ONTOLOGY OR THE THEORY OF BEING THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC: AN INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCIPLES OF ACCURATE THOUGHT AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD. 2 volumes. 8vo. VOL. I., CONCEPTION, JUDGEMENT, AND INFERENCE. 95. 6d. net. VOL. II., METHOD, ScIENCE, AND CERTITUDE. 91. net. EPISTEMOLOGY; OR, THE THEORY OF KNOWLEDGE: AN INTRODUCTION TO GENERAL MET APHYSICi. 2 volumes. 135. net each. SCHOLASTICISM, OLD AND NEW: AN INTRODUCTION TO SCHOLASTIC PHILOSOPHY, MEDIÆVAL AND MODERN. BY MAURICE DE WULF, Doctor of Laws, Doctor of Philosophy and Letterli, Professor at the Univer5ity of Louvain. TRANSLATED BY P. COFFEY, PH.D., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics, Maynooth College, Ireland, 8"0. 6s. net. HISTORY OF l\1:EDIEVi\L PHILOSOPHY. BY MAURICE DE WULF. TRANSLATED BY P. COFFEY, PH.D. 8vo. I IS. nä. LONG MANS, GREEN AND CO., London, New York, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. ONTOLOGY OR THE THEORY OF BEING AN INTRODUCTION TO GENERAL METAPHYSICS BY P. COFFEY, PH.D. (LOUVAIN) PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND NETAPHYSICS, NAYNOOTH COLLEGE, IRELAND SECOND IMPRESSION LON G MAN S, G R E E NAN D C 0.. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON FOURTH AVENUE & 80TH STREET, NEW YORK BOMBA CALCUTT AND MADRAS 19 1 8 TO THE STUDENTS PAST AND PRESENT 01' MAYNOOTH COLLEGE PREFACE I T is hoped that the present volume will supply a want that is really felt by students of philosophy in our univer- sities-the want of an English text-book on General Metaphysics from the Scholastic standpoint. It is the author's intention to supplement his Science of Logze, l and the present treatise on Ontology, by a volume on the Theory of Knowledge. Hence no disquisitions on the latter subject will be found in these pages: the Moderate Realism of Aristotle and the Schoolmen is assumed throughout. I n the domain of Ontology there are many scholastic theories and discussions which are commonly regarded by non-scholastic writers as possessing nowadays for the student of philosophy an interest that is merely historical. This mistaken notion is probably due to the fact that few if any serious attempts have yet been made to transpose these questions from their medieval setting into the language and context of contemporary philosophy. Per- haps not a single one of these problems is really and in sub- stance alien to present-day speculations. The author has endeavoured, by his treatment of such characteristically U medieval tt discussions as those on Potentia and Actus, Essence and Existence, Individuation, the Theory of Distinctions, Substance and Accident, Nature and Person, Logical and Real Relations, Efficient and Final Causes, to show that the issues involved are in every instance as fully and keenly debated-in an altered setting and a new terminology-by recent and living philosophers of every 1 a yol.. Longmans, 1912. vii viii PREFACE school of thought as they were by St. Thomas and his contemporaries in the golden age of medieval schol- asticism. And, as the purposes of a text-book demanded, attention has been devoted to stating the problems clearly, to showing the significance and bearings of discussions and solutions, rather than to detailed analyses of argu- ments. At the same time it is hoped that the treatment is sufficiently full to be helpful even to advanced students and to all who are interested in the "Metaphysics of the Schools' '. For the convenience of the reader the more advanced portions are printed in smaller type. The teaching of St. Thomas and the other great School men of the Middle Ages forms the groundwork of the book. This corpus of doctrine is scarcely yet accessible outside its Latin sources. As typical of the fuller scholastic text-books the excellent treatise of the Spanish author, U rraburu, 1 has been most frequently consulted. Much assistance has also been derived from Kleutgen's PhilosoPhie der Vorzez"t,2 a monumental work which ought to have been long since translated into English. And finally, the excellent treatise in the Louvain Cours de P hilosophie, by the present Cardinal Archbishop of Mechlin,8 has been consulted with profit and largely followed in many places. The writer freely and gratefully acknowledges his indebtedness to these and other authors quoted and referred to in the course of the present volume. 11 H dieutiones M.taþhysica, (}NtU Roma, iH POHtificia Uniflersitate Greg-oriana. 'radiderat P. )OANNES )osEPHua URRABURU, S.). Volumen Secundum: Ontologia (Rome. 1891). 2 Preach version by SIKIlP. 4 vols. Paris, Gaume, 1868. 'O'aloloKie, ON MilaþhysitJ... G'H'rale, par D. MERCIBR. Louvain, 3me dit.. 19 0 2. TABLE OF CONTENTS. GENERAL INTRODUCTION. PAGE I. Reason of Introductory Chapter I II. Philosophy: the Name and the Thing . I III. Divisions of Philosophy. Speculative and Practical Philosophy . 7 IV. Departments of Practical Philosophy: Logic, Ethics and Esthetics 10 V. Departments of Speculative Philosophy; Metaphysics . 14 VI. Departmenta of Metaphysics; Cosmology, Psychology and Natural Theology . 18 VII. Departments of Metaphysics: Ontology and Epistemology 20 VIII. Remarks on aome Misgivings and Prejudices . 23 CHAPTER I. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATION!. I. Our Concept of Being: its Expression and Features . 32 2. In what Sense are All Things that Exist or can Exist said to be " Real," or to have II Being"? 3 6 3. Real Being and Logical Being . 4 2 4. Real Being and Ideal Being 45 s. Fundamental Distinctions in Real Being . 4 6 CHAPTER II. BECOMING AND ITS IMPLICATION!. 6. The Static and the Changing 51 7. The Potential and the Actual: (a) Possibility, Absolute, Relative, and Adequate S2 8. (b) Subjective" Potentia," Active and Passive . S4 9. (c) Actuality: its Relation to Potentiality . 56 10. Analysis of Change 61 u. Kinds of Change. 68 CHAPTER III. EXIaTaNCE AND ESSENCB. 12. Exiltence 74 13. Esaence 75 14. Characteristics of Abstract Essences . 79 IS. Grounds of those Characteristics. 82 16. POSlible Essences as such arc Something Distinct from mere Logical Being, and from Nothingness. 84 ix x TABLE OF CONTENTS PAGE 17. Possible Essences have, besides Ideal Being, no other sort of Being or Reality Proper and Intrinsic to Themselves. . . . . . 86 18. Inferences from our Knowledge of Possible Essences . 89 19. Critical Analysis of those Inferences.. ..... 9 1 20. Essences are Intrinsically Possible, not because God can make them Exist actually; nor yet because He freely wills them to be Possible; nor because He understands them as Possible; but because they are Modes in which the Divine Essence is Imitable ad Extra . 95 21. Distinction between Essence and Existence in actually existing Con- tingent or Created Beings . 101 22. State of the Question . . 10 3 23. The Theory of Distinctions in its Application to the Question . . 10 4 24. Solutions of the Question . . 10 7 CHAPTER IV. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD. 25. The Transcendental Attributes or Properties of Being: Unity, Truth and Goodness 26. Transcendental Unity 27. Kinds of Unity . 28. Multitude and Number 29. The Individual and the Universal 30. The II Metaphysical Grades of Being" in the Individual 31. Individuality 32. The II Principle of Individuation II 33. Individuation of Accidents . 34. Identity 35. Distinction . 3 6 . Logical Distinctions and their Grounds 37. The Virtual Distinction and the Real Distinction 38. The Real Distinction and its Tests 39. Some Questionable Distinctions. The Scotist Distinction . . II4 . lIS . u6 u8 . 120 . 122 . 12 3 . 12 5 . 133 . 135 . 139 . 14 0 . 14 2 . 14 8 . 153 CHAPTER V. REALITY AND THE TRUE. 40. Ontological Truth Considered from Analysis of Experience . . . 158 4 1 . Ontological Truth Considered Synthetically, from the Standpoint of its Ultimate Real Basis . . 160 4 2 . Ontological Truth a Transcendental Attribute of Reality . 163 43. Attribution of Falsity to Real Being . . 164 CHAPTER VI. REALITY AND THE GOOD. 44. The Good as .. Desirable" and as II Suitable" 45. The Good as an II End," "Perfecting" the" Nature" 46. The Perfect. Analysis of the Notion of" Perfection" 47. Grades of Perfection. Reality as Standard of Value . 48. The Good, the Real, and the Actual. . 49. Kinds of Goodness; Divisions of the Good. So. Goodness a Transcendental Attribute of Being . 51. Optimism and Pessimism . 52. Evil: its Nature and Causes. Manicheism . 16 7 168 . 17 1 172 . 173 174 . 177 181 182 TABLE OF CONTENTS ]Ii CHAPTER VII. REALITY AND THE BEAUTIFUL. 53. The Concept of the Beautiful from the Standpoint of Experience 54. The Esthetic Sentiment. Apprehension of the Beautiful 55. Objective Factors in the Constitution of the Beautiful 56. Some Definitions of the Beautiful 57. Classifications. The Beautiful in Nature. 58. The Beautiful in Art. Scope and Function of the Fine Arts PAGE Ig2 195 Ig8 201 202 20 3 CHAPTER VIII. THE CATEGORIES OF BEING. SUBSTANCE AND ACCIDENT. 59. The Conception of Ultimate Categories 207 60. The Aristotelian Categories 209 61. The Phenomenist Attack on the Traditional Doctrine of Substance 213 62. The Scholastic View of our Knowledge in regard to the Existence and Nature of Substances 216 63. Phenomenist Difficulties against this View. Its Vindication 2Ig 64. Erroneous Views on the Nature of Substance 225 65. The Nature of Accident. Its Relation to Substance. Its Causes 232 66. Main Divisions of Accidents 23 6 67. Real Existence of Accidents. Nature of the Distinction between Accidents and Substance . 24 0 68. Modal Accidents and the Modal Distinction 245 6g. Distinction between Substance and its .. Proper" Accidents. Unity of the Concrete Being 24 6 CHAPTER IX. NATURE AND PERSON. 70. Some Divisions of Substances 25 2 71. Substance and Nature 257 72. Subsistence and Personality 261 73. Distinction between the Individual Nature and its Subsistence. What Constitutes Personality? 266 74. Consciousness of the Personal Self 273 75. False Theories of Personality 276 CHAPTER X. SOME ACCIDENT-MoDES OF BEING: QUALITY. 76. Ontology and the Accident-Modes of Being 77. Nature of the Accident calIed Quality 78. Immediate Sub-Classes of Quality as Genus SJlþremum 7g. Habits and Dispositions 80. Powers, Faculties and Forces 81. Some Characteristics of Qualities 28 5 286 288 2g2 2g8 . 3 0 5 CHAPTER XI. QUANTITY. SPACE AND TIME. 82. Analysis of the Concept of Quantity . 83. Corporeal Substance, Quantity and Extension 84. Place and Space 85. Time: its Apprehension and Measurement 86. Duration of Immutable Being: Eternity . 309 3 11 3 18 3 2 2 3 28 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER XII. RELATION; THE RELATIVE AND THIt ABSOLUTE. 87. Importance of the Present Category 88. Analysis of the Concept of Relation . 89. Logical Relations 90. Real Relations; Their Existence Vindicated 91. Mutual and Mixed Relations; Transcendental Relations 92. Predicamental Relations; Their Foundations and Divisions 93. In what does the Reality of Predicamental Relations Consist? . PAOtt . 33 2 33 6 33 8 34 1 343 . 345 349 CHAPTER XIII. CAUSALITY; CLASSIFICATION OF CAUSES. 94. Traditional Concept of Canse 95. Aristotle's Fourfold Division 96. Material and Formal Causes 97. Efficient Cause; Traditional Concept Explained 98. Some Scholia on Cau:;ation. The Principle of Causality 99. Classification of Efficient Causes . 357 . 3 61 3 6 4 366 . 3 6 9 37 2 CHAPTER XIV. EFFICIENT CAUSALITY; PHENOMENISM AND OCCASIONAL ISM. 100. Objective Validity of the Traditional Concept of Efficient Causality 381 101. Origin of the Concept of Efficient Cause . 385 102. Analysis of Efficient Causality, or Actio and Passio: (a) The First Cause and Created Causes 3 88 103. (b) Actio Immanens and Actio Transieus 39 1 104. Erroneous Theories of Efficient Causality; Imagination and Thought . 392 105. The Subject of Efficient Causality. Occasionalism. 39 6 CHAPTER XV. FINAL CAUSES; UNIVERSAL ORDER. 106. Two Conceptions of Experience, the Mechanical and the Teleological 404 10']. The Concept of Final Cause; Its Objective Validity in all Nature. Classification of Final Causes 4 06 108. Causality of the Final Cause; Relation of the Latter to Etticient, Formal and Material Causes . 4 11 log. Nature and the Laws of Nature. Character and Grounds of their Necessity and Universality. Scientific Determinism and Philosophic Fatalism 4 16 110. The Order ofthe Universe; A Fact and its Implications. 4 28 INDEX 435 ". GENERAL INTRODUCTION. I. REASON OF INTRODUCTORY CHAPTER.-!t is desirable that at some stage in the course of his investigations the student of philosophy should be invited to take a brief general survey of the work in which he is engaged. This purpose will be served by a chapter on the general aim and scoþe of philosophy, its dis- tinctive characteristics as compared with other lines of human thought, and its relations to these latter. Such considerations will at the same time help to define Ontology, thus introducing the reader to the subject-matter of the present volume. II. PHILOSOPHY: THE NAME AND THE THING.-In the fifth book of Cicero's Tusculan Disputations we read that the terms plzilosophus and philosophia were first employed by Pythagoras who flourished in the sixth century before Christ, that this ancient sage was modest enough to call himself not a " wise man" but a " lover of wisdom" (fþíÀoç, G'oc.þía), and his calIing not a profession of wisdom but a search for wisdom. However, despite the disclaimer, the term philosophy soon came to signify wisdom simply, meaning by this the highest and most precious kind of knowledge. Now human knowJedge has for its object everything that falls in any way within human experience. It has extensively a great variety in its subject-matter, and intensively a great variety in its degrees of depth and clearness and perfection. Individual facts of the past, communicated by human testimony, form the raw materials of historical knowledge. Then there are all the individual things and events that fall within one's own personal experience. Moreover, by the study of human language (or languages), of works of the human mind and products of human genius and skilI, we gain a knowledge of literature, and of the arts-the fine arts and the mechanical arts. But not merely do we use our senses and memory thus to accumulate an unassorted stock of informations about isolated facts: a miscellaneous mass of mental furniture which constitutes the bulk of human know- 1 2 ONTOLOGY ledge in its least developed form-cognitio " vulgaris," the knowledge of the comparatively uneducated and unreflecting cJasses of man- kind. \Ve also use our reasoning faculty to reflect, compare, cJassify these informations, to interpret them, to reason about them, to infer from them general truths that embrace individual things and events beyond our personal experÙmce,. we try to e:cplain them by seeking out their reasons and causes. This mental activity gradually converts our knowledge into scientific knowledge, and thus gives rise to those great groups of system- atized truths called the sciences: as, for example, the physical and mathematical sciences, the elements of which usually form part of our early education. These sciences teach us a great deal about ourselves and the universe in which we live. There is no need to dwell on the precious services conferred upon man- kind by discoveries due to the progress of the various special sciences: mathematics as applied to engineering of all sorts; astronomy; the physical sciences oflight, heat, sound, electricity, magnetism, etc.; chemistry in all its branches; physiology and anatomy as applied in medicine and surgery. All these un- doubtedly contribute much to man's bodily welI-being. But man has a mind as welI as a body, and he is moreover a social being: there are, therefore, other special sciences- U human" as distinct from U physical " sciences-in which man himself is studied in his mental activities and social relations with his fellow-men: the sciences of social and political economy, con- stitutional and civil law, government, statesmanship, etc. Further- more, man is a moral being, recognizing distinctions of good and bad, right and wrong, pleasure and happiness, duty and responsi- bility, in his own conduct; and finalIy he is a religious being, face to face with the fact that men universalIy entertain views, beliefs, convictions of some sort or other, regarding man's sub- jection to, and dependence on, some higher power or powers dwelIing somehow or somewhere within or above the whole universe of his direct and immediate experience: there are there- fore also sciences which deal with these domains, morality and religion. Here, however, the domains are so extensive, and the problems raised by their phenomena are of such far-reaching importance, that the sciences which deal with them can)1ardly be called special sciences, but rather constituent portions of the one wider and deeper general science which is what men commonly understand nowadays by philosophy. