands.

The second point, namely impossibility [n.228], I prove⁹ because a productive thing that has an adequate product cannot produce another; therefore since that whole ‘an intellect having an object actually present to itself’, or a memory, has in the paternal intellect an ungenerated knowledge adequate to itself quasi-produced from itself (because posterior in some way, according to idea of understanding, to such memory or to such presence of an object), it seems that it has no further virtue for producing a distinct knowledge, different from this one.¹⁰

By excluding these reasons I confirm the argument [n.221]. And to exclude the response to the minor [n.227] in itself, I say that our intellect has with respect to generated knowledge a receptive potency; and this potentiality is one of imperfection, because it is a passive potentiality; and it does nothing through itself for the idea of productive principle, because no imperfection is formally of the idea of a productive principle, and especially when the productive principle can in itself be perfect. Our intellect also has the idea of productive principle with respect to generated knowledge; and this is from its perfection, insofar as a first act virtually contains the second act.

The first of these, namely to receive intellection, clearly belongs to the possible intellect. About the second it is not as certain whether it belongs to the possible or to the agent intellect; there will be inquiry about this elsewhere [Scotus, Quodlibet q.15 nn.13-20, 24]. But now this indistinctly taken point about the intellect, that it is a productive principle of knowledge, I think to be sufficiently true, and it will be made clear in I d.3 [p.3 q.2]; and intellect in this sense exists in God, because he has intellect according to every idea of intellect that does not posit imperfection.

Then I argue thus: whenever two things per accidens come together in something,¹¹ namely the idea of acting and of undergoing, when that which is the idea of acting is per se, it is no less the idea of acting; the point is plain from Physics 2.1.192b23-27 about a doctor healing himself: if medicine be separated from illness it will no less be the idea of healing. Therefore if these two be separated in the intellect from each other, when that remains which was the per se idea of productive principle it will still be the idea of producing, however much the receptive passive potentiality not be there. An example of this might be manifest: if knowledge of itself were co-created or consubstantial with our intellect, according as some understand Augustine about hidden knowledge, On the Trinity XIV ch.7 n.9, then the intellect, although it could not receive the generated knowledge by which it knows itself formally,¹² yet in another intellect, to wit in an angel or a human blessed in the fatherland, it could generate knowledge of itself in idea of object, because thus to generate belongs to itself whereby it is in act, although it not be receptive of it.¹³ From this is plain that the gloss [n.231] on that first minor [n.221] is in itself null.

To confirm the gloss about the ‘in vain’ [n.228], I say that in every order of agents, especially where a principle active of itself is not imperfect, there is a stand at some active principle simply perfect – namely that the agent acts from the fullness of perfection and is called an agent from liberality [Ord. I d.8 p.2 q.un. n.13], according to Avicenna Metaphysics 6. ch.5 (95ra). But no agent acts liberally which expects to be perfected from its action. For, just as in human acts he is liberal who acts or gives not expecting return, so similarly an agent is called liberal which is in no way perfected by its production or product.

From this an argument is made as follows: in every genus of productive principle that does not include imperfection, a stand can be made at some principle simply perfect; but the intellect is such a principle, and the will similarly; therefore in this genus a stand can be made at something simply perfect. But nothing is a simply perfect agent which does not act liberally, in the way stated [n.234].¹⁴ Therefore in the genus of this productive genus there is some such principle that is in no way perfected by its production; such an intellect, having thus an actually intelligible object present to itself, is none save that which does not receive nor is perfected through the intellection which it generates or which is by its virtue generated. Therefore it is not necessary that every intellect produces a knowledge so as to be perfected by it, but it is necessary that there is some prior producing intellect that is not perfectible through its product.

And when [the objection] says [n.228] ‘then it will be in vain’, this does not follow, for it will be the supreme good; but it is not produced by the producer so that the producer be perfected by it, but it is from the fullness of perfection of the producer.¹⁵

But when afterwards the argument about impossibility is made [n.230], I take it to the opposite, because if some actually intelligible object present to the intelligence or memory of the Father have there actual quasi-produced knowledge of the Father, yet it does not have the actual knowledge produced in the Father. Now from no principle productive of itself is producing taken away as it exists in something, unless that principle be understood to have produced, or to produce, by some production adequate to the virtue of such productive principle; therefore however much the memory, as it is in the Father, have a quasi-product, it can still truly produce a product. But it is true that since it truly had really a product adequate to itself, it will not be able to produce another.¹⁶

[Second principal reason] – Second principally [n.221] to the principal conclusion [n.220] I argue thus: the object as it is in the memory produces itself, or is a reason for producing itself, as it is in the intelligence; but that the object has ‘existence’ in both places in a certain respect, this is a mark of imperfection, because if the memory were perfect and the intelligence perfect, the object would be simply the same as both; therefore when all imperfection has been taken away, but preserving that which is simply a mark of perfection, the object simply the same as the memory will generate or will be the reason for generating something in the intelligence which it is simply the same as, which is the thing proposed.

[The third principal reason] – Further, third in this way: in any condition of being which is not of its idea imperfect, there is a necessity simply of perfection; therefore in the production too because that does not of itself signify imperfection.¹⁷ Proof of the antecedent, because just as the necessary is a condition of perfection in being insofar as it is being, so also it is a condition of perfection in anything dividing being that is not necessarily of itself imperfect and limited. For just as when being is divided through opposites, one of the dividing things is a matter of perfection in being, the other of imperfection, so in anything at all which is a matter of perfection one member of any division at all is possible which is a matter of imperfection, and the other is necessary which is a matter of perfection. But the producer insofar as it is such does not include imperfection, therefore it is not a perfect producer in idea of producer unless it be necessarily producer. But the first producer cannot be necessarily producer of something other than itself and externally, as is said in I d.8 [p.2 q. un nn.12-14]; therefore internally. A similar argument is made about natural production, because natural production is the first production; therefore it belongs to the first producer; but it does not belong to the first producer externally, as will be clear elsewhere [ibid.], therefore internally.¹⁸

[Fourth principal reason] – In addition, opposite relations of the second mode of relatives can belong to the same limited nature, just as to the same will belongs the idea of mover and movable when the will moves itself; but the relations of produced and produced, although they are more repugnant than the relations of mover and moved, are relations of this sort according to the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5.15.1020b26-32, 1021a14-25; for in that place he sets down, for example, the heater and heatable as relations of the first kind, and father and son, or generated and him whom he generates, as relations of the second.¹⁹

The reason is confirmed, and then I argue thus, because just as will is in a way unlimited insofar as it founds some opposed relations of the second mode, namely from the fact it virtually contains that which it is in potency for formally possessing, therefore much more can an essence simply unlimited simply found opposite relations of that sort that are more repugnant, such as are the relations of producer and produced. For the infinity of the divine essence more exceeds any sort of lack of limitation of anything created than the repugnance of any relations of the second mode exceeds the repugnance of any others of the same mode.²⁰

According to the Canterbury articles²¹ it is necessary that the reasons [nn.221, 238-241] for solving this question not be demonstrations.

