Scholastica commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologicae

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

FIRST conclusion: Good and being are the same in reality, but they differ only in account. The reason of the first part of the conclusion is thus gathered by Cajetan: because good has the account of the desirable, therefore of the perfect, therefore of being in act, therefore of being: therefore good and being are the same. The second part is proved, because good expresses the account of the desirable, which being does not expressly express; therefore.

Second conclusion, in the solution to the first: Each thing is said to be being without qualification through its substantial to-be: but through superadded acts something is said to be in a qualified sense.

Third conclusion, in the same place: Good stands in the opposite way; for good is said in a qualified sense according to the to-be which is substantial; but according to the final act it is said to be good without qualification.

COMMENTARY.

FOR the understanding of this doctrine, note from St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 1, art. 1, that nothing can be added to being which is, as it were, an extraneous nature, as a difference is added to a genus and an accident to a subject. The reason for this is that what the intellect first conceives, as most known, is being, as Avicenna says, book 2 of his Metaphysics; but every nature is essentially being; for from this Aristotle proves, 3 Meta., text 10, that being cannot be a genus: namely because it is essentially intrinsic to every difference; therefore no nature, and no difference, can be added to being as something extraneous.

Note, second, that nevertheless certain things are said to add upon being insofar as they express its intrinsic mode, which is not expressed by the name of being; and this happens in two ways. In one way, so that the mode expressed be a special mode of being not common to every being: and thus the ten genera of things are taken, as for example substance expresses a special mode of being, namely being through itself, that is, not in a subject. In the other way, so that the mode expressed be generally consequent upon every being; and thus the six transcendentals are distinguished, namely: being, which is taken from the act of being; thing, which expresses the quiddity or essence of being; one, which expresses the negation of division in itself; something, which expresses division from another; good, which expresses the suitability of being to appetite; true, which expresses the suitability of being to the intellect.

Note, third, that of distinction of reason, one is a distinction of reasoning reason, or, as others say, of signifying or conceiving reason; the other is of reasoned reason, or of signified and conceived reason. The former distinction is between extremes which are not, setting aside the operation of the intellect: as is the distinction of reason between genus and species, if they be taken formally as importing second intentions. The latter distinction is between those which are the same on the side of the thing, and are in things, setting aside the operation of the intellect: by this distinction the six transcendentals aforesaid are distinguished. For they are not beings of reason, but real properties of being, although they are not distinguished really, but in order to our reason. Other doctors are accustomed to explain these distinctions of reasoning and reasoned reason otherwise; so, clearly, that the distinction of reasoning reason belongs even to real extremes, but not having in themselves any composition. And thus they say that the divine attributes are distinguished by reasoning reason alone; because on the side of the thing no foundation of distinction is found, since God is a single most simple perfection. But the distinction of reasoned reason they say is between those which have some composition, at least metaphysical, as man and animal are distinguished by reasoned reason; because the account of animal is taken from one source, and the account of the difference, which is rational, from another. For the difference does not essentially include the genus, otherwise it would not contract it to a species. These doctors therefore say that good in creatures is distinguished by reasoned reason from being; but in divine things it is distinguished in the first way, namely by reasoning reason. To us, however, that former explanation is more pleasing: for I think that the divine attributes are distinguished by reasoned reason: for it suffices for this distinction that there be a foundation in the thing, which on account of its infinite perfection can truly and really ground distinct concepts in our intellect.

IT IS DOUBTED now whether good is distinguished from being by this, that it formally expresses the relation of the desirable to the appetite.

It is argued, first, for the affirmative side, from what St. Thomas says in the article, that the account of good consists in this, that something be desirable: but the desirable formally expresses a relation to the appetite; therefore good formally expresses a relation to the appetite.

Second. Evil formally imports an unsuitability, or privation of suitability, to the appetite; therefore good formally expresses suitability to the appetite, and consequently a relation. The consequence is proved, because good and evil are opposites; therefore if one is formally relative, or expresses the privation of a relation, it is necessary that the other be relative.

It is argued, third. The same thing is called good and evil with respect to different things; therefore good and evil are said relatively. The antecedent is plain in the motion of the heating of water: for heat is evil with respect to the form of water, and good with respect to the form to be generated. The consequence is proved, because it is proper to relatively opposed things that they can be verified of the same thing with respect to different things.

