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OTHER REMARKSThe subject of metaphysics
Quodlibetalia IX, q.2, a.2
To be is taken in two ways, as is made clear in Aristotle in the Fifth Book of the Metaphysics and in Origen's gloss on the opening words of the gospel of St. John. (1) In one way it is a verbal copula signifying the composition in a proposition made by the mind. This kind of to be is not something actually existing but belongs to the act of the mind which to everything about which a proposition can be formed, whether it is being or privation of being (as when one says that blindness is). (2) In another way to be is the act of a being as it is a being and thus is predicated only of things that actually exist. Taken in this sense, it is predicated only of those things that are found in the ten genera of real being-it is on this basis of existence that beings are divided into ten genera.
Commentary on Posterior Analytics, I, lesson 20, n.5
It should be recognized that logic and first philosophy are concerned with common principles in different ways. (1) For first philosophy is of common being because its consideration is of common things themselves, i.e., being and the parts and passions of being. (2) And since reason must negotiate concerning all that is in things, and logic is of the operations of reason, logic will be of those things which are common to all, i.e., the intentions of reason, which are of all things. Not that logic is of common things themselves as subjects. For logic considers as its subjects: syllogism, enunciation, predicate or some such things.
The place of metaphysics
Commentary on the Physics, I, lesson 1, n. 7
Our knowledge has its origin in sensory realities that are material and intelligible in potency; therefore they are known by us before we know separated substances which are objects more intellectual by nature.
C.G. I, ch.4, par.3
In order to know the things that reason can investigate concerning God, a knowledge of many things must already be possessed. For almost all of philosophy is directed towards the knowledge of God, and that is why metaphysics, which deals with divine things, is the last part of philosophy to be learned. This means that we are able to arrive at the inquiry concerning the aforementioned truth only on the basis of a great deal of labor spent in study.
S.T. I, q. 84, a. 7
Because it is joined to the body, the human intellect has as its proper object the essence or nature that exists in corporeal matter; and from the natures of visible things one can rise to some knowledge of invisible things.
De veritate, q. 4, a. 1
We give names to things according to the manner in which we receive our knowledge from things. Hence, since those things which come after others in the order of nature are usually the ones that we know first, it frequently happens that in applying names to things, we first use a name of one of two things when the reality it signifies primarily exists in the second. We have a clear example of this in the names that are used of both God and creatures. Being, good, and words of this sort are first applied to creatures, and then transferred from creatures to God, even though the act of existence and good are found primarily in God.
The division of the sciences
Commentary on the Nicomachaean Ethics, Book 1, lect. 1:
As the Philosopher says in the beginning of the Metaphysics, it belongs to the wise man to put things in order, this is because wisdom is the highest perfection of reason, whose business it is to know order. For, although the sense powers know some things absolutely, it belongs to the intellect or reason alone to know to order of one thing to another.
Now there is a twofold order in things. One is the order of the parts of some whole or some multitude to each other, for example, the arrangement of the parts of a house among themselves. The other is the order of things to an end. And this order is more primary than the former one; for, as the Philosopher says in the Metaphysics, the order of the parts of an army among themselves depends on the order of the whole army to its leader.
Now order is related to reason in four different ways. (1) There is an order that reason does not make but simply examines, For example, the order or natural things. (2) There is another order that reason by thinking produces in its own activity; for example, when it establishes order among its concepts and the signs of its concepts, for they are meaningful sounds. (3) The third order is that which reason by its thinking produces in the acts of the will. And (4) the fourth order is that which reason by its thinking maker in the exterior things that it produces, as in the case of a box or a house.
Now, because rational thinking is perfected through a scientific habit, there are different sciences corresponding to the different orders that it is the office of reason to consider. (1) The philosophy of nature is concerned with the order of things that human reason examines but does not make, so that we also include both mathematics and metaphysics under the philosophy of nature. (2) The order that reason by its act of thinking produces in its own act pertains to rational philosophy; which is concerned with the order of the parts of discourse to each other and the order of principles to conclusions. (3) The order of voluntary actions belongs to the consideration of moral philosophy. (4) And the order that reason by its thinking produces in external things, made through human reason, pertains to the mechanical arts.