Scholastica commentaria in Primam Partem Summae Theologicae

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.