On this difficulty see Durandus, in 2, dist. 34, q. 1, where he holds a special opinion against the Thomists. For he says that goodness is formally the very suitability to the appetite, so that goodness contracts entity to the subjective part, which is a relation, nay to such a relation, which is suitability. Hence he infers, first, that not every entity is goodness, although every goodness is a certain entity, which is respective. Second he infers that good in the concrete is convertible with being not essentially, but denominatively, because every being is the subject or foundation of such a relation. But the opposite opinion is the common and true one, which consists in two conclusions.

First conclusion: Good does not formally signify a relation to the appetite. It is proved, first. Good formally imports perfection, but a relation, as a relation, is not a perfection; therefore. Second it is proved. God is supremely good; but He is not good formally through a relation; therefore. The minor is proved, because He is not good through a real relation, nor through a relation of reason; therefore through none. The antecedent is proved, because in God no real relation is posited except one that is constitutive or that distinguishes the persons; but the goodness of God is not of this sort; therefore there is no real relation of goodness in God. But that it is not a relation of reason is plain: because otherwise the goodness of God would not be real; whereas it is God Himself. Third it is proved. Because every motion and propensity of all things is through itself toward the good; but toward a relation there is no motion through itself; therefore good is not formally a relation. Fourth it is proved. Good transcendentally is common to all the categories; but a relation formally is not common to all the categories; therefore good does not formally express a relation. Finally it is proved: every relation of an object to a power, whose act is measured by the object, is a relation of reason; therefore if good formally expresses a relation to the appetite, it follows that the account of good is a relation of reason, speaking universally. The antecedent is proved inductively in all the objects of the senses, and the account is the same as of knowledge and the knowable: for because the knowable is the measure of knowledge, it is not referred by a real relation to it; but on the contrary knowledge is really referred to the knowable; therefore if good, which is the object of the appetite, is its measure, it does not express a real relation to the appetite.

Second conclusion: Good formally imports absolute perfection, to which nevertheless the account of the desirable and the order to the appetite follow, just as the risible follows from the rational. The first part is proved from the preceding conclusion: for if good does not formally import a relation, therefore something absolute. The second part is proved from the manner of speaking of the wise: because something is said to be desirable for the reason that it is good, and not therefore good because it is desirable. Second it is proved: good is the formal object of the appetite through itself, moving and terminating it; but the desirable imports an extrinsic denomination which follows from the order of the appetite to the good itself; therefore the account of good is absolute and prior to the account of the desirable. It is confirmed, because the colored and the visible stand in relation to sight just as good and the desirable stand in relation to the appetite: but the colored is the object through itself and absolute with respect to sight, while the visible is an extrinsic denomination of the colored, which follows from the order of sight to the colored; therefore the desirable is proportionally related to good as the visible to the colored. Third it is proved: all objects of the powers are prior to the powers; therefore the denomination of the objects, which is taken from the powers, is posterior to the account of the objects. The antecedent is plain inductively in the objects of the senses: likewise because the objects are the measure of the powers and the end, but the measure is prior to the measured, and the end is prior to that which is for the end; therefore.

TO the arguments on the opposite side it is answered. To the first we say, with Cajetan, that the desirable can be taken in two ways: in one way as it formally expresses the account of the desirable; in the other way as it fundamentally and radically imports it, as the proximate foundation of desirability; (I said proximate, since being also imports the foundation and root of desirability, but as it were remotely and not expressly; good, however, proximately and expressly imports such a foundation of desirability). In this second way, then, it is verified that the account of good is the intrinsic account of the desirable. For since the differences of things lie hidden from us, we often use the names of their proper properties to signify the differences as the foundations of such properties: as we say, a horse is an animal able to neigh.

To the second it is answered that evil in common imports the privation of the foundation of desirability and does not formally express a relation, nor the privation of a relation.

