Footnotes

1.

2 vols. Longmans, 1912.

2.

Institutions Metaphysica, quas Roma, in Pontificia Universitate Gregoriana tradiderat P. Joannes Josephus Urraburu, S.J. Volumen Secundum: Ontologia (Rome, 1891).

3.

French version by Sierp, 4 vols. Paris, Gaume, 1868.

4.

Ontologie, ou Métaphysique Générale, par D. Mercier. Louvain, 3me édit., 1902.

5.

Τὴν ὀνομαζομένην σοφίαν περὶ τὰ πρῶτα αἴτια καὶ τὰς ὑπολαμβάνουσι πάντες.—Aristotle, Metaph., I., 1. “Sapientia [philosophia] est scientia quae considerat primas et universales causas.”—St. Thomas, In Metaph., I., I. 2.

6.

Cf. De Wulf, Scholasticism Old and New, pp. 59-61, 191-4; History of Medieval Philosophy, pp. 311-13; also two articles in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record (March and May, 1906) on Thoughts on Philosophy and Religion, and an article in the Irish Theological Quarterly (October, 1910) on Philosophy and Sectarianism in Belfast University, by the present writer.

7.

Cf. Encyclical Aeterni Patris, on Philosophical Studies, by Pope Leo XIII., August 4,1880.

8.

Introduction, § 1.

9.

As a brief general statement of the matter this is sufficiently accurate and will not be misunderstood. Of course the general standpoint of ultimate causes and reasons admits within itself some variety of aspects. Thus Epistemology and Psychology deal with human thought, but under different aspects; Psychology and Ethics deal with human volition, but under different aspects, etc.

10.

“Theoreticus sive speculativis intellectus, in hoc proprie ab operativo sive practico distinguitur, quod speculativus habet pro fine veritatem quam considerat, practicus autem veritatem consideratam ordinat in operationem tamquam in finem; et ideo differunt ab invicem fine; finis speculativae est veritas, finis operativae sive practicae actio.”—St. Thomas, In lib. Boetii de Trinitate.

11.

Here is St. Thomas' exposition and justification of the doctrine in the text: “Sapientis est ordinare. Cujus ratio est, quia sapientia est potissima perfectio rationis, cujus proprium est cognoscere ordinem.... Ordo autem quadrupliciter ad rationem comparatatur. Est enim quidam ordo quem ratio non facit, sed solum considerat, sicut est ordo rerum naturalium. Alius autem est ordo, quem ratio considerando facit in proprio actu, puta cum ordinat conceptus suos ad invicem, et signa conceptuum, quae sunt voces significativae. Tertius autem est quem ratio considerando facit in operationibus voluntatis. Quartus autem est ordo quem ratio considerando facit in exterioribus rebus, quarum ipsa est causa, sicut in arca et domo. Et quia consideratio rationis per habitum perficitur, secundum hos diversos ordines quos proprie ratio considerat, sunt diversae scientiae. Nam ad philosophiam naturalem pertinet considerare ordinem rerum quem ratio humana considerat sed non facit; ita quod sub naturali philosophia comprehendamus et metaphysicam. Ordo autem quem ratio considerando facit in proprio actu, pertinet ad rationalem philosophiam, cujus est considerare ordinem partium orationis ad invicem et ordinem principiorum ad invicem et ad conclusiones. Ordo autem actionum voluntariarum pertinet ad considerationem moralis philosophiae. Ordo autem quem ratio considerando facit in rebus exterioribus constitutis per rationem humanam, pertinet ad artes mechanicas.”—In X. Ethic. ad Nichom., i., lect. 1.

12.

Cf. Science of Logic, i., Introduction, ch. ii. and iii.

13.

Aristotle and the scholastics distinguished between the domain of the practical (πρᾶσσω, πρᾶξις, agere, agibilia) and the operative or productive (ποιεῖν, ποίησις, facere, factibilia).

14.

Cf. Science of Logic, i., § 8.

15.

“Quædam igitur sunt speculabilium quæ dependent a materia secundum esse, quia non nisi in materia esse possunt, et hæc distinguuntur quia dependent quædam a materia secundum esse et intellectum, sicut illa in quorum definitione ponitur materia sensibilis: unde sine materia sensibili intelligi non possunt; ut in definitione hominis oportet accipere carnem et ossa: et de his est physica sive scientia naturalis. Quædam vero sunt quæ, quamvis dependeant a materia sensibili secundum esse, non tamen secundum intellectum, quia in eorum definitionibus non ponitur materia sensibilis, ut linea et numerus: et de his est mathematica. Quædam vero sunt speculabilia quæ non dependent a materia secundum esse, quia sine materia esse possunt: sive nunquam sint in materia, sicut Deus et angelus, sive in quibusdam sint in materia et in quibusdam non, ut substantia, qualitas, potentia et actus, unum et multa, etc., de quibus omnibus est theologia, id est scientia divina, quia præcipuum cognitorum in ea est Deus. Alio nomine dicitur metaphysica, id est, transphysica, quia post physicam dicenda occurrit nobis, quibus ex sensibilibus competit in insensibilia devenire. Dicitur etiam philosophia prima, in quantum scientiae aliæ ab ea principia sua accipientes eam sequuntur.”—St. Thomas, In lib. Boetii de Trinitate, q. 5, a. 1.

16.

Ἐττιν ἐπιστήμη τις ἤ θεωοεῖ τὸ ὄν και τούτῳ ὑπάρχοντα καθ᾽ ἁυτό.—Metaph. III., i (ed. Didot).

17.

Metaph. X., ch. vii., 5 and 6.

18.

Cf. Science of Logic, ii., §§ 251-5.

19.

When the term “science” is used nowadays in contradistinction to “philosophy,” it usually signifies the knowledge embodied in what are called the special, or positive, or inductive sciences—a knowledge which Aristotle would not regard as strictly or fully scientific.

20.

Aristotle's conception of the close relation between Physics (or the Philosophy of Nature) and those analytic studies which we nowadays describe as the physical sciences, bears witness to the close alliance which he conceived to exist between sense observation on the one hand and rational speculation on the other. This sane view of the continuity of human knowledge, a view to which the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages were ever faithful, was supplanted at the dawn of modern philosophy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries by the opposite view, which led to a divorce between physics and metaphysics, and to a series of misunderstandings which still prevail with equal detriment to science and philosophy alike.

21.

Cf. De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, pp. 28-9, 66; Mercier, Ontologie, Introd., p. v., n.

22.

“Dicitur metaphysica [scientia] id est, transphysica, quia post physicam dicenda occurrit nobis, quibus ex sensibilibus competit in insensibilia devenire.”—St. Thomas, In Lib. Boetii de Trinitate, q. 5, a. 1.

23.

This is also the title of the social and ethnological study of the various races of men, their primitive habits, customs, institutions, etc.

24.

Not entirely; for instance, what is perhaps the most comprehensive course of philosophy published in recent times, the Philosophia Lacensis (11 vols., Herder, 1888-1900) apparently follows the arrangement of metaphysics outlined above. The fundamental questions on knowing and being, which usually constitute distinct departments under the respective titles of Epistemology and Ontology, are here treated under the comprehensive title of Institutiones Logicales (3 vols.). However, they are really metaphysical problems, problems of speculative philosophy, wherever they be treated; and the fact that the questions usually treated in Ontology are here treated in a volume apart (vol. iii. of the Institutiones Logicales: under the peculiar title of Logica Realis), and not in the volumes assigned to general metaphysics, shows the necessity and convenience of the more modern arrangement. General metaphysics are dealt with in 2 vols. of Institutiones Philosophiae Naturalis and 3 vols. of Institutiones Psychologicae; special metaphysics in the Institutiones Theodicœae (1 vol.); ethics in 2 vols. of Institutiones Juris Naturae.

25.

Cf. Turner, History of Philosophy, p. 525.

26.

Mercier, Logique, Introd., § 9.

27.

pp. 45, 51.

28.

Cf. Science of Logic, i., § 17.

29.

Cf. ibid. i., Introd., ch. i.

30.

Cajetan, In 2 Post Anal., ch. xiii.

31.

Cf. Mercier, Ontologie, §§ 6-13; Ladd, A Theory of Reality, ch. i.

32.

infra, ch. viii.; Cf. Science of Logic, ii., Part IV., ch. iii.-vi.; Part V., ch. i.

33.

p. 18—in which context will be found a masterly analysis and criticism of current prejudices and objections against systematic metaphysics.

34.

ibid. pp. 19-20.

35.

Royce, The Conception of God, p. 207.

36.

Mercier, Logique, Introd., § 14.

37.

Encyclical, Aeterni Patris, on philosophical studies.

38.

Summa Theologica, 1, q. 1, a. 8, ad. 2.

39.

Cf. Mercier, Origines de la psychologie contemporaine, ch. viii.; De Wulf, Scholasticism Old and New (passim).

40.

Cf. Ladd, op. cit., pp. 9, 10.

41.

Eucken, Gesammelte Aufsaetze zur Philosophie und Lebensanschauung, § 157 (Leipzig, 1903).

42.

Cf. art. Philosophy and the Sciences at Louvain, in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record, May, 1905, reprinted as Appendix in De Wulf's Scholasticism Old and New.

43.

Hence the necessity of equipping the student of philosophy with a knowledge of the main conclusions and theories of the sciences that have an immediate bearing on philosophy: chemistry, physics, geology, astronomy, mechanics, the axioms and postulates of pure and applied mathematics, cellular biology, embryology, the physiology of the nervous system, botany and zoology, political economy, sociology and ethnology. Nowhere is the system of combining the scientific with the philosophical formation of mind more thoroughly carried out at the present time than in the curriculum of the Philosophical Institute at the University of Louvain. In the College of Maynooth not only is the study of philosophy completed by a fuller course of Christian Theology,—both disciplines thus combining to give the student all the essential elements of a complete Philosophy of Life (ii.),—but it is preceded by an elementary training in the physical sciences and accompanied by courses on the history of scientific theories in chemistry, physics, physiology, and general biology.

44.

“We may mention it in passing,” writes Mercier in his general introduction to philosophy (Logique, § 1, p. 6)—“it was this feeling of individual impotence in face of the task confronting the philosopher at the present day, that inspired the foundation of the Philosophical Institute at the University of Louvain”. He had previously outlined the project in his Rapport sur les études philosophiques at the Congress of Mechlin in 1891. Here are a few brief extracts from that memorable document: “Since individual effort feels itself well nigh powerless in the presence of the field of observation which goes on widening day by day, association must make up for the insufficiency of the isolated worker; men of analysis and men of synthesis must come together and form, by their daily intercourse and united action, an atmosphere suited to the harmonious development of science and philosophy alike....” “Man has multiplied his power of vision; he enters the world of the infinitely small; he fixes his scrutinizing gaze upon regions where our most powerful telescopes discern no limits. Physics and Chemistry progress with giant strides in the study of the properties of matter and of the combinations of its elements. Geology and Astronomy reconstruct the history of the origin and formation of our planet. Biology and the natural sciences study the minute structure of living organisms, their distribution in space and succession in time; and Embryology explores their origin. The archæological, philological and social sciences reconstruct the past ages of our history and civilizations. What an inexhaustible mine is here to exploit, what regions to explore and materials to analyse and interpret; finally what pioneers we must engage in the work if we are to have a share in garnering those treasures!”

45.

Grammar of Assent, p. 229.

46.

Lucerna pedibus meis verbum tuum, et lumen semitis meis.—Ps. cxviii., 105.

47.

Tennyson, In Memoriam.

48.

Cf. Logic, i., § 123.

49.

Cf. Logic, i., pp. 204-6.

50.

Cf. Scotus, Summa Theologica, edit. by Montefortino (Rome, 1900), i., p. 106, Ad tertium.

51.

Cf. Logic, i., pp. 119-20.

52.

Cf. Scotus, op. cit., i., pp. 104, 129; also Urraburu, Ontologia, Disp. III., Cap. II., Art. III., p. 155.

53.

