Disputationes metaphysicae

1. This question supposes that the exemplar is truly and properly a cause; for this we take as certain from the common opinion of philosophers and theologians; for in those things which operate through intellect the exemplar is per se necessary, in order that they can in a rational way direct their action to a definite effect; for since they are not of their nature limited to determinate forms to be given to effects, as natural agents are, it is necessary that they be determined in their own proper and intellectual way. And although as to the exercise of their action they are determined through the will, yet as to specification and direction they are led through the intellect; but for this they need proper exemplars of such effects, so that they can effect them in an artful and intellectual way. And although Seneca, epist. 66, thinks that by this reason it is only proved that the exemplar is something required, but not therefore to be numbered per se among causes, otherwise many other things could similarly be counted per se among causes, nevertheless it is truer that it pertains per se to some genus of causality, or some mode of causing, although perhaps it does not increase the number of causes, nor constitute per se a new genus of causing. But both will be declared more conveniently by explaining to what genus of cause the exemplar pertains.

The exemplar is neither a material nor a final cause

2. And to begin from the clearer things, it is certain that the exemplar neither pertains per se nor is reduced to the genus of material cause, because it has no proportion or likeness with that cause, because the exemplar neither indicates something potential, but rather something actual and formal; nor does it concur in any way by receiving, but rather in its own way by actuating and determining. But about the final cause someone could doubt; for the office of the exemplar is said to be that the effect be made in its likeness or imitation; but this is the relation of the end; therefore the concurrence of the exemplar is nothing but a certain final concurrence. The minor and the whole discourse I prove from St. Thomas, III Cont. Gent., c. 19, where he proves chiefly by this reason that all things tend to God as to the ultimate end, because all intend to be assimilated to Him; therefore, the reason being converted, we rightly gather that, when God produces things in order that they be assimilated to Him, He concurs as their end; and then He concurs as exemplar; therefore. Indeed in reason 2 St. Thomas so gathers: The agent is said to be the end of the effect inasmuch as the effect tends to the likeness of the agent; but God is so the end of things that He is also their first agent; therefore all things intend as ultimate end to be assimilated to God. God, therefore, as He is that to which the creature is assimilated, has the notion of end; therefore also as imitable by creatures; for these words, to be imitable by creatures, and to be that to which creatures are assimilated, seem to signify the same relation; but to be imitable says the relation of exemplary cause; therefore it coincides with the relation of final cause. Hence more clearly in reason 4 St. Thomas says that all created things are as it were certain images of the first agent; but that the perfection of an image consists in this, that it represent its exemplar, and therefore all creatures intend this representation as their end. In which discourse he plainly seems to confuse the exemplar with the end.

3. But nevertheless all authors think that exemplary causality is far diverse from final, because the causality of the end consists in the metaphorical motion of the will. But the notion of exemplar consists precisely in this, that it be a form determining the action of the agent, as is taken from St. Thomas, I p., q. 44, a. 3. But the proposed difficulty proceeds as if the exemplar were some known thing which is proposed to be imitated, and not rather the intellectual concept itself of the thing. But in order that we may answer in every way, that mode of speaking being admitted, it must be said that, although it happens that the same thing is the end and the exemplar of the same effect, as the arguments made prove, yet under a diverse notion of causality. For as end it moves to effecting the representation of itself; but as exemplar it determines the action of the agent, and in a certain way gives species to the effect; hence it exercises the notion of end as it is a certain good; but the notion of exemplar as it is a certain form. But we can add, in order to declare this more, that the exemplar can be considered either as a certain terminus in imitation of which the action tends, or as a principle directing and regulating the action of the agent. Under this latter notion it exercises exemplary causality; for the former pertains more to the notion of end, because under that notion it is that for the sake of which the action is done. For when the image of Christ is painted in order that it may represent Him to us, Christ in truth under that notion has the notion of end, and the difficulty touched upon proves this too. And therefore that does not please me which some say, that the causality of the exemplar consists in the passive imitation of the thing made in its likeness; for this passive imitation properly belongs to the end, when in it nothing else is intended but its representation. Therefore in the passive action itself it must be distinguished whether it is taken as alluring the affection, or as determining and as it were specifying the action, or the form induced through it; for under the former notion it will pertain to the causality of the end, under the latter to the notion of exemplar.