To the third it is answered: I grant the antecedent, and I deny the consequence. To the proof: I deny that it is proper to relatively opposed things that they alone be said of the same thing with respect to different things; but it also belongs to contraries in their own way, for example some body is hot with respect to one thing, and cold with respect to another. Likewise something is large with respect to one thing, and small with respect to another. It is true, nevertheless, that whenever properties of this kind are found in opposites, either they are relative opposites, or certainly some relation is joined to them, at least that respect to different things. Concerning the second and third conclusions, in the solution to the first, it is greatly to be observed of how great a difference the mere distinction of reason between certain extremes is the cause, when there intervenes some composition of the other extreme joined with those which differ only in reason: for example, in divine things, the Father and the Essence differ only in reason; and yet of the Father it is verified that He generates, but to assert this of the Essence is heretical. Nay, it even happens that things which differ only in reason are not predicated of each other: for example, in the example given, "the Essence generates" is false; and yet the predicate and the subject differ only in reason. Likewise this is false, "generation is spiration" or "to generate is to breathe"; and yet the extremes differ only in reason: and yet this is true, "the Generator is the Spirator". The reason for this is not the mere distinction of reason between the extremes (which never alone suffices to falsify an affirmative proposition, otherwise that one would be false, "the Generator is the Spirator", and this one, "man is a rational animal"); but because it happens that the composition is such that a new signification of the whole enunciation arises on account of some logical, or even grammatical, property, which makes a varied sense in the composition of certain terms: as for example that one is false, "generation is spiration", because a formal sense is effected on account of the mode of signifying of the extremes; for they signify action in the abstract, and there results a sense equivalent to this, that generation is terminated at the same term at which spiration is; and consequently, the generated would be the spirated, which is heretical. Likewise also, because the Essence does not signify a supposit, this is false, "the Essence generates", in that the adjective applies the formal signification to the formal and immediate significate of the substantive, which renders a supposit to the Verb, and there results the sense that the Essence generates something distinct from itself in nature: but of this we shall speak more fully in the matter of the Trinity. Meanwhile, however, in the proposed and present matter note that, although good and being differ only in reason: yet when there is added this sort of thing, namely "in a qualified sense" or "without qualification", good and being do not stand in the same way, on account of the reason of St. Thomas in the solution to the first. Finally, for the understanding of the doctrine of St. Thomas, in the solution to the first, where he says that being expresses something properly to be in act, note that being is taken in two ways. In one way, as it is the participle of the verb "I am, you are, I was", and then it has as much force as "existing". In another way it is taken nominally, as it signifies the essences of things with an intrinsic order to to-be itself, whether they be in act or in potency; and in this way being is divided into the ten predicaments, and is the most essential transcendental predicate, belonging intimately to each thing. Nevertheless, because being taken particularly imports the act of being: therefore St. Thomas, from the signification of being taken particularly, explains how being, taken nominally, is called simply being, namely that which has an immediate order to to-be, through which a thing is led out from potency into the first act, which is called substantial to-be, because it is received in a substance which is not in a subject, but subsists through itself.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

FIRST conclusion: Being is prior in account to good. Second conclusion, to the third: Good is prior to being in causing.

COMMENTARY.

CAJETAN doubts concerning the reason of the first conclusion and argues against it; because either St. Thomas intends to infer that being is prior according to the order of account in itself, or with respect to us; if the first, this is repugnant to what was said in q. 3, art. 5, where it is asserted that nothing is prior to God, neither in itself nor according to the intellect; but if being is the first intelligible in itself, it follows that God is not the first intelligible. If, however, St. Thomas means to infer that it is prior according to the order of account with respect to us, he does not seem to satisfy the title of the article. For the question is whether the account of being, in itself, is prior to the account of good.

To this difficulty Cajetan assigns a twofold solution. The former is that being can be compared to the other formal accounts in two ways: in one way, as it is distinguished from subsisting things, for example it can be compared to life, to wisdom, etc.; in the other way, to the things themselves, subsisting. If the comparison be made in the first way, then being is the first intelligible in itself, and the other accounts are intelligible posteriorly in themselves: but nevertheless among the other accounts is not included the what-it-is of God, because there cannot be an account of God without its being an intrinsically subsisting thing. And the reason is that the quiddity of God does not abstract from existence, since it is essentially to-be itself. Furthermore, if the account of being be compared to the accounts and to subsisting things at once, then being is not without qualification the first intelligible, but rather the Godhead is the first intelligible without qualification; so that intelligibility belongs to God prior to [belonging to] being in common; nay, it belongs to being in common because it belongs to God prior. And the reason is that God is not intelligible by participation, but from His own most singular essence, which is to-be itself, the first [being] and the principle of all being. In this way, therefore, it is true what St. Thomas says in q. 3, art. 5, because there he speaks of God according as He is said absolutely and without qualification to be first according to the intellect; but here being is said to be the first intelligible among the formal accounts of the same order, distinguished from subsisting things.