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 3 The distinction between the special sciences on the one hand and philosophy, the general science, on the other, will help us to realize more clearly the nature and scope of the latter. The special sciences are concerned with discovering the proximate reasons and causes of this, that, and the other definite department in the whole universe of our experience. The subject-matter of some of them is totally different from that of others: physiology studies the functions of living organi rns; geology studies the formation of the earth's crust. Or if two or more of them in- vestigate the same subject-matter they do so from different stand- points, as when the zoologist and the physiologist study the same type or specimen in the animal kingdom. But the common feature of all is this, that each seeks only the reasons, causes, and laws which give a proximate and partial explanation of the facts which it investigates, leaving untouched and unsolved a number of deeper and wider questions which may be raised about the whence and whither and WIlY, not onl y of the facts themselves, but of the reasons, causes and laws assigned by the particular science in explanation of these facts. N ow it is those deeper and wider questions, which can be answered only by the discovery of the more remote and ultimate reasons and causes of things, that philosophy undertakes to in- vestigate, and-as far as lies within man's power-to answer. No one has ever disputed the supreme importance of such in- quiries into the ultimate reasons and causes of things-into such questions as these, for instance: What is the nature of man him- self? Has he in him a principle of life which is spiritual and immortal? \Vhat was his first origin on the earth? Whence did he come? Has his existence any purpose, and if so, what? Whither does he tend? What is his destiny? Why does he distinguish between a right and a wrong in human conduct? What is the ultimate reason or ground of this distinction? Why have men generally some form or other of religion? Why do men generally believe in God? Is there really a God? What is the origin of the whole universe of man's experience? Of life in all its manifestations? Has the universe any intelligible or intelligent purpose, and if so, what? Can the human mind give a cutain answer to any of these or similar questions? What about the nature and value of human knowledge itself? \Vhat is its scope and what are its limitations? And since vast multi- tudes of men believe that the human race has been specially I .. 4 ONTOLOGY enlightened by God Himself, by Divine Revelation, to know for certain what man's destiny is, and is specially aided by God Himself, by Divine Grace, to work out this destiny-the question immediately arises: What are the real relations between reason alone on the one hand and reason enlightened by such Revelation on the other, in other words between natural knowledge and supernatural faith? N ow it will be admitted that the special sciences take us some distance along the road towards an answer to such questions, inasmuch as the truths established by these sciences, and even the wider hypotheses conceived though not strictly verified in them, furnish us with most valuable data in our investigation of those questions. Similarly the alleged fact of a Divine Revelation cannot be ignored by any man desirous of using all the data available as helps towards their solution. The Revelation em- bodied in Christianity claims not merely to enlighten us in regard to many ultimate questions which mankind would be able to answer without its assistance, but also to teIl us about our destiny some truths of supreme import, which of ourselves we should never have been able to discover. It is obvious, then, that whether a man has been brought up from his infancy to believe in the Christian Revelation or not, his whole outlook on life wiII be determined very largely by his belief or disbelief in its authen- ticity and its contents. Similarly, if he be a Confucian, or a Buddhist, or a Mohammedan, his outlook will be in part de- termined by what he believes of their teachings. Man's conduct in life has undoubtedly many determining influences, but it wiII hardly be denied that among them the predominant influence is exerted by the views that he holds, the things he believes to be true, concerning his own origin, nature and destiny, as weIl as the origin, nature and destiny of the universe in which he finds him- self. The Germans have an expressive term for that which, in the absence of a more appropriate term, we may translate as a man's world-outlook / they calI it his Weltanschauung. Now this world-outlook is formed by each individual for himself from his interpretation of his experience as a whole. It is not unusual to call this worId-outlook a man's philosophy of life. If we use the term philosophy in this wide sense it obviously includes whatever light a man may gather from the special sciences, and whatever light he may gather from a divinely revealed religion if he believes in such, as weIl as the light his own reason may shed upon a GENERAL INTRODUCTION 5 special and direct study of those ultimate questions themselves, to which we have just referred. But we mention this wide sense of the term philosophy merely to put it aside j and to state that we use the term in the sense more commonly accepted nowadays, the sense in which it is understood to be distinct from the special sdences on the one side and from supernatural theology or the systematic study of divinely revealed religion on the other. Philosophy is distinct from the special sciences because while the latter seek the proximate, the former seeks the ultimate grounds, reasons and causes of all the facts of human experience. Philo- sophy is distinct from supernatural theology because while the former uses the unaided power of human reason to study the ulti- mate questions raised by human experience, the latter uses reason enlightened by Divine Revelation to study the contents of this Revelation in all their bearings on man's life and destiny. Hence we arrive at this simple and widely accepted definition of philosophy: the science of all things through their ultz"mate reasons and causes as discovered by the unaided lz"ght of hU11la1l reason. l The first part of this definition marks off philosophy from the special sciences, the second part marks it off from super- natural theology. We must remember, however, that these three departments of know- ledge-scientific, philosophical, and revealed-are not isolated from one another in any man's mind; they overlap in their subject-matter, and though differing in their respective standpoints they permeate one another through and through. The separation of the special sciences from philosophy, though adumbrated in the spéculations of ancient times and made more definite in the middle ages, was completed only in modern times through the growth and progress of the special sciences themselves. The line of demar- cation between philosophy and supernatural theology must be determined by the proper relations between Reason and Faith: and naturally these rela- tions are a subject of debate between philosophers who believe in the existence of an authentic Divine Revelation and philosophers who do not. It is the duty of the philosopher as such to determine by the light of reason whether a Supreme Being exists and whether a Divine Revelation to man is possible. If he convinces himself of the existence of God he will have little difficulty in inferring the þossibility of a Divine Revelation. The fact of a Divine Revelation is a matter not for philosophical but for historical research. Now when a man has convinced himself of the existence of God and the fact of a Divine Revelation-the þreambula fidei or prerequisite conditions of Faith, as they are called-he must see that it is eminently reasonable for him 1 T JI òJlop.a(op.ÉJl1]JI tTolþlaJl 7I"Epl Tà 7I"pWTa a'(na leal -ràs å.pxàs Vtro}..ap.ß&'JlovtT& 7I"J.IITES'. -ARISTOTLE, MetaPh., I., I. "Sapientia [philosophia] est scientia quae considerat primas et universales causas."-ST. THOMAS, b Metaþh., 1.,1. 2. 6 ONTOLOGY to believe in the contents of such Divine Revelation; he must see that the truths revealed by God cannot possibly trammel the freedom of his own reason in its philosophical inquiries into ultimate problems concerning man and the universe; he must see that these truths may possibly act as beacons which wiII keep him from going astray in his own investigations: knowing that truth cannot contradict truth he knows that if he reaches a conclusion really incompatible with any certainly revealed truth, such conclusion must be erroneous; and so he is obliged to reconsider the reasoning processes that led him to such a conclusion. 1 Thus, the position of the Christian philosopher, aided in this negative way by the truths of an authentic Divine Revelation, has a distinct advantage over that of the philosopher who does not believe in such revelation and who tries to solve all ultimate questions independently of any light such revelation may shed upon them. Yet the latter philosopher as a rule not only regards the "independent" position, which he himself takes up in the name of " freedom of thought" and" free- dom of research," as the superior position, but as the only one consistent with the dignity of human reason; and he commonly accuses the Christian philosopher of allowing reason to be "enslaved" in "the shackles of dogma". We can see at once the unfairnes of such a charge when we remember that the Christian philosopher has convinced himself on grotmds of reason alone that God exists and has made a revelation to man. His belief in a Divine Revelation is a reasoned belief, a rationabile obsequiu1JZ (Rom. XII. I); and only if it were a blind belief, unjustifiable on grounds of reason, would the accusation referred to be a fair one. The Christian philosopher might retort that it is the unbelieving philosopher himself who really destroys " freedom of thought and research," by claiming for the latter what is really an abuse of freedom, namely license to believe what reason shows to be erroneous. But this counter-charge would be equally unfair, for the un- believing philosopher does not claim any such undue license to believe what he knows to be false or to disbelieve what he knows to be true. If he denies the fact or the possibility of a Divine Revelation, and therefore pursues his philosophical investigations without any regard to the contents of such revelation, it is because he has convinced himself on grounds of reason that such revelation is neither a fact nor a possibility. He and the Christian philosopher cannot both be right; one of them must be wrong; but as reasonable men they should agree to differ rather than hurl unjustifiable charges and counter-charges at each other. All philosophers who believe in the Christian Revelation and allow its authentic teachings to guide and supplement their own rational investiga- tion into ultimate questions, are keenly conscious of the consequent superior depth and fulness and certitude of Christian philosophy as compared with all the other conflicting and fragmentary philosophies that mark the progress of human speculation on the ultimate problems of man and the universe down through the centuries. They feel secure in the possession of a þhilosoþhia 1 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 ( 1:arch and May, 1906) on ThollgMs on Philosophy and Rcligi01', and an article in the Irish Theological Qua1.tcrly (October, 1910) on Philosoþhy and Sectariatzism in Belfast Univcrsity, by the present writer. GENERAL INTRODUCTIOiV 7 perennis, l and none more secure than those of them who complete and con- firm that philosophy by the only full and authentic deposit of Divinely Re- vealed Truth, which is to be found in the teaching of the Catholic Church. The history of philosophical investigation yields no on universally received conception of what philosophy is, nor would the definition given above be unreservedly accepted. Windelband, in his History of Philosophy instances the following predominan t conceptions of philosophy according to the chrono- logical order in which they prevailed: (a) the systematic investiga- tion of the problems raised by man and the universe (early Grecian philosophy: absence of differentiation of philosophy from the special sciences); (b) the practical art of human conduct, based on rational speculation (later Grecian philosophy: distrust in the value of knowledge, and emphasis on practical guidance of conduct); (c) the helper and handmaid of the Science of Re- vealed Truth, z:e. supernatural theology, in the solution of ultimate problems (the Christian philosophy of the Fathers of the Church and of the Medieval Schools down to the sixteenth cen- tury: universal recognition of the value of the Christian Revela- tion as an aid to rational investigation) j (d) a purely rational investigation of those problems, going beyond the investigations of the special sciences, and either abstracting from, or denying the value of, any light or aid from Revelation (differentiation of the domains of science, philosophy and theology; modern philo- sophies from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century; excessive individualism and rationalism of these as unnaturally divorced from recognition of, and belief in, Divine Revelation, and unduly isolated from the progressing positive sciences); (e) a critical analysis of the significance and scope and limitations of human knowledge itself (recent philosophies, mainly concerned with theories of knowledge and speculations on the nature of the cognitive process and the reliability of its products). These various conceptions are interesting and suggestive; much might be said about them, but not to any useful purpose in a brief introductory chapter. Let us rather, adopting the definition already set forth, try next to map out into its leading departments the whole philosophical domain. Ill. DIVISIONS OF PHILOSOPHY: SPECULATIVE AND PRACTI- 1 C/. Encyclical Aeterni Patris, on Philosophical Studies, by Pope Leo XIII., August 4, 1880. :I Introduction, I. 8 ONTOLOGY CAL PHILOSOPHY.- The general problem of classifying all the sciences built up by human thought is a logical problem of no little complexity when one tries to work it out in detail. We refer to this general problem only to mention a widely accepted principle on which it is usually approached, and because the division of philosophy itself is a section of the general problem. The principle in question is that sciences may be distinguished indeed by partial or total diversity of subject-matter, but that such diversity is not essential, that diversity of standpoint is necessary and sufficient to constitute distinct sciences even when these deal with one and the same subject-matter. Now applying this principle to philosophy we see firstly that it has the same subject-matter as all the special sciences taken collectively, but that it is distinct from all of them inasmuch as it studies their data not from the standpoint of the proximate causes, but from the higher standpoint of the ultimate causes of these data. And we see secondly that philosophy, having this one higher stand. point throughout all its departments, is one science; that its divisions are only material divisions; that there is not a plurality of philosophies as there is a plurality of sciences, though there is a plurality of departments in philosophy.l Let us now see what these departments are. If we ask why people seek knowledge at aU, in any depart- ment, we shall detect two main impelling motives. The first of these is simply the desire to know: trahimur omnes cupiditate sciendz: The natural feeling of wonder, astonishment, (( admiratio," which accompanies our perception of things and events, prompts us to seek their causes, to discover the reasons which will make them intelligible to us and enable us to understand them. But while the possession of knowledge for its own sake is thus a motive of research it is not the only motive. We seek know- ledge z'n order to use it for the guidance of our conduct in life, for the orientation of our activities, for the improvement of our condition; knowing that knowledge is power, we seek it in order to make it minister to our needs. Now in the degree in which it fulfils such ulterior purposes, or is sought for these purposes, 1 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. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 9 knowledge may be described as practical,' in the degree in which it serves no ulterior end, or is sought for no ulterior end, other than that of perfecting our minds, it may be described as specu- lative. Of course this latter purpose is in itself a highly practical purpose; nor indeed is there any knowledge, however speculative, but has, or at least is capable of having, some influence or bear- ing on the actual tenor and conduct of our lives; and in this sense all knowledge is practical. Still we can distinguish broadly between knowledge which has no direct, immediate bearing on our acts, and knowledge that has.! Hence the possibility of distinguishing between two great domains of philosophical know- ledge - Theoretical or Speculative Philosophy, and Practical Pltilosophy. There are, in fact, two great domains into which the data of all human experience may be divided; and for each distinct domain submitted to philosophical investigation there will be a distinct department of philosophy. A first domain is the order realized in the universe independently of man; a second is the order which man himself realizes: things, therefore, and acts. The order of the external universe, the order of nature as it is called, exists independently of us: we merely study it (speculari, 8f.wpÉ(J)), we do not create it. The other or practical order is established by our acts of intelligence and will, and by our bodily action on external things under the direction of those faculties in the arts. Hence we have a speculative or theoretical philosophy and aþractical philosophy.2 1" Theoreticus sive specul:1tivus 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 fin em i et ideo differunt ab invicem fine i finis speculativae est veritas, finis operativae sive practicae aclio."