Hence St. Thomas calls the things about which a generic or specific concept is predicated “analoga secundum esse et non secundum intentionem” (In 1 Sent., Dist. xix., q. 5, a. 2, ad a am): we bring them under the same notion or “intentio” (e.g. “living being”), but the content of this notion is realized in the various things (e.g. in Socrates, this horse, that rose-tree, etc.) in varying and unequal degrees of perfection. Hence, too, this univocal relation of the genus to its subordinate subjects is sometimes (improperly) called “analogy of inequality”.

54.

Cf. infra, ch. viii.

55.

Cf. Kleutgen, Philosophie der Vorzeit, §§ 599, 600.

56.

This, of course, is the proper sort of analogical predication: the predication based upon similarity of proportions or relations. Etymologically, analogy means equality of proportions (Cf. Logic, ii., p. 160). On the whole subject the student may consult with profit Cajetan's Opusculum de Nominum Analogia, published as an appendix to vol. iv. of St. Thomas' Quæstiones Disputatæ in De Maria's edition (1883).

57.

Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., §§ 40-42.

58.

Cf. Scotus, op. cit., i., pp. 318-22, 125-131, 102-7 (especially p. 128, Ad tertium); p. 131, Ad sextum; p. 321, Ad tertium.

59.

Kleutgen, op. cit., § 599.

60.

ibid., § 600.

61.

Suarez, Metaph., Dist. xxviii., § 3; Dist. xxxii., § 2.

62.

Scotus, op. cit., i., pp. 106-7, 128-9.

63.

ibid., p. 107.

64.

Cf. Kleutgen, La philosophie scolastique (“Die Philosophie der Vorzeit”). Fr. trans. by Sierp (Paris, 1868), vol. i., p. 66, § 35.

65.

The logical copula, which expresses this relation and asserts the truth of the judgment, expresses, of course, a logical entity, an ens rationis. True judgments may be stated about logical entities as well as about realities. But since the former can be conceived only after the manner of the latter, the appropriateness of using the verb which expresses existence or reality, as the logical copula, will be at once apparent. Cf. Logic, i., p. 249, n. 1.

66.

Suarez, Metaph., Dist. 54, § i., 6.

67.

Cf. Logic, i., pp. 28-9.

68.

Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., §§ 551-2.

69.

Cf. Logic, i., pp. 70-1.

70.

“Esse actum quondam nominat: non enim dicitur esse aliquid ex hoc, quod est in potentia, sed ex hoc, quod est in actu.”—St. Thomas, Contra Gent. i., c. xxii., 4.

71.

Certain medieval philosophers had made the same mistake. St. Thomas points out their error frequently. Cf. Contra Gentes, i., c. xxvi: “Quia id, quod commune est, per additionem specificatur vel individuatur, æstimaverunt, divinum esse, cui nulla fit additio, non esse aliquid proprium, sed esse commune omnium: non considerantes, quod id, quod commune est, vel universale, sine additione esse non potest, sed sine additione consideratur. Non enim animal potest esse absque rationali vel irrationali differentia, quamvis sine his differentiis consideretur; licet enim cogitetur universale absque additione, non tamen absque receptibilitate additionis est. Nam si animali nulla differentia addi posset, genus non esset; et similiter est de omnibus aliis nominibus. Divinum autem esse est absque additione, non solum cogitatione, sed etiam in rerum natura; et non solum absque additione, sed absque receptibilitate additionis. Unde ex hoc ipso quod additionem non recipit, nec recipere potest, magis concludi potest quod Deus non sit esse commune, sed esse proprium. Etenim ex hoc ipso suum esse ab omnibus aliis distinguitur, quia nihil ei addi potest.”

72.

Cf. St. Thomas, QQ. DD. De Potentia, q. i. art. 1, ad. 18.

73.

Aristotle, Metaph., c. iv., v., apud Kleutgen, op. cit., iii., p. 60.

74.

Contra Gentes, II., c. vii.

75.

Cf. Laminne, Cause et Effet—Revue neo-scolastique, February, 1914, p. 38.

76.

St. Thomas uses what is for him strong language when he describes such a view as ridiculous: “Ridiculum est dicere quod ideo corpus non agat, quia accidens non transit de subjecto in subjectum; non enim hoc modo dicitur corpus calidum calefacere, quod idem numero calor, qui est in calefaciente corpore, transeat ad corpus calefactum; sed quia virtute caloris, qui est in calefaciente corpore, alius calor numero fit actu in corpore calefacto, qui prior erat in eo in potentia. Agens enim naturale non est traducens propriam formam in alterum subjectum, sed reducens subjectum quod patitur de potentia in actum.”—Contra Gentes, L. III., c. lxix.

77.

Cf. Zigliara, Ontologia (8), ix., Quintum. Cf. also Aristotle, Metaph. v., St. Thomas, In Metaph., v., § 14, and Contra Gentes, i., c. xvi., where he emphasizes the truth that potential being presupposes actual being: “Quamvis id quod quandoque est in potentia, quandoque in actu, prius sit tempore in potentia quam in actu, tamen simpliciter actus est prior potentia; quia potentia non educit se in actum, sed opportet quod educatur in actum per aliquid quod sit in actu. Omne igitur quod est aliquo modo in potentia, habet aliquid prius se”.

78.

Klimke, Der Monismus und seine philosophischen Grundlagen, p. 185. Cf. Irish Theological Quarterly, vol. vii. (April, 1912), p. 157 sqq., art. Reflections on Some Forms of Monism.

79.

For relations of potentia and actus, cf. Mercier, Ontologie, § 214.

80.

Cf. Physics, v., 1; De Anima, i., 3.

81.

Λεγώ δ᾽ ὕλην, ἢ καθ᾽ ἁυτὴν μήτε τὶ, μήτε ποσὸν, μήτε ποίον, μήτε ἄλλο μεδὲν λέγεται οἶς ὤρισται τὸ ὄν.—Metaph. vi., c. iii.

82.

“Decepit antiquos philosophos hanc rationem inducentes, ignorantia formae substantialis. Non enim adhuc tantum profecerant ut intellectus eorum se elevaret ad aliquid quod est supra sensibilia: et ideo illas formas tantum consideraverunt, quæ sunt sensibilia propria vel communia. Hujusmodi autem manifestum est esse accidentia, ut album et nigrum, magnum et parvum, et hujusmodi. Forma autem substantialis non est sensibilis nisi per accidens, et ideo ad ejus cognitionem non bervenerunt, ut scirent ipsam materiam distinguere.”—In Metaph. vii., 2.

83.

“Esse actum quemdam nominat: non enim dicitur esse aliquid, ex hoc quod est in potentia, sed ex hoc quod est in actu.”—St. Thomas, Contra Gentes, i., ch. xxii., 4.

84.

The etymology of Aristotle's description of the essence as τὸ τί ἦν εἶναι is not easy to explain. The expression τὸ εἶναι supposes a dative understood, e.g. τὸ ἀνθρώπῳ εἶναι, the being proper to man. To the question τὶ ἐστι τὸ ἀνθρώπῳ εἶναι; what is the being or essence proper to man? the answer is: that which gives the definition of man, that which explains what he is—τί ἦν. Is the imperfect, τὶ ἦν, an archaic form for the present, τὶ ἐστι; or is it a deliberate suggestion of the profound doctrine that the essence as ideal, or possible, is anterior to its actual, physical realization? Commentators are not agreed. Cf. Matthias Kappes, Aristoteles-Lexicon, p. 25 (Paderborn, 1894); Mercier, Ontologie, p. 30 n.

85.

Essentia est illud per quod res constituitur in proprio genere vel specie, et quod significamus per definitionem indicantem quid est res.—De Ente et Essentia, ch. i.

86.

Aristotle, Metaph., v., 4; St. Thomas, De Potentia Dei, q. ix., art. 1.

87.

Sometimes, however, the expression “metaphysical essence” is used to signify those objective concepts, and those only, without which the thing cannot be conceived, (or sometimes, even the one which is considered most fundamental among these), and therefore as not explicitly involving the concepts of properties which follow necessarily from the former; while the “physical essence” is understood to signify all those real elements without which the thing cannot actually exist, including, therefore, all such necessary properties. Taken in this sense the physical essence of man would include not merely soul and body, but also such properties as the capacity of speech, of laughter, of using tools, of cooking food, etc.

88.

Et ex hoc patet ratio, writes St. Thomas, quare genus et species et differentia se habeant proportionaliter ad materiam, formam et compositum in natura, quamvis non sint idem cum illis; quia neque genus est materia, sed sumitur a materia ut significans totum; nec differentia est forma, sed sumitur a forma ut significans totum. Unde dicimus hominem esse animal rationale, et non ex animali et rationali; sicut dicimus eum esse ex corpore et anima. Ex corpore enim et anima dicitur esse homo, sicut ex duabus rebus quædam tertia res constituta, quæ neutra illarum est: homo enim nec est anima neque corpus; sed si homo aliquo modo ex animali et rationali dicatur esse, non erit sicut res tertia ex duabus rebus sed sicut intellectus [conceptus] tertius ex duobus intellectibus. Intellectus enim animalis est sine determinatione formae specialis naturam exprimens rei, ex eo quod est materiale respectu ultimae perfectionis. Intellectus autem hujus differentiae, rationalis, consistit in determinatione formae specialis: ex quibus duobus intellectibus constituitur intellectus speciei vel definitionis. Et ideo sicut res constituta ex aliquibus non recipit prædicationem earum rerum ex quibus constituitur; ita nec intellectus recipit prædicationem eorum intellectuum ex quibus constituitur; non enim dicimus, quod definitio sit genus vel differentia.—De Ente et Essentia, cap. iii.

89.

Cf. Mercier, Psychologie, vol. ii., § 169 (6th edit., 1903, pp. 24-5).

90.

Cf. Aristotle, Metaph., L. viii., 10; St. Thomas, In viii., Metaph., Lect. iii., par. i.

91.

Cf. Mercier, Ontologie, pp. 42-3. How do we know that not only water (H2O) is a possible essence but also hydrogen di-oxide (H2O2)? Because the latter substance has been actually formed by chemists (Cf. Roscoe, Elementary Chemistry, Lesson VI.). Is hydrogen tri-oxyde (H2O3) a possible substance? We may ask chemists,—and they may not be able to tell us with any certainty whether it is or not.

92.

The actual existence of a thinking mind is of course a necessary condition, in the actual order, for the apprehension of objects in this abstract way. But such existence is no part of the apprehended object. That the human mind, which is itself finite, contingent, allied with matter, and dependent on the activity of corporeal sense organs for the objects of its knowledge, should nevertheless have the power to apprehend contingent realities apart from their contingent actual existence in time and space,—is a fact of the greatest significance as regards the nature of the mind itself. But if we try to prove the existence of God from a consideration of the nature and powers of the human mind, our argument proceeds from the actual, and is distinct from any argument based exclusively on the nature and properties of possible essences as such. St. Augustine's argument assumes as a fact that the human mind represents to itself possible essences as having reality independently both of its own thought and of any actual existence of such essences (Cf. De Munnynck, Praelectiones de Dei Existentia, p. 23). But is this a fact? This is the really debatable point.

93.

Among others Henry of Ghent († 1293; Cf. De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, pp. 364-6; Kleutgen, Philosophie der Vorzeit, Dissert, vi., cap. ii., 2 §§ 581-5), Capreolus (1380-1444), certain Scotists, and certain theosophists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, are credited with this peculiar view. For numerous references, Cf. Urraburu, Ontologia, Disp. iii., cap. ii., art. v. pp. 650-63.

94.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., pp. 652-3, for references; among others, to St. Thomas, De Potentia, q. 3, art. 1, ad 2um; art. 7, ad 10um; art. 5, argum. 2o; ibid., ad 2um. Summa Theol., i., q. 14, art. 9; q. 45, art. 1; ibid. , art. 2, ad 2um; q. 61, art. 2, corp.

95.

Among others, Balmes (Fundamental Philosophy, bk. iv., ch. xxvi.), Lepidi (Ontologia, quoted by De Munynck, Praelectiones de Dei Existentia, Louvain, 1904, p. 19); De Munynck (ibid., pp. 19-23, 46-7, 75); Hickey (Theologia Naturalis, pp. 31-4); Driscoll (God, pp. 72 sqq.); Lacordaire (God, p. 21); Kleutgen, Philosophie der Vorzeit, Dissert. iv., § 476.