The other solution of Cajetan is that an amphibology occurs in locutions of this kind, because that particle, with respect to us, can determine either the order of knowing or the intelligibles themselves. If it determine the former, then it is distinguished against the order in itself, and it must be said that St. Thomas is speaking of the order in itself; for the question here is not of the order of cognition with respect to us, namely what is first known by us; but rather of the order of account in itself, namely whose formal account is prior, being's or good's, in the order to the intellect in itself? If, however, the particle, with respect to us, determine the intelligibles, then it distinguishes our intelligibles from things not intelligible by us; and in this way, being is the first intelligible in itself by us; but God is the first intelligible without qualification. And this sense seems consonant with St. Thomas when he says that the account signified by a name is what the intellect conceives of the thing and that is signified by the word: where he insinuates that he is speaking of the priority of the intelligible with respect to us, for it is ours to signify concepts by words. A third solution is assigned by us: that St. Thomas is speaking of being and good as it includes uncreated being and uncreated good: but the comparison is between the account of good and of being of the same order; so, clearly, that in each thing the account of being is prior to that of good, nor is a comparison made between the to-be of God and being in common: thus, therefore, it is verified that in each being the account of being is prior to that of good. But we are speaking of the priority of order which being has from its own nature to the intellect, prior to good: hence the Godhead itself is understood by us to be the object of the divine intellect insofar as it is to-be itself, before it is understood as it is goodness and the object of the divine will. And this order arises in us from the nature of the thing, which, on account of its infinity, can ground the order of these concepts, no less than if there were in the thing itself some order of causality according to prior and posterior.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

FIRST conclusion is affirmative.

Second conclusion, in the solution to the second: No being is said to be evil insofar as it is a being, but insofar as it lacks a certain to-be.

Third conclusion, to the third: Prime matter, just as it is not a being except in potency, so neither is it good except in potency.

COMMENTARY.

NOTE the solution to the fourth, where St. Thomas teaches how it is to be understood that Aristotle says, 3 Metaph., text 4, that in Mathematics there is no good. For the sense is that consideration in Mathematics abstracts from the account of good, in that it abstracts from all motion and sensible matter; and consequently it abstracts from the account of end, which has the account of moving the efficient cause; and in this way it is not unfitting (says St. Thomas) that in some being according to account there be no good; as if he were to say, according to consideration there is made a simple negative abstraction from the account of good. Nevertheless with this it stands that in Mathematics, according as they are in reality, the account of good is found just as the account of being. And from this the answer of Cajetan to the fourth is plain. But one thing is to be observed, how this is a sound consequence: Mathematics abstracts from motion and matter, therefore from the account of end: for the Metaphysicals also abstract from all motion and matter, more than Mathematics, and yet they do not abstract from the account of end, as is plain in 12 Metaph., text 37, where the end is posited in immovable things. It is answered that that consequence is sound according to the matter at hand, and it is a material consequence which is verified in this way. For this consequence holds: Mathematics abstracts from matter and motion, therefore also from the end. The reason is, for mathematical things are not born to have an end except [one] of matter and motion, since in reality they are natural beings; if therefore they abstract from matter and motion, it is necessary that they abstract from the end of matter and motion, and consequently wholly from the end, since they are not capable of having an end in another way. Furthermore, when it is said that the end has the account of moving, the sense is that the end causes motion by finalizing, not by effecting; for to move by effecting is proper to the efficient cause, for the end moves metaphorically, as Aristotle says, De Generatione, book 1, text 55.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

FIRST conclusion: Good imports the account of end. The reason is, because good is what all things desire. Second conclusion: The account of good presupposes the account of the efficient cause, and the account of the formal cause. The reason, because what is first in causing is last in the caused.