-ST. THOMAS, In lib. Boetii de Tri'litate. :I Here is St. Thomas' exposition and justification of the doctrine in the text: II Sapientis est ordinare. Cujus ratio est, quia sapientia est potissima perfectio rationis, cujus proprium est cognoscere ordinem. . . . Ordo autem quadrupliciter ad rationem comparatur. 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 concep- tuum, 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 ration is per habitum perficitur, secundum hos diversos ordines quos proprie ratio considerat, sunt diversae scientiae. Nam ad philosoPhiam natura/em pertinet considerare ordinem rerum quem ratio humana considerat sed non facit i ita quod sub naturali philosophia comprehendamus et metaPhysicam. Ordo autem quem ratio considerando facit in proprio actu, pertinet ad rationalem þhilosoþhiam, cujus est considerare ordinem partium orationis ad invicem et ordinem principiorum ad invicem et ad conc1usiones. Ordo autem actionum voluntariarum pertinet ad 10 ONTOLOGY IV. DEPARTMENTS OF PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY: LOGIC, ETHICS AND ESTHETICS.-In the domain of human activities, to the right regulation of which practical philosophy is directed, we may distinguish two departments of mental activity, namely in- tellectual and volitional, and besides these the whole department of external, executive or bodily activity. In general the right regulation of acts may be said to consist in directing them to the realization of some ideal j for an cognitive acts this ideal is the true, for all appetitive or volitional acts it is the good, while for an external operations it may be either the beautiful or the useful -the respective objects of the fine arts and the mechanical arts or crafts. Logic, as a practical science, studies the mental acts and pro- cesses involved in discovering and proving truths and systematiz- ing these into sciences, with a view to directing these acts and processes aright in the accomplishment of this complex task. Hence it has for its subject-matter, in a certain sense, all the data of human experience, or whatever can be an object of human thought. But it studies these data not directly or in themselves or for their own sake, but only in so far as our acts of reason, which form its direct object, are brought to bear upon them. In all the other sciences we employ thought to study the various objects of thought as things, events, realities; and hence these may be called "real" sciences, scientiae nales,o while in Logic we study thought itself, and even here not speculatively for its own sake or as a reality (as we study it for instance in Psychology), but practically, as a process capable of being directed towards the discovery and proof of truth; and hence in contradistinction to the other sciences as U real," we can Logic the "rational It science, scientia rational is. Scholastic philosophers express this distinction by saying that while Speculative Philosophy studies real being (Ens Reale), or the objects of direct thought (ol!iecta primae bztentionis mentis), Logic studies the being which is the product of thought (Ens Rationis), or objects of reflex thought (objecta secundae intentionis mentiS).! The mental processes in- volved in the attainment of scientific truth are conception, judg- ment and inference; moreover these processes have to be exercised methodically by the combined application of analysis and syn- considerationem moralis pltilosoþhiae. Or do autem quem ratio considerando facit in rebus exterioribus constitutis per rationem humanam, pertinet ad artes mechanicas."- 111 X. Ethic. ad Nichom., i., lect. I. 1 Cf. Science of Logic, i" Introduction, ch. ii. and iii. GENERAL INTRODUCTION II thesis, or induction and deduction, to the various domains of human experience. All these processes, therefore, and the methods of their application, constitute the proper subject-matter of Logic. I t has been more or less a matter of debate since the days of Aristotle whether Logic should be regarded as a department of philosophical science proper, or rather as a preparatory discipline, an instrument or organon of reasoning-as the collection of Aris- totle's own logical treatises was called,-and so as a vestibule or introduction to philosophy. And there is a similar difference of opinion as to whether or not it is advisable to set down Logic as the first department to be studied in the philosophical curri- culum. Such doubts arise from differences of view as to the questions to be investigated in Logic, and the point to which such investigations should be carried therein. It is possible to dis- tinguish between a more elementary treatment ofthought-processes with the avowedly practical aim of setting forth canons of infer- ence and method which would help and train the mind to reason and investigate correctly; and a more philosophical treatment of those processes with the speculative aim of determining their ultimate significance and validity as factors of knowledge, as attaining to truth, as productive of science and certitude. It is only the former field of investigation that is usually accorded to Logic nowadays; and thus understood Logic ought to come first in the curriculum as a preparatory training for philosophical studies, accompanied, however, by certain elementary truths from Psychology regarding the nature and functions of the human mind. The other domain of deeper and more speculative in- vestigation was formerly explored in what was regarded as a second portion of logical science, under the title of "Critical JJ Logic-Logiea Critiea. In modern times this is regarded as a distinct department of Speculative Philosophy, under the various titles of Epistemology, Criteriology, or the Tlleory of Knowledge. Etllies or Moral Philosophy (1]80';, mos, mores, morals, conduct) is that department of practical philosophy which has for its subject-matter all human acts, i.e. all acts elicited or commanded by the will of man considered as a free, rational and responsible agent And it studies human conduct with the practical purpose of discovering the ultimate end or object of this conduct, and the principles whereby it must be regulated in order to attain to this end. Ethics must therefore analyse and account for the distinc- tion of right and wrong or good and bad in human conduct, for 12 ONTOLOGY its feature of moralt"ty. It must examine the motives that influence conduct: pleasure, well-being, happiness, duty, obliga- tion, moral law, etc. The supreme determining factor in all such considerations will obviously be tIle ultimate e1zd of 'matt, whatever this may be: his destiny as revealed by a study of his nature and place in the universe. N ow the nature of man is studied in Psychology, as are also the nature, conditions and effects of his free acts, and the facilities, dispositions and forms of character consequent on these. Furthermore, not only from the study of man in Psychology, but from the study of the external universe in Cosmology, we amass data from which in Natural Theology we establish the existence of a Supreme Being. We then prove in Ethics that the last end of man, his highest perfection, consists in knowing, loving, serving, and thus glorify- ing God, both in this life and in the next. Hence we can see how these branches of speculative philosophy sub serve the practical science of morals. And since a man's interpretation of the moral distinctions-as of right or wrong, meritorious or blame- worthy, autonomous or of obligation-which he recognizes as pertaining to his own actions-since his interpretation of these distinctions is so intimately bound up with his religious outlook and beliefs, it is at once apparent that the science of Ethics will be largely influenced and determined by the system of speculative philosophy which inspires it, whether this be Theism, Monism, Agnosticism, etc. No doubt the science of Ethics must take as its data all sorts of moral beliefs, customs and practices prevalent at any time among men; but it is not a speculative science which would merely aim at a posteriori inferences or inductive generalizations from these data; it is a practical, normative science which aims at discovering the truth as to what is the right and the wrong in human conduct, and at pointing out the right application of the principles arising out of this truth. Hence it is of supreme importance for the philosopher of morals to deter- mine whether the human race has really been vouchsafed a Divine Revelation, and, convincing himself that Christianity contains such a revelation, to recognize the possibility of supple- menting and perfecting what his own natural reason can discover by what the Christian religion teaches about the end of man as the supreme determining principle of human conduct. Not that he is to take the revealed truths of Christianity as principles of moral philosophy,; for these are the principles of the supernatural GENERAL INTRODUCTION 13 Christian Theology of human morals; but that as a Christian philosopher, 'i.e. a philosopher who recognizes the truth of the Christian Revelation, he should reason out philosophically a science of Ethics which, so far as it goes, wiII be in harmony with the moral teachings of the Christian Religion, and wiII admit of being perfected by these. This recognition, as already remarked, wiII not be a hindrance but a help to him in ex- ploring the wide domains of the individual, domestic, social and religious conduct of man; in determining, on the basis of theism established by natural reason, the right moral conditions and relations of man's conduct as an individual, as a member of the family, as a member of the state, and as a creature of God. The nature, source and sanction of authority, domestic, social and religious; of the dictate of conscience; of the natural moral la wand of all positive law; of the moral virtues and vices- these are all questions which the philosopher of Ethics has to explore by the use of natural reason, and for the investigation of which the Christian philosopher of Ethics is incomparably better equipped than the philosopher who, though possessing the compass of natural reason, ignores the beacon lights of Divinely Revealed Truths. Esthetics, or the Philosophy of the Fine Arts, is that department of philosophy which studies the conception of the beautiful and its external expression in the works of nature and of man. The arts themselves, of course, whether concerned with the realization of the useful or of the beautiful, are distinct from sciences, even from practical sciences.! The technique itself consists in a skill acquired by practice-by practice guided, however, by a set of practical canons or rules which are the ripe fruit of experience. 2 But behind every art there is always some background of more or less speculative truth. The conception of the useful, however which underlies the mechanical arts and crafts, is not an ultimate conception calling for any further analysis than it receives in the various special sciences and in metaphysics. But the conception of the beautiful does seem to demandaspecial philosophical considera. tion. On the subjective or mental side the esthetic sense, artistic taste, the sentiment of the beautiful, the complex emotions ac- companying such experience; on the objective side the elements 1 ARISTOTLE and tþe scholastics distinguished between the domain of the prac- tical (7I'pãuuCJ), 71'p<< IS, agere, agibilia) and the operative or productive (7I'OlfW. 71'O!T}('lS, facere, factibilia). 2 Cf. Science of Logic, i., 8. 14 ONTOLOGY or factors requisite to produce this experience; the relation of the esthetic to the moral, of the beautiful to the good and the true-these are all distinctly philosophical questions. Up to the present time, however, their treatment has been divided between the other departments of philosophy-psychology, cosmology, natural theology, general metaphysics, ethics-rather than grouped together to form an additional distinct department V. DEPARTMENTS OF SPECULATIVE PHILOSOPHY: META- PHYSICS.- The philosophy which studies the order realized in things apart from our activity, speculative philosophy, has been variously divided up into separate departments from the first origins of philosophical speculation. \Vhen we remember that all intellectual knowledge of things involves the apprehension of general truths or laws about these things, and that this apprehension of intelligible aspects common to a more or less extensive group of things involves the exercise of abstraction, we can understand how the whole domain of specu- lative knowledge, whether scientific or philosophical, can be dif- ferentiated into certain layers or levels, so to speak, according to various degrees of abstractness and universality in the intelligible aspects under which the data of our experience may be considered. On this principle Aristotle and the scholastics divided all specu- lative knowledge into three great domains, Physics, .1J.fathematics and lIfetaphysics, with their respective proper objects, Change, Quantity and Being, objects which are successively apprehended in three great stages of abstraction traversed by the human mind in its effort to understand and explain the Universal Order of things. And as a matter of fact perhaps the first great common and most obvious feature which strikes the mind reflecting on the visible universe is the feature of all-pervading change (K[V'T}(]"t,,) , movement, evolution, progress and regress, growth and decay; we see it everywhere in a variety of forms, mechanical or local change, quantitative change, qualitative change, vital change. Now the knowledge acqaired by the study of things under this common aspect is called Physics. Here the mind abstracts merely from the individualizing differences of this change in individual things, and fixes its attention on the great, common, sensible aspect itself of visible change. But the mind can abstract even from the sensible changes that take place in the physical universe and fix its attention on a static feature in the changing things. This static element GENERAL INTRODUCTION 15 'TÒ à"lv1]'Tov), which the intellect apprehends in material things as naturally inseparable from them (à"lv1]'TOV àÀÀ' où XClJptU'Tóv), is their quantity, their extension in space. \Vhen the mind strips a material object of all its visible, sensible properties-on which its mechanical, physical and chemical changes depend-there still remains as an object of thought a something formed of parts outside parts in three dimensions of space. This abstract quantity, quantitas intelligibilis-whether as continuous or discontinuous, as magnitude or multitude-is the proper object of lYf athematics. But the mind can penetrate farther still into the reality of the material data which it finds endowed with the attributes of change and quantity: it can eliminate from the object of its thought even this latter or mathematical attribute, and seize on something still more fundamental. The very essence, substance, nature, being itself, of the thing, the underlying subject and root principle of all the thing's operations and attributes, is something deeper than any of these attributes, something at least mentally distinct from these latter ('TÒ à"lv1]'TOV "at XClJptU'Tóv): and this something is the proper object of man's highest speculative knowledge, which Aristotle called f] 7rpW'T1] cþtÀouocþla,phr7osophia prima, the first or fundame-ntal or deepest philosophy. 1 But he gave this latter order of knowledge another very significant title: he called it theology or theological science, È7rtU'T17J.L1] BEOÀoryl,,/j, by a denomination derived a potior:' parte, from its nobler part, its culmination in the knowledge of God. Let us see how. For Aristotle first philosophy is the science of being and its essential attributes. 2 Here the mind apprehends its 1" Quædam igitur Bunt sþeculabilillm 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 ilIa 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 þhysica sive scientia naturalis. Quædam VeTO sunt quæ, quamvis dependeant a materia sensibili secundum esse, non tamen secundum intcllectum, 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 mat ria et in quibusdam non, ut substantia, qualitas, potentia et actus, unum et multa, etc., de qui bus omnibus est theologia, id est scientia dlvina, quia præcipuum cognitorum in ea est Deus. Alio nomine dicitur ",etaþhysica, id est, transphysica, quia post physicam dicenda occurrit nobis, quibus ex sensibilibus competit in insensibilia devenire. Dicitur etiam philosoPhia þrima, in quantum scientiae a!iæ ab ea principia sua accipientes eam sequuntur."-ST. THOMAS, [,J lib. Boetii de Tri, itate, q. 5, a. I. 11 'ET'TIV brt(jT P.1J TIS f] fJ'ECoJOfî T J1 v teal TOtJTqJ ð7r&pxov'Tl1 teaO';W'T&.-MetnfTI. III., I (ed. Didot). 