So, the minor of the first reason [n.221] is not manifest according to natural reason. When it is proved [n.224] I reply: to be a principle of producing belongs really to the memory not whereby it is memory, insofar as memory has a unity of analogy to an infinite and finite memory, but to the finite memory only, not however that finitude is the formal reason of producing, but the nature is, which we specifically call by circumlocution ‘finite memory’. I concede therefore that imperfection is not the idea of producing but perfection is [n.224], yet not a perfection common to finite and infinite perfection, but such perfection as is necessarily accompanied by some imperfection; the reason is because to have the relation of naturally productive cause according to natural reason belongs only to such a perfect thing as is imperfect, because the imperfect is not naturally immediately producible save by the imperfect, and it is not clear but that every producible is imperfect.

Therefore the instance against the gloss of the minor [n.233] is to be conceded, that it is not therefore non-active because non-receptive.

But to the second instance about a liberal agent [n.235] I reply: here the productive principle is not plain without being necessarily imperfect and perfectible by the product, although that perfectibility not be the idea of acting.

To the third instance about the product and quasi-product [n.237] I reply: it is not plain that perfect memory is a principle of producing.

To the fourth about acting and making [footnote to n.237]: the response to the major by the gloss is not valid, that ‘it is understood of a principle of producing in which it is univocally, not equivocally’, because – against this – where it is a principle analogically, there it will be more a principle of producing; an example about heat in the sun with respect to heat in fire.

Now a certain doctor¹ argues otherwise in this way: the first person is constituted by relation to the second, and only by relation of origin; therefore one should posit in divine reality diverse supposits of which one is from another, etc. Proof of the first proposition: for the first person is relative to the second; and if he were not constituted by that relation then that relation would either be accidental to him or would be adventitious to the person² constituted, which is unacceptable.

Secondly he argues thus: a virtue supremely active diffuses itself supremely; but it would not diffuse itself supremely if it did not produce something supreme,³ or unless it communicated a supreme nature to something; therefore etc.

Others⁴ argue through the idea of good, because the good is of itself communicative; therefore the supremely good is supremely communicative; only internally, because nothing ‘other’ can be supreme.

There is a similar argument about the idea of the perfect, because the perfect is what can produce something like itself, from Metaphysics 1.1.981b7 and Meteorology 4.3.380a12-15; therefore the first agent, which is most perfect, can produce something like itself. But more perfect is what can produce something like itself univocally than equivocally, because equivocal production is imperfect; therefore etc.

These reasons do not make the intended proposition [n.220] clear through what is more manifest, either to the faithful or to the infidel. The first [n.248], when it accepts that the first person is constituted by relation, if it intends to persuade the infidel, is accepting something less known than the principal proposition; for it is less known to such a one that a per se subsistent thing is constituted by relation than that there is production in divine reality.⁵ If too the reason intends to persuade the faithful it still proceeds from that is less known, because that there is production in divine reality is an evident article of faith; but it is not in this way first evident that this is an article of faith, that the first person is constituted by relation.⁶

And when it is argued further that the distinction there is only by relations of origin [n.248], this not immediately manifest from faith as is the conclusion which it is intending to show.^{7 8}

When he proves it, because otherwise the relation would be adventitious to the constituted person and so would be an accident [n.248], this proof does not seem to be valid, because it could be argued in a similar way about active inspiriting, about which all hold that it does not constitute a person, nor yet is it an accident, because what the essence is in a person is perfectly the same as the foundation.

And when it is argued secondly that something supremely active is supremely diffusive of itself, the response would be that it is true to the extent that it is possible for something to be diffused, but it would be necessary to prove that it would be possible for something to be diffused or communicated in unity of nature.

Through the same point to the third argument about the idea of good [n.250], because it would be necessary to prove that communication of the same thing or nature would be possible, because to an impossible that includes contradiction there is no power or communication of goodness.⁹

Likewise to the fourth ‘the perfect is of a nature to produce a supreme like itself’ [n.251], it is true as to a supreme as like to it as can be produced;¹⁰ therefore one ought to prove that a like supreme univocally would be producible.¹¹

By holding onto the four reasons [nn.221, 238, 239, 240-241] and especially the first two [nn.221, 238] for the affirmative conclusion to the question, I respond to the arguments for the opposite [nn.201-208]. To the first [nn.201-206] by denying the major.

When it is proved first through the necessary from itself and from another [n.202], I say that if the same genus of cause is imported by these two, ‘from itself’ and ‘from another’, it is true that in this way nothing is necessary from itself and from another; but if another genus of cause is imported, to wit through the ‘from itself’ the formal cause and through the ‘from another’ the effective or productive cause, it is not unacceptable for the same thing to be necessary from itself in one way and from another in another way.

When the major of the prosyllogism [n.202] is proved, I say that what is necessary from itself formally cannot not exist when any other thing is removed whose removal does not include incompossibility in positing it is other; but ‘necessary of itself formally’ follows ‘being able not to be’ when any other thing is removed through incompossibility, just as from the positing of one incompossible another incompossible follows.

But then there is a doubt what the difference is between the necessary from itself of the Son, according to theologians, and of a necessarily produced creature, according to philosophers. I respond: the philosophers, when positing that creatures are necessarily produced, would have to say that the creatures would have an entity whereby they would be formally necessary, although in that entity they would depend on a necessarily producing cause; but the Son has an entity formally necessary and the same entity as the producer. A creature, then, if it were necessary of itself, could not fail to be when everything else was removed whose removal does not involve a contradiction, although, when a cause other than itself was removed by incompossibility, it could fail to be; but the Son could not fail to be when everything else as to entity was removed, because he could not fail to be unless the person producing was removed, and the producer is not other as to entity than the produced. Hence if the Father were to produce a creature naturally and necessarily, he would produce it formally necessary, and yet it would not then be necessary with as much necessity as the Son now is necessary.¹

To the second proof of the major [n.203] I say that the logical possible differs from the real possible, as is plain from the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.12.1019b28-30. The logical possible is a mode of composition formed by the intellect, whose terms do not involve contradiction, and so this proposition is possible: ‘God exists, God can be produced, and God is God’; but the real possible is what is received from some power in reality as from a power inhering in something or terminated at something as at a term. But the Son is not possible with real possibility or with a possibility inhering in something or determined to him, because possibility, whether active or passive, is to another thing in nature, as is plain from the definition of active and passive power at Metaphysics 5.12.1019a15-20, that it is a principle of changing another either from another insofar as it is other or from another or insofar as it is other. But the Son is the term of productive power, which abstracts from the idea of effective power, and if that power be called simply power, the term of that power can be said to be simply possible; but that possibility is not repugnant to being formally necessary, although perhaps the possibility of which the philosophers speak, of active and passive power, is properly repugnant to necessity of itself; but this doubt is about active power, if they were to posit that something necessary has a productive principle.

