Disputationes metaphysicae

1. We have declared the principles and conditions necessary for the efficient cause in order that it be proximately apt to cause; it remains that we explain what that is by which it is formally constituted actually causing; for this we call the proximate notion of causing, or the causality, of each cause. And, as I have often said, the discourse is not of the relation of the cause which is said to result when the effect has already been produced; for it is manifest that that is not causality, since it rather supposes causality as the notion on which it is founded. The discourse, then, is of causality as, according to our way of understanding, it signifies the proximate notion of founding the relation; for that notion is what constitutes and denominates the cause in act, as it is said to be prior in nature to its effect.

The opinions of some

2. The difficulty, however, is whether this causality is the very action by which the agent acts, or something else besides the action; for some Thomists deny that the causality of the agent is the action itself, as Soncinas, V Metaph., q. 4, and Javellus, also q. 4, who reports Hervaeus, Quodl. II, q. 1, and Quodl. IV, q. 8. The foundation can be that the causality of the agent must be something other than the effect of the agent; for causality is not caused, but through it the effect is caused; but action is the effect of the agent; therefore it is not its causality. The minor is proved, both because action in reality is nothing else than the effect as it flows from the agent, and also because the action itself, even taken formally, arises from the agent and from its power; therefore it too is an effect of the agent and needs causality by which it may be caused. Secondly, because, the action being past, there still remains a true efficient cause; for the sun, after it has produced gold, is its efficient cause, and it is true to say that gold depends on the sun as on its efficient, and yet the action does not last.

3. But if you ask these authors what the notion of causing of this cause is, they answer nothing else than that the causality of the efficient is to give being to the effect. Because, however, these words are also common to the other causes, especially to the form, they add an explanation, namely, that it is to give by effecting, or that it is to effect or produce. In which they seem to fail in two ways: first, because they say the same through the same; secondly, because they unwillingly fall back into the opinion which they reprove; for what is it to effect but to act? And from what is a thing denominated as acting except from action? It is the same, therefore, to say that the causality of the efficient cause consists in acting itself as to say that it consists in action, except that by these latter words it is declared more formally, not only through the concrete itself or through the denomination of agent, which is the same as the denomination of the efficient cause in act, but through the abstract and through the denominating form.

4. The second.—Others, therefore, in order to depart wholly from the aforesaid opinion, say that the causality of the agent cannot be something outside the agent, but must be a mode intrinsic to the agent itself; for in the other causes the causality of each is its mode intrinsically affecting it; therefore it will be the same in the efficient cause; but action properly so called, as such, is not a mode of the agent, but something outside the agent itself. And it is confirmed, for action of this kind, which is in the effect, does not intervene in every effective causality, as is evident in creation, and yet there is a true efficient cause there; therefore the causality of the efficient as such does not consist in action, but in something intrinsic to the agent itself, whatever that may be. It is confirmed secondly, because one efficient cause with respect to one adequate effect has one causality, and yet often it has not one but several actions; as fire by one causality generates fire like itself, and yet there intervenes there the action by which it transmutes the matter, and another by which it makes the form, and another by which it unites it, and another by which it produces the whole composite; for all these actions can be distinguished in the generation of man, and the reason seems to be the same of the rest; for the very distinction of relations and respects indicates a distinction of actions.

Resolution of the question

5. The causality of the efficient is the action itself.—It must be said nevertheless that the causality of the efficient cause can consist in nothing else than in action. This opinion is taught in these times by most learned modern writers, and it is signified by St. Thomas, V Metaph., c. 2, in these words: The efficient is the cause of the end as to being, because by moving it brings it about that the end exists; and below: The efficient is a cause inasmuch as it acts. Albert thinks the same, II Phys., tract. 2, c. 6. And it is proved, for that is the causality of the acting cause which constitutes or rather denominates it actually acting; but this is action, nor can anything else be; therefore. The major is established from the very exposition of the question given above, and from the terms themselves, because a cause in the notion of cause is constituted by causality; but to be an efficient cause in act is the same as to be acting. The minor too seems clear from the terms, because the cause is constituted actually acting by that which is immediately understood to be added beyond the power of acting; for while a cause is understood to have only the power of acting, it is not understood as actually acting; therefore there must be something beyond this power per se and necessarily required within the latitude of this cause; but this is nothing but the action itself, which being removed the power cannot be understood as actually acting, and which being posited it is necessarily actually acting; on account of which Aristotle said that the relation of the agent is proximately founded on action, V Metaph., c. 14; therefore that is the proper causality of the agent.