COMMENTARY.

IT IS DOUBTED concerning the first conclusion, whether it is true? For the negative side it is argued, first: God was from eternity supremely good, even if He had been about to create nothing; and yet He did not have the account of end: therefore good does not formally import the account of end. The minor is proved, because nothing was or was moved for the sake of an end; therefore there was not the formal account of end. The consequence is plain, because the end is that for the sake of which something is done, as is said in 2 Physic., text 75, and following.

Second. The account of end is formally the account of the desirable: but the account of good is the account of the desirable not formally but fundamentally; therefore the account of good and of end are not the same.

Third. The end does not presuppose the account of the efficient or formal cause: but good presupposes the account of both causes, as the second conclusion says; therefore the account of good and of end are not the same, formally speaking. The major is proved: because the end formally expresses the first of all causes; therefore it presupposes no cause.

On account of these arguments, some understand St. Thomas to be speaking identically, and not formally, of the account of good and of end. But the arguments prove that they differ in account. But this understanding is not consonant with the solution to the first, where St. Thomas concedes that good and the beautiful are the same in reality, but differ in account: and for this reason he denies that good expresses the account of the formal cause, which nevertheless he says the beautiful does. Therefore St. Thomas sufficiently insinuates that good formally expresses the account of the final cause: otherwise no difference would be assigned between good and the beautiful on the one side, and good and end on the other. Hence it must be said otherwise. And note that the account of any cause, whether formal, efficient, or final, can be considered and expressed in two ways: in one way, as that account is explained through the definition of the cause itself as causing; for example, the end is that for the sake of which something is done, and the efficient cause is that from which motion really begins. In the other way, the account of cause is considered and taken for the principle through which the cause itself has the power of causing, as for example the account of the efficient cause is said to be the form through which it is in act, so as to be able to effect: so too the goodness of a thing is the account of the final cause: because through it the thing is constituted in finalized to-be, even if nothing is actually done for the sake of the end. This distinction is laid down here by Cajetan rather obscurely; for he seems to call the account of end taken in the former way the account in act exercised; the reason of the name being that through such an account the final cause exercises the act of finalizing. But the second account he seems to call the account of end in act signified, because certainly the account of end is so signified that it is not necessary that it actually finalize when it is understood to have that account. But afterwards Cajetan seems to be of the contrary sense. To us, however, the former manner of speaking of the end in act signified and act exercised is more pleasing.

This supposed, it is answered to the arguments that St. Thomas in the first conclusion is speaking of the account of end in the second way, which can be called the account of end in act signified. Hence to the first argument it is answered that God from eternity had the account of end through His goodness; although in the former way He would not have the account of end by actually finalizing the motion or inclination of a nature.

To the second it is answered that, if the desirable be taken for the proximate foundation of desirability, the formal account of the desirable and of good and of end is the same.

To the third it is answered by a distinction: for if the major be understood of the end in causing in act exercised, it is true: because the end is the first of all causes; but if it be understood that to have the account of end does not presuppose in the caused thing itself the account of form and effective cause, it is false. Nay rather, in each caused thing the form itself, through which it is a being, is prior; then it is considered as effective power according as it is perfect in its to-be, because it can generate a thing like itself. Third, there follows the account of good and of end, on account of whom others can be moved and desire assimilation to it; nay rather, even in God Himself this order is verified, in our mode of understanding, which is founded in the thing itself: for first we understand of God to-be itself, then perfection, and finally goodness and the account of end.

Another doubt is customarily disputed here, whether the end causes and moves according as it is in intention, or according as it is in reality? But this question Cajetan discusses at length in 1. 2, q. 1, art. 1, and the Schoolmen in the same place. See Soto on this, in 2 Physic., q. 5. But in this article Cajetan resolves the question very briefly. For he says that, just as form is the account of effecting, while to exist is a condition of the efficient form; so to be really is the account of finalizing, while to be in intention is a condition of the final cause; but to be in execution is not the account of end, but the term and effect both of the efficient cause and of the end itself. Some, however, hold that the end has the account of cause insofar as it is in intention, so that to be in intention is the formal account of finalizing. But indeed, since from the doctrine of St. Thomas in this article we have that good has the account of end formally, it is necessary that the same account by which a thing is good be that by which it is an end, having the power of finalizing: but it is not good formally as it is in intention; therefore neither has it the account of end formally as it is in intention.