To the third proof, when it is said ‘there is order there, so the first person is understood when the second person is not understood’ [n.204], I reply that in the first understanding the second person is not necessarily understood along with the first person if that first person is absolute; but it does not follow from this that, if the first person is understood with the second not understood, therefore the second person is understood not to exist,² just as it does not follow ‘the animal which is in man is understood when rational is not understood, therefore man is understood not to be rational’.³

When, however, you infer change from opposed terms [n.204], you take it as if the produced were understood not to exist when the producer exists, which is false; you are, therefore, changing abstraction without falsehood, which is by not considering the thing from which abstraction is made, into false abstraction, which is by considering that from which abstraction is made not to exist

To the fourth proof [n.205] I say that the person would not be in essence without production; for it has essence through production. The consequence is not: ‘therefore the essence becomes from not having the person to having it’, but the consequence is: ‘therefore the essence, which of its idea does not include person’ (which is true if person is relative, first because then there is something when the relative is taken away, according to Augustine On the Trinity VII ch.1 n.2, and second because a respect is not of the idea of an absolute) – the essence, I say – has ‘that production, or through production it has the person in which it subsists’, which person or production, however, is not of the idea of essence. But change does not follow from the fact that something is in something which is not of the idea of it, but change requires that something be in something in which the opposite of it first was, which does not hold in this case.

To the fifth proof [n.206] I say that also in generation in creatures two ideas come together, namely that it is a change and that it is a production; but as it is a change it is the form of the changed subject, and as it is a production it is of the produced term as the way [to it]. These ideas do not include themselves essentially even in creatures, because they have a regard first to diverse things. Therefore without contradiction can the idea of production be understood without the idea of change, and in this way is generation transferred to divine reality under the idea of production, although not under the idea of change.

To the second principal argument [n.207] I say that this does not follow ‘it is from another therefore it is dependent’. When the proof is given, I concede that nature is equally independently in producer and produced.⁴ When it is argued from independence that there will not be pre-requirement, I deny the consequence, because dependence follows the formal entity of the dependent thing on that on which it depends; when therefore they have the same entity, there is not dependence there, but there can be pre-requirement if one supposit have it from a second.

To the final argument [n.208] I say that changes other than generation are of their formal idea more imperfect than generation, because⁵ the terms introduced are more imperfect than the terms of generation; yet the other changes do not require, as to what they presuppose, as much imperfection in the subject as generation requires, and this as it is a change, because generation requires in the subject an entity in potency, and this for existence simply, other changes do not.

Applying this to the issue at hand, I say that generation is not transferred to divine reality as to what generation presupposes, to wit a changeable subject, which is a matter of imperfection, because as it is a change it is not in divine reality, – but it is transferred to divine reality insofar as it is a production, under the idea in which production is of a term, which term is more perfect than the terms of other changes; and thus can essence be well received through generation as the most perfect term in divine reality, although there could not be received through some other change some other term of other changes, because this would prove composition and imperfection, because the term of any change at all would be an accident combinable with a subject.

But this is explained by some [Henry of Ghent] as follows: notional acts are founded on essential immanent acts; but there are only two essential acts that abide within, which are understanding and willing; so there are only two notional acts that are productive within, founded on the same essential acts.

A confirmation of the reason is because notional acts founded on essential acts are adequated to them, and so there cannot be a multiplication of notional acts founded on the same essential act.

The mode¹ of their founding is this, as is collected from the many statements of him who has this opinion that are scattered about in many places:² “Both the intellect and the will, whatever they have being in, because of their separation from matter, after they have being in their own first act of simple intelligence or volition, can turn themselves back on themselves, and on their simple acts and on the objects of them, through acts of turning back or through conversive acts of understanding and willing.”

“For the intellect not only understands truth by simple intelligence but also by conversive intelligence, by understanding that it understands, by turning itself back on the understood object and on the simple act of understanding and on itself understanding through the conversive act, because the second knowledge which is in the word not only knows and understand the thing but knows and understands it in such a way that it knows that it knows and understands it. Likewise the will not only wills the good with simple volition, but also with conversive volition, by willing that it will, by turning itself back on the willed object and on the simple act of willing and on itself willing through its conversive act.

But this turning back agrees with the intellect and the will partly in one and the same way and partly in different ways. For the fact that both turn themselves back as they exist as bare, pure, and mere powers, this is in one and the same way as far as concerns their turning themselves back; for both turn only themselves back by their own active force, which force agrees equally with both, but in different ways as concerns the objects to which they turn themselves back.

For the intellect, after it has turned itself back to the things to which it is turned back, is related as a certain potential and pure possible, and this as the bare and pure intellect is of a nature to receive something from them, as a proper passive thing receives from its proper natural active thing, which active thing indeed is the intellect informed with simple knowledge, and this in respect of the formation of declarative knowledge. But the will, after it has turned itself back to what it has turned itself back to, is related as a certain active thing, and this as the bare and pure will is of a nature to express something about those things, as a proper active thing about its proper passive thing, which is the same will, informed by simple love, about which – when thus informed – the same will as bare is of a nature to express incentive love, who is in the divine reality the Holy Spirit, who has being from the persons producing him, not by an informing of that about which he is subjectively, nor through any impression made on the same according to the manner in which the Word or the Son proceeds from the Father by a certain quasi-informing or impression made on the paternal converted intellect,³ but by a certain quasi-striking or pushing out or progress or – speaking more properly – by a certain expressing of what is produced from that from which it is subjectively produced.”

“On the part of the intellect an act of saying is caused by simple knowledge in the bare intellect when it is turned back on itself and on its simple knowledge, such that the intellect informed with simple knowledge is an active and eliciting principle of the notional act of the intellect. But the bare converted intellect itself is only a passive principle, of which, as if of some material, the Word is produced as though by impression. Now, on the part of the will, a notional act is caused by the bare will itself when turned back on itself and on its simple love and on the will informed with simple love, such that the bare converted will is an active and elicitive principle of the notional act of the will. But the will itself, informed with simple love, is a quasi-passive principle, from which, as from material, the Holy Spirit is produced according to a certain expressing.”

But how the intellect as nature is an active principle with respect to intellect as pure for producing the Word, this is made clear in this way,⁴ because [point f] “the intellect as essential notion existing in the Father, or, which is the same thing, existing in an act of understanding its own essence, which act the essence itself as it were brings about in its own intellect as it is in potency, as it were, to essential knowledge according to the idea of understanding – this intellect is fertile with natural fertility for producing from itself something like itself.⁵

Now the intellect, as it is a certain essential knowledge in act, is the nature and as the active principle, by which the Father, as he is pure intellect and only intellect, forms from the same intellect, as from a passive principle, the knowledge which is the Word, which in reality is the same knowledge as that from which it is formed, differing from it only insofar as it proceeds from it as manifesting and declaring it.