96.

Truth is not the work of any human intelligence, says St. Augustine, nor can any one arrogate to himself the right to say “my truth,” or “thy truth,” but all must say simply “the truth”: “Quapropter, nullo modo negaveris esse incommutabilem veritatem, haec omnia, quae incommutabiliter vera sunt, continentem, quam non possis dicere vel tuam vel meam, vel cujuscumque hominis, sed omnibus incommutabilia vera cernentibus, tamquam miris modis secretum et publicum lumen, praesto esse ac se praebere communiter: omne autem quod communiter omnibus ratiocinantibus atque intelligentibus praesto est, ad ullius eorum proprie naturam pertinere quis dixerit?”—De Libero Arbitrio, lib. ii., ch. xii. Cf. his striking expression of the same thought in his Commentary, Super Genesim ad Litteram, lib. ii., cap. vii.: “We may conceive the heavens and the earth, that were created in six days, ceasing to exist; but can we conceive the number ‘six’ ceasing to be the sum of six units?”: “Facilius coelum et terra transire possunt, quae secundum numerum senarium fabricata sunt, quam effici possit ut senarius numerus suis partibus non compleatur” (apud Mercier, Ontologie, pp. 35-6).

97.

Cf. Balmes (Fundamental Philosophy, bk. iv., ch. xxvi.), who, analysing the truth of the proposition “Two circles of equal diameters are equal,” as an example of the necessary, eternal, immutable characteristics of possible essences, goes so far as to write (italics ours): “What would happen, if, withdrawing all bodies, all sensible representations, and even all intelligences, we should imagine absolute and universal nothing? We see the truth of the proposition even on this supposition: for it is impossible for us to hold it to be false. On every supposition, our understanding sees a connection which it cannot destroy: the condition once established, the result will infallibly follow. “An absolutely necessary connection, founded neither on us, nor on the external world, which exists before anything we can imagine, and subsists after we have annihilated all by an effort of our understanding, must be based upon something, it cannot have nothing for its origin: to say this would be to assert a necessary fact without a sufficient reason. “It is true that in the proposition now before us nothing real is affirmed, but if we reflect carefully we find even here the greatest difficulty for those who deny a real foundation to pure possibility. What is remarkable in this phenomenon, is precisely this, that our understanding feels itself forced to give its assent to a proposition which affirms an absolutely necessary connection without any relation to an existing object. It is conceivable that an intelligence affected by other beings may know their nature and relations; but it is not so easy of comprehension how it can discover their nature and relations in an absolutely necessary manner, when it abstracts all existence, when the ground upon which the eyes of the understanding are fixed, is the abyss of nothing. “We deceive ourselves when we imagine it possible to abstract all existence. Even when we suppose our mind to have lost sight of every thing, a very easy supposition, granting that we find in our consciousness the contingency of our being, the understanding still perceives a possible order, and imagines it to be all occupied with pure possibility, independent of a being upon which it is based. We repeat, that this is an illusion, which disappears so soon as we reflect upon it. In pure nothing, nothing is possible; there are no relations, no connections of any kind; in nothing there are no combinations, it is a ground upon which nothing can be pictured. “The objectivity of our ideas and the perception of necessary relations in a possible order, reveal a communication of our understanding with a being on which is founded all possibility. This possibility can be explained on no supposition except that which makes the communication consist in the action of God giving to our mind faculties perceptive of the necessary relation of certain ideas, based upon necessary being, and representative of His infinite essence.” Balmes, therefore, does not mean that we could continue to see essences as possible were we to imagine withdrawn not merely finite minds but even the Divine Mind. In such an absurd hypothesis, nothing would appear true or false, possible or impossible. But he contends that even when we try to think away all minds, even the Divine Mind, we still see possible essences to be possible. And from this he argues that, since we have successfully thought away finite minds and the actuality of essences, while the possibility of these latter still persists, these must be grounded in the Mind of God, the Actual, Eternal, Necessary Being, where they have eternal ideal being. Cf. De Munnynck (op. cit., pp. 22-3): “Ponamus mundum non esse, nec supponamus Dei existentiam. In nihilo illo, omne ens actuale excludens, remanet intacta—hoc certissime scimus ex objectivo valore intellectus nostri—realitas aeterna, immutabilis, ordinis idealis. [Illa realitas essentiarum, he adds (ibid., n. 2), independens ab omni actuali existentia, atque ab omni actu intellectus, est fundamentum metaphysicum realismi platonici.—Habet praeterea mirum hoc systema, ut omnes sciunt, fundamentum criteriologicum.] Essentiae sunt, nec tamen existunt. Illa realitas, praeter mundum totum, praeter entia rationis, indestructibilis perseverat, nec tamen actualis est. Haec quomodo intelligi possit nescimus, nisi ponatur illam fundari in plenitudine aeterna, infinita, absoluta τοῦ Esse absoluti. Hoc ente supremo posito, omnia lucidissima se praebent intellectui; illo Deo optimo—quem non possumus, perspectis illis altissimis, non adorare—sublato, admittendae sunt essentiae rerum ab aeterno reales sine actuali existentia; atque proinde quid non-individuale est reale in se, quod tamen concipi non potest nisi objective in mente.”

98.

Cf. St. Augustine, De Libero Arbitrio, lib. ii., ch. viii.

99.

Cf. especially Mercier, Ontologie, pp. 40-49.

100.

It is, for example, just as necessarily and immutably true of any actually existing man that he cannot be at the same time existing and not existing as it is that a man cannot be an irrational animal.

101.

“Unde, etiamsi intellectus humanus non esset, adhuc res dicerentur verae in ordine ad intellectum divinum. Sed si uterque intellectus, quod est impossibile, intelligeretur auferri, nullo modo ratio veritatis remaneret.”—St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. i., art. ii.

102.

Phædo, 100, C. ff.

103.

Mercier, Ontologie, pp. 45-7.

104.

Cf. De Munnynck, op. cit., pp. 24-5.

105.

Cf. De Munnynck, op. cit., pp. 24-5.

106.

ibid., pp. 22, 24.

107.

“Quæ objecta non divina esse, luce clarius apparet. Attamen ilia ponderando, modumque inspiciendo quo representantur a mente humana, atque praesupponendo valorem objectivum intellectus, concludimus ex ideis ad realitates illas quæ in Esse divino fundantur ... ratione horum [objectorum scil. idearum nostrarum] percipimus, ope ratiocinii, illa positive aeterna et immutabilia, quæ reapse in Deitate fundantur, atque sunt ipse Deus quatenus imitabilis.”—ibid., pp. 24-5. Cf. extract quoted above, p. 91 n.

108.

“Non ideo voluit Deus mundum creare in tempore, quia vidit melius sic fore, quam si creasset ab æterno; nec voluit tres angulos trianguli æquales esse duobus rectis, quia cognovit aliter fieri non posse. Sed contra, quia voluit creare mundum in tempore, ideo sic melius est, quam si creatus fuisset ab æterno, et quia voluit tres angulos trianguli necessario æquales esse duobus rectis, idcirco jam verum est, et aliter fieri non potest, atque ita de reliquis.”—Descartes, in Resp. ad Sext. Objectiones, ad 6um scrupulum.

109.

Mercier, op. cit., pp. 58-60.

110.

Urraburu (op. cit. Disp. iii., cap. ii., § iii., p. 671) mentions Wolff, Leibniz, Genuensis and Storchenau as holding this view.

111.

Among others, Liberatore, Lahousse, Pesch, Harper. Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., ibid.

112.

Dupasquier, Mastrius and Rada, apud Urraburu, op. cit., ibid., pp. 679-81.

113.

Urraburu, Schiffini, Mendive. Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., ibid., p. 671.

114.

1 Cor. xiii. 12.

115.

“Ex hoc ipso quod quidditati esse attribuitur, non solum esse, sed ipsa quidditas creari dicitur: quia antequam esse habeat, nihil est, nisi forte in intellectu creantis, ubi non est creatura, sed creatrix essentia.”—St. Thomas, De Potentia, q. iii., art. v., ad 2 um.

116.

“Ipsum esse competit primo agenti secundum propriam naturam: esse enim Dei est ejus substantia, ut ostensum est (C. G., Lib. i., c. 22). Quod autem competit alicui secundum naturam suam, non convenit aliis nisi per modum participationis, sicut calor aliis corporibus ab igne [i.e. as caused or produced in them. Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., Dissert., i., c. iii., § 61]. Ipsum igitur esse competit aliis omnibus a primo agente per participationem quamdam. Quod autem alicui competit per participationem, non est substantia ejus. Impossibile est igitur quod substantia alterius entis praeter agens primum sit ipsum esse. Hinc est quod Exod. iii., proprium nomen Dei ponitur esse qui est, quia ejus solius proprium est, quod sua substantia non sit aliud quam suum esse.”—St. Thomas, Contra Gentes, L. ii., cap. 52, n. 7. “Quod inest alicui ab agente, oportet esse actum ejus; agentis enim est facere aliquid actu. Ostensum est autem supra, quod omnes aliae substantiæ habent esse a primo agente, et per hoc ipsæ substantiæ creatæ sunt, quod esse ab alio habent. Ipsum igitur esse inest substantiis creatis ut quidam actus earum. Id autem, cui actus inest, potentia est: nam actus in quantum hujusmodi ad potentiam refertur. In qualibet igitur substantia creata est potentia et actus.”—ibid., cap. 53, n. 2. “Omne quod recipit aliquid ab alio, est in potentia respectu illius: et hoc quod receptum est in eo, est actus ejus; ergo oportet, quod ipsa forma vel quidditas, quæ est intelligentia [i.e. a pure spirit], sit in potentia respectu esse, quod a Deo recipit, et illud esse receptum est per modum actus, et ita invenitur actus et potentia in intelligentiis [i.e. pure spirits], non tamen forma et materia nisi aequivoce.”—De Ente et Essentia, cap. v. Cf. also Summa Theol., P. i., q. iii., art. 4; q. xiii., art. 11; q. lxxv., art. 5, ad 4 um. Quodlibeta, ii., art. 3; ix., art. 6. De Potentia, q. vii., art. 2. In Metaph., iii., Dist. vi., q. 2, art. 2. Contra Gentes, L. ii., cap. 54, 68. St. Thomas is usually interpreted as teaching that the distinction between essence and existence in created things is a real distinction. But there are some who have been unable to convince themselves that the Angelic Doctor has made his mind entirely clear on the subject. Kleutgen, for instance, writes (op. cit., Dissert. vi., c. ii., § 574, n. 2): “In the extracts quoted above St. Thomas clearly states that the distinction made by our thought is based on the nature of created things, but not that this distinction is that which exists between different parts, dependent on one another, each having its own proper being or reality.”

117.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., § 249, 5o.

118.

Cf. Reinstadler, Ontologia, lib. ii., cap. i., art. ii., § 2.

119.

Zigliara (Ontologia (14), iii. iv.) gives the virtual distinction as a sub-class of the real distinction; adding, however (according to Goudin, Metaph., Disp. i., q. iii. art. ii., § i) that “this virtual distinction is not so much a [real] distinction as the basis of a [mental] distinction”.

120.

op. cit., p. 110.

121.

These may be seen in abundance in the works of any of the scholastic writers, medieval or modern, who discuss the question. Cf., e.g. Urraburu, op. cit., §§ 251-4.

122.

Besides St. Thomas (cf. supra, p. 102, n. 2), Albertus Magnus (1193-1280), Aegidius Romanus († circa 1300), Capreolus (1380-1444), Soncinas († 1494), Cajetan (1468-1534), Sylvester Ferrariensis (1474-1528), Dominicus Bañez (1528-1604), John of St. Thomas (1589-1644), Goudin (1639-95), are among the most noted scholastics to hold this view. It is supported by the members of the Dominican Order generally; and by not a few Jesuits among recent scholastic writers; also by Mercier, op. cit., §§ 48-51.

123.

Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., § 575.

124.

ibid., § 577.

125.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., Disp. iv., cap. i., art. 2, pp. 730-31.