Concerning the solution to the first, note from Plato in the Phaedrus and in the Symposium and in the Greater Hippias, that beauty is a certain grace and splendor of a thing, which, perceived by the mind or by hearing or sight, allures the soul. But beauty is threefold: one which is found in corporeal things, which Augustine defines, book 22 of De Civit., chap. 19, as the due congruence of members with a certain sweetness of color. In the same way Cicero defines it in 3 Tuscul. And Aristotle, 4 Ethic., chap. 3, says that there is further needed a certain magnitude and tallness of body and members for someone to be beautiful without qualification: for those who are small of body, although well proportioned, are not called beautiful, but are said to be comely. Another beauty is in voices, which consists in a certain harmony of sounds, which arises from the proportion of numbers and certain intervals. A third beauty is in spiritual things, which arises from the due proportion of the powers of a spiritual creature in order to the perfection of its species and to its proper end, for example in a studious man the powers of intellect and will are well proportioned and consonant with the rational nature itself and with its end: which beauty is lost through mortal sin, through which man is turned away from the ultimate end. Furthermore, in God Himself, who is most simple, beauty is said to be on account of the infinite perfection of the Godhead, in which there is the divine intellect and the divine will, which in our mode of understanding are most proportioned. But moreover a singular beauty seems to be attributed to God, insofar as in Him there are three Persons really distinct with the greatest unity of Essence, where there is the greatest proportion of equality of distinct persons agreeing in one essence; nay rather, in all creatures there is a certain vestige of this divine beauty, insofar as in all things difference is found together with unity. And this is what in things themselves most pleases and delights us, that the account of good consist in mode, species, and order.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

Conclusion is affirmative. The reason, because for something to be perfect and good, it is necessary that it have form, and the things which are presupposed to form, and the things which follow upon it. And so mode pertains to the commensuration of the material or efficient principles. But species pertains to the form itself. And order pertains to the inclination to the end, which follows upon the form itself. And note that what is said in Wisdom 11 pertains to the same: «Thou hast made all things in measure and number and weight».

COMMENTARY.

ON this article see Augustine, book 4 Supra Genes. ad litter., chap. 3; and the book De natura Boni, chap. 3. See Cajetan here. From which note that the conclusion is to be understood of created good. For divine good has neither mode nor measure. Likewise it is understood of good as that-which, that is, of that which is good, not of good as that-by-which something is good; otherwise there would be a process to infinity: because each of those three, namely mode, species, and order, would consist in mode, species, and order. On this St. Thomas teaches, in the reply to the second. Note finally that good consists in these three as in integral parts.

SUMMARY OF THE ARTICLE.

FIRST conclusion: That division seems properly to be of human good, yet it can belong to good insofar as it is good. The reason of the sufficiency of the division cannot be gathered more briefly than is laid down by St. Thomas in the article. Second conclusion, to the second: This division is not by opposed things, but by opposed accounts. Third conclusion, to the third: Good is not divided into those three as a univocal [predicate] predicated equally of them: but as an analogical one, which belongs by priority to the honest good, then to the delightful good, third to the useful good.

COMMENTARY.

CONCERNING the article note that the division of good can be made in many other ways, as for example: of goods, some are the greatest, as the virtues, by which one lives rightly; some are intermediate, as the powers of the soul, without which one cannot live rightly; but the lowest goods are the goods of the body, and temporal [goods]. This division is Augustine's, book 2 De libero arbitrio, chap. 19, and in the book De cognitione verae vitae, chap. 7, where he divides good according to a fourfold grade of things, namely of existing, living, sensitive, and intelligent things. Moreover, on Psalm 154 he divides good into the good which is good through itself, and the good which is good from another, that is, into good by essence and good by participation; but in the book De bono coniugali he lays down the division which St. Thomas lays down in this article. But other divisions St. Thomas omitted, because they are not of good insofar as it is formally good, but according to other material accounts, or insofar as good is the same as being.