212 W. A. WALLACE 



thing as motion, itself an acquisition of being, Theodoric holds 

 that another factor must be taken into account, and this is the 

 dependence of things on a principal essential cause, not only 

 for their coming-to-be, but also for their continued being. In 

 his own words: 



It must be understood that things able to be generated, considered 

 with respect to their acquisition of being, have a twofold relation 

 to the cause generating them: first, according to the conversion 

 of potency to substantial act, which has the formality of a coming- 

 to-be; secondly, according to the act acquired through the gene- 

 rator's causality, which is the formality under which it is already 

 constituted in being. In both these ways a thing comes under the 

 essential ordering of its generating cause. I wish ' generator ' to be 

 understood here as the per se and essential and principal cause of 

 the substance of the body, so as to exclude any instrumental cause 

 or other causes that may be accidental. I also understand ' essential 

 ordering ' to be that by which a thing depends essentially on its 

 cause, which not only holds for its coming-to-be . . . but also for 

 the perfection of its act once acquired. . . ,^^ 



His thought here has a definite Neoplatonic flavor, although it 

 is not without some affinity to the Thomistic analysis of divine 

 causality, for Theodoric conceives the principal essential cause 

 as that which sustains and connects the whole natural order, 

 that on which natural things depend for " a certain continua- 

 tion of their being through a continual influx " deriving from 

 it as an essential cause.''" The influx of this cause is what 



^* Cap. 46, M 18vb, T 185v, U 147ra: Sed considerandum quod res generabiles, 

 quantum ad acquisicionem sui esse, dupliciter se habent ad causam dantem esse per 

 generacionem: uno modo, secundum exitum potencie ad actum substancialem, et 

 sic habet racionem eius quod est fieri; alio modo, respicit huiusmodi causam 

 secundum racionem actus acquisiti per talis cause causalitatem, et secundum hunc 

 modum res est in facto esse. TJtroque autem istorum modorum, res stat sub ordine 

 essenciali cause generantis. Volo autem intelligi generans quod est per se et essen- 

 cialis et principalis causa substancie rei, ut excludatur causa instrumentalis, vel 

 eciam alie cause, si que sunt accidentales. Dico autem ordinem essencialem quo res 

 per suam essenciam dependet a sua causa, quod quidem non solum convenit rei 

 secundum suum fieri, scilicet, quantum ad accepcionem sui esse quoad exitum 

 potencie ad actum per mocionem generantis, sed eciam attenditur in causa huiusmodi 

 ordinis secundum perfectionem iam acquisiti actus. . . . 



®° Ibid.: Non est aliud quam quedam ipsius esse continuacio per continuum ipsius 

 cause influxum per essenciam. . . . 