126.

“Esse rei quamvis sit aliud ab ejus essentia, non tamen est intelligendum, quod sit aliquod superadditum, ad modum accidentis, sed quasi constituitur per principia essentiae. Et ideo hoc nomen, quod imponitur ab esse (ens) significat idem cum nomine quod imponitur ab ipsa essentia.”—St. Thomas, In Metaph., L. iv., l. 2.

127.

Among the advocates of this view are Alexander of Hales († 1245), Aureolus († 1322), Durandus († 1332), Gabriel Biel († 1495), Suarez (1548-1617), Toletus (1532-1596), Vasquez (1551-1604), Gregory of Valentia († circa 1600), and the Jesuits generally: some few regarding the distinction as purely logical, e.g. Franzelin (apud Mercier, op. cit., § 47, p. 110, n. 2). For details and arguments on both sides, cf. Urraburu, op. cit., Disp. iv., cap. i., art. 2.

128.

“Compositum ex esse et essentia dicitur de ratione entis creati secundum fundamentum, quod in ipso ente creato habet; hoc autem fundamentum non est aliud nisi quia creatura non habet ex se actu existere, sed tantum est ens potentiale, quod ab alio potest esse participare: nam hinc fit, ut essentia creaturae concipiatur a nobis ut potentiale quid, esse vero ut modus seu actus, quo talis essentia ens in actu constituitur.”—Suarez, Metaph., Disp. xxxi., § 13.

129.

When we speak of an essence as receiving existence, we do not necessarily imply a real distinction between receiver and received: “Non est imaginandum quod una res sit, quae participat sicut essentia, et alia quae participatur sicut esse, sed quia una et eadem res est realitas modo participato et per vim alterius sicut per vim agentis: haec enim realitas de se non est nisi sub modo possibili; quod autem sit et vocari possit actus, hoc habet per vim agentis.”—Alexander of Hales, In Metaph., L. vii., text 22. “Non omne acceptum,” writes St. Thomas, “est receptum in aliquo subjecto; alioquin non posset dici quod tota substantia rei creatae sit accepta a Deo, cum totius substantiae non sit aliquod subjectum receptivum”—Summa Theol., I., q. xxvii., art. ii., ad. 3um.

130.

Cf. Mercier, op. cit., § 49. Some of these doctrines we shall examine later, by way of illustration, in connexion with the Unity of being.

131.

Cf. Urraburu, ibid., art. iii., Obj. 9, Resp.

132.

This view is advocated by, among others, Duns Scotus (1266-1308), Henry of Ghent († 1293), Francis de Vittoria (1480-1566), Dominicus de Soto (1496-1560), Molina (1535-1600), Fonseca (1548-97), and Scotists generally.

133.

Aristotle, Metaph., lib. 5, text ii., cap. 6; St. Thomas, in loc. et alibi.

134.

“Si ... modus entis accipiatur ... secundum divisionem unius ab altero, ... hoc exprimit hoc nomen aliquid, dicitur enim aliquid quasi aliud quid. Unde sicut ens dicitur unum inquantum est indivisum in se, ita dicitur aliquid inquantum est ab aliis diversum.”—St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 1, a. 1.

135.

“Nam omne ens est aut simplex, aut compositum. Quod autem est simplex, est indivisum et actu et potentia. Quod autem est compositum, non habet esse, quamdiu partes ejus sint divisae, sed postquam constituunt et componunt ipsum compositum. Unde manifestum est quod esse cujuslibet rei consistit in indivisione; et inde est, quod unumquodque sicut custodit suum esse, ita custodit suam unitatem.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. xi., a. 1.

136.

“Unum vero quod est principium numeri, addit supra substantiam rationem mensurae, quae est propria passio quantitatis, et primo invenitur in unitate. Et dicitur per privationem vel negationem divisionis, quae est secundum quantitatem continuam. Nam numerus ex divisione continui causatur.”—St. Thomas, In Metaph., lib. 4, lect. 2, par. b.

137.

Those who regard the distinction between the essence and the existence of an actually existing substance as real consider the latter as an ens unum per se. The existence of a real distinction between the essential constitutive factors of a composite substance is universally regarded by scholastics as compatible with essential unity—unitas per se—in the latter. Such factors are really distinct, and separable or divisible, but actually undivided. So also, the union of an individual nature and its subsistence (73) forms a unum per se (unum compositionis) in the view of those who place a real distinction between these factors.

138.

Of course essential unity of composition is also “natural”. Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., §§ 631-8.

139.

“Unum quod convertitur cum ente ponit quidem ipsum ens, sed nihil superaddit, nisi negationem divisionis. Multitudo autem ei correspondens addit supra res, quæ dicuntur multæ, quod unaquæque earum sit una, et quod una earum non sit altera.... Et sic, cum unum addat supra ens unam negationem, secundum quod aliquid est indivisum in se, multitudo addit duas negationes, prout scilicet aliquid est in se indivisum, et prout est ab alio divisum, et unum eorum non esse alterum.”—St. Thomas, De Potent., q. 9, a. 7.

140.

“Sic ergo primo in intellectu nostro cadit ens, et deinde divisio, et post hoc unum quod divisionem privat, et ultimo multitudo quæ ex unitatibus constituitur.”—St. Thomas, In Metaph., lib. 10, lect. 4, par. c.

141.

Omnis pluralitas consequitur aliquam divisionem. Est autem duplex divisio: una materialis quæ fit secundum divisionem continui, et hanc sequitur numerus, qui est species quantitatis. Unde talis numerus, non est nisi in rebus materialibus habentibus quantitatem. Alia est divisio formalis, quæ fit per oppositas vel diversas formas: et hanc divisionem sequitur multitudo quæ non est in aliquo genere, sed est de transcendentibus, secundum quod ens dividitur per unum et multa. Et talem multitudinem solam contingit esse in rebus immaterialibus.—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. xxx., art. 3.

142.

We may confine our attention here to substances, assuming for the present that accidents are individuated by the individual substances in which they inhere. We may note further that it is only corporeal individuals that fall directly within our experience. We can, of course, infer from the latter the actual existence of individual spiritual realities subsisting apart from matter, viz. human souls after death, and also the possibility of purely spiritual individual beings such as angels. But when we conceive these as individuals we must conceive them after the analogy of individuals in the domain of corporeal reality: it is only through concepts derived from this domain, and finding their proper application within it, that we can have any knowledge of suprasensible or spiritual realities, viz. by applying those concepts analogically to the latter.

143.

The “formal-actual” distinction, which Scotists advocate between these grades of being, we shall examine later.

144.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., p. 280: “Principium ... intrinsicum vel formale est aliquid insitum rei, pertinensque ad intrinsecam et ultimam individui constitutionem, et fundans formalitatem illam, quae individitatio dicitur. Sicut enim materia est in homine, v.g. principium et fundamentum propter quod est, ac praedicatur materialis, et forma fundat in eodem praedicatum rationalis, totaque natura composita, humanitas, praedicatum hominis; ita quaerimus quid sit illud primum principium, unde existit in quovis individuo sua peculiaris ac propria individuatio.”

145.

In ancient Greece the Eleatics argued against the possibility of real plurality somewhat in this wise: If there were really different beings any two of them would differ from each other only by some third reality, and this again from each of the former by a fourth and a fifth reality, and so on ad infinitum: which would involve the absurdities of infinite number and infinite regress. A similar argument was used by the medieval pantheist, David of Dinant, to identify God with the material principle of corporeal reality: God and primary matter exist and do not differ; therefore they are identical: for if they differed they should differ by something distinct from either, and this again should differ from both by something distinct from all three, and so on ad infinitum: which is absurd. Such sophisms arise from accepting the purely abstract view of reality as adequate. We have seen already, in dealing with the abstract notion of being, that from this point of view it must be recognized and admitted that the reality whereby things differ (viz. being) is also the reality wherein they agree (viz. being, also). The paradox is restated below in regard to individuation.

146.

Materia ... dupliciter accipitur, scilicet, ut signata et non signata. Et dicitur signata, secundum quod consideratur cum determinatione dimensionum harum scilicet vel illarum; non signata autem, quæ sine determinatione dimensionum consideratur. Secundum hoc igitur est sciendum, quod materia signata est individuationis principium.—St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. ii., art. 6, ad. 7am.

147.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., Disp. ii., cap. 2, § iii., pp. 271-3.

148.

These will easily be found in any of the fuller scholastic treatises. Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., Disp. ii., cap. 2, art. 4. Philosophia Lacencis, Logica, §§ 1282 sqq.; Mercier, Ontologie, §§ 36-42; Kleutgen, Philosophie Scolastique, §§ 610 sqq.; Bulliat, Thæsaurus Philosophiae Thomisticae (Nantes, 1899), pp. 171 sqq.—a useful book of reference for the teaching of St. Thomas.

149.

A kindred view to this is the view that subsistence (“subsistentia,” “suppositalitas”) or personality (“personalitas”) is the principle of individuation. We shall see later in what subsistence or personality is supposed to consist. Here it is sufficient to observe that the individual nature as such has not necessarily subsistence or personality; hence it cannot be individuated by this latter.

150.

The consistent attitude for the Thomist here would, however, appear to be a denial that such a thing would be intrinsically possible.

151.

Hujusmodi relatio non potest consistere nisi in quodam ordine, quem ratio adinvenit alicujus ad seipsum secundum aliquas ejus duas considerationes.—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. xxviii., art. 3, ad. 2am.

152.

Cf. Science of Logic, vol. i., § 59.

153.

It is only the concrete and individual that as such can exist actually; the abstract and universal as such cannot exist actually: abstractness and universality are mental modes—entia rationis—annexed by the mind to the real content of its concepts: considered as thought-objects they are themselves not real entities: they do not affect reality as given to us in our experience. But perhaps concreteness and individuality are also mere mental modes, affecting reality not as given to us in our experience but only as subjected to the process of intellectual conception, or at least as subjected to the process of sense perception? This would appear to be part of the general Kantian theory of knowledge: that we can apprehend reality as concrete and individual only because space and time, which characterize the concrete and individual mode of being, are mental modes which must be applied to reality as a prerequisite condition for rendering the latter capable of apprehension in our experience. This contention is examined in another context. Cf. infra, pp. 145, 147, 151.

154.

Thus the recognition of a virtual distinction in a being is a sign of the relative perfection of the latter: the being involves in its higher sort of unity perfections elsewhere dispersed and separate. The being is of a higher order than if the principles of these perfections in it were really distinct from one another. But the virtual distinction also seems to imply a relative imperfection when it is found in creatures, inasmuch as here the thought-objects so distinguished are always principles of a plurality of really distinct accidental perfections: and real plurality in a being is less perfect than unity.—Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., § 633.

155.

“Omnis cognitio est a potentia et objecto, sive a cognoscente et cognito. Ratio a priori est, quia omnis cognitio saltem creata est expressio et imitatio atque imago vitalis objecti. Inquantum igitur est vitalis, procedit a cognoscente; implicat enim cognoscentem vivere per aliquid, quod ab ipso non est, sed pure illud recipit ab alio mere passive se habendo; inquantum vero cognitio est expressio, imitatio et imago objecti, procedit ab objecto”—Silvester Maurus, Quaest. Philos., q. 2. This is the common scholastic distinction: cognition as a product representative or expressive of reality is a product determined by the influence of reality (as active) on the mind (as passive); cognition as a vital process is active, a reaction of mind to the influence of reality. It may be remarked, however, that the cognitive process, as vital, has always a positive term. Our cognitive processes are partly at least processes of abstracting, comparing, relating, universalizing: processes which produce “intentiones logicas” or “entia rationis,” such as the “intentio universalitatis” the relation of subject to predicate, and other logical relations and logical distinctions: and hence arises the difficulty, when we come to reflect on our cognitive experience, of discriminating between these “logical entities” and the reality which we interpret by means of them: of discriminating, in other words, between logical and real distinctions.

156.