6. Secondly, because the causality of each cause is that by which it proximately, per se and intrinsically attains the effect, and by which, conversely, the effect depends on such a cause; for causality is as it were the way or tendency to the effect. Hence it lies between cause and effect as between two termini, because through causality the cause inflows into the effect and the effect proceeds from the cause. But action is that by which the efficient cause actually attains its effect and by which the effect depends on its cause; for it is the very dependence of the effect made on the making cause, as we shall at once signify and treat more at length below in disputing about action; therefore.

7. Thirdly, from a sufficient enumeration, because action is necessary for this causality, and besides it nothing else is necessary, nor can anything even probably be devised; therefore. The major I suppose as certain, especially in the present matter, where we are treating of created causes; for only of creation could there be doubt, but now we are not treating of it, although even in it this holds true, as we shall show below. The minor will be clearly established from the solutions of the arguments of the opposite opinion; now it is briefly declared in this way: because, if something else mediates between the power of acting and the action which is the causality of the agent, either it is preliminary to the action and in some way its root, or subsequent to the action and resulting from it, or something behaving concomitantly; none of these can probably be said. The first member is proved, for whatever is preliminary to action does not pertain to the actual causality of the efficient, but either to the notion of causing by way of principle quo or quod, or to a condition required for acting; a sign of which is that, if one stops at all that preliminary and action does not follow upon it, the cause is not yet understood to be actually causing, whether this takes place through the prescinding of the intellect, or because in reality the action is suspended, all other prerequisites being posited, whether this takes place supernaturally or from the freedom of the cause; but as soon as action is understood to be posited in reality, it is impossible that the cause should not actually cause. The second member is easily persuaded in the contrary way; for whatever follows upon action is either its terminus or something posterior to the terminus; therefore it can much less pertain to the causality of the first cause than the action itself; for that is properly the effect, either primary or secondary, of such a cause. The third member likewise is easily proved, because, if it behaves only concomitantly, it is per accidens to the action; therefore, it being set aside, the action can remain; therefore, it being set aside, the causality of the agent will also remain; therefore this causality cannot consist in it. Especially because it cannot be understood or declared what that is, distinct from the action and from its principles and from all conditions preliminary to it, which is nevertheless necessary to it. Nor can any probable reason of this necessity be given. It remains, therefore, that action alone can be the causality of the agent.

The arguments objected to the contrary are solved

8. Whether action can be called the effect of the agent.—Action is not made through another action.—The agent in act is constituted by action in act.—To the foundation of the first opinion, then, it is answered that action properly and formally is not the very effect produced by the agent, but is a mode of such an effect distinct from it by the nature of the thing; a sufficient argument of which is that the effect can remain without such a mode, or with its dependence varied, which is the same. For that mode is the emanation or dependence of the effect on the acting cause; but the effect can now depend on this cause and afterwards on another, and so the dependence about the same effect can be varied, and then nothing else is varied but the causality of the agent; of which distinction of action from terminus we have touched on some things above, and shall say more in what follows, partly in treating of creation, partly below in treating of action and passion. But if under the name of effect we comprehend not only the thing produced but whatever flows from the power of the agent, in this way we grant that action is in some way the effect of the agent, since it is dependent, or rather is the very dependence, on it; but to be an effect in this broad way is not repugnant to causality; rather, in all the causes which we have treated so far, causality is an effect of the cause; for union is an effect of the form and also of the matter in its genus, and is the causality of both according to diverse relations. And the general reason is that causality always comes from the cause; and therefore, although it is not caused for its own sake, it is yet concaused, and therefore, broadly speaking, it is comprehended under effect. Nor is it therefore necessary that causality be caused by another causality, or that action be made by another action, because it is of the notion of causality that it have an immediate relation to the cause and be as it were the medium or bond between cause and effect. And thus action is compared to its terminus and to the principle or efficient cause from which it flows; but action itself does not flow by means of another action—otherwise there would be a process to infinity—but action is the very emanation; just as the terminus of motion is made through motion, but motion itself is not made through another motion, because it is the very way to the terminus. From which it comes about (to answer the second argument) that it is impossible that, the action ceasing or being past, the cause should last in act; the thing which was the cause in act can indeed last, yet it will not last in the notion of actually causing, since it does not actually inflow into the effect; hence neither can such an effect truly be said to depend actually on such a cause now, but to have depended at some time in its becoming; which dependence it had only by reason of the action, which also existed then when it flowed from its cause.

