Charles Albert Dubray

“ Actus means determination, complement, perfection. In every being there are many actualities, and these are subordinated. Thus existence supposes essence; power supposes existence; action supposes faculty. The first actuality (actus primus) begins a series ”

“ Actuality and potentiality are mutually exclusive, since one means the presence, and the other the absence, of the same determination. Yet, in all beings except God (see Actus Purus) there is a combination of actuality and potentiality; they possess some determinations and are capable of acquiring others. Moreover, the same reality may be considered as actuality or potentiality, according as we take a retrospective or a prospective point of view. In man, skill and science are actualities if we compare them to human nature, which they presuppose. ”

“ Thus the extensive quantity of a substance is a first actuality when compared to the shape. Power is a first actuality when compared to action. And this is the most frequent application of the terms actus primus and actus secundus. ”

“ The unity of the Church, he claimed, does not depend on the unity of the Pope, but on that of Christ. The Church has a natural and divine right to its unity and self-preservation; hence it can, even without the Pope's sanction, assemble in a general council. ”

“ At the other extreme is God, pure actuality, wholly determined by the very fact that He is infinite in His perfection. Between these extremes are the realities of the world, with various degrees of potentiality and actuality.
So that God is not a becoming, as in some pantheistic systems, nor a being whose infinite potentiality is gradually unfolded or evolved. But He possesses at once all perfections. He is simultaneously all that He can be, infinitely real and infinitely perfect. ”

“ This actuality, if mixed with potentiality, presupposes another actuality, and so on, until we reach the Actus Purus. Thus the existence of movement (in scholastic terminology, motus, any change) points to the existence of a prime and immobile motor. Causality leads to the conception of God as the unproduced cause. Contingent beings require a necessary being. The limited perfection of creatures postulates the unlimited perfection of the Creator. The direction of various activities towards the realization of an order in the universe manifests a plan and a divine intelligence. ”

“ Every operation is an actus, because it is the complement of a power; but all other perfections and determinations, whatever be their nature, are also actus. On the other hand, the being in potentiâ is not to be identified with the possible being. The latter belongs to the logical order; it is a notion whose elements involve no contradiction. The former belongs to the real order; it exists in a subject which, though undetermined, is capable of determination. Potentia is more than a mere statement of futurity, which has reference to time only ”

“ At that time he wrote several treatises, in which he maintained, among other doctrines, that bishops and priests hold their jurisdiction from Christ, not from the Pope, that the Pope is inferior to a general council, that neither the Pope nor the council is strictly infallible, but only the universal Church. ”

“ External senses are determined or actualized by an external stimulus (see Species) , which gives them the determination necessary to the act of perception. The internal senses (sensus communis, phantasia, memoria, aestimativa) depend on external sensations for their exercise. Memory and imagination preserve in potentiâ traces of past impressions, and when the proper conditions are verified the image becomes actual. We have no innate ideas, but in the beginning human intelligence is simply a power to acquire ideas. ”

“ Angels, since they are pure spirits, are subject to none of the changes that depend on the material principle. Nevertheless, there is in them imperfection and potentiality. Their existence is contingent. ”

“ He was a believer in astrology, and in his "Concordance of Astronomy with History" he attempts to show that the dates of the main events of history can be determined by astronomical calculations. In his "Imago mundi" he taught the possibility of reaching the Indies by the West, and in confirmation of his own reasoning he alleged the authority of Aristotle, Pliny, and Seneca. D'Ailly's views were useful to Columbus and encouraged him in his undertaking. ”

“ But if we compare them to the actions themselves, or to the actual recall of acquired knowledge to consciousness, they are powers, or potentiæ. If we keep the same point of view, it is impossible for the same thing to be at the same time in actu and in potentiâ with regard to the same determination. ”

“ In many respects d'Ailly reproduces the theses of Occam and the Nominalists, that the existence of God cannot be strictly demonstrated, that the doctrine of the Trinity cannot be established from the Scriptures, that positive law is the only basis of morality, etc. In many instances he shows a tendency to mysticism. His works are numerous (154) ; some of them have not yet been published. Besides those that have reference to the schism and the reformation of the Church, others treat of Holy Scripture, apologetics, asceticism, theology, philosophy and the sciences. ”

“ But, if analyzed carefully, such theories will necessarily yield potential elements. In all things we find capacities for further development and evolution, forces and aptitudes which come to be utilized little by little. ”