Disputationes metaphysicae

1. The former opinion.—The first opinion affirms that the end moves according to the being which it has in cognition, not according to real being; and therefore that cognition is not only a condition without which not, but is the formal notion of causing finally. This is thought to be the opinion of Avicenna, VI Metaph., c. 5, and Soncinas holds it, V Metaph., q. 3, and some other modern Thomists; and they attribute it to St. Thomas, I-II, q. 31, a. 3, ad 1, where he says that the object of animal appetite is the apprehended good, and therefore the diversity of apprehension pertains in a certain way to the diversity of the object. And similarly in I, q. 80, aa. 1 and 2, he says that appetite varies according to the form or apprehension which it follows, and so he distinguishes three appetites, natural, sensitive and will; for the first follows natural form without apprehension, the second follows form apprehended through sense, the third follows form apprehended through the intellect.

2. From which doctrine the first reason for this opinion can be conceived; for that which on the part of the object distinguishes appetites essentially is not only a condition, but also the formal notion of moving, or of the moving object; but diverse apprehension is a sufficient notion for distinguishing appetites essentially; therefore. The minor is St. Thomas's above. But the major is established from the common doctrine that powers are distinguished by formal objects, not by conditions of objects. Hence St. Thomas in the cited place, when he had said in the body of the article that appetite is a moved power, but is moved by the apprehended appetible and therefore is distinguished by it, adds in the solution ad 1: It is not accidental to the appetible to be apprehended through sense or intellect, but belongs to it per se. For the appetible does not move the appetite except inasmuch as it is apprehended, hence the differences of the apprehended are per se differences of the appetible. Hence the appetitive powers are distinguished according to the difference of the things apprehended as according to proper objects. And St. Thomas has the same, I-II, q. 30, a. 3, ad 2, where similarly from diverse apprehension he distinguishes natural concupiscences from non-natural ones; and Cajetan there notes that from that reply it is manifestly had that apprehension with respect to the object of appetite does not behave as the approximation of active to passive, but as objective notion.

3. And this reason is confirmed; for in the same intellective appetite the effect of the final cause varies very much from diversity of cognition; but a mere condition or application of the cause could not suffice for so great a diversity. The antecedent is evident, for the cognition of God through clear or obscure, intuitive or abstractive vision causes, as many hold, a specific diversity in love, and, at the least, is the cause that one love is free and another necessary. Again, the same good apprehended absolutely causes love; as absent and to be acquired it causes desire or intention; but as present it causes joy, which acts are diverse in species; and in the same proportion are distinguished, about evil apprehended as absent or present, sadness and fear. Again, the acts of virtue and vice in the will are not distinguished from the object according to its real being, but according to its apprehended being; hence it comes about that, if someone from erroneous conscience wills to give alms thinking he does evil, that is not an act of virtue but of vice; and conversely, he who from invincible ignorance wills to steal in order to give alms, thinking he does well, does not do an act of vice, but of virtue, properly and according to the true real species of virtue. Finally a similar argument is that the good does not move such as it is, but such as it is apprehended; and therefore we said above with Aristotle that for the causality of the end it does not matter what it is like, but what it is reckoned; but to be reckoned is the same as to be apprehended.

4. The second principal reason for this opinion is that that being which per se and alone the final cause requires in order to cause is not only a condition, but the formal principle of causing; but the being of existence is not required in the end for causing; but known being is per se necessary and that alone suffices; therefore. The major seems known from the terms, because to be the formal principle of causing is nothing else than to be that which per se primo and formally is required in the cause in order that it can cause. Hence in the foregoing we often said, and below shall also say, that the being of existence with respect to the efficient cause is not a required condition, but the very notion of causing, because it is the very entity of the thing and the first being which is required for causing. But the minor, as to the former part, has been sufficiently proved in the preceding section, and that that necessity of apprehension is per se by virtue of the final cause is established from the mode of its causality, which is through metaphorical motion; for this per se proceeds from objective being, not from the being of the thing in itself. As to the other part too it is established from what has been said, for it has often been shown that the end causes before it is; indeed even that which never will be, or even sometimes which cannot be, if yet it is apprehended as possible.