16 ONTOLOGY object as static or abstracted from change, and as immaterial or abstracted from quantity, the fundamental attribute of material reality-as à"lv1]70V Kaì XWptUTÓV. N ow it is the substance, nature, or essence of the things of our direct and immediate experi- ence, that forms the proper object of this highest science. But in these things the substance, nature, or essence, is not found in real and actual separation from the material attributes of change and quantity; it is considered separately from these only by an effort of mental abstraction. Even the nature of man himself is not wholly immaterial; nor is the spiritual principle in man, his soul, entirely exempt from material conditions. Hence in so far as first philosophy studies the being of the things of our direct experience, its object is immaterial only negatively or by 'mental abstraction. But does this study bring within the scope of our experience any being or reality that is positively and actually exem pt from all change and all material conditions? If so the study of this being, the Divine Being, will be the highest effort, the crowning perfection, of first philosophy, which we may there- fore call the theological science. "If," writes Aristotle, 1 "there really exists a substance absolutely immutable and immaterial, in a word, a Divine Being"":"-as we hope to prove-then such Being must be the absolutely first and supreme principle, and the science that attains to such Being will be theological." In this triple division of speculative philosophy into Physics, Mathematics, and Metaphysics, it will naturally occur to one to ask: Did Aristotle distinguish between what he called Physics and what we nowadays caB the special physical sciences? He did. These special analytic studies of the various departments of the physical universe, animate and inanimate, Aristotle de- scribed indiscriminately as" partial tJ sciences: at Èv JÛPEt È7T'tuT1]- J.Lát-È7T'tuT7JJ.Laì Èv J.LÉPEt Àeyóf1,Evat. These descriptive, inductive, comparative studies, proceeding a posteriori from effects to causes, he conceived rather as a preparation for scientific knowledge proper; this latter he conceived to be a synthetic, deductive explanation of things, in the light of some common aspect de- tected in them as principle or cause of all their concrete char- acteristics. 2 Such synthetic knowledge of things, in the light of some such common aspect as change, is what he regarded as scientific knowledge, meaning thereby what we mean by philo- J 11/ etaþh. X., ch. vii., 5 and 6. 2 Cf. Scie' ce of Logic, ii., 251-5. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 17 sophical knowledge. l What he called Physics, therefore, is what we nowadays understand as Cosmology and Psychology. 2 Mathematical science Aristotle likewise regarded as science in the full and perfect sense, i.e. as philosophical. But just as we distinguish nowadays between the special physical and human sciences on the one hand, and the philosophy of external nature and man on the other, so we may distinguish between the special mathematical sciences and a Philosophy of Mathematics: with this difference, that while the former groups of special sciences are mainly inductive the mathematical group is mainly deductive. Furthermore, the Philosophy of Mathematics-which investigates questions regarding the ultimate significance of mathematical concepts, axioms and assumptions: unity, multitude, magnitude, quantity, space, time, etc.-does not usually form a separate de- partment in the philosophical curriculum: its problems are dealt with as they arise in the other departments of Metaphysics. Before outlining the modern divisions of Metaphysics we may note that this latter term was not used by Aristotle. We owe it probably to Andronicus of Rhodes (t 40 B.c.), who, when arranging a complete edition of Aristotle's works, placed next in order after the Physics, or physical treatises, all the parts and fragments of the master's works bearing upon the immutable and immaterial object of the philosophia prima,. these he labelled .,a jlÆTà .,à (ßf,ßxta) cþuð"tlca, post physica, the books after the physics: hence the name metaphysics,3 applied to this highest section of speculative philosophy. It was soon noticed that the term, thus fortuitously applied to such investigations, conveyed a very appropriate description of their scope and character if inter- preted in the sense of "supra-physica," or U trans-physica JJ: in- 1 When the term CI science" is used nowadays in contradistinction to CI philo- sophy," 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. Aristotle's conception of the close relation between Physics (or the Philosoþhy 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 philo- sophy 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. 3 Cf. DE WULF, History of Medieval PhilosoPhy, pp. 28-9, 66; MERCIER, 01ltologie, Introd., p. v., n. 2 18 ONTOLOGY asmuch as the object of these investigations is a hyperphysical object, an object that is either positively and really, or negatively and by abstraction, beyond the material conditions of quantity and change. 51. Thomas combines both meanings of the term when he says that the study of its subject-matter comes naturally after the study of physics, and that we naturally pass from the study of the sensible to that of the suprasensible. 1 The term pltilosophia prima has now only an historical interest; and the term theology, used without qualification, is now generally understood to signify supernatural theology. VI. DEPARTMENTS OF METAPHYSICS: COSMOLOGY, PSYCH- OLOGY, AND NATURAL THEOLOGY.-Nowadays the term Meta- physics is understood as synonymous with speculative philosophy: the investigation of the being, nature, or essence, and essential attributes of the realities which are also studied in the various special sciences: the search for the ultimate grounds, reasons and causes of these realities, of which the proximate explanations are sought in the special sciences. We have seen that it has for its special object that most abstract aspect of reality whereby the latter is conceived as changeless and immaterial; and we have seen that a being may have these attributes either by mental abstraction merely, or in actual reality. In other words the philosophical study of things that are really material not only suggests the possibility, but establishes the actual existence, of a Being that is really changeless and immaterial: so that metaphysics in all its amplitude would be the philosophical science of thitlgS that are negatively (by abstraction) or positively (in reality) immaterial. This distinction suggests a division of metaphysics into general and special metaphysics. The former would be the philosophical study of all being, considered by mental abstraction as immaterial; the latter would be the philo- sophical study of the really and positively changeless and im- material Being,-God. The former would naturally fall into two great branches: the study of inanimate nature and the study of living things, Cosmology and Psychology; while special meta- physics, the philosophical study of the Divine Being, would constitute Natural Theology. These three departments, one of special metaphysics and two of general metaphysics, would not 1 "Dicitur rnetaphysica [scientia] id est, transphysica, quia post physicam dicenda occurrit nobis, qui bus ex sensibilibul com petit in insensibilia devenire." -ST. THOMAS, [, Lib. Boetii. ds Tri, itate, q. 5, a. I. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 19 be three distinct philosophical sciences, but three departments of the one speculative philosophical science. The standpoint would be the same in all three sections, viz. being considered as statz"c and immaterÙzl by mental abstraction: for whatever positive knowledge we can reach about being that is really immaterial can be reached only through concepts derived from material being and applied analogically to immaterial being. Cosmology and Psychology divide between them the whole domain of man's immediate experience. Cosmology, utilizing not only the data of direct experience, but also the conclusions established by the analytic study of these data in the physical sciences, explores the origin, nature, and destiny of the material universe. Some philosophers include among the data of Cos- mology all the phenomena of vegetative life, reserving sentient and rational life for Psychology; others include even sentient life in Cosmology, reserving the study of human life for Psycho- logy, or, as they would call it, Anthropology.l The mere matter of location is of secondary importance. Seeing, however, that man embodies in himself all three forms of life, vegetative, sentient, and rational, all three would perhaps more naturally belong to Psychology, which would be the philosophical study of life in all its manifestations (tv'X , the vital principle, the soul). Just as the conclusions of the physical sciences are the data of Cos- mology, so the conclusions of the natural or biological sciences- Zoology, Botany, Physiology, Morphology, Cellular Biology, etc.-are the data of Psychology. Indeed in Psychology itself- especially in more recent years-it is possible to distinguish a positive, analytic, empirical study of the phenomena of conscious- ness, a study which would rank rather as a special than as an ultimate or philosophical science; and a synthetic, rational study of the results of this analysis, a study which would be strictly philosophical in character. This would have for its object to determine the origin, nature and destiny of living things in general and of man himself in particular. It would inquire into the nature and essential properties of living matter, into the nature of the subject of conscious states, into the operations and faculties of the human mind, into the nature of the human soul and its mode of union with the body, into the rationality of the human 1 This is also the title of the social and ethnological study ot the various races of men, their primitive habits, customs, institutions, etc. 2 * 20 ONTOLOGY intellect and the freedom of the human will, the spirituality and immortality of the human soul, etc. But since the human mind itself is the natural instrument whereby man acquires all his knowledge, it will be at once ap- parent that the study of the phenomenon of knowledge itself, of the cognitive activity of the mind, can be studied, and must be studied, not merely as a natural phenomenon of the mind, but from the point of view of its special si"gnijica1zce as representative of objects other than itself, from the point of view of its validity or invalidity, its truth or falsity, and with the special aim of de- termining the scope and limitations and conditions of its objective validity. We have already referred to the study of human know- ledge from this standpoint, in connexion with what was said above concerning Logic. It has a close kinship with Logic on the one hand, and with Psychology on the other; and nowadays it forms a distinct branch of speculative Philosophy under the title of Criteriology, Epistemology, or the Theory of Knowledge. Arising out of the data of our direct experience, external and internal, as studied in the philosophical departments just outlined, we find a variety of evidences all pointing beyond the domain of this direct experience to the supreme conclusion that there exists of necessity, distinct from this directly experienced universe, as its Creator, Conserver, and Ruler, its First Beginning and its Last End, its Alpha ard Omega, One Divine and Infinite Being, the Deity. The existence and attributes of the Deity, and the re- lations of man and the universe to the Deity, form the subject- matter of Natural Theology. VII. DEPARTMENTS OF l\iETAPHYSICS: ONTOLOGY AND EPISTEMOLOGY.-According to the Aristotelian and scholastic con- ception speculative philosophy would utilize as data the conclusions of the special sciences-physical, biological, and human. It would try to reach a deeper explanation of their data by synthesizing these under the wider aspects of change, quantity, and being, thus bringing to light the ultimate causes, reasons, and explanatory principles of things. This whole study would naturally fall into two great branches: General Metaphysics (Cosmology and Psycllology), which would study things exempt from quantity and change not really but only by mental abstraction; and SpecialIVIetaphysics (Natural Theology), which would study the positively immaterial and immutable Being of the Deity. This division of Metaphysics, thoroughly sound in principle, GENERAL INTRODUCTION 21 and based on a sane and rational view of the relation between the special sciences and philosophy, has been almost entirely 1 supplanted in modern times by a division which, abstracting from the erroneous attitude that prompted it in the first instance, has much to recommend it from the standpoint of practical conven- ience of treatment. The modern division was introduced by Wolff (1679-1755), a German philosopher,-a disciple of Leibniz (1646-1716) and forerunner of Kant (1724-1804).2 Influenced by the excessively deductive method of Leibniz' philosophy, which he sought to systematize and to popularize, he wrongly con- ceived the metaphysical study of reality as something wholly apart and separate from the inductive investigation of this same reality in the positive sciences. It comprised the study of the most fundamental and essential principles of being, considered in themselves; and the deductive application of these principles to the three great domains of actual reality, the corporeal universe, the human soul, and God. The study of the first principles of being in themselves would constitute General Metaphysics, or Ontology (öIJ'Tor;-Àó,,/or;). Their applications would constitute three great departments of Special Metaphysics: Cosmology, which he described as " transcendental" in opposition to the experimental physical sciences; Psychology, which he termed U rational" in op- position to the empirical biological sciences; and finally Natural Theology, which he en ti tIed T heodicy (eEór;-ö{,C7J-öuca"ów), using a term invented by Leibniz for his essays in vindication of the wisdom and justice of Divine Providence notwithstanding the evils of the universe. "The spirit that animated this arrangement of the departments of meta- physics," writes Mercier, "was unsound in theory and unfortunate in tendency. It stereotyped for centuries a disastrous divorce between philosophy and the Not entirely; for instance, what is perhaps the most comprehensive course of philosophy published in recent times, the PhilosoPhia Lace1lsis (II vols., Herder, 1888- 1 9 00 ) apparently follows the arrangement of metaphysics outlined above. The fundamental questions on knowing and being, which usually constitute distinct de- partments under the respective titles of EPistemology and o 11 to logy , are here treated under the comprehensive title of !tlStitl/ti01zes 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 Institlttiollcs Logicales: under the peculiar title of Logica Realis), and not in the volumes assigned to general meta- physics, shows the necessity and convenience of the more modern arrangement. General metaphysics are dealt with in 2 vols. of !ttstituti01zes Philusoþhiae Naturalis and 3 vols. of Institutiolles Psychologicae; special metaphysics in the 111stitutiones T /zeodica ae (I voL); ethics in 2 vols. of !tzstitutiollcS Juris Naturae. \I Cf.TuRNRR, History oj Philosoþhy, p. 5 2 5. 22 ONTOLOGY sciences, a divorce that had its origin in circumstances peculiar to the intel- lectual atmosphere of the early eighteenth century. As a result of it there was soon no common language or understanding between scientists and philosophers. The terms which expressed the most fundamental ideas- matter, substance, movement, cause, force, energy, and such like-were taken in different senses in science and in philosophy. Hence misunderstand- ings, aggravated by a growing mutual distrust and hostility, until finally people came to believe that scientific and metaphysical preoccupations were incom- patible if not positively opposed to each other." 1 How very different from the disintegrating conception here criticized is the traditional Aristotelian and scholastic conception of the complimentary functions of philosophy and the sciences in unifying human knowledge: a conception thus eloquently expressed by NEWMAN in his Idea of a Uni- versity :_ \I "All that exists, as contemplated by the human mind, forms one large system or complex fact. . . . Now, it is not wonderful that, with all its capa- bilities, the human mind cannot take in this whole vast fact at a single glance, or gain possession of it at once. Like a short-sighted reader, its eye pores closely, and travels slowly, over the awful volume which lies open for its inspection. Or again, as we deal with some huge structure of many parts and sides, the mind goes round about it, noting down, first one thing, then another, as best it may, and viewing it under different aspects, by way of making progress towards mastering the whole. . . . These various partial views or abstractions . . . are called sciences . . . they proceed on the principle of a division of labour. . . . As they all belong to one and the same circle of objects, they are one and all connected together j as they are but aspects of things, they are severally incomplete in their relation to the things themselves, though complete in their own idea and for their own respecti\ e purposes j on both accounts they at once need and subserve each other. And further, the comprehension of the bearings of one science on another, and the use of each to each, and the location and limitation and adjustment and due appreciation of them all, one with another, this belongs, I conceive, to a sort of science distinct from all of them, and in some sense, a science of sciences, which is my own conception of what is meant by Philosophy. . . .n Without in any way countenancing such an isolation of metaphysics from the positive sciences, we may, nevertheless, adopt the modern division in substance and in practice. While recognizing the intimate connexion between the special sciences and metaphysics in all its branches, we may regard as General Metaphysics all inquiries into the fundamental principles of beillg and of knowing, of reality and of knowledge,. and as Special Metaphysics the philosophical study of physical nature, of human nature, and of God, the Author and Supreme Cause of all finite reality. Thus, while special metaphysics would embrace Cos- mology, Psychology, and Natural Theology, general metaphysics 1 MERCIER, Logique, Introd., 9. \I pp. 45, 51. