CHAPTER III
THE SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES
other end, but are themselves an end. Playful actions are sometimes an end, when one plays for the mere pleasure of play; and sometimes they are for an end, as when we play that afterwards we may study better. Actions done without attention do not proceed from the intellect, but from some sudden act of the imagination, or some natural principle; and thus a disordered humor produces an itching sensation and is the cause of a man scratching his beard, which he does without his intellect attending to it. Such actions do tend to an end, although outside the order of the intellect. Hereby is excluded the error of certain natural philosophers of old, who maintained that all things happen by the necessity of matter, thus utterly banishing the final cause from things.^
*Cf. Aristotle, Phys., II, 8 (198b 12).
CHAPTER III
THAT EVERY AGENT ACTS FOR A GOOD
Hence we must go on to prove that every agent acts for a good.
For that every agent acts for an end clearly follows from the fact that every agent tends to something definite. Now that to which an agent tends definitely must needs be befitting to that agent, since the agent would not tend to it save because of some fittingness thereto. But that which is befitting to a thing is good for it. Therefore every agent acts for a good.
Further. The end is that wherein the appetite of the agent or mover comes to rest, as also the appetite of that which is moved. Now it is the very notion of good to be the term of appetite, since good is the object of every appetite} Therefore all action and movement is for a good.
Again. All action and movement would seem to be directed in some way to being, either for the preservation of being in the species or in the individual, or for the acquisition of being. Now this itself, namely, being, is a good; and for this reason all things desire being. Therefore all action and movement is for a good.
Furthermore. All action and movement is for some perfection. For if the action itself be the end, it is clearly a second
^Aristotle, Eih., I, i (1094a i).
EVERY AGENT ACTS FOR A GOOD
perfection of the agent. And if the action consist in the transformation of external matter, clearly the mover intends to induce some perfection into the thing moved, towards which perfection the movable also tends, if the movement be natural. Now we say that this is to be good, namely, to be perfect. Therefore every action and movement is for a good.
Also. Every agent acts according as it is actual. Now by acting it tends to something similar to itself. Therefore it tends to an act. But an act has the nature of good, since evil is not found save in a potentiality lacking act. Therefore every action is for a good.
Moreover. The intellectual agent acts for an end, as determining for itself its end; whereas the natural agent, though it acts for an end, as was proved above,^ does not determine its end for itself, since it knows not the nature of end, but is moved to the end determined for it by another. Now an intellectual agent does not determine the end for itself except under the aspect of good ; for the intelligible object does not move except it be considered as a good, which is the object of the will. Therefore the natural agent also is not moved, nor does it act for an end, except in so far as this end is a good, since the end is determined for the natural agent by some appetite. Therefore every agent acts for a good.
Again. To shun evil and to seek good are of the same nature, even as movement downward and upward are of the same nature. Now we observe that all things shun evil, for intellectual agents shun a thing for the reason that they apprehend it as evil, and all natural agents, in proportion to their strength, resist corruption which is the evil of everything.
Therefore all things act for a good.
Again. That which results from the agent's action outside his intention is said to happen by chance or luck. Now we observe in the works of nature that either always or more often that happens which is best: thus in plants the leaves are so placed as to protect the fruit; and the parts of an animal are so disposed as to conduce to the animal's safety. Therefore, if this happens outside the intention of the natural agent, it will be the result of chance or luck. But that is impossible, because things that happen always, or frequently, are not by chance or fortuitous, but those which occur sel- 'Ch.
THE SUMMA CONTRA GENTILES
dom.^ Therefore the natural agent tends to that which is best ; and much more evidently is this so with the intellectual agent. Therefore every agent intends a good in acting.
Moreover. Whatever is moved is brought to the term of movement by the mover and agent. Therefore mover and moved tend to the same term. Now that which is moved, since it is in potentiality, tends to an act, and consequently to perfection and goodness; for by its movement it passes from potentiality to act. Therefore mover and agent by moving and acting always intend a good.
Hence the philosophers in defining the good said:
The good is the object of every appetite; and Dionysius says that all things desire the good and the best^
®Cf.
Aristotle, Phys., II,
(196b 11).
*Z)c Div. Norn., IV, 4
(PG3, 699).
CHAPTER XVI
THAT THE END OF EVERYTHING
IS A GOOD
Accordingly if every agent acts for some good, as we have shown above,^ it follows that good is the end of each thing.
For everything is directed by its action to some end; for either the action itself is an end, or the end of the action is also the end of the agent: and this is its good.
Again. The end of a thing is the term of its appetite. Now the appetite of a thing terminates in a good, for the philosophers define good as the object of all appetite ?• Therefore the end of everything is a good.
Moreover. That toward which a thing tends while it is without it, and wherein it rests when it has it, is its end. Now anything that is without its proper perfection is moved towards it, as far as in it lies
; and if it have that perfection, it rests therein. Therefore the end of a thing is its perfection.
But the perfection of a thing is its good. Therefore every thing is directed to good as its end.
Further. Things that know the end and things that do not know the end are equally directed to the end
; although those which know the end are moved thereto per se, whereas those which do not know it tend thereto as directed by another, as may be seen in the archer and the arrow. Now those that know the end are always directed to a good as their end; be- ^Ch.
^ £.g., Aristotle, Eth., I, i (1094a 2),