4. And for this cause I think it most probable that proper exemplary causality, distinct from the final, is found per se in the internal concept formally expressing and representing the thing to be effected by art; for, although through the action conformity with that concept so representing is intended, yet it is not intended as the end of the action, formally speaking of conformity, but the form itself in which there is conformity is intended; but the conformity itself is only attended to as a certain commensuration, and as it were rule of the form to be induced. But in the external exemplar a distinction is needed, for it more puts on the notion of end, most of all when its representation is per se intended, for its honour or something similar; but sometimes it also has only the notion of measure and not of end, as when the artificer outwardly makes a small model of the whole building; for then he intends conformity to it not as end, but as regulation, so to speak.

5. And in a similar way it seems it can be said quite probably (distinguishing in God according to reason the intellectual ideas, as they were explained by us in the preceding section, and the divine essence as participable in being and in the perfections of being by creatures) that under the former notion it has proper exemplary causality, and as such the conformity of creatures to the ideas is intended, not according to their relation to the end, but to the measure and rule; but under the latter notion the divine essence has the notion of end, and so too the likeness of creatures to God is intended as to their end. For under the former notion it is intended that the creature be such as it is represented in the idea; but under this latter it is intended that it represent the divine being and divine perfection as much as it can; and therefore the latter relation is not to God as to exemplar, but as to end.

6. Finally, hence I think it is most fittingly said that in the actions and effects of God, as they are from Him, nothing outside Him can exercise exemplary causality properly taken, but that He Himself is the singular exemplar of all His actions and effects, because nothing outside Him can be the rule and measure of His actions as they are from Him. Hence if sometimes something created is said to be the exemplar of another, as Christ, as man, is called the exemplar of just men, either it is to be understood broadly of the exemplar as it were materially, as it puts on the notion of proximate end; for so Christ can be called exemplar, because in His honour others are made just like Him. Or it is to be expounded with respect to secondary causes; in which way too Christ can be called the exemplar of men, because He has been proposed to them so that they may look to Him as to an exemplar which they may imitate.

The opinion reducing the exemplar to the formal cause is proposed

7. The material and final cause being omitted, then, about the other two there is controversy among authors. For many bring back the exemplar to the genus of formal cause, and it is believed to be the opinion of Aristotle, who in numbering the causes named the exemplary together with the formal. And Albert holds this opinion, In I, dist. 20, a. 1; Cajetan, I p., q. 6, a. 3, at the end, and q. 44, a. 3; Thomas of Strasbourg, In I, dist. 45, a. 2. It is taken from Durandus there, q. 2, inasmuch as he denies that the exemplar pertains to the genus of efficient cause. Giles holds the same, proposition 37 On the Eucharist. These authors suppose that the exemplar concurs only as a known object, in imitation of which the agent operates something; and therefore they do not think it can have efficiency, and hence they conclude that it has extrinsic formal causality, which consists only in this, that through passive imitation it concurs to giving a like form and species to the effect. Indeed there are those who think that the exemplar is not reduced to the genus of intrinsic formal cause, but constitutes per se and directly a new genus of extrinsic formal cause; which Henry thinks, Quodl. IX, q. 2, whom some moderns follow. And indeed, the former part being supposed, they speak quite consistently; for, although the exemplar agrees in name with the form, as the very name of idea shows, and as we noted above from Augustine, yet in causing it has a far diverse notion. For the informing form is intrinsic and an essential part of the composite; but the exemplar is an extrinsic form; hence from this side they differ more among themselves than matter and form, and not less than the efficient form and the form made, for the efficient form too is a form and is an extrinsic cause, whose participation is the informing form proceeding from it; therefore, if the exemplar is an extrinsic formal cause, it constitutes a new genus of cause as much as the efficient form.

The opinion bringing back the exemplar to the efficient cause is preferred

8. But to me the opinion of those is more approved who deny that the exemplary cause constitutes a proper genus of cause, but say that it pertains to the efficient cause. Which Alexander of Hales holds, I p., q. 23, memb. 4, a. 1; Bonaventure, In III, dist. 11, a. 1, q. 3; Scotus, In I, dist. 2, q. 2, and dist. 36, a. 1; and there Hervaeus, q. 1. And first this opinion is proved from the mind of Aristotle, to which the opposite opinion seems to contradict, though modestly, because it constitutes a fifth genus of cause distinct from those which Aristotle numbered. For, although they call the exemplar by the name of form, yet in truth it is a cause not less diverse from the informing form than is the efficient form, as we declared in explaining that very opinion, and that agreement with form is scarcely more than in name, for the notion is far diverse, since the one is essentially and intrinsically a form constituting the thing; but in another way it is only called a form because extrinsically it represents or moves to making something like itself. Hence Aristotle did not number the exemplar with the form in this sense, but either because the name of idea which he uses signifies generically the same as form, or because (as he himself reports) Plato so posited ideas as exemplary forms that in them he constituted the essences and species of things. Add that Aristotle always numbers among efficient causes art itself, under which he comprehends the exemplar; hence in VII Metaph. he said that health outside is made efficiently from the health which is in the mind, that is, from the exemplar of health.