And in the whole same way must we thus understand the word to be formed in us. For a thing when first known impresses a simple knowledge of itself on our intellect by representing itself to the intellect as to something purely passive and as under the idea in which it is intellect. But the intellect thus perfected by simple knowledge through the object known, which it contains expressively in itself, is made to be fertile and an active principle by way of nature, making impress on itself as it is intellect only as on a passive principle, so as to form in itself declarative knowledge about simple knowledge, so that – according to this – when it is said ‘a word is formed by the intellect’ and that ‘the intellect is active also in the formation of it’, this is understood about the intellect actually informed with simple knowledge, by which, as by the formal idea of acting, the intellect is an active principle; for by this it is a principle, and its idea as it is intellect and passive with respect to the simple knowledge, which it receives from the object, is necessarily prior to its idea according to which it is nature and active through inherent simple knowledge; and therefore, in order of idea, it has being as it is intellect before it has being as it is nature.”

Thus then is the mode made plain how, according to this opinion, the notional act is founded on the essential act, and how it is so in diverse ways in the intellect and the will [nn.273-280].

This opinion posits four articles which I do not believe to be true. The first is that the divine Word is generated through impression [nn.273-280]; the second is that this is through impression on the intellect as it is turned back on itself; the third is that essential knowledge is the formal idea of generating declarative knowledge; the fourth is that it is generated through impression on the intellect as bare.

[Article one] – I set aside the rejection of the first article until distinction 5 [I d.5 q.2 nn.2-10], where it properly has place.

[Article two] – Against the second article I argue in a threefold way: first that on the intellect thus turned back the Word is not impressed, the second that such turning back is not necessary for generating the Word, the third that there is no such turning back.

I argue for the first as follows, namely¹ that the intellect is not turned back save as it is in some supposit, because turning back is posited as an action, and actions are of supposits. Then I ask, whose supposit or whose person is it as turned back on the formed intellect? If as so converted it belongs to the person of the Son, and according to you this conversion precedes the generation of the Word, then before the generation of the Word there are two persons, which is heretical. But if, as it is turned back on the formed intellect, it belongs to the Father himself, and if whose it is as converted is his as formed by generated knowledge, as I will prove, then the intellect as it is of the Father is formed by generated knowledge; therefore generated knowledge is formally of the very person of the Father, because what person the intellect is of as formed, of the same person is the knowledge by which it is formed. The assumption that needs to be proved I prove thus: whose it is as it is turned back on formed intellect, his it is as he has formed intellect for object actually present; therefore it is his as formed by the object. The proof of this consequence is that a passive thing proportioned, disposed, and approximated to a proportioned sufficient active thing is of a nature to be immediately perfected by that active thing, from the Philosopher Metaphysics 9.5.1048a5-7; for then is something in proximate potency, according to the Philosopher, when nothing needs to be added, subtracted, or lessened for the act to be present within. But the intellect bare, as converted and having formed intellect as present object, is a passive thing disposed, proportioned, and approximate to informed intellect as to a sufficiently active object; therefore the bare intellect as converted – with no variation made with respect to it of subsistence or any entity at all as such – is formed generated knowledge. And thus is the first consequence proved.²

Here a response could be made that the intellect bare, through the fact that from it the knowledge is actually formed, or by the fact it is a quasi-matter informed by generated knowledge, has ‘existence’ in the generated person [I d.5 q.2 n.8]. But against this response are the two first arguments set down in d.5 [ibid. nn.5-8] against the opinion about quasi-matter, which is there specifically refuted.³

I argue for the second [sc. of the second article, n.284] thus,⁴ because the intellect of the Father, having the object present to itself, is a natural principle, not only operative with respect to the intellection of the Father but also productive with respect to generated knowledge; therefore it would still, when the reflection is removed, be a productive principle.

Again⁵ I prove the third [= the second, n.284] thus: if by conversion nothing is understood to be in the intellect which would not be understood to be there when no conversion is understood, then conversion is nothing there; if something is understood to be in the intellect which would not be understood without the conversion, what, I ask, is it? – not the presence of the object, not the perfection of the power, not finally the determination of the power to act or to the exercise of act. As to how some posit that the will in us turns the intelligence back toward memory, it is plain that the will does not turn it back toward generation of the divine Word.

Again, this conversion is not the action which is operation, because it is not intellection nor volition, nor is it an action productive-of-which.

[Article three] – The third⁶ article [n.282] is that the intellect informed with actual essential knowledge is a principle active and elicitive of generated knowledge.

This I refute⁷ as follows: the Word is not generated by intelligence but by memory,⁸ according to Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.14 n.24;⁹ therefore, although in the Father memory, intelligence, and will go together,¹⁰ the Father does not generate the Son formally by intelligence as ‘by which’ but as he is memory. Now as he has actual knowledge quasi-elicited and as second act, he is in act of intelligence, to which belongs all actual understanding; therefore as such he will not generate the Word, but as it is in act of memory, that is, as he has the intelligible object present to his intellect; for here first act is understood as if preceding second act, and second act is to understand actually.

Second thus: production more agrees with first act as active principle than with second act, because perfect operations are ends in their idea, and so they are not for the sake of other ends; therefore intellection as it is the operation of the Father is not the formal productive idea of any term, but only the first act (by virtue of which the operation is elicited) will be the productive principle.

Third thus: if the actual intellection of the Father is the formal idea of producing the Word, still the object as present to the Father’s intellect as having the idea of memory will be the prior productive principle of generated knowledge, because it is apparent in us that it is of a nature to generate more immediately than the act of understanding is; therefore some Word will be generated by the Father as he is memory itself before generated by him as he is knowing intelligence itself.¹¹

Further, all intellection, since its being is in becoming, has a principle or quasi-principle whose being is not in becoming, because otherwise there will be a process to infinity; therefore of some understanding of the object a, to wit the first understanding, only the memory must be the principle or quasi-existing such that it is not the whole complex ‘intellect understanding’ [n.221], otherwise this would not be the first intellection. But all understandings of a, and in an intellect of the same idea, are of the same idea. But whatever is a perfect principle of the first thing in a species can be the principle of anything else and immediately; therefore perfect memory of a can be the immediate principle or quasi-principle of every understanding of a. Therefore the memory of the Father can be the immediate principle of the Word; therefore he necessarily is. On the contrary: therefore the memory of the Son to the intelligence of the Son is not as the memory of the Father to the intelligence of the Father.