It is not necessary of course that this implicit embodiment of all the others, by any one of them, be seen to be mutual. It is sufficient, for instance, that of the concepts a, b, c and d, a be seen implicitly to involve b, b to involve c, etc., though not vice versa. However, it must be remarked that in the exercise of thought upon its abstract objects we feel something wanting to our intellectual insight as long as the relations we apprehend are not reciprocal. In the sciences of abstract quantity we approximate to the ideal of establishing reciprocal relations throughout the whole system of the concepts analysed. But abstract thought does not give us an adequate apprehension of the real: it represents reality only under the static aspect, and as abstract, i.e. apart from the individualizing conditions of time and space which affect its concrete, actual existence as revealed in sense experience. Were we to neglect the latter, and consider merely what abstract thought gives us, we should regard as really one what is one for thought. But what is one for thought is the universal; and the logical issue of holding the universal as such to be real is monism. Or again, to put the matter in another way, in so far as intellect sees the objects of its various abstract concepts to involve one another necessarily, it has no reason—as long as it ignores the verdict of sense experience on the real manifoldness of actually existing being—to abstain from attributing a real unity to the whole system of abstract thought-objects which it contemplates as reciprocally and necessarily interrelated. On the contrary, it should pronounce that whatever plurality can be unified by the dialectically necessary relations discovered by thought, is really one, and must be regarded as one reality: which, again, is monism. But a philosophy which thus ignores sense experience must be one-sided and misleading.

157.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., Disp. ii., cap. ii., art. 5 (p. 319).

158.

Cf. infra, § 83.

159.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., ibid. p. 322.

160.

St. Thomas, De Ente et Essentia, cap. iv.: “Ideo, si quaeratur utrum ista natura possit dici una vel plures, neutrum concedendum est: quia utrumque est extra intellectum [conceptum] humanitatis, et utrumque potest sibi accidere. Si enim pluralitas esset de ratione ejus, nunquam posset esse una: cum tamen una sit secundum quod est in Sorte. Similiter si unitas esset de intellectu et ratione ejus, tunc esset una et eadem natura Sortis et Platonis, nec posset in pluribus plurificari.” Cf. Zigliara, Summa Philos., Ontologia (1), iv., v.; (3) iv.

161.

“Licet enim (natura) nunquam sit sine aliquo istorum, non tamen est de se aliquod istorum, ita etiam in rerum natura secundum illam entitatem habet verum ‘esse’ extra animam reale: et secundum illam entitatem habet unitatem sibi proportionabilem, quae est indifferens ad singularitatem, ita quod non, repugnat illi unitati de se, quod cum quacumque unitate singularitatis ponatur.”—Scotus, In L. Sent., 2, dist. iii., q. 7.—Cf. De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, p. 372.

162.

Cf. Science of Logic, ii., § 248. Moral truth or veracity—the conformity of language with thought—is treated in Ethics.

163.

Cf. Mercier, Ontologie, P. ii., § 4, i.

164.

Cf. Science of Logic, ii., §§ 252-4.

165.

“Si omnis intellectus (quod est impossibile) intelligeretur auferri, nullo modo ratio veritatis remaneret.”—St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. i., art 1, 2 in fine.

166.

Cf. St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. i., and passim.

167.

St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. i., art. 2.

168.

St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. i., art. 4; Summa Theol., i., q. 16, art. 6.

169.

“Si intellectus humanus non esset, adhuc res dicerentur veræ in ordine ad intellectum divinum. Sed si uterque intellectus, quod est impossibile, intelligeretur auferri, nullo modo ratio veritatis remaneret.”—St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. i., art. 2.

170.

“Si ergo accipiatur veritas rei secundum ordinem ad intellectum divinum, tunc quidem mutatur veritas rei mutablis in aliam veritatem, non in falsitatem.”—St. Thomas, ibid. q. i., art. 6.

171.

Cf. Aristotle, De Anima, iii.; St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. i., art. 1.

172.

“Res per se non fallunt, sed per accidens. Dant enim occasionem falsitatis; eo quod similitudinem eorum gerunt quorum non habent existentiam.... Res notitiam sui facit in anima per ea quae de ipsa exterius apparent ... et ideo quando in aliqua re apparent sensibiles qualitates demonstrantes naturam quae eis non subest, dicitur res illa esse falsa.... Nec tamen res est hoc modo causa falsitatis in anima, quod necessario falsitatem causat.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. 17, art. 1, ad. 2; De Veritate, q. i., art. 10, c.

173.

Καλῶς ἀπεφήναντο τἀγαθὸν, οὖ πάντα ἐφίεται.—Aristotle, Eth., i.

174.

Cf. Science of Logic, ii., § 217.

175.

“Bonum autem, cum habeat notionem appetibilis, importat habitudinem causæ finalis.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. 5, art. 2, ad. 1.

176.

“Prima autem non possunt notificari per aliqua priora, sed notificantur per posteriora, sicut causæ per proprios effectus. Cum autem bonum proprie sit motivum appetitus, describitur bonum per motum appetitus, sicut solet manifestari vis motiva per motum. Et ideo dicit (Aristoteles) quod philosophi bene enunciaverunt bonum esse id quod omnia appetunt.”—St. Thomas, Comment. in Eth. Nich., i., lect. 1a.

177.

The “end,” which is last in the order of actual attainment, is first as the ideal term of the aim or tendency of the nature: finis est ultimus in executione, sed primus in intentione: it is that for the sake of which, and with a view to which, the whole process of actualization or “perfecting” goes on. Cf. infra, § 108.

178.

“Licet bonum et ens sint idem secundum rem; quia tamen differunt secundum rationem, non eodem modo dicitur aliquid ens simpliciter et bonum simpliciter. Nam, cum ens dicat aliquid esse in actu, actus autem proprie ordinem habeat ad potentiam, secundum hoc simpliciter aliquid dicitur esse ens secundum quod primo secernitur ab eo quod est in potentia tantum; hoc autem est esse substantiale rei uniuscujusque. Unde per suum esse substantiale dicitur unumquodque ens simpliciter; per actus autem superadditos dicitur aliquid esse secundum quid.... Sic ergo secundum primum esse, quod est substantiale, dicitur aliquid ens simpliciter et bonum secundum quid, id est, inquantum est ens; secundum vero ultimum actum dicitur aliquid ens secundum quid, et bonum simpliciter.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. 5, art. 1, ad. 1.

179.

“Respectus ... qui importatur nomine boni est habitudo perfectivi secundum quodaliquid natum est perficere non solum secundum rationem speciei [i.e. the abstract essence], sed secundum esse quod habet in rebus; hoc enim modo finis perficit ea quae sunt ad finem.”—St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 26, art. 6.

180.

Cf. the familiar ethical distinction between objective, and formal or subjective happiness, beatitudo objectiva and beatitudo formalis seu subjectiva.

181.

“In motu appetitus, id quod est appetibile terminans motum appetitus secundum quid, ut medium per quod tenditur in aliud, vocatur utile. Id autem quod appetitur ut ultimum terminans totaliter motum appetitus sicut quaedam res in quam per se appetitus tendit, vocatur honestum; quia honestum dicitur quod per se desideratur. Id autem quod terminat motum appetitus, ut quies in se desiderata, est delectabile.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. 5, art. 3.

182.

Excellentia hominis maxime consideratur secundum virtutem, quae est dis positio perfecti ad optimum, ut dicitur in 6 Physic. Et ideo, honestum, proprie loquendo, in idem refertur cum virtute.—ibid., 2a 2ae, q. 145, art. I, c.

183.

“Eorum quae propter se apprehenduntur, quaedam apprehenduntur solum propter se, et nunquam propter aliud, sicut felicitas, quae est ultimus finis; quaedam vero apprehenduntur et propter se, in quantum habent in seipsis aliquam rationem bonitatis, etiamsi nihil aliud boni per ea nobis accideret, et tamen sunt appetibilia propter aliud, in quantum scilicet perducunt nos in aliquod bonum perfectius: et hoc modo virtutes sunt propter se apprehendendae.”—ibid., ad I.

184.

Cf. Mercier, op. cit., p. 236.

185.

“Omnia ... quae jam habent esse, illud esse suum naturaliter amant, et ipsam tota virtute conservant.... Ipsum igitur esse habet rationem boni. Unde sicut impossibile est quod sit aliquod ens quod non habeat esse, ita necesse est quod omne ens sit bonum ex hoc ipso quod habet esse.”—St. Thomas, De Veritate, q. 21, art. 2, c.

186.

“Non-esse secundum se non est appetibile, sed per accidens, inquantum scilicet ablatio alicujus mali est appetibilis; quod malum quidem aufertur per non-esse; ablatio vero mali non est appetibilis, nisi inquantum per malum privatur quoddam esse. Illud igitur, quod per se est appetibile, est esse; non-esse vero, per accidens tantum, inquantum scilicet quoddam esse appetitur, quo homo non sustinet privari; et sic etiam per accidens non-esse dicitur bonum.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. 5, art. 2, ad. 3.

187.

“Malum est defectus boni quod natum est et debet haberi.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. 49, art. 1, c.

188.

ibid.

189.

“Causam formalem malum non habet, sed est magis privatio formae.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. 49, art. 1, c.

190.

“Nec causam finalem habet malum, sed magis est privatio ordinis ad debitum finem.”—ibid.

191.

“Non est causa efficiens sed deficiens mali, quia malum non est effectio sed defectio.”—De Civ. Dei, xii., 7.

192.

“O, altitudo divitiarum sapientiae, et scientiae Dei! Quam incomprehensibilia sunt judicia ejus, et investigabiles viae ejus!”—Rom. xi., 33.

193.

Connected with the transcendental notion of unity is another concept, that of order, which will be more fully examined when we come to treat of causes.

194.

Baumgarten, a German philosopher of the eighteenth century, was the first to use the term Aesthetica in this sense.

195.

“Dicendum est quod pulchrum est idem bono sola ratione differens. Cum enim bonum sit quod omnia appetunt, de ratione boni est, quod in eo quietetur appetitus; sed ad rationem pulchri attinet quod in ejus aspectu seu cognitione quietetur appetitus; unde et illi sensus præcipue respiciunt pulchrum, qui maxime cognoscitivi sunt, scilicet visus et auditus rationi deservientes; dicimus enim pulchra visibilia et pulchros sonos; in sensibilibus autem aliorum sensuum non utimur nomine pulchritudinis; non enim dicimus pulchros sapores, aut odores.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., ia. iiæ., q. 27, art. 1, ad. 3.

196.

“Ad rationem pulchri pertinet, quod in ejus aspectu seu cognitione quietetur appetitus ... ita quod pulchrum dicatur id, cujus ipsa apprehensio placet.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., ia. iiæ., q. 27, art. 1, ad. 3. And the Angelic Doctor justifies the extended use of the term vision: “De aliquo nomine dupliciter convenit loqui, uno modo secundum ejus primam impositionem, alio modo secundum usum nominis, sicut patet in nomine visionis, quod primo impositum est ad significandum actum sensus visus; sed propter dignitatem et certitudinem hujus sensus extensum est hoc nomen, secundum usum loquentium, ad omnem cognitionem aliorum sensuum; dicimus enim: Vide quomodo sapit, vel quomodo redolet, vel quomodo est calidum; et ulterius etiam ad cognitionem intellectus, secundum illud Matt. v. 8: Beati mundi corde quoniam ipsi Deum videbunt.”—i., q. 67, art. 1, c.

197.

“Pulchrum et bonum in subjecto quidem sunt idem, quia super eandem rem fundantur, scilicet super formam, et propter hoc bonum laudatur ut pulchrum: sed ratione differunt: nam bonum proprie respicit appetitum: ... et ideo habet rationem finis.... Pulchrum autem respicit vim cognoscitivam: pulchra enim dicuntur quæ visa placent.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. 5, art. 4, ad. 1.

198.

Cf. De Wulf, La Valeur esthétique de la moralité dans l'art, pp. 28-9.

199.

L'Art et la Morale, p. 29.

200.

De la connaissance de Dieu et de soi-même, ch. i., § 8.

201.

De Vera Religione, c. 32.

202.

Cf. Poincaré, Conférence sur les rapports de l'analyse et de la physique mathematique.—apud Mercier, Ontologie, § 274, pp. 546-7 n.

203.