5. The latter, contrary opinion.—The second opinion is that the end moves according to real being and that that is the formal notion of moving, and consequently that the cognition of the end is only a condition or approximation necessary for a cause of this kind. Cajetan taught this opinion at length, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, about ad 1, and thinks it is the opinion of Averroes, XII Metaph., comm. 36, inasmuch as he says that health which is in reality causes finally, although as it is in the soul it effects the desire of itself. And it can be taken from St. Thomas, I, q. 82, a. 3, inasmuch as he says that the will is inclined to the thing itself as it is in itself; and from the Philosopher, whom he cites there, in VI Metaph., text 8, saying that good and evil, which are the objects of the will, are in things. Ferrariensis holds the same opinion, I Cont. Gent., c. 44, where he says that to be in the mind is only a condition required for finalizing. Javellus too holds it, V Metaph., q. 6; Ockham, In II, q. 3, a. 2; and Gabriel, In II, dist. 1, q. 1, a. 3; and it is also taken from Scotus, In I, dist. 1, q. 4.

Judgement is passed between the aforesaid opinions

6. Between these opinions this latter seems to me simply true; and the whole matter appears so clear that there can scarcely be reason for dissenting, unless some equivocation is mixed in the words themselves. Which will easily be evident if we distinguish those things in which the authors of each opinion agree, or which are so manifest that they must necessarily agree in them.

7. The end, in order to cause, does not need actual existence.—First, then, all agree that the end does not need real or exercised (as they call it) existence for causing finally, in which sense it is clear that the being of existence is not the notion of causing finally, indeed not even a necessary condition. I add also that neither true being of essence nor possible being of existence is in reality necessary for causing finally; for the apprehended suffices, and the reasons of the first opinion prove only this in great part.

8. The will is borne to attaining the end not in known being but in real being.—Secondly, it is certain that the will does not tend to the end so as to attain it in known being as such, but so as to attain it in its proper real being, which it apprehends in it according to its condition, and in this sense it is most certain that being in cognition is not the notion of finalizing, but only a necessary condition. The prior part becomes evident by examples and by declaration of the thing itself. For he who intends health or riches does not intend to know them or think of them, but to attain them in reality according to true real existence, and the same of others. But the reason is to be taken from what was said in sect. 5, that the formal notion of causing of the final cause is its goodness and fittingness; but the thing which moves as end does not have its goodness and fittingness in objective or known being, but in order to its real being; for health is fitting so as to be present, not so as to be apprehended; therefore the formal notion of moving is its real being, inasmuch as it is fitting or good, or its real fittingness, inasmuch as it is founded in real being itself and renders it good and desirable. It is confirmed, because the end moves according to that being according to which it satiates the appetite of the agent after it has attained it and without which it does not rest; but the end is so compared to the will according to real being and not according to apprehended being; therefore. The major is established, both because that is first in intention which is last in execution; and also because the end is that to which the impetus of the agent tends; but it tends to that which being attained it rests. The minor too is clear, because the mind does not rest in the apprehension of the end unless it attains it in reality itself, and without attainment of this kind the intention of the agent is thought to be frustrated. And the authors of the first opinion do not deny this, as Medina finally confesses, I-II, q. 1, a. 1, although perhaps not very consistently, as will be established from what is to be said.

9. But I said that the will tends to the end according to real being according to its condition, because sometimes it happens that the end itself of the will operating is none other than the cognition of some object, as when we intend or desire to see God; for then that being seen pertains to the formal notion of such final cause; and similar is the case when a man desires as end only the contemplation or speculation of some truth. And in this way too the theologians say that a man can sometimes delight in cognition alone and not in the thing known, except according to known being, from which then the act receives its goodness or malice. Although, however, in these and similar examples cognition itself is desired as end, yet it has its proper real being, according to which it is desired, and such cognition even then is not the notion of finalizing inasmuch as it is something prerequired on the part of the end in order that it move the will, but inasmuch as it is a certain action which per se is judged fitting and as such is proposed to the will as sufficient to move it, or as the terminus to which it tends. And so, according to an accommodated distribution, it is universally true that the end moves according to real being, which by means of apprehension is objected to the will; for according to it it is judged fitting, and inasmuch as it is judged fitting, it moves.

10. Cognition is only a condition necessary for causing finally.—Thirdly, it must be said that the apprehension or judgement of that real fittingness, properly and formally speaking, is not the notion of moving or finalizing, but is a necessary condition by way of approximation necessary for such genus of causality. As to this the second opinion speaks more truly and properly, and it is proved because being in cognition is not the goodness or fittingness according to which the end moves, as has been proved; therefore neither is cognition itself the formal notion for the end itself in order that it move; it will therefore be a necessary condition. The consequence is evident from sufficient enumeration of parts. Wherefore, just as in the efficient cause local approximation is a required condition, so in the final cause a quasi-animal or vital approximation is a condition required for such mode of causing, because, since the motion of this cause is metaphorical, it must take place through the natural consensus of the cognitive and appetitive powers, as has often been said.