Further, the Word is most immediately declarative of that by which he is most immediately expressed; therefore if the elicitive idea of the Word be the actual knowledge in the formed intellect of the Father, it follows that the Word be more immediately Word or declarative of the intellection of the Father than of the essence of the Father, which seems unacceptable, because then there would be another prior Word that would be immediately declarative of the essence of the Father, or one should say that the essence could not immediately be declared by some Word, which seems unacceptable, since according to Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.10 n.19: “knowledge formed by the thing which we contain by memory” is the word; the first object of the divine memory is essence as essence.

Further, if the actual intellection of the Father were generated or produced, it would be produced by virtue of the essence not as already known but as prior to all knowledge; this is plain also according to truth, because otherwise there would be a process to infinity in acts of understanding, namely act before act, and also according to them, because he said above [Henry of Ghent, n.278] that the essence itself in the Father’s intellect does in the Father the act of understanding the essence. From this I argue as follows: actual knowledge of the essence cannot formally be of a different idea in the persons by the fact that it is communicated by another or not communicated by another, because then deity would formally be of a different idea in the persons;¹² therefore actual knowledge of the essence is of the same idea in the Father and in the Son. Therefore, that which, if it were principal, is of a nature to be the principle ‘by which’ with respect to one, the same will be principle with respect to another if it follow the principal.¹³

About the fourth article [n.282], I pass over it, except that in this he [Henry of Ghent] seems to be contradicting himself, as was argued before [footnote to n.285].

The second¹⁴ article [n.282] is also false in us, because the most perfect word will be in the fatherland, according to Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.11 nn.20-21, and yet it will not be a word generated by a turning back on first act, so that the word, because of this, is a reflex act in the way he says that by the second knowledge which is in the word the intellect knows that it knows or understands [n.274]. But the proof that it is not reflex knowledge [n.287] is that the most perfect created word does not have for its first object something created but something uncreated.

The third¹⁵ article too [nn.282, 290] is false in us; both because confused knowledge cannot be the elicitive principle of distinct knowledge, just as neither can an imperfect thing be the elicitive principle of some perfect production; and because the confused actual knowledge would exist together with distinct actual knowledge, and so two elicited acts together, or a confused act would, when it did not exist, generate a distinct act; and because every second act of understanding is generated by memory as memory is in a first act proportional to it, namely perfect by perfect, imperfect by imperfect, as will be clear later [I d.3 p.3 q.2 nn.12-13].

I say then to the question that there are only two productions distinct according to formal ideas of productions, and this because there are only two productive principles that have distinct formal ideas of production.

Of this causal statement I prove the antecedent and the consequence. The antecedent I prove as follows: every plurality is reduced to as much unity, or as much fewness, as it can be reduced to; therefore the plurality of active principles will be reduced to as much unity, or as much fewness, as it can be reduced to. But it cannot be reduced to some single productive principle. The proof is because¹ the principle would determinately have one mode of being principle, or the mode of being principle of one of them: for either it would be of itself determinately productive by way of nature, or not determinately of itself but freely productive, and so by way of will; therefore these cannot be reduced to some principle as it were third from these that would, namely in producing, have the idea of neither of them. Nor is one reduced to the other because then one would in its whole genus be imperfect, which is false, because since it belongs to both from the same perfection to be an operative and productive principle (which was proved in the preceding solution, in the proof of the minor of the first syllogism there given [nn.224, 226]), and since neither is in itself imperfect insofar as it is operative, for then it would not exist formally in God, therefore also is neither imperfect insofar as it is productive.

The productive principles, therefore, cannot be reduced to a lesser fewness than to duality of principle, namely a principle productive by way of nature and a principle productive by way of will. Now these two principles, according to their ideas of being principle, should be placed in the first being, because in it there is every idea of principle that is not reduced to another prior principle. Therefore there are only two productive principles of different idea in the first productive thing, namely one productive by way of nature and one productive freely. Now these are inward productive principles are, because any productive principle which is not reduced to another prior principle is of a nature to have a production and a product adequate to itself; therefore the productive principle which is will is of a nature to have a product adequate to it, and the productive principle which is nature is of a nature to have a product adequate to it. These productive principles are infinite, therefore the products adequate to them can only be infinite. Also omnipotence in the first thing cannot have a possible infinite object, because then the creature could be infinite;² but nothing is formally infinite except God, from the question ‘Whether there is a God’ [nn.39, 74-147]. Therefore these principles are productive of some things in the divine nature.

Further it follows: if there are only two productive principles of different idea, then there are only two productions numerically. The proof is that each productive principle has a production adequate to itself and co-eternal; therefore while that production stands it cannot have another.³

An objection is raised against this deduction [nn.301-303] as follows: nature is of itself a determinate principle for acting; but in divine reality intellect whereby it is intellect not only seems to be a determinate principle for acting but also an essence by nature as it is in some way prior to intellect, being its root as it were and foundation, in the way that any essence seems to be the foundation of a power; therefore not only the intellect but also the essence itself as essence should be set down as having the idea of being principle of the principle which is nature as it is distinguished from will.

Second, there is a doubt about these productive acts, how they belong to those productive principles whose the essential acts are; for since acts distinguish powers, On the Soul 2.4.415a16-20, it seems that to the powers to which the essential acts [understanding, willing] belong, the notional acts [generating, inspiriting, n.271] do not belong.

Third, the proof does not seem to be valid which is adduced for showing that the duality in productive principles cannot be reduced to unity [n.301], for to be principle necessarily and to be principle contingently are opposite modes of being a principle and yet this duality is reduced to unity. And I concede that the ‘one thing’ has determinately one of these two modes, the mode namely that is more perfect and prior. So it should be said, in the matter at hand, that to the principle which is nature – because it is prior in idea of being principle – is the will reduced, although it have the opposite mode of being a principle.

Fourth,¹ whence is proved the proposition ‘when one act adequate to the power stands, the power cannot have another act’ [n.303]? If it understand adequation according to extension, the question is begged; if according to intension, it seems to be false. For although the vision of the Word is adequate to the intellective power of the soul of Christ, yet it can also know by an elicited act some other intelligible; it is plain too that God knows himself by a knowledge adequate to his intellect according to intension, and yet he knows things other than himself. If this is how it is about an act adequate to the operative power, which allows of another, much more does it seem to be so of the productive power, because its product is not in the productive power as operation is in the operative power.

Again, a principle is not a principle insofar as the thing that has the principle is already understood to be posited in existence, but insofar as it is prior to that thing; now as it is prior it is not differently disposed by the fact that what has it as a principle is posited to be in existence. Therefore if, when this thing is not posited, it could be the principle of another thing, it seems by parity of reason that, when this thing is posited, it could at the same time be the principle of another thing, because when the first thing is posited the principle, insofar as it is principle, that is, insofar as it is prior to what has it as a principle, is in no way differently disposed.