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 23 would embrace Ontology and Epistemology. These two latter disciplines must no doubt investigate what is in a certain sense one and the same subject-matter, inasmuch as knowledge is knowledge of reality, nor can the knowing 'mind (the suly"ectum cognoscens) and the known reality (the oly"ectum cognitum) be wholly separated or studied in complete isolation from each other. Yet the whole content of human experience, which forms their common subject-matter, can be regarded by mental abstraction from the two distinct standpoints of the knowing mind and the known reality, and can thus give rise to two distinct sets of problems. Epistemology is thus concerned with the truth and certitude of human knowledge; with the subjective conditions and the scope and limits of its validity; with the sub- jective or mental factors involved in knowing.! Ontology is concerned with the objects of knowledge, with reality considered in the widest, deepest, and most fundamental aspects under which it is conceived by the human mind: with the being and becoming of reality, its possibility and its actuality, its essence and its exist- ence, its unity and plurality; with the aspects of truth, goodness, perfection, beauty, which it assumes in relation with our minds; with the contingency of finite reality and the grounds and implica- tions both of its actual existence and of its intelligibility; with the modes of its concrete existence and behaviour, the supreme categories of reality as they are called: substance, individual nature, and personality; quantity, space and time, quality and relation, causality and purpose. These are the principal topics investigated in the present volume. The investigation is con- fined to fundamental concepts and principles, leaving their appli- cations to be followed out in special metaphysics. Furthermore, the theory of knowledge known as l'rfoderate Realism,2 the Realism of Aristotle and the Scholastics, in regard to the validity of knowledge both sensual and intellectual, is assumed through- out: because not alone is this the true theory, but-as a natural consequence-it is the only theory which renders the individual things and events of human experience really intelligible, and at the same time keeps the highest and most abstract intellectual speculations of metaphysics in constant and wholesome contact with the concrete, actual world in which we live, move, and have our being. VIII. REMARKS ON SOME MISGIVINGS AND PREJUDICES.- The 1 Cf. Science of Logic, i" 17. 2 Cr. ibid. i., Introd., ch. i. 24 ONTOLOG Y student, especially the beginner, will find the investigations in this volume rather abstract; but if he remembers that the content of our intellectual concepts, be they ever so abstract and uni- versal, is really embodied in the individual things and events of his daily experience, he will not be disposed to denounce all ultimate analysis of these concepts as "unprofitable" or "un- real". He will recognize that the reproach of "talking in the air," which was levelled by an eminent medieval scholastic 1 at certain philosophers of his time, tells against the metaphysical speculations of Conceptualism, but not against those of Moderate Realism. The reproach is commonly cast at all systematic metaphysics nowadays-from prejudices too numerous and varied to admit of investigation here. 2 The modern prejudice which denies the very possibility of metaphysics, a prejudice arising from Phenomenism, Positivism, and Agnosticism-systems which are themselves no less metaphysical than erroneous-will be ex- amined in due course. 8 But really in order to dispel all such misgivings one has only to remember that metaphysics, systematic or otherwise, is nothing more than a man's reasoned outlook on the world and life. Whatever his conscious opinions and convictions may be regarding the nature and purpose of himself, and other men, and the world at large-and if he use his reason at all he must have some sort of opinions and convictions, whether positive or negative, on these matters-those opinions and convictions are precisely that man's metaphysics. "Breaking free for the moment from all historical and technical definition, let us affirm: To get at realiry-this is the aim of metaphysics." So writes Professor Ladd in the opening chapter of his Theory of Reality.4 But if this is so, surely a systematic attempt to (( get at reality," no matter how deep and wide, no matter how abstract and universal be the conceptions and speculations to which it leads us, cannot nevertheless always and of necessity have the effect of involving us in a mirage of illusion and unreality. Systematic metaphysics-to quote again the author just referred to_Ii is . . . the necessary result of a patient, orderly, well-informed, and prolonged 1 CA]ETAN, In 2 Post Anal., ch. xiii. 2 Cf. MERCIER, Ontologie, S 6-13; LADD, A Theory of Reality, ch. i. l1ínfra, ch. viii. ; cJ. Science of Logic, ii., Part IV., ch. iii.-vi.; Part V., ch. i. 4 p. I8-in which context will be found a masterly analysis and criticism of current prejudices and objections against systematic metaphysics. ibid. pp. 19-20. GENERAL INTRODUCTION 25 study of those ultimate problems which are proposed to every reflective mind by the real existences and actual transactions of selves and of things. Thus considered it appears as the least abstract and foreign to concrete realities of all the higher pursuits of reason. Mathematics is abstract; logic is abstract j mathematical and so-called "pure II physics are abstract. But metaphysics is bound by its very nature and calling always to keep near to the actual and to the concrete. Dive into the depths of speculation indeed it may j and its ocean is boundless in expanse and deep beyond all reach of human plummets. But it finds its place of standing, for every new turn of daring explanation, on some bit of solid ground. For it is actuality which it wishes to understand-although in reflective and interpretative way. To quote from Professor Royce: "The basis of our whole theory is the bare, brute fact of experience which you have always with you, namely, the fact: Something t"s real. Our question is: What is this reality? or, again, What is the ultimately real? U 1 The wonderful progress of the positive sciences during the last few centuries has been the occasion of prejudice against metaphysics in a variety of ways. It is objected, for instance, that metaphysics has no corresponding progress to boast of; and from this there is but a small step to the conclusion that all metaphysical speculation is sterile. The comparison is unfair for many reasons. Research into the ultimate grounds and causes of things is manifestly more difficult than research into their proximate grounds and causes. Again, while the positive sciences have increased our knowledge mainly in extent rather than in depth, it is metaphysics and only metaphysics that can increase this knowledge in its unity, comprehensiveness, and significance. A positive increase in our knowledge of the manifold data of human experience is not the aim of metaphysics; its aim is to give an ultimate meaning and interpretation to this knowledge. It is not utilitarian in the narrower sense in which the positive and special sciences are utilitarian by ministering to our material needs; but in the higher and nobler sense of pointing out to us the bearing of all human knowledge and achievement on our real nature and destiny. True, indeed, individual leaders and schools of metaphysics have strayed from the truth and spoken with con- flicting and uncertain voices, especially when they have failed to avail themselves of Truth Divinely Revealed. This, however, is not a failure of metaphysics but of individual metaphysicians. And furthermore, it is undeniable withal, that the metaphysical labours of the great philosophers in all ages have contributed richly to the enlightenment and civilization of mankind-parti- 1 ROYCE, The Conceþtiotl of God, p. 20 7. 26 ONTOLOGY cularly when these labours have been in concord and co-operation with the elevating and purifying influences ofthe Christian religion. Of no metaphysical system is this so entirely true as of that em- bodied in Scholastic Philosophy. The greatest intellect of the Middle Ages, St. Thomas Aquinas, gave to this philosophy an expression which is rightly regarded by the modern scholastic as his intellectual charter and the most worthy starting-point of his philosophical investigations. The following passage from an eminent representative of modern scholastic thought 1 is suffi- ciently suggestive to admit of quotation :- Amid the almost uninterrupted disintegration of systems during the last threecenturies, the philosophy of St. Thomas has alone been able to stand the shock of criticism; it alone has proved sufficiently solid and com- prehensive to serve as an intellectual basis and unifying principle for all the new facts and phenomena brought to light by the modern sciences. And unless we are much mistaken, those who take up and follow this philosophy will come to think, as we do, that on the analysis of mental acts and processes, on the inner nature of corporeal things, of living things, and of man, on the existence and nature of God, on the foundations of speculative and moral science, none have thought or written more wisely than St. Thomas Aquinas. But though we place our programme and teaching under the patronage of the illustrious name of this pIince of scholastics, we do not regard the Thomistic philosophy as an ideal beyond possibility of amelioration, or as a boundary to the activity of the human mind. We do think, however, on mature reflection, that we are acting no less wisely than modestly in taking it as our starting-point and constant standard of reference. This we say in answer to those of our friends and enemies who are occasionally pleased to ask us if we really do mean to lead back the modern mind into the Middle Age5, and to identify philosophy st"tnþly with the thought of anyone phil- osopher. Manifestly, we mean nothing of the kind. Has not Leo XI I 1., the great initiator of the new scholastic movement, expressly warned us to be mindful of the present: "Edicimus libenti gratoque animo recipiendum esse quidquid sapienter dictum, quidquid utiliter fuerit a quopiam inventum atque excogitatum" ? St. Thomas himself would be the first to rebuke those who would follow his own philosophical opinions in all things against their own better judgment, and to remind them of what he wrote at the head of his Summa: that in philosophy, of all arguments that based on human authority is the weakest, " locus ab auctoritate quæ fundatur super ratione humana, est inprmissimus ". S Again, therefore, let us assert that respect for tradition is not servility but mere elementary prudence. Respect for a doctrine of whose soundness and worth we are personally convinced is not fetishism; it is but a rational and rightful tribute to the dominion of Truth over Mind. 1 MERCIER, Logiquc, Introd., 14. :I Encyclical, Aeterni Patris, on philosophical studies. :I Summa Theologica, I, q. I, a. 8, ad. 2. GENERAL liVTRODUCTION 27 Modern scholastics will know how to take to heart and profit by the lessons of the seventeenth and eighteenth century controversies; they will avoid the mistakes of their predecessors; they will keep in close contact with the special sciences subsidiary to philosophy and with the views and teachings of modern and contemporary thinkers.! An overweening confidence in the power of the special sciences to solve ultimate questions, or at least to tell us all that can be known for certain about these problems, a confidence based on the astonishing progress of those sciences in modern times, is the source of yet another prejudice against metaphysics. It is a prejudice of the half-educated mind, of the camp-followers of science, not of its leaders. These latter are keenly conscious that the solution of ultimate questions lies entirely beyond the methods of the special sciences. Not that even the most eminent scientists do not indulge in speculations about ultimate problems -as they have a perfect right to do. But though they may be themselves quite aware that such speculations are distinctly metaphysical, there are multitudes who seem to think that a theory ceases to be metaphysical and becomes scientific provided only it is broached by a scientific expert as distinct from a meta- physician. 2 But all sincere thinkers will recognize that no ulti- mate question about the totality of human experience can be solved by any science which explores merely a portion of this experience. Nay, the more rapid and extensive is the progress of the various special sciences, the more imperative and insistent becomes the need to collect and collate their separate findings, to interrogate them one and all as to whether and how far these findings fit in with the facts and conditions of human life and existence, to determine what light and aid they contribute to the solution of the great and ever recurring questions of the whence ? and whither? and why? of man and the universe. One who is a sincere scientist as well as an earnest philosopher has written à propos of this necessity in the following terms:- The farther science has pushed back the limits of the discernible uni. verse, the more insistently do we feel the demand within us for some satis- factory explanation of the whole. The old, eternal problems rise up before us and clam our loudly and ever more loudly for some newer and better solution. The solution offered by a bygone age was soothing at least, if it was not final. In the present age, however, the problems reappear with ! Cf. MERCIER, Origines de la þsychologie con/emþoraitle, ch. viii. ; DE \VULF, Scholasticism Old and New (þassim). :I Cf. LADD, oþ. cit., pp. g, 10. 28 ONTOLOGY an acuteness that is almost painful: the deep secret of our own human nature, the questions 01 our origin and destiny, the intermeddling of blind necessity and chance and pain in the strange, tangled drama of our existence, the foibles and oddities of the human soul, and all the mystifying problems of social relations: are not these all so many enigmas which torment and trouble us whithersoever we turn? And all seem to circle around the one essential question: Has human nature a real meaning and value, or is it so utterly amiss that truth and peace will never be its portion? 1 A final difficulty against philosophical research is suggested by the thought that if the philospher has to take cognizance of all the conclusions of all the special sciences his task is an im- possible one, inasmuch as nowadays at all events it would take a lifetime to become proficient in a few of these sciences not to speak of all of them. There is no question, however, of becoming proficient in them; the philosopher need not be a specialist in any positive science; his acquaintance with the contents of these sciences need extend no farther than such established conclusions and such current though unverified hypotheses as have an immediate bearing on ultimate or philosophical problems. Moreover, while it would be injurious both to philosophy and to science, as is proved by the history of both alike, to separate synthetic from analytic speculation by a divorce between philo- sophy and science; while it would be unwise to ignore the con- clusions of the special sciences and to base philosophical research exclusively on the data of the plain man's common and unanalysed experience, it must be remembered on the other hand that the most fundamental truths of speculative and practical philosophy, the truths that are most important for the right and proper orientation of human life, can be established and defended inde- pendently of the special researches of the positive sciences. The human mind had not to await the discovery of radium in order to prove the existence of God. Such supreme truths as the ex- istence of God, the immortality of the human soul, the freedom of the human will, the existence of a moral law, the distinction be- tween right and wrong, etc., have been always in possession of the human race. It has been, moreover, confirmed in its posses- sion of them by Divine Revelation. And it has not needed either the rise or the progress of modern science to defend them. These fundamen tal rational truths consti tu te a þhilosophia þerennis : J EUCKEN. Gesammclte Aufsactzc %U1 Philosoþhie 1l1zd Lebensanscharmng, 157 (Leipzig, 1903). GENERAL INTRODUCTION 29 a fund of truth which is, like all truth, immutable, though our human insight into it may develop in depth and clearness. But while this is so it is none the less true that philosophy, to be progressive in its own order, must take account of every new fact and conclusion brought to light in every department of scientific-and historical, and artistic, and literary, and every other sort of-research. And this for the simple reason that every such accession, whether of fact or of theory, is an enlargement of human experience; as such it clamours on the one hand for philosophical interpretation, for explanation in the light of what we know already about the ultimate grounds and causes of things, for admission into our world-outlook, for adjustment and co-or- dination with the previous contents of the latter; while, on the other hand, by its very appearance on the horizon of human ex- perience it may enrich or illumine, rectify or otherwise influence, this outlook or some aspect of it.! If, then, philosophy has to take account of advances in every other department of human research, it is clear that its mastery at the present day is a more laborious task than ever it was in the past. In order to get an intelligent grasp of its principles in their applications to the problems raised by the progress of the sciences, to newly discovered facts and newly propounded hypo- theses, the student must be familiar with these facts and hypo- theses; and all the more so because through the medium of a sensational newspaper press that has more regard for novelty than truth, these facts and hypotheses are no sooner brought to light by scientists than what are often garbled and distorted versions of them are circulated among the masses. 