11. Hence it must be added, fourthly, that this cognition is such that by reason of it, or rather by means of it, the notion or formal principle of finalizing can be varied, not because it itself is the formal motive notion, but because it applies a diverse formal notion of moving. And in this the authors of the first opinion seem to have laboured under an equivocation. But it is declared from the aforesaid likeness of the efficient cause; for, although he who applies a cause acting per se is only a cause per accidens, yet if he is able to apply diverse causes having diverse principles of acting, he will be able from that side to vary the formal notion of acting, and consequently to be the cause of diversity in the effect. So, then, because the apprehensive power is universal, it can apply diverse objects and diverse formal notions of moving; and therefore, although it itself is not the notion of finalizing, it can be the cause or occasion of such notion being varied. And by a similar reason the apprehensive power can apprehend the same material thing under diverse notions, either truly or apparently; and thence too it comes about that from diversity of apprehension or judgement the motion or causality of the end is changed; not because formally and per se that variety comes from the apprehension, but because it applies an end formally diverse, as has been declared.

The foundations of the former opinion are dispatched

12. And according to this last assertion all the testimonies and reasons which the former opinion brought are excellently declared and dispatched. For whenever St. Thomas says that the diversity of apprehension pertains to the diversity of the object, it is to be understood to pertain not formally, but applicatively, so to speak. Or otherwise it can be said (and it comes back to the same) that the diversity of apprehension, not that which holds itself on the part of the subject, but that which holds itself on the part of the object, varies the appetite and its object and the causality of the end. But I call conditions of apprehension on the part of the subject that it be clear or obscure, certain or probable, and similar ones, which do not redound to the application of the object under a diverse notion of goodness or fittingness; but when the diversity of apprehension reaches to this, it is said to be diverse also on the part of the object.

13. Hence to the first reason the major must be distinguished; for that which on the part of the object distinguishes appetites essentially, if it does this per se primo, will be the formal notion of the object; but if it does this only as applying a diverse formal object, it can be only a required condition; and in this way apprehension concurs to this diversity. And according to the same doctrine is to be understood that intellective and sensitive appetite are distinguished because they follow the apprehension of sense or of intellect; for if this distinction is to be reduced to the apprehended object, it consists in this, that through sense the object is applied under a diverse notion of fittingness to sensitive or rational nature. And although the intellect can sometimes apprehend and propose the notion of fittingness to sensitive nature, yet this is with respect to it as it were material; for its adequate notion is more universal, and in that very thing it applies the formal notion of such good far otherwise than sense, and so that whole diversity, inasmuch as from apprehension it redounds to the object, takes place only as through an applying condition. And the same must be said to all the examples which are adduced in confirmation; for vision and abstractive cognition, if perhaps they are the cause that loves are diverse in species, it is because the goodness of God through vision is applied far otherwise even on its part, so that according to all His perfections formally and distinctly known in one most simple perfection clearly seen He moves the will of the seer, whereas in abstractive cognition He moves only as known under the determinate notion of some attribute or under some very confused notion of good. And similarly, if the necessity which is greater in one love than in another comes from the object, it is because through vision both the object and the love of it are apprehended as here and now more necessary. So too the good absent or present does not vary the acts on account of the apprehensions alone, but because the thing itself and the condition apprehended in it is apt to cause a diverse motion in the appetite; and the reason is the same of the other examples, as each one will easily be able to understand by applying each to the doctrine handed down.

14. To the second reason it is answered that in each premiss taken there can be equivocation. For when it is said in the major that that being of the cause which per se and alone is required for causing is the formal notion of causing, if it is understood of the exercised being of existence, it is false in the final cause, because, as has often been said, it does not always require this being for causing. But if it is understood of the being of existence absolutely, namely abstracting from whether it is then when it causes, or whether it will be, or is reckoned, so it is true that the notion of causing in the cause is some being of this kind. But in this sense the minor is false, because, although the end when it first moves often does not have this existence in reality itself except in apprehension, in which way it is said to be first in intention, yet in that apprehension it is objected and represented according to another real being, on account of which the will is moved.