The solution of these two ultimate questions [nn.307-308], and the clarification of the reason against which they are made, and the proof of the conclusion for which the reason is adduced, namely that there are only two productions – let them be dismissed to distinction 7 [n.358], in the question ‘Whether there could be several Sons in divine reality’ [I d.7 q.2].²

[Response to the instances] – To the first [n.304] I reply that this whole ‘the intellect having an object actually intelligible present to itself’ [n.211] has the idea of perfect memory in first act, namely the idea that is the immediate principle of second act and of generated knowledge; now in this principle that is memory two things come together which constitute one total principle, namely essence in the idea of object and intellect, each of which is per se a quasi-partial principle with respect to a production adequate to this total principle. When therefore it is argued that the idea of nature belongs not only to intellect but to essence [n.304], I reply that the total principle, including the essence as object and the intellect as a power having the object present to itself, is the productive principle which is nature and is the complete principle of producing by way of nature.³ For if essence as object did not have the idea of principle in the production of the Word, why would the Word be said more of the essence than of a stone, if from the sole infinity of intellect as productive principle an infinite Word, when any other object whatever was present, could be produced?

To the second doubt [n.305] I say that memory in the Father is the operative principle of the Father, by which, namely, as by first act, the Father formally understands as in second act; the same memory of the Father is also the productive principle by which the Father, existing in first act, produces, as in second act, generated knowledge. The productive act, therefore, is not founded on the essential act, which consists in second act, namely which is a quasi-operation on the formal idea of eliciting the second productive act, but in a certain way pre-requires that second act, because the first act, which is operative and productive, is the idea of perfecting a supposit in second act, in which it exists first by a certain order before that which is produced is understood to be produced or perfected. For what operates and produces through that principle is operating before it is producing.

An example. If ‘to shine’ were set down as some operation in a luminous thing, and ‘to illuminate’ were set down as production of light by the luminous thing, light in the luminous thing would be the principle ‘by which’ both with respect to the operation which is ‘to shine’ and with respect to the production which is ‘to illuminate’; yet ‘to shine’, which is an operation, would not be the formal idea of the illumination that is production, but would be there the order, as it were, of the effects ordered to the same common cause of both, from which one effect proceeds more immediately than the other. So it is in the matter at hand. A certain order to the same first act, which is the memory of the Father, is understood to be possessed by the ‘to understand’, which is an operation of the Father, and by the ‘to say’, which is the ‘to produce’ of the Father with respect to generated knowledge; not such an order that the ‘to understand’ of the Father is the cause or elicitive principle of the ‘to say’ of the Word, but that the ‘to understand’ is more immediately quasi-produced by the memory of the Father than the ‘to say’ or the Word is produced by the same memory. So there is not such an order there as is posited by the first opinion [of Henry of Ghent, 280] in the idea of a presupposed object or in the idea of the formal principle of acting, but only the prior order of quasi-product to product, with respect to the same principle, a principle common to quasi-product and product.

And then to the passage of On the Soul, about the distinction of powers by acts [n.305], one could say that ‘to quasi-produce’ and ‘to produce’ are acts of the same idea; for if that which is not produced but quasi-produced were really distinct from the producer, it would truly be a product; therefore what is now present without production, though by virtue of a principle which would be productive of it if it could be made distinct – and to this extent let it be called a quasi-product – does not vary the act formally from the act by which it would be produced were it producible.

Another response would be about the agent and possible intellect, but I pass it over now; I have not yet said to which intellect, as to partial principle, it belongs to produce knowledge (this will be spoken of below), but I have now spoken about the intellect indistinctly [n.232].

To the third [n.306] I say that when two principles have opposite modes of being principle, neither of which requires any imperfection, neither is reduced to the other as to a prior in nature, although there could there be some priority of origin, as it were, or something of the sort. But now neither of these principles includes any imperfection, no more insofar as it is productive than insofar as it is operative; therefore one of them will not be reduced to the other as to a prior in nature, nor both to a third, for the same reason, because neither is imperfect, and also because the third thing would be a principle according to the idea of one or other of them, because there is between them no middle in being principle, and so, if both were reduced to a third, one would be reduced to the other and the same to itself.

Against these [nn.310-315] an instance is made, and first in this way: intelligence is in the Father under the proper idea of intelligence, and the Word is the proper perfection of intelligence as intelligence; therefore the Word belongs to the intelligence of the Father [n.290], which was before denied [nn.291-296].

Further, Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.12 n.22: “The Word is vision of vision;” therefore actual knowledge is the idea of generating the Word [n.290].

Further, there does not seem to be a difference between memory and intelligence in the Father, therefore to reject the Father as he is intelligence from being the principle of the Word and to reject the Father as memory does not seem to be different; therefore you are approving and rejecting the same thing [nn.310, 291].

The fourth instance is: there seems to be no reason why the Father produces generated knowledge in this act and not in that, since each is second act and is a principle by virtue of the same first act [nn.311, 292].

To the first [n.316] I say that the Father is formally memory, intelligence, and will, according to Augustine On the Trinity XV ch.7 n.12: “In the Trinity who would dare to say that the Father only through the Son understands himself and the Son and the Holy Spirit, but only per se remembers either the Son or the Holy Spirit?” – there follows – “who would presume to opine or affirm this in the Trinity? But if there only the Son understands and neither the Father nor the Holy Spirit are understanding, one is reduced to the absurdity that the Father is not wise about himself but about the Son.” So St. Augustine. He understands, therefore, that the Father is formally memory for himself, intelligence for himself, and will for himself; and in this respect there is a dissimilarity between the persons and the parts of the image in us, according to him. When therefore it is said that ‘the proper act of intelligence is the Word’ [n.316], I deny it; rather it belongs to the idea of the Word that he is generated knowledge.

You say that it suffices that he be declarative knowledge. I deny it, understanding by ‘declarative’ a relation of reason, as of the intelligible to the intellect; for such is the relation of the actual declarative knowledge of the Father, by which the Father formally understands, to the habitual knowledge of the Father as he is memory, such that the object present to the Father’s intellect is made clear as equally by the actual knowledge of the Father as by the actual knowledge that is the Son, – and yet the actual knowledge of the Father is not the Word, because nothing can exist formally in the Father save what is non-generated.

When it is said, second, that there is ‘knowledge of knowledge’ [n.317] I reply that the self-same Augustine expounds himself On the Trinity XV ch.11 n.20: “the vision of thinking is most similar to the vision of science;” and ibid. ch.12 n.22: “Then is the Word most similar to the thing to be known from which he is generated, and the image of it: vision of thinking from vision of science.” – These phrases are intransitive. For as ‘vision of thinking’ is nothing other than thinking, so ‘vision of science’ is nothing than science. It is the same thing then to say that from the vision of science the vision of thinking is born as to say that from science thinking is born. But ‘science’ is habitual science, which perfects memory, according to the same Augustine ibid. ch.15 n.25, where he says: “If there can be in the soul some eternal science, there cannot be eternal thinking of the same science.” The ‘eternal’ according to him pertains to memory, ‘non-eternal’ to intelligence. He does not then intend the phrases ‘vision of vision’, ‘knowledge of knowledge’ to mean anything other than that second act, which is vision or thinking in intelligence, is born from the first act that is habitual vision or science, according to him.