When the object so excels in greatness or grandeur as to exceed more or less our capacity to realize it we speak of it as sublime. The sublime calls forth emotions of self-abasement, reverence, and even fear. If an object possessing the other requisites of beauty is wanting in due magnitude, we describe it as pretty or elegant. The terms grace, graceful, apply especially to gait, gesture, movement.

204.

On this point all the great philosophers are unanimous. For Plato, beauty whether of soul or of body, whether of animate or of inanimate things, results not from chance, but from order, rectitude, art: οὐχ οὕτως εἰκῆ κάλλιστα παραγίγνεται ἀλλὰ τάξει και ὀρθότητι καὶ τέχνῃ, ἥτις ἑκάστῳ ἀποδέδοται αὐτῶν (Plato, Gorg. 506D). Aristotle places beauty in grandeur and order: Τὸ γὰρ καλὸν ἐν μεγέθει καὶ τάξει ἐστί (Poetics, ch. viii., n. 8). Τοῦ δὲ καλοῦ μέγιστα ἐίδη τάξις καὶ συμμετρία καὶ τὸ ὡρισμένον (Metaph., xii., ch. iii., n. 11). “Nihil,” writes St. Augustine, “est ordinatum quod non sit pulchrum.” “Pulchra,” says St. Thomas, “dicuntur quae visa placent; unde pulchrum in debita proportione consistit” (Summa Theol., i., q. 5, art. 4, ad. 1).

205.

“Ad pulchritudinem tria requiruntur; primo quidem integritas sive perfectio; quae enim diminuta sunt, hoc ipso turpia sunt; et debita proportio sive consonantia; et iterum claritas.”—Summa Theol., i., q. 39, art. 8, c. Elsewhere he omits integrity, supposing it implied in order: “ad rationem pulchri sive decori concurrit et claritas et debita proportio”. And elsewhere again he omits clarity, this being a necessary effect of order: “pulchrum in debita proportione consistit”.

206.

By “natural perfection” is meant the perfection which a nature acquires by the realization of its end (5): Τέλειον δὲ τὸ ἔχον τέλος (Aristotle).

207.

This definition coincides with that found in a medieval scholastic treatise De Pulchro et Bono, attributed to St. Thomas or Albertus Magnas: “Ratio pulchri in universali consistit in resplendentia formae super partes materiae proportionatas, vel super diversas vires vel actiones.” Cf. Mercier, Ontologie, p. 554.

208.

L'Idée du beau dans la philosophie de S. Thomas d'Aquin, p. 2.

209.

Du Vrai, du Beau et du Bien, viie leçon.

210.

Kritik der Urtheilskraft, Th. i., Abschn. 1, B. 1, passim.

211.

“Omnis corporea creatura ... bonum est infimum, et in genere suo pulchrum quoniam forma et specie continetur.”—St. Augustine, De Vera Relig., c. 20.

212.

At the same time it must be borne in mind that many of the judgments by which things are pronounced “ugly” or “commonplace” are erroneous. This is partly because they are based on first and superficial sense impressions: beauty must be apprehended and judged by the intellect, and by the intellect “informed” with genuine knowledge; to the eye of enlightened intelligence there are beauties of structure and organization in the beetle or the tadpole as well as in the peacock or the spaniel. It is partly, too, because we unconsciously or semi-consciously apply standards of human beauty to beings that are merely animal: “To know really whether there are ugly monkeys we should have to consult a monkey; for the beauty we unconsciously look for, and certainly do not find, in the monkey, is the beauty of the human form; and when we declare the monkey ugly what we really mean is that it would be ugly if it were a human being; which is undeniable.”—Sully-Prudhomme, L'Expression dans les beaux arts, p. 104.

213.

Proverbs, xxxi. 30.

214.

St. Thomas, Summa Theol., ia, iiae, q. 57, art. 3, c.

215.

Cf. Science of Logic, i., §§ 70 sqq.

216.

Cf. Windelband, History of Philosophy (tr. Tufts), Introduction.

217.

Cf. Science of Logic, ii. P. iv., ch. v.

218.

Metaph., vi., 1.

219.

Cf. St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. 90, art. 2: “Illud proprie dicitur esse quod ipsum habet esse quasi in suo esse subsistens. Unde solæ substantiæ proprie et vere dicuntur entia; accidens vero non habet esse sed eo aliquid est, et hac ratione ens dicitur ... accidens dicitur magis entis quam ens.”

220.

In Metaph., L. v., lect. 9; cf. In Physic., L. iii., lect. 5.

221.

Science of Logic, i., §§ 71, 73-76.

222.

ibid., §§ 74, 76.

223.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., § 268 (p. 668); Mercier, Logique, § 33 (4th edit., p. 99).

224.

Cf. St. Thomas, In Metaph., L. xi., lect. 9: “Sed sciendum est quod prædicamenta diversificantur secundum diversos modos prædicandi. Unde idem, secundum quod diversimode de diversis prædicatur, ad diversa prædicamenta pertinet.... Similiter motus secundum quod prædicatur de subjecto in quo est, constituit prædicamentum passionis. Secundum autem quod prædicatur de eo a quo est, constituit prædicamentum actionis.”

225.

Ontologie, § 138 (3rd edit., p. 263).

226.

Cf. Essay concerning Human Understanding, book iv., ch. vi., § 11: “Had we such ideas of substances, as to know what real constitutions produce those sensible qualities we find in them, and how these qualities flowed from thence, we could, by the specific ideas of their real essences in our own minds, more certainly find out their properties, and discover what properties they had or had not, than we can now by our senses: and to know the properties of gold, it would be no more necessary that gold should exist, than it is necessary for the knowing the properties of a triangle, that the triangle should exist in any matter; the idea in our minds would serve for the one as well as the other.”

227.

“Sensation convinces us that there are solid, extended substances; and reflection, that there are thinking ones: experience assures us of the existence of such beings.”—ibid., book ii., ch. xxiii., § 29. Locke protested repeatedly against the charge that he denied the existence of substances.

228.

The notion one has of pure substance is “only a supposition of he knows not what support of such qualities, which are capable of producing simple ideas in us; which qualities are commonly called accidents.... The idea then we have, to which we give the general name substance, being nothing but the supposed, but unknown support of those qualities we find existing, which we imagine cannot subsist, ‘sine re substante,’ without something to support them, we call that support substantia.”—book ii., ch. xxiii., § 2. In the following passage we may detect the idealistic insinuation that knowledge reaches only to “ideas” or mental states, not to the extramental reality, the “secret, abstract nature of substance”: “Whatever therefore be the secret abstract nature of substance in general, all the ideas we have of particular distinct sorts of substances, are nothing but several combinations of simple ideas, co-existing in such, though unknown, cause of their union, as makes the whole subsist of itself”. It belongs, of course, to the Theory of Knowledge, not to the Theory of Being, to show how groundless the idealistic assumption is.

229.

Inquiring into the causes of our “impressions” and “ideas,” he admits the existence of “bodies” which cause them and “minds” which experience them: “We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but 'tis vain to ask, Whether there be body or not? That is a point, which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.”—A Treatise on Human Nature, Part iv., § ii.

230.

Of the definition of a substance as something which may exist by itself, he says: “this definition agrees to everything that can possibly be conceiv'd; and will never serve to distinguish substance from accident, or the soul from its perceptions.... Since all our perceptions are different from each other, and from everything else in the universe, they are also distinct and separable, and may be consider'd as separately existent, and may exist separately, and have no need of anything else to support their existence. They are, therefore, substances, as far as this definition explains a substance.”—ibid., § v. “We have no perfect idea of substance, but ... taking it for something that can exist by itself, 'tis evident every perception is a substance, and every distinct part of a perception a distinct substance.”—ibid.

231.

Cf. Mercier, op. cit., § 142 (p. 272).

232.

Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., Dissert. vi., ch. iii., li, § 592.

233.

Assuming for the moment that we can know substance to be not one but manifold: that experience reveals to us a plurality of numerically or really, and even specifically and generically, distinct substances. Cf. infra, p. 221.

234.

Cf. Huxley, Hume, bk. ii., ch. ii. Taine, De L'Intelligence, t. i., Preface, and passim.

235.

Cf. § 65, infra.

236.

Such terms as “corruptible,” “destructible,” etc., imply certain attributes of a thing which can be corrupted, destroyed. Conceiving this attribute in the abstract we form the terms “corruptibility,” “destructibility,” etc. So, too, the term “possibility” formed from the adjective “possible,” simply implies in the abstract what the latter implies in the concrete—an active or passive power of a thing to cause or to become something; or else the mind's conception of the non-repugnance of this something. To substantialize a possibility, therefore, is sufficiently absurd; but to speak of a possibility as real and at the same time to deny the reality of any subject in which it would have its reality, is no less so.

237.

except in the Blessed Eucharist: here we know from Divine Revelation that the accidents of bread and wine exist apart from their connatural substance. We cannot, by the light of reason, prove positively the possibility of such separate existence of accidents; at the most, men of the supreme genius of an Aristotle may have strongly suspected such possibility, and may have convinced themselves of the futility of all attempts to prove in any way the impossibility of such a condition of things. Nor can we, even with the light of Revelation, do any more than show the futility of such attempts, thus negatively defending the possibility of what we know from Revelation to be a fact.

238.

Cf. n. 1.

239.

Cf. Maher, Psychology, ch. xxii., for a full analysis and refutation of phenomenist theories that would deny the substantiality of the human person.

240.

“Substantia est res, cujus naturae debetur esse non in alio; accidens vero est res, cujus naturae debetur esse in alio.”—Quodlib., ix., a. 5, ad. 2.

241.

Cf. Descartes, Oeuvres, edit. Cousin, tome ix., p. 166—apud Mercier, Ontologie, p. 280.

242.

Paulsen, Einleitung in die Philosophie, Berlin, 1896, S. 135—apud Mercier, loc. cit.

243.

and also appetitive; as in mental life appetition is a natural consequent of perception. It is in accordance with this latter idea that Wundt conceives all reality as being in its ultimate nature appetitive activity: the Ego is a “volitional unit” and the universe a “collection of volitional units”.—Cf. Wundt, System der Philosophie, Leipzig, 1889, S. 415-421.

244.

Principles of Psychology, Pt. ii., ch. i., § 59.

245.

But from Descartes' doctrine of two passive substances so antithetically opposed to each other the transition to Spinozism was easy and obvious. If mind and matter are so absolutely opposed as thought and extension, how can they unite to form one human individual in man? If both are purely passive, and if God alone puts into them their conscious states and their mechanical movements respectively, what remains proper to each but a pure passivity that would really be common to both? Would it not be more consistent then to refer this thought-essence or receptivity of conscious activities, and this extension-essence or receptivity of mechanical movements, to God as their proper source, to regard them as two attributes of His unique and self-existent substance, and thus to regard God as substantially immanent in all phenomena, and these as only different expressions of His all-pervading essence? This is what Spinoza did; and his monism in one form or other is the last word of many contemporary philosophers on the nature of the universe which constitutes the totality of human experience.—Cf. Höffding, Outlines of Psychology, ch. ii., and criticism of same apud Maher, Psychology, ch. xxiii.

246.

“Esse substantiæ non dependet ab esse alterius sicut ei inhærens, licet omnia dependeant a Deo sicut a causa prima.”—St. Thomas, De Causa Materiæ, cap. viii.

247.

Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit. § 594.

248.

Ibid., §§ 597-600.

249.

“Illud proprie dicitur esse, quod ipsum habet esse, quasi in suo esse subsistens. Unde solæ substantiæ proprie et vere dicuntur entia; accidens vero non habet esse, sed eo aliquid est, et hac ratione ens dicitur: sicut albedo dicitur ens quia ea aliquid est album. Et propter hoc dicitur in Metaph., l. 7 [al. 6], c. i. [Arist.], quod accidens dicitur magis entis quam ens.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i. q. 90, art. 2. “Illud cui advenit accidens, est ens in se completum consistens in suo esse, quod quidem esse naturaliter præcedit accidens, quod supervenit: et ideo accidens superveniens, ex conjunctione sui cum eo, cui supervenit, non causat illud esse in quo res subsistit per quod res est ens per se: sed causat quoddam esse secundum, sine quo res subsistens intelligi potest esse, sicut primum potest intelligi sine secundo, vel prædicatum sine subjecto. Unde ex accidente et subjecto non fit unum per se, sed unum per accidens, et ideo ex eorum conjunctione non resultat essentia quædam, sicut ex conjunctione formæ cum materia: propter quod accidens neque rationem completæ essentiæ habet, neque pars completæ essentiæ est, sed sicut est ens secundum quid, ita et essentiam secundum quid habet.”—De Ente et Essentia, ch. vii.