9. Secondly, that opinion seems founded on a false principle, namely, that the exemplar is some thing objectively and directly known, so that in it per se primo the notion of exemplary cause consists; for that this is false can be established from what was said in the preceding section. And it is declared moreover in this way, for in the created artificer such an exemplar is not per se necessary; for that which human artificers are wont to fashion for themselves outwardly is only a certain aid, which helps to conceive the thing inwardly and to preserve memory; hence, if without such a sensible object they could exactly conceive the house to be made and have it present inwardly, they would not need that extrinsic exemplar. Again, neither inwardly is some object distinct from the effect to be made by art per se necessary, for, although in men it regularly so happens, yet (as we argued above) that distinction too is as it were per accidens, because the artificer does not intend the effect except inasmuch as it is wholly the same, and in that in which it is diverse it does not proceed from exemplary causality. And moreover this is not universal in the created artificer as such; for angels too can make artificial things, and it is not necessary that they conceive them confusedly, but distinctly, and the same in number as they fashion. And Christ the Lord, as man, if He had willed to operate some artefact, would look to no other object except to that very thing in the individual distinctly known which He was going to make. This causality, then, is not per se from a distinct object, nor yet can it be from the same in number, as was shown in the preceding section, and a fortiori the same can be proved of the divine ideas from what was said above; therefore this causality does not consist in that as it were extrinsic information, which is as it were through the comparison and imitation of one form to another.

10. I add moreover that, even when a distinct extrinsic exemplar intervenes, it effects nothing per se about the effect of art which can have the proper notion of real causality and can truly and per se be called formal causality. For if we speak of the sensible exemplar, it first and per se moves to the knowledge of itself, and in that genus concurs efficiently as a motive object. Next it can mediately move to conceiving or effecting another like or proportional thing, and as to this too it is compared after the manner of end, or of remote efficient, and almost per accidens. For if the thing is attentively considered, per se it moves only to the conception of itself, from which the intellect fabricates or conceives another like thing, and through the will intends to effect it; but if such an object moves the will itself, as when an image which pleases moves to making another like it, this motion pertains to the end, not to the exemplar. No causality, then, intervenes there which deserves the name of formal causality. Moreover, either that causality is about the conception of the intellect, and this not, because with respect to that it is rather objective efficiency, as has been said; or it is about the artificial thing, and this too not, both because with respect to that such an exemplar behaves very remotely, for proximately the artefact is not regulated except according to the conception of the mind; and also because (final causality being set aside) that the artificer intends to assimilate the effect to an extrinsic object is only a relation or extrinsic denomination coming from the act of his will, and does not add to the effect essential dependence on another object, which would pertain to the genus of formal cause; indeed not even to any genus of cause per se, unless perhaps, as I said, such representation or likeness is intended under the notion of end. For the artificer per se only intends to induce such a form into his effect, for which per se he needs only the proper conception of that form; but that this form be assimilated to another extrinsic one is per accidens to the causality of art as such; therefore also to the causality of the exemplar. And this reason proves of the cognition of any other created object, whether particular, or universal or confused.

11. But in God a special reason can seem to intervene, because God does not know the creatures to be made by Him except in His essence and through His essence; and this belongs to Him per se. But nevertheless, although in our way of understanding the essence is as it were the medium for knowing creatures, yet in order to operation ad extra God does not per se operate as knowing precisely His essence, but as knowing the creatures themselves which He is going to produce; and therefore that order according to reason which is per se between the essence as known and creatures as known, namely, that the essence is the reason of knowing creatures, is with respect to the exemplary causality of creatures remote and per accidens; therefore by reason of it the essence as known cannot be called the extrinsic formal cause of creatures. Hence, if what many opine were true, that the divine essence is not the reason of knowing creatures as a medium or as a known object, but only as a mirror, or as a most eminent intelligible species, as regards exemplary causality it would matter nothing, for God could equally well by His uncreated art produce creatures such as He conceived; therefore that that cognition of creatures is understood by us according to reason to arise from the cognition of the essence, as of a cause eminently containing creatures, is something remote, and as it were per accidens to exemplary causality. Most of all since it was shown above that the essence as known precisely without creatures formally known cannot have the true notion of exemplar, nor yet can another as it were middle cognition be understood between the cognition of the essence precisely and the cognition of creatures in the essence, which may be called the cognition of the essence as participable by creatures, because, as I also said above, this is nothing else than to know creatures as participative of the essence (so to speak). It remains, then, that the proper causality of the exemplar is not in some known object distinct from the effect which is made in its imitation; therefore its causality will not be formal, since it was said to pertain to that genus only on account of that objective or passive imitation.