To the third instance, when an argument is made about the difference between memory and intelligence [n.318], I say that those adversaries do not posit a real difference between the intellect and the will of the Father, and yet these have so much difference that one can be the elicitive principle of some production of which the other is not the formal elicitive principle; for the Son is not produced formally by way of will. Therefore although the memory and intelligence of the Father do not differ really, there is yet as much difference between them that one of them could be posited as the elicitive principle of some production of which the remaining one is not posited as the formal elicitive principle. Such difference is plain according to Augustine ibid. ch.7 n.12 and as before [n.291]. For the difference is such that if the Father by way of memory were knowing but not understanding, he would not be perfect, according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 12.9.1074b17-18, notwithstanding the identity of memory with intelligence or of recollection with understanding.

To the fourth instance [n.319] I say that this is an immediate contingent proposition, ‘heat is heating’ and this an immediate necessary one, ‘heat is able to heat’, because there is no middle found between the extremes of either of these. So I say that this proposition is per se, ‘operation insofar as it is operation is not productive’, because operations as operations are the ends and perfections of the one operating [n.292]; but production as production is not the perfection of the producer but contains the term produced outside the essence of the producer, or at any rate not formally in the person of the producer.

Why then does the first act by which the Father understands or formally operates not produce? I reply that the ‘to understand’ is the ‘to operate’ of the Father by his own idea, and is not the ‘to produce’; but by production or by speaking he produces in the way that something heats by heating, of which there is not formally another prior cause.

But as to your statement that the principle of these two acts is the same [n.319], without interchange of mode of agent intellect and possible intellect [nn.314, 232], it can be conceded that, from the fullness of perfection, there can belong to something that it operate and that it produce something other than itself. This, however, will be plain when it will be asserted that ‘to say’ is not some act of understanding formally [I d.6 q. un. nn.2-4]; it is however some act of intellect. But no act of understanding is formally productive, but some other natural act, preceding or following, can be productive – of which sort is the act of saying.

To the principal reasons [nn.212-218]. – To the first [n.212] I say that Averroes in comment 49 on Physics 8, whose text begins “Whether each of the moving things,” is only speaking expressly of man, and on this point he is contradicting Avicenna (On the Nature of Animals, XV ch.1 59rb-va), as he himself says in the same place. He imputes to Avicenna, then, that he posited that man could be generated equivocally, – and in that case the conclusion of Averroes [n.212] is true, because nothing univocally generable can be generated equivocally unless it is so imperfect that an equivocal or a univocal cause is sufficient for its generation; and therefore imperfect beings can be generated univocally and equivocally but not perfect ones. However, the reasons of Averroes [nn.213-214] seem to prove the conclusion not only about man but about any species of natural generable things; and if he intends this, his conclusion is false and his reasons not conclusive.

That his conclusion [n.212] is false is plain from Augustine On the Trinity III ch.8 n.13. And the reason of Augustine in the same place is that a generated thing propagates other things through putrefaction; but the propagators are univocal with the things generated by them; therefore things propagated and generated by putrefaction are univocal.

But if Averroes deny the assumption of bees and animals, he cannot deny it of plants, because plants equivocally generated, that is, not generated from seed, do afterwards produce seed univocally, from which are generated other plants of the same species.

Augustine also contradicts him in Letter to Deogratias q.1 n.4,¹ and so does Ambrose On the Incarnation at the end, ch.9 nn.101-102.

But Averroes also contradicts himself in other places about this conclusion. For about the equivocal generation of accidents he himself makes it plain in On the Heavens 2 com.42, where he concedes that in accidents there is not always generation from something univocal; and he sets down an example about heat and fire: for he posits that heat is generated equivocally from the motion and the concourse of rays, and also univocally from heat. – In substances too it is plain that fire is generated univocally and equivocally. That it is generated equivocally is plain from On the Heavens com.56: “The proceeding of fire from a stone is not in the chapter on transfer but in the chapter on alteration,” that is, it is not generated by transference but by alteration; it is also generated by local motion, Metaphysics 12 com.19, and Meteorology 1 summa II ch.1, about the generation of ignition by striking.² – Again the same is plain about animals, that many are generated equivocally, Metaphysics 12 com.19: “For wasps seem to come to be from the bodies of dead horses, and bees from the bodies of dead cows, etc.”

But that all the aforesaid things generated equivocally are of the same species with things generated univocally is proved because they have the same operations, and about the same objects; by the same things they are preserved and by the same things corrupted. They have the same motions, either as to going upwards or going downwards, or as to progressive motion, and the same organs of progressive motion; but from the unity of motion Aristotle concludes, in On the Heavens 1.2.269a2-7, to the unity of nature, and the Commentator in com.8 at the same place says: “one motion comes only from a unity of nature.” These – the latter and the former – also have limbs of the same species, and “the limbs of a lion do not differ from those of a deer save because soul differs from soul,” Averroes On the Soul 1 com.53. And generally all the middle terms that can prove unity of species, whether these terms are taken from acts or from operations, prove the intended proposition about the univocity of things generated in this way and in that.

Averroes’ conclusion is also contradicted by the Philosopher Metaphysics 7.9.1034a9-14, 30-b7, where he means that, just as some same things come to be by nature and by chance, namely when the principle is in a matter similar to what would be the principle of the motion of making if the same thing were to come to be by art, so he means that some natural things come to be by nature and chance, and some do not; and in the same place Averroes’ meaning – and the text beings “Therefore just as in syllogisms” [Metaphysics 7 com.31] – is that those things can be generated without seed (and consequently, according to him, equivocally) in whose matter can be introduced by the virtue of the heavens some virtue similar to the virtue of seed in propagated things.

Therefore the opposite of the conclusion of Averroes is plain, if he be understood generally and universally.

His arguments too are not conclusive. – To the first [n.213] I reply: matter according to the Philosopher Metaphysics 5.2.1013a24-25 is that “from which, although present within, a thing comes to be;” ‘although present within’ is added to differentiate the opposite case, when a thing comes to be from what is transmuted and corrupted but is not within the thing come to be. – But if he take the phrase ‘a form of the same nature belongs to matter of the same nature’, speaking properly of matter as it is a part of the thing existing within it, I concede the point; but if he take matter for the opposite, for that from which when corrupted the composite is generated, I deny it: for fire of the same species is generated either from corrupted wood or from corrupted air. And in things propagated and putrefied the matter is of the same nature in the first way but not in the second way.

