Questions on the Four Books of Sentences

falsity

from things that can be imagined. ¶ To the confirmation, I say that the proper ends of other substances are not known, which, namely, are theirs according to proper definitions, unless there are some manifest acts from which the order of them toward such an end is concluded. And from this, it is clear regarding that which is brought forward against the proof of the minor premise, that this proposition is not false. The proper end of a substance is not known to us except through its acts that are manifest to us. For that proposition does not assume that the end cannot be known otherwise. For it is indeed true that if a substance were known under its proper definition, its cause could be known per se through a demonstration quia reasoning from effect to cause. But no substance is known to us now in this way; therefore, we can conclude no proper end of a substance now, except through an evident act of that substance, not in a universal and confused way. In the present case, however, both ways fail. But the proof of the minor premise touched upon one way regarding the ignorance of the act, by presupposing the other regarding the ignorance of nature in itself. ¶ To the second, regarding Augustine, I say that that power of having charity, as it is a disposition toward God in itself under the proper definition of loving, suits the nature of man according to a special definition not common to him and sensible things. And therefore, that potentiality is not naturally knowable regarding man, just as man is not known under that definition under which this power of his is. ¶ And thus I answer to that insofar as it can be brought forward to the principal conclusion, namely, the opposite of the minor premise of the first reason. But insofar as it is brought forward against that response regarding natural and supernatural power, I concede God to be the natural end of man, although not naturally attainable, but supernaturally. And this is proven by the following reason regarding natural desire, which I concede. ¶ To the other, one must deny that which is assumed, namely, that we naturally know being

... ? as the first object of our intellect, and this according to the whole indifference of being toward sensible and insensible things. And this which Avicenna says does not conclude that it is naturally known. For he mixed his sect, which was the sect of Mohammed, with physical matters. And he said some things as physics and proven by reason, others as consonant with his sect. Whence he himself expressly posits, in the ninth book of his Metaphysics, that the soul separately knows an immaterial substance in itself. And therefore, under the first object of the intellect, he has to posit that an immaterial substance is contained. Not so Aristotle. But according to him, the first object of our intellect seems to be the quiddity of a sensible thing, and this either in sensible things themselves or in its inferior—this is the quiddity abstractible from sensible things. ¶ As far as is added regarding Augustine in the confirmation of that reason, I respond and say that the saying of Augustine ought to be understood regarding the first act, sufficient of itself for its second act, but yet now it is hindered, on account of which hindrance the second act is not elicited from the first. But about this, more will be said below. If, however, it is objected against these things: "Man in the state of instituted nature could know his nature, therefore the end of nature from the deduction of the first reason, therefore this cognition is not supernatural." 3rd proof against ¶ Also, against the response to the last reason, "if therefore it is not known what the first object of the intellect is because the intellect is not known under the proper definition under which it regards such an object, therefore it cannot be known of anything that it itself is intelligible, because the power is not known under that definition under which it regards anything as an intelligible object." 29 ¶ I respond to the first: it would be required to say what the cognition of instituted man was, which is deferred until elsewhere. 26 At least for the wayfarer for this state, the said cognition is supernatural because it exceeds his natural faculty. I say natural according to ... ?

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A simple hand-drawn diagram with a curved line connecting the word "finis" on the left to two handwritten phrases in the center bottom: "naturally attainable" and "Not naturally attainable."