12. Lastly it is proved directly that the causality of the exemplar pertains to efficiency. First indeed, because art is a principle of effecting; hence Aristotle, treating of causes, says that Polyclitus is the cause per accidens of the statue, but the sculptor the cause per se, because namely it formally says art, which is the per se principle of that effect; but art does not cause except by means of the idea; for art teaches to fabricate in the mind both the thing to be effected and also the way and mode of executing it; and in this way it is the principle of the artificial effect; hence St. Thomas, III p., q. 78, a. 2, says thus: The artificial form is the likeness of the ultimate effect to which the intention of the artificer is borne, as the form of the art in the mind of the builder is principally the form of the house built, but of the building consequently; therefore the exemplar itself too is compared to the artificer as the proximate form through which in its way it operates; as, therefore, the form of the agent pertains to the efficient cause inasmuch as it is to it the principle of acting, so too the exemplar, inasmuch as it is the form of the artificer by which he operates, pertains to the efficient cause. Which the common mode of speaking of philosophers and theologians also confirms; for so they say that the exterior house proceeds from the house which is in the mind of the artificer, as we reported above of health from Aristotle; and St. Thomas, Quodl. VII, a. 3, says thus: The likeness of the thing known is in the knower in two ways: in one way as caused by the thing, in another way as the cause of the thing, as is evident in the artificer, who knows the artefact through that form through which he makes it. From which he infers below that the ideal reasons existing in the mind of God are efficacious for knowing the singulars of which they are the cause. He repeats the same, Quodl. VIII, a. 2; and in a similar way speak of the divine ideas Dionysius, c. 5 De Divin. nominibus; and Augustine, bk. XII De Civit. Dei, c. 25. For they call them effective of things. And for the same cause the theologians say that God is the efficient cause of things through intellect and will; for intellect and knowledge do not cause ad extra except through the idea; therefore, if knowledge is a principle of effecting ad extra, so also is the exemplar.

13. Hence it is confirmed; for to the action of the artificer three things concur, art, will and executing power; but the will, as moving the executing power, pertains to the genus of efficient cause; therefore also art as directing and determining it; but it directs and determines by means of the exemplar; therefore the exemplar pertains to the same genus of cause. It is confirmed moreover, because, just as the natural agent is completed in the notion of principle of acting through the form, so the intellectual agent is completed in its order through the exemplar, for just as the natural agent through the form contains the likeness of the effect and is determined to it, so the intellectual agent through the exemplar has in itself the likeness of the effect and receives a certain determination to it, at least as to specification, for as to exercise it is not determined through the exemplar alone; and therefore it needs the will; therefore the exemplar pertains to the genus of efficient cause as a form in its way completing a certain genus of efficient cause, namely the intellectual or artful.

14. You will say: by the same reason it could be said that the end does not constitute a proper genus of cause, but completes a certain genus of efficient, so that it be sufficiently constituted for acting, namely the intellectual agent, which, unless it is moved or determined by the end, cannot act. It is answered by denying the consequence, because the end is not compared to the agent as constituting it proximately apt for acting, but rather supposes it so constituted and moves it to act; but the exemplar does not suppose it completely constituted as to its peculiar mode of acting, namely artificial or intellectual. Next, the end as such is compared to effects according to a certain peculiar mode of dependence which they have on it, inasmuch as they are for its sake; but the exemplar has no peculiar relation per se to the effect except only inasmuch as it directs or determines the action of the agent. Wherefore, just as the will of the agent does not constitute per se a new genus of cause, but determines such a mode of acting, namely voluntarily, so knowledge, or art, or (what is the same) the exemplar does not constitute a new genus of cause, but completes a peculiar mode of effecting, namely artfully.