2 Similarly, in order that a sound system of speculative and 1 Cf. art. Philosoþhy and the Sciences at Louvain, in the Irish IEcclesiastical Record, May, 1905, reprinted as Appendix in DE WULF'S Scholasticism Old and New. :I 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 philoso- phical 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,-botb 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 COUrse on the history of scientific theories in chemistry, physics, physiology, and general biology. 3 0 ONTOLOGY practical philosophy be expounded, developed, and defended at the present time, a system that will embrace and co-ordinate the achieved results of modern scientific research, a system that will offer the most satisfactory solutions of old difficulties in new forms and give the most reasonable and reliable answers to the ever recurring questionings of man concerning his own nature and destiny-it is clear that the insufficiency of individual effort must be supplemented by the co-operation of numbers. It is the absence of fulness, completeness, adequacy, in most modern systems of philosophy, their fragmentary character, the unequal development of their parts, that accounts very largely for the despairing attitude of the many who nowadays despise and turn away from philosophical speculation. Add to this the uncertain voice with which these philosophies speak in consequence of their advocates ignoring the implications of the most stupendous fact in human experience,-the Christian Revelation. But there is one philosophy which is free from these defects, a philosophy which is in complete harmony with Revealed Truth, and which forms with the latter the only true Philosophy of Life,' and that one philosophy is the system which, assimilating the wisdom of Plato, Aristotle and all the other greatest thinkers of the world, has been traditionally expounded in the Christian schools- the Scholastic system of philosophy. It has been elaborated by no one man, and is the original fruit of no one mind. Un- like the philosophies of Kant or Hegel or Spencer or James or Comte or Bergson, it is not a "onc-man "philosophy. It cannot boast of the novelty or originality of the many eccentric and ephemeral "systems" which have succeeded one another so rapidly in recent times in the world of intellectual fashion; but it has ever possessed the enduring novelty of the truth, which is ever ancient and ever new. Now although this philosophy may have been mastered in its broad outlines and applications by specially gifted individuals in past ages, its progressive exposi- tion and development, and its application to the vastly extended and ever-growing domains of experience that are being con- stantly explored by the special sciences, can never be the work of any individual: it can be accomplished only by the earnest co-operation of Christian philosophers in every part of the civilized world. 1 1 U We may mention it in passing," \vrites Mercier in his general introduction to philosophy (Logique, I, p. 6)-" it was this feeling of individual impotence in 3 1 In carrying on this work we have not to build from the beginning. u It has sometimes been remarked," as Newman observes,! "when men have boasted of the knowledge of modern times, that no wonder we see more than the ancients because we are mounted upon their shoulders." Yes; the intellectual toilers of to-day are heirs to the intellectual wealth of their ancestors. We have tradition: not to despise but to use, critically, judiciously, reverently, if we are to use it profitably. Thomas Davis has somewhere said that they who demolish the past do not build up for the future. And we have the Christian Revela- tion, as a lamp to our feet and a light to our paths 2 in all those rational investigations which form the appointed task of the philosopher. Hence, GENERAL INTRODUCTION Let knowledge grow from more to more, But more of reverence in us dw ll ; That mind and soul, according weIJ, May make one music as before, But vaster. 3 face of the task confronting the philosopher at the present day, that inspired the foundation of the Philosophical Institute at the University of Louvain n. He had previously outlined the project in his Rapport sur Ies ítudes þhilosop1:iques at the Congress of Mechlin in I8gr. 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 torm, 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 Embryologyex- plores their origin. The archreological, philological and ocial 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 I It J Grammar of Assent, p. 229. loX 2 Lucerna pedibus meis verbum tuum, et lumen semitis meis.-Ps. cxviii., I05. 'TENNYSON, In Memoriam. J, ,.,f I '. u J Jll/o/) . " ".-,.J> c.- (' .. H 1.-<, r,...., -r' f .(,. u(cÃA.J ß v r 1 k A-\.d .. ('I. UJ ) "'ì ...c. -. , ., . I '\ ' (l-'..,( L...Cr. \. t ((. _.(,- J.... / . {. .(.3 ('j) L r ., , C)r.,.C',X. Oe>o<:). O dvt - J. \. '-'17 . Chot 11--( C IT Cvr... 1I&o..t..L1.. '\--t2.lf,-h . ì r ( t ( ""... I- J. ) " . '--", t, ,v '^ìl-.-f. /,./:'3 , CHAPTER I. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATIONS. I. OUR CONCEPT OF BEING: ITS EXPRESSION AND FEATURES. - The term" Being" (Lat. ens,. Gr. wv; Ger. Seiend,. Fr. étant) as present participle of the verb to be (Lat. esse,. Gr. lwaL; Ger. Sein,. Fr. étre) means existing (existens, existere). But the participle has come to be used as a noun; and as such it does not necessarily imply actual existence hic et nunc. It does in- deed imply some relation to actual existence; for we designate as U being " (in the substantive sense) only whatever we conceive as actually existing or at least as capable of existing; and it is from the participial sense, which implies actual existence, that the substantive sense has been derived. Moreover, the intelligible use of the word (( being" as a term im plies a reference to some actually existing sphere of reality.l It is in the substantive meaning the term will be most frequently used in these pages, as the context will show. When we speak of "a being" in the concrete, the word has the same meaning as "thing" (res) used in the wide sense in which this latter includes persons, places, events, facts and phenomena of whatsoever kind. In the same sense we speak of "a reality," this term having taken on a con- crete, in addition to its original abstract, meaning. " Being" has also this abstract sense when we speak of (( the being or reality of things ". Finally it may be used in a collective sense to indicate the sum-total of all that is or can be-all reality. (a) The notion of being, spontaneously reached by the human mind, is found on reflection to be the simplest of all notions, defying every attempt at analysis into simpler notions. I t is involved in every other concept which we form of any object of thought whatsoever. Without it we could have no concept of anything. (b) It is thus the first of all notions in the logical order, i.e. in the process of rational thought. 1 Cf. Logic, i., 123. 3 2 BEING AND ITS PRIJ1ARY DETERJfINATIONS 33 (c) It is also the first of all notions in the chronological order, the first which the human mind forms in the order of time Not, of course, that we remember having formed it before any other more determinate notions. But the child's awakening intellectual activity must have proceeded from the simplest, easiest, most superficial of all concepts, to fuller, clearer, and more determinate concepts, -i.e. from the vague and confused notion of U being tJ or " thing tJ to notions of definite modes of being, or kinds of thing. (d) This direct notion of being is likewise the most indeter- minate of all notions; though not of course entirely indeterminate. An object of thought, to be conceivable or intelligible at all by our finite minds, must be rendered definite in some manner and degree; and even this widest notion of "being tJ is rendered intelligible only by being conceived as positive and as contrasting with absolute non-being or nothingness.! According to the Hegelian philosophy "pure thought" can apparently think" pure being," i.e. being in absolute indeterminateness, being as not even differentiated from "pure not-being" or absolute nothingness. And this absolutely indeterminate confusion (we may not call it a "synthesis U or "unity") of something and nothing, of being and not-being, of positive and negative, of affirmation and denial, would be conceived by our finite minds as the objective correlative of, and at the same time as absolutely identical with, its subjective correlative which is "pure thought". Well, it is with the human mind and its objects, and how it thinks those objects, that we are concerned at present; not with speculations involving the gratuitous assump- tion of a Being that would transcend all duality of subject and object, all determinateness of knowing and being, all distinction of thought and thing. We believe that the human mind can establish the existence of a Supreme Being whose mode of Thought and Existence transcends all human com- prehension, but it can do so only as the culminating achievement of all its speculation j and the transcendent Being it thus reaches ha.s nothing in common with the monistic ideal-real being of Hegel's philosophy. In en- deavouring to set out from the high a priori ground of such an intangible conception, the Hegelian philosophy starts at the wrong end. (e) Further, the notion of being is the most abstract of all notions, poorest in intension as it is widest in extension. We derive it from the data of our experience, and the process by which we reach it is a process of abstraction. We lay aside all the differences whereby things are distinguished from ()I!'le another; we do not consider these differences; we prescind or abstract from them mentally, and retain for consideration only what is 1 Cf. Logic, i., pp. 204-6. 3 34 ONTOLOGY common to all of them. This common element forms the ex- plicit content of our notion of being. I t must be noted, however, that we do not positively exclude the differences from the object of our concept; we cannot do this, for the simple reason that the differences too are" being," inas- much as they too are modes of being. Our attitude towards them is negative,. we merely abstain from considering them explicitly, though they remain in our concept implicitly. The separation effected is only mental, subjective, notional, formal, negative; not objective, not real, not positive. Hence the pro- cess by which we narrow down the concept of being to the more comprehensive concept of this or that generic or specific mode of being, does not add to the former concept anything really new, or distinct from, or extraneous to it j but rather brings out ex- plicitly something that was implicit in the latter. The composi- tion of being with its modes is, therefore, only logical composition, not real. On the other hand, it would seem that when we abstract a generic mode of being from the specific modes subordinate to the former, we positively exclude the differentiating characteristics of these species; and that, conversely, when we narrow down the genus to a subordinate species we do so by adding on a differenti- ating mode which was not contained even implicitly in the generic concept. Thus, for example, the differentiating concept" rational" is not contained even implicitly in the generic concept" animal 7J : it is added on ab extra to the latter 1 in order to reach the specific concept of" rational animal" or "man"; so that in abstracting the generic from the subordinate specific concept we prescind olJ"ectively and really from the differentiating concept, by positively excluding this latter. This kind of abstraction is called objective, real, positive; and the composition of such generic and differen- tiating modes of being is technically known as metaphysical com- position. The different modes of being, which the mind can distinguish at different levels of abstraction in any specific con- cept-such as U rational," " sentient," " living," U corporeal," in the concept of" man "-are likewise known as" metaphysical grades" of being. It has been questioned whether this latter kind of abstraction is always used in relating generic, specific, and differential modes of being. At first 1 Cf. SconJS, Summa Theologica, edit. by Montefortino (Rome, 1900), i., p. 106, Ad tertium. BEING AND ITS PRIfilARY DETERJ. fINATIONS 35 sight it would not appear to be a quite satisfactory account of the process in cases where the generic notion exhibits a mode of being which can be em- bodied only in one or other of a number of alternative specific modes by means of differentiae not found in any things lying outside the genus itself. The generic notion of "plane rectilinear figure" does not, of course, include explicitly its species" triangle," "quadrilateral," " pentagon," etc.; nor does it include even implicitly any definite one of them. But the concept of each of the differentiating characters, e.g. the dijferentia "three-sidedness," is unintelligible except as a mode of a "plane rectilinear figure ".1 This, how- ever, is only accidental, i.e. due to the special objects considered ; and even here there persists this difference that whereas what differentiates the species of plane rectilinear figures is not explicitly and formally plane-rectilineaIÌty, that which differentiates finite from infinite being, or substantial from accidental being, is itself also formany and explicitly being. But there are other cases in which the abstraction is manifestly objective. Thus, for example, the differentiating concept" rational" doe.. not even implicitly include the generic concept " animal, JJ for the former concept may be found realized in beings other than animals; and the differentiating concept "living" does not even implicitly include the concept" corporeal," for it may be found realized in incorporeal beings. (j) Since the notion of being is so simple that it cannot be analysed into simpler notions which might serve as its genus and dijftrentia, it cannot strictly speaking be defined. We can only describe it by considering it from various points of view and comparing it with the various modes in which we find it realized. This is what we have been attempting so far. Considering its fundamental relation to existence we might say that "Being is that which exists or is at least capable of existing JJ : Ens est id quod existit vel saltem exi'stere potest. Or, considering its relation to its opposite we might say that "Being is that which is not absolute nothingness tJ : Ens est id quod non est nihil absolutum. Or, considering its relation to our minds, we might say that" Being is whatever is thinkable, whatever can be an object of thought ". (g) The notion of being is so universal that it transcends all actual and conceivable determinate modes of being: it embraces infinite being and all modes of finite being. In other words it is not 'itself a generic, but a transcendental notion. Wider than all, even the widest and highest genera, it is not itself a genus. A genus is determinable into its species by the addition of differ- ences which lie outside the concept of the genus itself; being, 1 Cf. Logic, i., pp. 119-20. 2 Cf. SCOTUS, oþ. tit., i., pp. I04-, 129; also URRABURU, Ontologia, Disp. III., Cap. II., Art. III., p. 155. 3* 3 6 ONTOLOGY as we have seen, is not in this way determinable into its modes. 2. IN WHAT SENSE ARE ALL THINGS THAT EXIST OR CAN Ex- IST SAID TO BE (( REAL" OR TO HAVE U BEING" ?-A generic con- cept can be predicated univocally, i.e. in the same sense, of its subordinate species. These latter differ from one another by char- acteristics which lie outside the concept of the genus, while they all agree in realizing the generic concept itself: they do not of course realize it in the same way,l but as such it is really and truly in each of them and is predicated in the same sense of each. But the characteristics which differentiate all genera and species from one another, and from the common notion of being, in which they all agree, are likewise being. That in which they differ is being, as well as that in which they agree. Hence we do not predicate" being" univocally of its various modes. When we say of the various classes of things which make up our experience that they are "real " (or (( realities," or "beings "), we do not apply this predicate in altogether the same sense to the several classes; for as applied to each class it con- notes the whole content of each, not merely the part in which this agrees with, but also the part in which it differs from, the others. Nor yet do we apply the concept of " being" in a totally different sense to each separate determinate mode of being. When we predicate" being" of its modes the predication is not merely equivocal. The concept expressed by the predicate-term " being" is not totally different as applied to each subject-mode; for in all cases alike it implies either actual existence or some re- lation thereto. It only remains, therefore, that we must regard the notion of being, when predicated of its several modes, as partly the same and partly different; and this is what we mean when we say that the concept of being is analogical, that bet"ng is predicated a11alogzcally of its various modes. Analogical predication is of two kinds: a term or concept may be affirmed of a variety of subjects either by analogy of at- tributioll or by analogy of proportion.. We may, for instance, speak not only of a man as" healthy," but also of his food, his counten- 1 Hence St. Thomas calls the things about which a generic or specific concept is predicated" analoga secundum esse et non secundum intention em It (In J Smt., Dist. xix., q. 5. a. 2, ad :r am): we bring them under the same notion or .. intentio .. (e.g. " living bticg "), 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 sub- jects is sometimes (improperly) called" analogy of inequality". BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATIONS 37 ance, his occupation, his companionship, etc., as "healthy tJ. N ow health is found really only in the man, but it is attributed to the other things owing to some extrinsic but real connexion which they have with his health, whether as cause, or effect, or indication, of the latter. This is analogy of attribution; the subject of which the predicate is properly and primarily affirmed being known as the primary analogue or analogum princeps, those to which it is transferred being called the analogata. It underlies the figures of speech known as metynomy and synech- doche. Now on account of the various relations that exist be- tween the different modes of being, relations of cause and effect, whole and part, means and end, ground and consequence, etc.