To the second [n.214] I say that something is not said to happen rarely or for the most part because it is in itself a frequent or rare event; for a falling stone breaks someone’s head more frequently than the moon is eclipsed. But this difference should be understood by comparison of something to its cause: and the effect is said to be something happening for the most part which has a cause ordered to its effect which produces the effect for the most part; that is said to come about rarely which does not have a cause ordered to its coming about, but arises only from some cause which is ordered to another effect but which has been prevented from the effect it is ordered to, and it comes about rarely from such preventing. – The rare or for the most part are also taken as they distinguish between contradictory opposites, not as they distinguish between disparate things.³

So when he [Averroes, Physics 8 com.46] argues that if this generable thing is generated equivocally, or not from seed, ‘then either from necessity’, and I concede that it is not, ‘or for the most part or rare’, and I concede that it is for the most part, in comparison with a cause that is determinate, and also as it is a disjunction between contradictories,⁴ although it more rarely happen that this generable thing be generated not from seed than that it be generated from seed, namely as two disparate things are compared with each other.

But that in the first way it happen for the most part there is proof: for in this way per se the sun is a cause ordered to generating not from seed, just as a propagating cause is ordered to generating it from seed. If he infer that if in the second way something happens rarely then it happens ‘by chance’, the consequence does not follow, – and so he argues further about causality insofar as those things are said to be by chance that happen only from an impeded cause of another thing; and therefore, as he says, chance things are monstrous and not perfect in any species [n.214].⁵

When the argument is made, third, about motion and its term [n.215], I reply that this proposition ‘of motions different in species the terms are different in species’ is not an immediate one, but it depends on these other two: the first is ‘in motions differing in species, the transient forms, or forms according to which there is transience, are different in species’; the second is, ‘a transient form, or a form according to which there is transience, is of the same nature as the terminating form’. When one of these two is false, the assumed proposition is false. So it is in the matter at hand, because the form induced by production is not of the same idea as the form which is quasi-transient or according to which there is quasi-transience.⁶

But the difficulty of Averroes’ arguments still seems to remain. For although the same nature could be communicated equivocally and univocally, yet not by something of the same species, but it is only univocally communicated by an individual of one species and equivocally by a superior cause; but divine nature is not communicated by any superior cause, but only by something in the same nature; therefore it seems that the nature would not have a communication save of one idea.

I reply that created nature cannot be communicated save by a communication of one idea from a supposit of that nature; the reason is that the effect does not exceed the cause. But the effect communicated by such a supposit is nature; therefore the principle of communicating must be nature, because nothing more perfect than nature exists in such a communicating supposit, nor anything equally perfect as nature. But nature is a principle communicative of one idea; therefore to a supposit acting by virtue of nature there belongs a communication only of one idea.

The opposite exists in matter at hand [sc. the divine nature], because a supposit of this nature can have principles of a different idea in producing, each of which is equally perfect as the nature, and therefore each can be a principle of communicating nature; and so here there can be a twofold communication by the supposits that are of this nature.⁷

If objection be made that the twofold principle of operating in us, namely intellect and will, is equally perfect as the nature, because it is the same as the form, according to one opinion about the powers of the soul, – I reply:⁸ although in us there is a twofold operative principle, will and intellect, and both are perfect principles of operating and can have perfect operations adequate to themselves in idea of perfection of operation, yet they do not have operations adequate to themselves in being, that is, although by our intellect we can have an intellection as perfect as any can belong to our nature, yet this intellection will not be as perfect a being as nature, because an intellection adequate to the intellect, as to a power or object in idea of operation, is not adequate to the object or intellect in being. The intellect, therefore, and the will, namely in the creature, although they are principles of producing operations adequate to themselves in idea of operation, yet not so in being, and consequently much more not really adequate to the nature of which they are intellect and will. Thus can one argue about any productive principles in creatures, the distinction between which principles stands in the same supposit of any nature.

But in divine reality the operative principle is not only equal to the nature in idea of operative principle but also in being; the operation too is equal to the operative principle, and that in being, and consequently it is equal to the nature. Likewise the productive principle is equal to the nature in being.⁹

To the arguments which prove that there are not just two productive principles in God [nn.216-218]. – When first it is argued about nature and intellect that they are two distinct productive principles, from the Philosopher Physics 2.5.196b17-22, I reply that the Philosopher spoke little about the will as it is distinguished from the intellect, but he commonly conjoined intellect with will in idea of active principle; and therefore in the Physics 2 passage, where he distinguishes these active principles, namely nature and intellect, the intellect should not be understood there as it is distinguished from the will but as it goes along with the will, by constituting the same principle in respect of things artificial.

This will be plain from the response to the instance of the Philosopher from Metaphysics 9 [n.217], to which instance I say that the intellect is compared to its own nature and its own proper operation, of which it is in some way the elicitive and productive principle; and it is compared also to the operations of the other powers, with respect to which it is the directive and regulative power. If it is taken in the first way, I say that it is merely nature, both in eliciting and in producing; for whatever act of understanding it produces with the object present in memory, it produces merely naturally, and whatever operation it operates, it operates merely naturally.

Now the will as productive with respect to its proper operation has an opposite mode of producing, and this is sufficiently clear from the Philosopher Metaphysics 9.5.1048a8-11, where he treats of how a rational or irrational power is reduced to act; and he argues that a rational power, which of itself is for opposites, cannot of itself proceed to act; for then it would proceed to opposites at the same time, because it is of opposites at the same time; and from this he concludes that one must posit, in addition to that rational power, another rational power, a determinative one, by which the former is determined and can, when determined, proceed to act.

And from this it follows that the intellect, if it is of opposites, that it is so of opposites, namely by way of nature, that as far as concerns itself it is necessarily of opposites; nor can it determine itself to one of them, but requires something else as determinant which can freely proceed to act on one or other of the opposites; but this is appetite, according to him, or choice.

An example. The sun has the virtue of producing opposites, namely liquefaction and constriction. If there were two things nearby, one of which was liquefiable and the other coagulable, the sun would, by necessity of nature, have to elicit those two acts in them, and if some same thing were nearby that was of a nature to receive opposites at the same time, the sun would, by the necessity of nature, at the same time produce the opposites, or neither of them.

The power of the sun, therefore, is merely natural, although it is of opposites, because it is of them merely by itself such that it cannot determine itself to one of them alone. Such a power is intellect, as it is precisely intellect, with respect to understood opposites; and there is not there any determination to one of them and not to the other, save to the extent the will concurs.

Now the Philosopher commonly speaks of intellect according as it constitutes with the will one principle with respect to artifacts, and not as it is naturally elicitive of its own operation; and therefore as to the fact he sometimes distinguishes intellect against nature and sometimes art and sometimes intention, it is the same intellect in all cases.

When, finally, the statement is made about the will, that it is the principle in respect of creatures [n.218], I say that the will of God is first naturally the productive principle of some product adequate to it before it is the productive principle of something non-adequate; what is adequate to the infinite is infinite, and so the creature is a secondary willed , and produced by the will of God secondarily.