250.

“Non est definitio substantiæ, ens per se sine subjecto, nec definitio accidentis, ens in subjecto; sed quidditati seu essentiæ substantiæ competit habere esse non in subjecto; quidditati autem sive essentiæ accidentis competit habere esse in subjecto.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., iii., q. 77, art. 1, ad. 2.

251.

Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., §§ 595-596.

252.

ibid., § 619.

253.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., §§ 320-325.

254.

Kleutgen, op. cit., §§ 618, 624.

255.

This logical usage is applied equally to attributes of a logical subject which is not itself a substance but an accident; it turns solely on the point whether the concept of the logical predicate of a judgment is or is not connected by an absolute logical connexion, a connexion of thought, with the concept of the logical subject.

256.

Cf. St. Thomas, Quaest. Disp., De Spir. Creat., art. 11, ad. 7.

257.

Cf., however, § 68, p. 246, n. 2, infra.

258.

St. Thomas, whose language is usually so moderate, thus expresses his view of the doctrine afterwards propounded by Descartes when the latter declared the essence of the soul to be thought: “Quidquid dicatur de potentiis animae, tamen nullus unquam opinatur, nisi insanus, quod habitus et actus animae sint ipsa ejus essentia.”—Quaest. Disp., De Spir. Creat., art. 11, ad 1. For a very convincing treatment of this question, cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., §§ 625-626.

259.

De San, Cosmologia, § 323, apud Mercier, op. cit., § 158.

260.

op. cit., § 625.

261.

St. Thomas, Summa Theol., iii., q. 17, art. 2, c.

262.

Hence St. Thomas says, in regard to the Blessed Eucharist, that the accidents of bread and wine had not an existence of their own as long as the substance of bread and wine was there; that this is true of accidents generally; that it is not they that exist, but rather their subjects; that their function is to determine these subjects to exist as characterized in a certain way, as whiteness gives snow a white existence: “Dicendum quod accidentia panis et vini, manente substantia panis et vini non habebant ipsa esse sicut nec alia accidentia, sed subjecta eorum habebant hujusmodi esse per ea, sicut nix est alba per albedinem.”—Summa Theol., iii., q. 77, art. 1, ad. 4.

263.

For the arguments on both sides cf. Mercier, Ontologie, § 156 (pp. 308 sqq.). The indirect argument which the author derives from the fact that the Divine Concursus is necessary for the activity of creatures, while offering an intelligible explanation of this necessity on Thomistic principles, does not touch the probability of other explanations.

264.

Cf. Urraburu's definition: “entitas vel realitas a subjecto realiter distincta, cujus totum esse consistit in ultima determinatione rei ad aliquod munus obeundum, vel ad aliquam realem denominationem actu habendam, sine qua, saltem in individuo sumpta, res eadem potest existere absolute”.—op. cit., § 120 (p. 380).

265.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., § 291 (p. 854, quarta opinio), p. 854.

266.

Whether immanent vital acts—especially of the spiritual faculties in man: thoughts, volitions, etc.—are mere modes, or whether they are absolute accidents, having their own proper and positive reality which perfects their subject by affecting it, is a disputed question. Habits, acquired by repetition of such acts, e.g. knowledge and virtue, belonging as they do to the category of quality, are more than mere modalities of the human subject: they have an absolute, positive entity, whereby they add to the total perfection of the latter.

267.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., § 121 (pp. 386 sqq.).

268.

The fact that Aristotle [Metaph., lib. vii. (al. vi.), ch. iii.] seems to have placed a real distinction between extension and corporeal substance, while he could not have suspected the absolute separability of the former from the latter, would go to show that he did not regard separability as the only test of a real distinction. Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., ibid.

269.

Obviously we are not concerned herewith all the attributes which by a necessity of thought we ascribe to an essence, e.g. the corruptibility of a corporeal substance, or the immortality of a spiritual substance. These are not entities really distinct from the substance, but only aspects which we recognize to be necessary corollaries of its nature. We are concerned only with properties which are real powers, faculties, forces, aptitudes of things.—Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., § 627.

270.

op. cit., § 628.

271.

“Tertii sunt, qui dicunt, quod potentiae animae nec adeo sunt idem ipsi animae, sicut sunt ejus principia intrinsica et essentialia, nec adeo diversae, ut cedant in aliud genus, sicut accidentia; sed in genere substantiae sunt per reductionem ... et ideo quasi medium tenentes inter utramque opinionem dicunt, quasdam animae potentias sic differre ad invicem, ut nullo modo dici possint una potentia: non tamen concedunt, eas simpliciter diversificari secundum essentiam, ita ut dicantur diversae essentiae, sed differre essentialiter in genere potentiae, ita ut dicantur diversa instrumenta ejusdem substantiae.”—In lib. ii., dist. xxiv., p. 1, art. 2, q. 1. In the same context he explains what we are to understand by referring anything to a certain category per reductionem: “Sunt enim quaedam, quae sunt in genere per se, aliqua per reductionem ad idem genus. Illa per se sunt in genere, quae participant essentiam completam generis, ut species et individua; illa vero per reductionem, quae nan dicunt completam essentiam.... Quaedam reducuntur sicut principia ... aut essentialia, sicut sunt materia et forma in genere substantiae; aut integrantia, sicut partes substantiae.... Quaedam reducuntur sicut viae ... aut sicut viae ad res, et sic motus et mutationes, ut generatio, reducuntur ad substantiam; aut sicut viae a rebus, et sic habent reduci potentiae ad genus substantiae. Prima enim agendi potentia, quae egressum dicitur habere ab ipsa substantia, ad idem genus reducitur, quae non adeo elongatur ab ipsa substantia, ut dicat aliam essentiam completam.”—ibid., ad. 8.

272.

“Quoniam potentia creaturae arctata est, non potuit creatura habere posse perfectum, nisi esset in ea potentiarum multitudo, ex quarum collectione sive adunatione, una supplente defectum alterius, resultaret unum posse completum, sicut manifeste animadverti potest in organis humani corporis, quorum unumquodque indiget a virtute alterius adjuvari.”—In lib. ii., dist. xxiv., p. 1, art. 2, q. 8.

273.

The student will find in Maher's Psychology (ch. iii.) a clear and well-reasoned exposition of the inconsistency and groundlessness of such attacks on the doctrine of faculties.

274.

Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., § 636-637.

275.

“Cum corpus hominis aut cujuslibet alterius animalis sit quoddam totum naturale, dicit unum ex eo quod unam formam habeat qua perficitur non solum secundum aggregationem aut compositionem, ut accidit in domo et in aliis hujusmodi. Unde opportet quod quaelibet pars hominis et animalis recipiat esse [i.e. sibi proprium] et speciem ab anima sicut a propria forma. Unde Philosophus dicit (l. ii. de anima, text. 9), quod recedente anima neque oculus neque caro neque aliqua pars manet nisi aequivoce.”—St. Thomas, Quaest. Disp. de anima, art. 10—apud Kleutgen, op. cit., § 632.

276.

The most perfect real unity is of course that which includes all perfection in the simplicity of its actual essence, without any dispersion or plurality of its being, without any admixture of accident or potentiality. Such is the unity of the Infinite Being alone. No finite being possesses its actuality tota simul. And the creature falls short of perfect unity in proportion as it attains to this actuality only by a multiplicity of real changes, by a variety of really distinct principles and powers, essential and accidental, in its concrete mode of being. In proportion as created things are higher or lower in the scale of being (47), they realize a higher or a lower grade of unity in their mode of individual existence.

277.

We are concerned here only with finite, created substances, as distinct from the Divine Uncreated Substance on whom these depend (64).

278.

Aristotle, Categ. ch. iii., passim; Metaph., l. v. (al. vi.), ch. viii.; St. Thomas, In Metaph., l. v. lect. 10; Kleutgen, op. cit., § 589-591.

279.

Cf. Kleutgen, op. cit., §§ 587, 602-603.

280.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., §§ 277, 279.

281.

Cf. Science of Logic, ii., § 217 (pp. 66 sqq.).

282.

Sciendum est quod nomen naturae significat quodlibet principium intrinsicum motus; secundum quod Philosophus dicit quod natura est principium motus in eo in quo est per se, et non secundum accidens.—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., iii., q. 2, art. 1 in c.

283.

And here we are reminded of the view of many medieval scholastics of high authority, that the same material entity can have at the same time a plurality of formative principles or substantial forms of different grades of perfection.

284.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., § 282 (p. 825).

285.

For want of a more appropriate rendering we translate the Latin term suppositum (Gr. ὑπόστασις) by the phrase “subsisting thing”; though the classical terms are really generic: suppositum being a genus of which there are two species, suppositum irrationale (“thing” or “subsisting thing”) and suppositum rationale (“person”).—Cf. infra, pp. 265-6.

286.

Complete in every way: in substantial and in specific perfections. The separated soul, though it is an existing individual substance, retains its essential communicability to its connatural material principle, the body. Hence it has not “subsistence,” it is not a “person”.—Cf. infra, p. 264.

287.

“Per se agere convenit per se existenti. Sed per se existens quandoque potest dici aliquid, si non sit inhærens ut accidens, vel ut forma materialis, etiamsi sit pars. Sed proprie et per se subsistens dicitur quod neque est praedicto modo inhærens neque est pars. Secundum quem modum oculus aut manus non potest dici per se subsistens, et per consequens nec per se operans. Unde et operationes partium attribuuntur toti per partes. Dicimus enim quod homo videt per oculum et palpat per manum.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., i., q. 75, art. 2, ad. 2.

288.

Cf. preceding note. St. Thomas continues: “Potest igitur dici quod anima intelligit, sicut oculus videt, sed magis proprie dicitur quod homo intelligat per animam” (ibid.); and elsewhere he writes: “Dicendum quod anima est pars humanae speciei [i.e. naturae]. Et ideo, licet sit separata, quia tamen retinet naturam unibilitatis, non potest dici substantia individua quae est hypostasis vel substantia prima, sicut nec manus, nec quaecumque alia partium hominis; et sic non competit ei neque definitio personae, neque nomen.”—Summa Theol., i., q. 29, art. 1, ad. 5.

289.

Cf. Science of Logic, i., §§ 54-5.

290.

All created subsisting things and persons depend, of course, essentially on the Necessary Being for their existence and for their activity. This Necessary Being we know from Revelation to be Triune, Three in Persons, One in Nature. The subsistence of each Divine Person of the Blessed Trinity excludes all modes of dependence.

291.

“Hoc ... quod est per se agere, excellentiori modo convenit substantiis rationalis naturae quam aliis. Nam solae substantiae rationales habent dominium sui actus, ita quod in eis est agere et non agere; aliae vero substantiae magis aguntur quam agunt. Et ideo conveniens fuit ut substantia individua rationalis naturae speciale nomen haberet.”—St. Thomas, Quaest. Disp. de Potentia, q. ix., art. 1, ad. 3.

292.

Cf. Billot, De Verbo Incarnato, q. ii.—apud Mercier, op. cit., § 151 (pp. 299-300).

293.

Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., § 291, for an exhaustive list of the authorities in favour of each of the various views propounded in this present context.

294.

“Natura singularis et integra per se consituitur in sua independentia, non aliquo positivo addito ultra illam entitatem positivam, qua est haec natura.”—Scotus, iii., Dist. i. q. 1, n. 9 and n. 11, ad. 3. Cf. Suarez, Metaph., Disp. xxxiv. § 2; Kleutgen, op. cit., § 616; Franzelin, De verbo Incarnato, Th. xxix.

295.

op. cit., § 293 (p. 861).

296.