Corollaries of the preceding doctrine

15. And hence another reason can by the way be gathered why Aristotle named the exemplar together with the form; for the exemplar is a certain form not so much with respect to the thing to be effected through it as with respect to the artificer himself, whom in its way it informs and constitutes in act in his genus, so that he be sufficient for acting. But if with respect to the exemplified thing the exemplar is called a form, this is not on account of formal causality which it has about it, but because it contains it in itself in some way after the manner of an image, or in representative being; but all images are wont to be called forms; hence also the fourth species of quality is called form and figure.

16. Secondly it is also understood by the way that common distinction of a threefold form, from which, out of which, and towards which; for by these words are signified neither three distinct forms nor yet three distinct formal causalities; but only three relations, which can belong to the same form with respect to diverse things. For the same form of fire, inasmuch as it is the principle from which another fire proceeds, is called the form from which; but inasmuch as it constitutes the generating fire itself in its being, it is called the form out of which; but inasmuch as in its likeness the form in the generated thing is made, it can be called the form towards which. Hence that particle, from which, denotes the relation of efficient cause; out of which, the relation of intrinsic formal cause; towards which, although it is thought to denote the exemplary cause, yet in truth is equivocal; for fire properly generates fire in its likeness, and yet its form is not an exemplar. Hence through that particle there can be denoted in that form the relation of final cause, as we reported above from St. Thomas, that any natural agent acts for its own sake as for the sake of the end, inasmuch as it acts in order to produce an effect like itself, in which it may be conserved at least according to species, or in which its perfection may be in some way represented, if we speak more generally of the agent. And according to this universal consideration every form from which is also towards which, under a diverse notion of extrinsic cause, and without formal causality. In order, then, that the form towards which be said peculiarly of exemplary causality, it must be understood that it is a form proximately regulating the effect to which the proper intention of the agent is directed, and therefore it can be said to be that according to whose norm the effect is made. Hence, just as the form from which is not so called because it exercises formal causality about the effect which is from it, but because it is the form of the cause itself, so, although the exemplar is called the form towards which, it need not be understood to be so called because it exercises formal causality with respect to that which is made in its imitation, but with respect to the artificer whom it informs, unless it is called form more broadly, not on account of causality, but on account of representation. But when we say that the exemplar is the form of the artificer, it is to be taken as of the form of the agent, for in the created artificer or agent it is truly a form; but in the uncreated it is only a form in our way of understanding, or has whatever of perfection is in a form, imperfection being set aside, that is, intrinsic causality or information.

17. Thirdly, it can be understood from what has been said why the exemplary cause is commonly distinguished from the efficient, if it too is efficient; for this too can be objected against our opinion; as St. Thomas, I part, q. 44, when in the first and second articles he had shown that God is the efficient cause of all things, in a. 3 inquires whether God is the exemplary cause. But I say that the exemplary cause is not so much to be distinguished from the efficient cause as under the efficient cause, or under those forms or conditions which constitute a peculiar genus of efficient. As in the said example, after it is established that God is an acting cause, it is the same to ask whether He is exemplary as to ask whether He is an agent through intellect, and whether He has of Himself whatever is necessary for that mode of causing. It is true, however, that, if we attend to the force of the names, the exemplary cause is not said of every agent which operates through an exemplar, but only of the form which has the force and notion of exemplar; for the artificer is not called the exemplary cause of the artefact, but to have an exemplar, or to operate through an exemplar, because exemplar signifies as it were in the abstract the form itself. But God, because through Himself He knows and represents all things, is therefore simply called the exemplary cause of all things.

18. Finally, it is established from all that has been said that this genus of causality is properly and intrinsically found only in intellectual agents, inasmuch as they operate something ad extra through their art or knowledge. Hence it is found most perfectly in God, indeed in Him alone is this causality with respect to all substances and all natural accidents, as was also touched upon above, because no intellectual creature can per se make anything of this kind through art, but at most per accidens, by applying active things to passive ones. Hence proper exemplary causality can be found in created agents only of artificial things. And with respect to these too God has the power and property of first exemplary cause, not only because the first exemplars even of artefacts themselves are in the divine mind, but also because through them He actually inflows, and immediately in His genus, with all lower artificers. Indeed under this notion too all the actions and effects of natural causes are immediately from the divine exemplary cause, and under that notion or in that genus they have no other nearer cause; for, just as God concurs immediately through His power to all those actions, so through His ideas He directs them, and in this way, just as God is the first and immediate cause of all actions in the genus of efficient and of end, so also in the notion of exemplar.