9. The causality of the agent is not a mode intrinsic to the agent.—To the arguments placed in the latter position, we deny that the causality of the agent must or can be an intrinsic mode of the agent itself, distinct from the action which flows from the agent and is in the terminus itself or in the patient. Which in natural agents which act by transient action alone seems manifest, because they are not changed nor do they acquire anything from the fact that they act. Nor is there any necessity of imagining such a mode, since action suffices for the effect to flow from its agent. In those, however, which act by immanent action, if they do nothing else than the immanent act itself, it is also manifest that there is not in the acting faculty another intrinsic mode, distinct from the act itself or the immanent action, which is the causality of such an act; for the immanent action itself flows immediately from its principle, and whatever else is added as a medium between the power sufficiently constituted in first act and the action will be gratuitously imagined and without necessity, and beyond all common doctrine, which in these powers recognizes nothing but either the acts themselves or actions and their principles, which are either species or habits. And in the will there is nothing actual in which the freedom of the will is first exercised except the action elicited by the will itself; that, therefore, is the effective causality of such a power. Because, however, the thing which is made by such action remains in the power itself, such action is therefore a mode affecting the acting cause—not because this is of the notion of the causality of the agent as such. In those, finally, which through an immanent act do something outside themselves, it may seem that the causality by which such a cause acts outside itself is an act or motion remaining in it; yet in truth it is not, because that act which remains in such a cause is not the formal causality which constitutes the thing actually causing outside itself, but is either the proximate principle of acting or the application of the proximate principle from which the causality arises. Which may be seen in God Himself, who most of all acts ad extra through an act remaining in Himself; for since this act in God is eternal and immutable, yet His actual causality is placed in time, because God does not actually cause until the effect is made; and therefore such causality cannot be something in God Himself, who cannot be changed, but in the creature, which is made or changed. Never, therefore, is the causality of the agent a mode intrinsically affecting the agent itself as such.

10. Nor indeed is it necessary that in this there be complete likeness among all causes, because the reason is not the same for all; for material and formal causes are intrinsic, while the efficient cause of its genus is extrinsic. And comparing matter and form with each other, the latter is in a certain way more intrinsic, inasmuch as it is more proper and determining matter by affecting it. And therefore among the causalities of these causes there is a certain proportional unlikeness. For the causality of the form is an intrinsic mode and in reality the same as the form; the causality of matter, however, can be called intrinsic inasmuch as it is intimately in the matter itself, but it is not a mode so identified as that of the form; but the causality of the agent per se is extrinsic and as distinct from the agent as the effect itself; but if sometimes it remains in the agent or is distinguished from it not really but only modally, that is accidental to the notion of agent as such, and comes either from the fact that the agent is at the same time the patient, or from the fact that the thing which is made is not wholly distinct from the agent, but a mode of it.

11. To the first confirmation the assumption is denied; for in creation too the causality consists in action, as the argument made a little before shows; for since that causality is temporal, it cannot consist in a mode intrinsic to the agent; therefore it must consist in extrinsic action; but what that action is, and in what subject, we shall say later.

12. To the second confirmation it is answered that that argument can be turned to the contrary; for wherever there is formally one cause, that is, one causation, there is one action, and conversely, where actions are multiplied, causalities too are multiplied; it is a sign, therefore, that this causality consists in action. Wherefore, if the generation of fire is taken as it includes the preceding alteration and substantial generation, we grant indeed that those are two actions; but in the same way they are two causalities; but if the discourse is of the causality of the substance alone, we deny that there are several actions there, but it is one and the same by which both the whole composite is made and the form is educed from the potency of the matter and united to it; for in all these only several relations are denoted which the same action has to its subject or to its formal or total terminus. In the generation of man, however, by a peculiar reason the action productive of the form is distinguished from the unitive action (whatever some may say), because that form does not depend on matter as on the proper cause of its production, but does depend on it in union; but the action by which the form is united and the composite is made is not distinct, because the composite cannot be made otherwise than by uniting the form to the matter¹.