Neither is it a natural union in the sense of being due to the human nature; it is wholly undue to the latter, and is in this sense supernatural.

297.

op. cit., § 293 (p. 861).

298.

ibid. Farther on (p. 863) he says it is certain that the Divine Nature of the Word is substantially united with humanity in a unity of person or subsistence: “certum est eamdem [naturam divinam] substantialiter uniri cum humanitate in unitate suppositi;” and for this he considers that the human nature must be incomplete “in ratione personae”. But this proves nothing; for of course the human nature must be wanting in personality. But it is complete as a nature. Nor does the aphorism he quotes—“Quidquid substantiae in sua specie completae accedit, accidens est,”—apply to subsistence or personality supervening on a complete substance.

299.

“Humanitas illa [scil. Christi], quamvis completa in esse naturae, non tamen habet ultimum complementum in genere substantiae cum in se non subsistat.”—ibid., § 296 (p. 866).

300.

This view, which has many supporters, is clearly explained and ably defended by Mercier in his Ontologie, § 151 (pp. 298-302), § 52 (pp. 134-5), § 49 (p. 127, n. 1).

301.

Cf. Mercier, op. cit., § 49 (p. 127, n. 1).

302.

Hence Urraburu gives this real definition of subsistence: ultimus naturae terminus in ordine substantiali sive in ratione existentis per se: the ultimate term (or determination) of a nature in the order of substantiality or of “existing by itself”—op. cit., § 296 (p. 866).

303.

“Sicut enim modus accidentalis figurae terminat quantitatem, et modus ubicationis constituit rem hic et non alibi, ita modus substantialis personalitatis terminans naturam reddit illam incommunicabilem alieno supposito.”—Urraburu, op. cit., § 291 (p. 854).

304.

The terms “Self,” “Ego,” and “Person” we take to be identical in reference to the human individual. The mind is not the Ego, self, or person, but only a part of it.—Cf. Maher, Psychology, ch. vi., p. 104.

305.

Cf. Maher, Psychology, ch. xvii.

306.

ibid., p. 365.

307.

Cf. Maher, Psychology, p. 363.

308.

Cf. Maher, Psychology, p. 365 (italics in last sentence ours).

309.

Cf. Rickaby, First Principles, p. 370.

310.

Cf. Maher, ibid., pp. 487-92; Mercier, Psychologie, ii., pp. 197-224 (6th edit.); Ontologie, § 153 (p. 304).

311.

There are cogent theological reasons also against the view that consciousness constitutes personality. For instance, the human nature of our Divine Lord has its own proper consciousness, which, nevertheless, does not constitute this nature a person.

312.

Essay Concerning Human Understanding, bk. ii., ch. xxvii.

313.

“That being then one plant which has such an organization of parts in one coherent body partaking of one common life, it continues to be the same plant as long as it continues to partake of the same life, though that life be communicated to different particles of matter vitally united to the living plant, in a like continued organization conformable to that sort of plants.... “The case is not so much different in brutes, but that anyone may hence see what makes an animal and continues it the same.... “This also shows wherein the identity of the same man consists: viz. in nothing but a participation of the same continued life, by constantly fleeting particles of matter, in succession vitally united to the same organized body.... For if the identity of soul alone makes the same man, and there be nothing in the nature of matter why the same individual spirit may be united [i.e. successively] to different bodies, it will be possible that ... men living in distant ages, and of different tempers, may have been the same man....”—Essay Concerning Human Understanding, bk. ii. ch. xxvii. § 4-6. Yet though “identity of soul” does not make “the same man,” Locke goes on immediately to assert that identity of consciousness, which is but a function of the soul, makes the same person.

314.

Essay Concerning Human Understanding, bk. ii., ch. xxvii., § 7. Names do not stand for ideas or concepts but for conceived realities; and the question here is: What is the conceived reality (in the existing human individual) for which the term “person” stands?

315.

ibid., § 9.

316.

Essay Concerning Human Understanding, bk. ii., ch. xxvii., §§ 13, 14.

317.

Essay Concerning Human Understanding, bk. ii., ch. xxvii., § 13.

318.

For a searching criticism of such theories of the Ego or human person, cf. Maher, Psychology, ch. xxii.

319.

ibid., § 19.

320.

p. 276.

321.

Cf. Maher's criticism of Professor James' theory on double personality (op. cit., ch. xxii., pp. 491-2): “Professor James devotes much space to these 'mutations' of the Ego, yet overlooks the fact that they are peculiarly fatal, not to his adversaries, but to his own theory that ‘the present thought is the only thinker,’ and that seeming identity is sufficiently preserved by each thought 'appropriating' and ‘inheriting’ the contents of its predecessor. The difficulties presented to this process of inheritance by such facts as sleep and swooning have been already dwelt upon [cf. ibid., p. 480 (c)]; but here they are if possible increased. The last conscious thought of, say, Felida 2 has to transmit its gathered experience not to its proximate conscious successor, which is Felida 1, but across seven months of vacuum until on the extinction of Felida 1 the next conscious thought which constitutes Felida 2 is born into existence. If the single personality is hard for Mr. James to explain, ‘double-personality’ at least doubles his difficulties.”

322.

Cf. infra, § 82.

323.

Ποιότητα δὲ λέγω, καθ᾽ ἤν ποιοί τινες εἰναι λέγονται.—Categ., ch. iv. Cf. St. Thomas: “Haec est ratio formalis qualitatis, per quam respondemus interroganti qualis res sit.”

324.

The other accidents, e.g. actio and passio, in so far as they change the perfection of the substance, do so only by producing qualities in it. Quantity, which is the connatural accident of all corporeal substance, adds of itself no special complement or degree of accidental perfection to the latter, in the sense of disposing (or indisposing) the latter for the attainment of the full and final perfection due to its specific nature; but only in the sense that it supposes more or less of that kind of substance to exist, or in the sense in which it is understood to include the qualities of which it may be the immediate subject.—Cf. Urraburu, op. cit., § 326.

325.

In Praedicamenta, ch. i.

326.

Cf. Maher, Psychology, ch. xii, xiii, xxiii, xxv. Bergson rightly recognizes the irreducibility of quality to quantity (Essai sur les données immediates de la conscience, passim). But he wrongly infers from this “fundamental antinomy,” as he calls it, the existence, in each human individual, of a two-fold Ego, a deeper self where all is quality, and a superficial self which projects conscious states, in static and numerical isolation from one another, into a homogeneous space where all is quantitative, mathematical. The reasonable inference is merely that the human mind recognizes in the data of its experience a certain richness and variety of modes of real being.

327.

Metaph. V., ch. xiv., where the four groups are finally reduced to two.

328.

Summa Theol., ia, iiae, q. 49, art. 2.

329.

To be distinguished from the passio which is correlative of actio and which consists in the actual undergoing of the latter, the actual reception of the accidental form which is the term of the latter.

330.

“Inter omnes qualitates, figurae maxime sequuntur et demonstrant speciem rerum. Quod maxime in plantis et animalibus patet, in quibus nullo certiori indicio diversitas specierum dijudicari potest, quam diversitate figurae.”—St. Thomas, In VII. Physic, lect. 5.

331.

Every natural habit, as we have just seen, has an essential relation to activity. Every such habit inheres immediately in some operative faculty, as science in the intellect, or justice in the will. All natural habits are operative. There is, however, as we know from Divine Revelation, an “entitative” habit, a habitus entitativus, which affects the substance itself of the human soul, ennobling its natural mode of being and so perfecting it as to raise it to a higher or supernatural plane of being, to an order of existence altogether undue to its nature: the supernaturally infused habit of sanctifying grace.

332.

Eth. Eud., ii., 2.

333.

“Vires naturales non agunt operationes suas mediantibus aliquibus habitibus, quia secundum seipsas sunt determinatae ad unum.”—Summa Theol., ia iiæ, q. 49, art. 4, ad 2.

334.

“Intellectus ... est subjectum habitus. Illi enim competit esse subjectum habitus quod est in potentia ad multa; et hoc maxime competit intellectui....”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., ia, iie, q. 50, art. 4, ad. 1. “Omnis potentia quae diversimode potest ordinari ad agendum, indiget habitu, quo bene disponatur ad suum actum. Voluntas autem cum sit potentia rationalis, diversimode potest ad agendum ordinari: et ideo oportet in voluntate aliquem habitum ponere, quo bene disponatur ad suum actum ...,”—ibid. art. 5, in c.

335.

“Habitualis dispositio requiritur ubi subjectum est in potentia ad multa. Operationes vero quae sunt ab anima per corpus, principaliter quidem sunt ipsius animae, secundario vero ipsius corporis. Habitus autem proportionantur operationibus; unde ex similibus actibus similes habitus causantur, ut dicitur in 2 Ethic., cap. 1 et 2; in corpore vero possunt esse secundario, inquantum scilicet corpus disponitur et habilitatur ad prompte deserviendum operationibus animae.”—Summa Theol., ia iiæ, q. 49, art. 1, in c.

336.

Cf. St. Thomas, ibid., q. 50, art. 1.—Mercier, Ontologie, § 164.

337.

According to the scholastic theory of matter and form the matter must be predisposed by certain qualities for the reception of a given substantial form. The chemical elements which form a compound will not do so in any and every condition, but only when definitely disposed and brought together under favourable conditions. These elementary qualities, considered in themselves, are not habits or dispositions: “Unde qualitates simplices elementorum, quae secundum unum modum determinatum naturis elementorum conveniunt, non dicimus dispositiones vel habitus, sed simplices qualitates.”—St. Thomas, ibid., q. 49, art. 4, in C. They are natural qualities and not dispositions produced by disposing causes.

338.

St. Thomas regards the distinction between habits and mere dispositions as a distinction not of degree but of kind: “Dispositio et habitus possunt distingui sicut diversae species unius generis subalterni, ut dicantur dispositiones illae qualitates primae speciei quibus convenit secundum propriam rationem ut de facili amittantur, quia habent causas mutabiles, ut aegritudo et sanitas; habitus vero dicantur illae qualitates quae secundum suam rationem habent quod non de facili transmutentur quia habent causas immobiles; sicut scientia et virtutes; et secundum hoc disposito non fit habitus.”—St. Thomas, Summa Theol., ia, iiæ, q. 49, art. 2, ad. 3.

339.

“Vires sensitivae dupliciter possunt considerari: uno modo, secundum quod operanter ex instinctu naturae; alio modo, secundum quod operantur ex imperio rationis. Secundum igitur quod operantur ex instinctu naturae, sic ordinantur ad unum, sicut et natura; et ideo sicut in potentiis naturalibus non sunt aliqui habitus, ta etiam nec in potentiis sensitivis, secundum quod ex instinctu naturae operantur. Secundum vero quod operantur ex imperio rationis, sic ad diversa ordinari possunt: et sic possunt esse in eis aliqui habitus, quibus bene aut male ad aliquid disponuntur.”—St. Thomas, ibid., q. 50, art. 3, in c. In this context the angelic doctor, following Aristotle, places the virtues of temperance and fortitude in the sense appetite as controlled by the rational will. For the same reason he admits the possibility of habits in the faculties of internal sense perception, though not in the external senses (ibid., ad. 3).

340.

“Quia bruta animalia a ratione hominis per quandam consuetudinem disponuntur ad aliquid operandum sic, vel aliter, hoc modo in brutis animalibus habitus quodammodo poni possunt.... Deficit tamen ratio habitus quantum ad usum voluntatis quia non habent dominium utendi vel non utendi, quod videtur ad rationem habitus pertinere; et ideo, proprie loquendo, in eis habitus esse non possunt.”—ibid., ad. 2.

341.

It must not be forgotten that habit is an accident, an accidental perfection of the substance or nature of an individual agent; it immediately affects the operative power of the agent, which operative power is itself an accident of this agent's nature (constituting the second sub-class of the accident, Quality). Habit is thus at once an actuality or actualization of the operative power and a potentiality of further and more perfect acts. It is intermediate between the operative power and the complete actualization which the power receives by the acts that spring from the latter as perfected by the habit. Faculty and habit form one complete proximate principle of those acts: a principle which is at once a partial actualization of the individual agent's nature and a potentiality of further actualization of this nature.