- relations which constitute the orders of existing and possible things, the physical and the metaphysical orders-being is of course predicated of its modes by analogy of attribution ' and in such predication infinite being is the primary analogue for finite beings, and the substance-mode of being for all accident-modes of being. Inasmuch, however, as being is not merely attributed to these modes extrinsically, but belongs to all of them intrinsically, it is also predicated of them by analogy of proportion. This latter sort of analogy is based on similarity of relations. For example, the act of understanding bears a relation to the mind similar to that which the act of seeing bears to the eye, and hence we say of the mind that it " sees It things when it understands them. Or, again, we speak of a verdant valley in the sunshine as " smiling," because its appearance bears a relation to the valley similar to that which a smile bears to the human countenance. Or again, we speak of the parched earth as " thirsting It for the rains, or of the devout soul as "thirsting JJ for God, because these relations are recognized as similar to that of a thirsty person towards the drink for which he thirsts. In all such cases the analogical con- cept implies not indeed the same attribute (differently realized) in all the analogues (as in univocal predication) but rather a simi- larity in the relation or proportion in which each analogue embodies or realizes some attribute or attributes peculiar to itsel( Seeing is to the eye as understanding is to the mind; smiling is to the countenance as the pleasing appearance of its natural features is to the valley. Rain is to the parched earth, and God is to the devout soul, as drink is to the thirsty person. It will be noted that in all such cases the analogical concept is affirmed primarily and properly of some one thing (the analogum /Jrin- 3 8 ONTOLOGY ceþs), and of the other only secondarily, and relatively to the former. Now, if we reflect on the manner in which being is affirmed of its various modes (e.g. of the infinite and the finite; or of sub- stance and accident; or of spiritual and corporeal substances; or of quantities, or qualities, or causes, etc.) we can see firstly that although these differ from one another by all that each of them zS, by the whole being of each, yet there is an all-pervading similarity between the relations which these modes bear each to its own existence. All have, or can have, actual existence: each according to the grade of perfection of its own reality. If we conceive infinite being as the cause of all finite beings, then the former exists in a manner appropriate to its all-perfect reality, and finite beings in a manner proportionate to their limited realities; and so of the various modes of finite being among themselves. Moreover, we can see secondly, as wiII be explained more fully below,1 that being is affirmed oUhe finite by virtue of its dependence on the infinite, and of accident by virtue of its dependence on substance. 2 Being or reality is therefore predi- cated of its modes by analogy of proportion. s Is a concept, when applied in this way, one, or is it really manifold? It is not simply one, for this would yield univocal predication; nor is it simply manifold, for this would give equi- vocal predication. Being, considered in its vague, imperfect, inadequate sense, as involving some common or similar propor- tion or relation to xistence in all its analogues, is one; con- sidered as representing clearly and adequately what is thus similarly related to each of the analogues, it is manifold. Analogy of proportion is the basis of the figure of speech known as metaphor. It would be a mistake, however, to infer from this that what is thus analogically predicated of a number of things belongs intrinsically and properly only to one of them, being transferred by a mere extrinsic denomination to the others; and that therefore it does not express any genuine knowledge 1 Cf. infra, ch. viii. 2 Cf. KLEUTGEN, Philosoþ/tie der Vorzeit, 599,600. S 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 Oþusculum de Nomin71m A1 alogia, published as an appendix to vol. iv. of St. Thomas' Quæstiones Disþr4tatæ in De Maria's edition (1883). BEING AND ITS PRIflfARY DETERMINATIONS 39 on our part about the nature of these other things. It does give us real knowledge about them. Metaphor is not equivocation; but perhaps more usually it is understood not to give us real knowledge because it is understood to be based on resemblances that are merely fanciful, not real. Still, no matter how slender and remote be the proportional resemblance on which the ana- logical use of language is based, in so far forth as it has such a real basis it gives us real insight into the nature of the analogues. And if we hesitate to describe such a use of language as "meta- phorical," this is only because U metaphor tJ perhaps too commonly connotes a certain transferred and improper extension of the meaning of terms, based upon a purely fanciful resemblance. All our language is primarily and properly expressive of concepts derived from the sensible appearances of material realities. As applied to the suprasensible, intelligible aspects of these realities, such as substance and cause, or to spiritual realities, such as the human soul and God, it is analogical in another sense; not as opposed to univocal, but as opposed to proper. That is, it expresses concepts which are not formed directly from the presence of the things which they signify, but are gathered from other things to which the latter are necessarily related in a variety of ways.l Considering the origin of our knowledge, the material, the sensible, the phenomenal, comes first in order, and moulds our concepts and language primarily to its own proper representation and expression; while the spiritual, the intelligible, the substantial, comes later, and must make use of the concepts and language thus already moulded. If we consider, however, not the order in which we get our knowledge, but the order of reality in the objects of our know- ledge, being or reality is primarily and more properly predicated of the infinite than of the finite, of the Creator than of the creature, of the spiritual than of the material, of substances than of their accidents and sensible manifestations or phenomena. Yet we do not predicate being or reality of the finite, or of creatures, in a mere transferred, extrinsic, improper sense, as if these were mere manifestations of the infinite, or mere effects of the First Cause, to which alone reality would properly belong. For creatures, finite things, are in a true and proper sense also real. . Duns Scotus and those who think with him contend that the concept of being, derived as it is from our experience of finite being, if applied only 1 C/. KLEUTGEN, oþ. cit., 4 0 -4 2 . 4 0 ONTOLOGY analogically to infinite being would give us no genuine knowledge about the latter. They maintain that whenever a universal concept is applied to the objects in which it is realized intrinsically, it is affirmed of these objects univocally. The notion of being, in its most imperfect, inadequate, indeter- minate sense, is, they say, one and the same in so far forth as it is applicable to the infinite and the finite, and to all the modes of the finite j and it is therefore predicated of all univocally.l But although they apply the con- cept of being univocally to the infinite and the finite, i.e. to God and creatures, they admit that the reality corresponding to this univocal concept is totally diJ1ermt in God and in creatures: that God differs by all that He is from creatures, and they by all that they are from Him. While, however, Scotists emphasize the formal oneness or identity of the indeterminate common con- cept, followers of St. Thomas emphasize the fact that the various modes of being differ totally, by all that each of them is, from one another j and, from this radical diversity in the modes of being, they infer that the common con- cept should not be regarded as simþly the same, but only as þroþortionally the same, as expressive of a similar relation of each intrinsically different mode of reality to actual existence. Thomists lay still greater stress, perhaps, upon the second consideration referred to above, as a reason for regarding being as an analogical concept when affirmed of Creator and creature, or of substance and accident: the consideration that the finite is deþendent on the infinite, and accident on sub- stance. If being is realized in a true and proper sense, and intrinsically, as it undoubtedly is, in whatever is distinguishable from nothingness, why not say that we should affirm being or reality of all things "either as a genus in the strict sense, or else in some sense not analogical but proper, after the manner in which we predicate a genus of its species and individuals? . . . Since the object of our universal idea of being is admitted to be really in all things, we can evidently abstract from what is proper to substance and to accident, just as we abstract from what is proper to plants and to animals when we affirm of these that they are living things." "In reply to this difficulty," Father Kleutgen continues,s" we say in the first place that the idea of being is in truth less analogical and more proper than any belonging to the first sort of analogy [i.e. of attribution], and that therefore it approaches more closely to generic concepts properly so called. At the same time the difference which separates both from the latter concepts remains. For a name applied to many things is analogical if what it signifies is realized þar excellence in one, and in the others only liubordinately and dependently on that. Hence it is that Aristotle regards predication as analogical when something is affirmed of many things (I) either because these have a certain relation to some one thing, (2) or because they depend on some one thing. In the former case the thing signified by the name is really and properly found only in one single thing, and is affirmed of all the others only in virtue of some real relation of these to the former, whether this be (a) that these things merely resemble that single thing 1 C/. SCOTUS, oþ. cit., i., pp. 318-22, 125-131, 102-7 (especially p. 128, Ad tertium; p. 131, Ad sextum; p. 321, Ad tertium. KLEUTGEN, oþ. cit., 599. I ibid., 600. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATIONS 41 [metaphor], or (b) bear some other relation to it, such as that of effect to cause, etc. [metonymy]. In the latter case the thing signified by the name is really in each of the things of which it is affirmed; but it is in one alone par excellence, and in the others only by depending, for its very existence in them, on that one. Now the object of the term being is found indeed in accidents, e.g. in quantity, colour, shape; but certainly it must be applied primarily to substance, and to accidents only dependently on the latter: for quantity, colour, shape can have being only because the corporeal substance possesses these determinations. But this is not at aU the case with a genus and its species. These differ from the genus, not by any such dependence, but by the addition of some special perfection to the constituents of the genus j for example, in the brute beast sensibility is added to vegetative life, and in man intelligence is added to sensibility. Here there is no relation of dependence for existence. Even if we considered human life as that of which life is principally asserted, we could not say that plants and brute beasts so depended for their life on the life of man that we could not affirm life of them except as dependent on the life of man: as we cannot attribute being to accidents except by reason of their dependence on sub- stance. Hence it is that we can consider apart, and in itself, life in general, and attribute this to all living things without relating it to any other being." 1 "It might still be objected that the one single being of which we may affirm life primarily and principally, ought to be not human life, but absolute life. And between this divine life and the life of all other beings there is a relation of dependence, which reaches even to the very existence of life in these other beings. In fact all life depends on the absolute life, not indeed in the way accident depends on substance, but in a manner no less real and far more excellent. This is entirely true j but what are we to conclude from it if not precisely this, which scholasticism teaches: thát the perfections found in the various species of creatures can be affirmed of these in the same sense (univoce'), but that they can be affirmed of God and creatures only analogically? " "From all of which we can understand why it is that in regard to genera and species the analogy is in the things but not in our thoughts, while in regard to substance and accidents it is both in the things and in our thoughts: a difference which rests not solely on our manner of conceiving things, nor a fortiori on mere caprice or fancy, but which has its basis in the very nature of the things themselves. For though in the former case there is a certain analogy in the things themselves, inasmuch as the same nature, that of the genus, is realized in the species in different ways, still, as we have seen, that is not sufficient, without the relation of dependence, to yield a basis for analogy in our thoughts. For it is precisely because accident, as a determination of substance, presupposes this latter, that being cannot be affirmed of accident except as dependent on substance." These paragraphs will have shown with sufficient clearness why we should regard being not as an univocal but as an analogical concept, when referred to God and creatures, or to substance and accident. For the rest, the diverg- ence between the Scotist and the Thomist views is not very important, be- l SUAREZ, Metaþh., Dist. xxviii., 3; Dist. xxxii., 2. 42 ONTOLOGY cause Scotists also will deny that being is a genus of which the infinite and the finite would be species j finite and infinite are not dijJcrentiae superadded to being, inasmuch as each of these differs by its whole reality, and not merely by a determining portion, from the other j it is owing to the limitations of our abstractive way of understanding reality that we have to conceive the infinite by first conceiving being in the abstract, and then mentally determining this concept by another, namely, by the concept of "infinite mode of being n 1 j the infinite, and whatever perfections we predicate formally of the infinite, transcend all genera, sþecies and differentiae, because the distinction of being into infinite and finite is prior to the distinction into genera, species and dif- ferentiae j this latter distinction applying only to finite, not to infinite being. 2 The observations we have just been making in regard to the analogy of being are of greater importance than the beginner can be expected to realize. A proper appreciation of the way in which being or reality is conceived by the mind to appertain to the data of our experience, is indispensable to the defence of Theism as against Agnosticism and Pantheism. 3. REAL BEING AND LOGICAL BEING.-We may next illus- trate the notion of being by approaching it from another stand- point-by examining a fundamental distinction which may be drawn between real being (ens reale) and log-feal being (ens rationis). We derive all our knowledge, through external and internal sense perception, from the domain of actually existing things, these things including our own selves and our own minds. We form, from the data of sense-consciousness, by an intellectual process proper, mental representations of an abstract and universal character, which reveal to us partial aspects and phases of the natures of things. We have no intuitive intellectual insight into these natures. It is only by abstracting their various aspects, by comparing these in judgments, and reaching still further aspects by inferences, that we progress in our knowledge of things- gradually, step by step, discursivé, discurrendo. All this implies reflection on, and comparison of, our own ideas, our mental views of things. I t involves the processes of defining and classifying, affirming and denying, abstracting and generalizing, ana lysing and synthesizing, comparing and relating in a variety of ways the objects grasped by our thought. Now in all these complex functions, by which alone the mind can interpret rationally what is given to it, by which alone, in other words, it can know reality, the mind necessarily and inevitably forms for itself (and ex- 1 SCOTUS, oþ. cit., i., pp. 106-7, 128-9. I ibid., p. 107. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERlIfINATIONS 43 presses in intelligible language) a series of concepts which have for their objects only the modes in which, and the relations by means of which, it makes such gradual progress in its interpretation of what is given to it, in its knowledge of the real. These concepts are called secundae intentz"ones mentis-concepts of the second order, so to speak. And their objects, the modes and mutual relations of our primae intentiones or direct concepts, are called entia ratioms-Iogical entities. For example, abstractness is a mode which affects not the reality which we apprehend intel- lectually, but the concept by which we apprehend it. So, too, is the universality of a concept, its communicability or applicability to an indefinite multitude of similar realities-the" intentio uni- versalitatis," as it is called-a mode of concept, not of the realities represented by the latter. So, likewise, is the absence of other reality than that represented by the concept, the relative nothing- ness or non-being by contrast with which the concept is realized as positive; and the absolute nothingness or non-being which is the logical correlative of the concept of being; and the static, unchanging self-identity of the object as conceived in the ab- stract. I These are not modes of reality as it zS but as it is con- ceived. Again, the manifold logical relations which we establish between our concepts-relations of( extensive or intensive) identity or distinction, inclusion or inherence, etc.-are logical entities, entia rationzs: relations of genus, species, differentia, proprium, accidens; the affirmative or negative relation between predi- cate and subject in judgment; 2 the mutual relations of ante- cedent and consequent in inference. Now all these logical entities, or obiecta secundae intentiontS mentis, are relations estab- lished by the mind itself between its own thoughts; they have, no doubt, a foundation in the real objects of those thoughts as well as in the constitution and limitations of the mind itself; but they have themselves, and can have, no other being than that which they have as products of thought. Their sole being consists in being thought of. They are necessary creations or products of the thought-process as this goes on in the human mind. \Ve see 1 Cf. KLEUTGEN, La þhilosoþhie scolastique (U Die Philosoþhie del" Vorzeit "). Fr. trans. by Sierp (Faris, 1868), vol. i., p. 66, 35. 2 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. I. 44 ONTOLOGY that it is only by means of these relations we can progress in understanding things. In the thought-process we cannot help bringing them to light-and thinking them after the manner of realities, per modum entis. Whatever we think we must think through the concept of" being"; whatever we conceive we must conceive as "being"; but on reflection we easily see that such entities as "nothingness, U "negation or absence or privation of being," "universality," "predicate" -and, in general, all relations established by our own thought between our own ideas repre- sentative of reality-can have themselves no reality proper, no actual or possible existence, other than that which they get from the mind in virtue of its making them objects of its own thought. Hence the scholastic definition of a logical entity or ens rationis as "that which has objective being merely in the intellect JJ : "illud quod habet esse objective tantum t.'n intellectu, seu . . . t"d quod a ratione excogitatur ut ens, cum tamen t.'n se entitatem non habeat ".1 Of course the mental process by which we think such entities, the mental state in which they are held in consciousness, is just as real as any other mental process or state. But the entity which is thus held in consciousness has and can have no other reality than what it has by being an object of thought. And this precisely is what distinguishes it from real being, from reaNty; for the latter, besides the ideal existence it has in the mind which thinks of it, h'i' or at least can have, a real existence of its own, independently altogether of our thinking about it. We assume here, of course-what is established elsewhere, as against the subjective idealism of phenomenists and the objective idealism of Berkeley-that the reality of actual things does not consist in their being perceived or thought of, that their "esse U is not "percipi," that they have a reality other than and in- dependent of their actual presence to the thought of any human mind. And even purely possible things, even the creatures of our own fancy, the fictions of fable and romance, could, absolutely speaking and without any contradiction, have an existence in the actual order, in addition to the mental existence they receive from those who fancy them. Such entities, therefore, differ from entt.'a rationis; they, too, are real beings. What the reality of purely possible things is we shall discuss later on. Actually existing things at all events we assume to be given to the knowing mind, not to be created by the latter. Even in regard to these, however, we 1 SUAREZ, Mltaþh., Dist. 54, i., 6. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERltIINATIONS 45 must remember that the mind in knowing them, in interpreting them, in seek- ing to penetrate the nature of them, is not purely passive; that reality as known to us-or, in other words, our knowledge of reality-is the product of a twofold factor: the subjective which is the mind, and the objective which Is the extramental reality acting on, and thus revealing itself to, the mind. Hence it is that when we come to analyse in detail our knowledge of the nature of things-or, in other words, the natures of things as revealed to our minds-it will not be always easy to distinguish in each particular case the properties, aspects, relations, distinctions, etc., which are real (in the sense of being there in the reality independently of the consideration of the mind) from those that are merely logical (in the sense of being produced and superadded to the reality by the mental process itself).l Yet it is obviously a matter of the very first importance to determine, as far as may be possible, to what extent our knowledge of reality is not merely a mental interþretation, but a mental construction, of the latter; and whether, if there be a constructive or constitutive factor in thought, this should be regarded as interfering with the validity of thought as representative of reality. This problem-of the relation of the ens rationis to the ens reale in the process of cognition-has given rise to discussions which, in modern times, have largely contributed to the fonnation of that special branch of philosophical enquiry which is called Epistemology. But it must not be imagined that this very problem was not discussed, and very widely discussed, by philosophers long before the problem of the validity of knowledge assumed the prominent place it has won for itself in modern philosophy. Even a moderate familiarity with scholastic philosophy will enable the student to recognize this problem, in a variety of phases, in the discussions of the medieval schoolmen concerning the concepts of matter and fonn, the simplicity and composition of beings, and the nature of the various distinctions-whether logical, virtual, fOlmal, or real-which the mind either invents or detects in the realities it endeavours to understand and explain. 4. REAL BEING AND IDEAL BEING.- The latter of these expressions has a multiplicity of kindred meanings. We use it here in the sense of H being known," i.e. to signify the (( esse intentionale," the mental presence, which, in the scholastic theory of knowledge, an entity of whatsoever kind, whether real or logical, must have in the mind of the knower in order that he be aware of that entity. A mere logical entity, as we have seen, has and can have no other mode of being than this which con- sists in being an object of the mind's awareness. All real being, too, when it becomes an object of any kind of human cognition whatsoever-of intellectual thought, whether direct or reflex; of sense perception, whether external or internal-must obtain this sort of mental presence or mental existence: thereby alone can it become an Ie objectum cognitum ". Only by such mental 1 CJ. Logic, i., pp. 28-9. 4 6 ONTOLOGY mirroring, or reproduction, or reconstruction, can reality become so related and connected with mind as to reveal it3elf to mind. Under this peculiar relation which we call cognition, the mind, as we know from psychology and epistemology, is not passive: if reality revealed itself immediately, as it is, to a purely passive mind (were such conceivable), the existence of error would be unaccountable; but the mind is not passive: under the influence of the reality it forms the intellectual concept (the verbum mentale), or the sense percept (the species sensibih"s expressa), in and through which, and by means of which, it attains to its knowledge of the real. But prior (ontologically) to this mental existence, and as partial cause of the latter, there is the real existence or being, which reality has independently of its being known by any individual human mind. Real being, then, as distinguished here from ideal being, is that which exists or can exist extramentally, whether it is known by the human mind or not, z..e. whether it exists also mentally or not. That there is such real being, apart from the" thought It-being whereby the mind is constituted formally knowing, is proved elsewhere; as also that this esse intmtionale has modes which cannot be attributed to the esse reale. \Ve merely note these points here in order to indicate the errors involved in the opposite contentions. Our concepts are characterized by abstractness, by a consequent static immutability, by a plurality often resulting from purely mental distinctions, by a universality which transcends those distinctions and unifies the variety of all subordinate concepts in the widest concept of bez"ng. Now if, for example, we attribute the unitying mental mode of universality to real being, we must draw the pantheistic conclusion that all real being is one: the logical outcome of extreme realism. If, again, we transfer purely mental distinctions to the unity of the Absolute or Supreme Being, thus making them rea], we thereby deny infinite perfection to the most perfect being con- ceivable: an error of which some catholic philosopers of the later middle ages have been accused with some foundation. If, finally, we identify the esse reall! with the esse intentionale, and this with the thought-process itself, we find ourselves at the starting-point of Hegelian monism. l 5. FUNDAMENTAL DISTINCTIONS IN REAL BEING.-Leaving logical and ideal being aside, and fixing our attention exclusively on real being, we may indicate here a few of the most fundamental distinctions which experience enables us to recognize in our study of the universal order of things. (a) Possible or Potential Being and Actual Being.- The first of these distinctions is that between possibility and actuality, be- 1 Cf. KLEUTGE , oþ. cit., 551-2. BEING AND ITS PRI.L fARY DETER1WINATIONS 47 tween that which can be and that which actually is. For a proper understanding of this distinction) which will be dealt with presently, it is necessary to note here the following divisions of actual being) which will be studied in detail later on. Cb) Infinite Being and Finite BeÌ1zgs.-All people have a sufficiently clear notion of Infinite Being) or Infinitely Perfect Being: though not all philosophers are agreed as to how pre- cisely we get this notion, or whether there actually exists such a being, or whether if such being does exist we can attain to a certain knowledge of such existence. By infinite being we mean a being possessing all conceivable perfections in the most perfect conceivable manner; and by finite beings all such beings as have actually any conceivable limitation to their perfection. About these nominal definitions there is no dispute; and scholasticism identifies their respective objects with God and creatures. (c) Necessary Being and Continge1zt Beings.-N ecessary being we conceive as that being which exists of necessity: being which if conceived at all cannot be conceived as non-existent: being in the very concept of which is essentially involved the concept of actual existence: so that the attempt to conceive such being as non-existent would be an attempt to conceive what would be self-contradictory. Contingent being) on the other hand) is being which is conceived not to exist of necessity: being which may be conceived as not actually existent: being in the concept of which is not involved the concept of actual existence. The same observations apply to this distinction as to the preceding one. I t is obvious that any being which we regard as actual we must regard either as necessary or as contingent; and) secondly, that necessary being must be considered as absolutely independent, as having its actual existence from itself, by its own nature; while contingent being must be considered as dependent for its actual existence on some being other than itself. Hence neces- sary being is termed Ens a se, contingent being Ens ab alia. (d) Absolute Being and Relative Beings.-In modern philo- sophy the terms U absolute" and II relative," as applied to being) correspond roughly with the terms" God" and II creatures" in the usage of theistic philosophers. But the former pair of terms is really of wider application than the latter. The term absolute means, etymologically, that which is loosed) unfettered, disengaged or free from bonds (absolutum, ab-salvere) solvo = se-luo, from ÀV(r}): that) therefore, which is not bound up with anything else, 4 8 ONTOLOGY which is in some sense self-sufficing, independent; while the relative is that which is in some way bound up with something else, and which is so far not self-sufficing or independent. That, therefore, is ontologically absolute which is in some sense self- sufficing, independent of other things, in its existence / while the ontologically relative is that which depends in some real way for its existence on something else. Again, that is logically absolute which can be conceived and known by us without reference to anything else j while the logically relative is that which we can conceive and know only through our knowledge of some- thing else. And since we usually name things according to the way in which we conceive them, we regard as absolute any being which is by itself and of itself that which we conceive it to be, or that which its name implies; and as relative any being which is what its name implies only in virtue of some relation to something else. l Thus, a man is a man absolutely, while he is a friend only relatively to others. I t is obvious that the primary and general meaning of the terms" absolute" and" relative JJ can be applied and extended in a variety of ways. For instance, all being may be said to be "relative" to the knowing mind, in the sense that all knowledge involves a transcendental relation of the known object to the knowing subject. In this widest and most improper sense even God Himself is relative, not however as being, but as known. Again, when we apply the same attribute to a variety of things we may see that it is found in one of them in the most perfect manner conceivable, or at least in a fuller and higher degree than it is found in the others; and that it is found in these others only with some sort of subordination to, and depend- ence on, the former: we then say that it belongs to this primarily or absolutely, and to the others only secondarily or relatively. This is a less improper application of the terms than in the pre- ceding case. What we have especially to remember here is that there are many different kinds of dependence or subordination, all alike giving rise to the same usage. Hence, applying the terms absolute and relative to the predi- cate "being Jt or "real JJ or "reality," it is obvious in the first place that the potential as such can be called "being," or (( re- ality " only in relation to the actual. It is the actual that is being simpliciter, par excellence J' the potential is so only in 1 Cf. Logic, i., pp. 70-1. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETER JfINATIONS 49 relation to this.! Again, substances may be termed beings ab- solutely, while accidents are beings only relatively, because of their dependence on substances; though this relation is quite different from the relation of potential to actual being. Finally all finite, contingent realities, actual and possible, are what they are only because of their dependence on the Infinite and Neces- sary Being: and hence the former are relative and the latter absolute; though here again the relation is different from that of accident to substance, or of potential to actual. Since the order of being includes all orders, and since a being is absolutely such-or-such in any order only when that being realizes in all its fulness and purity such-or-such reality, it follows that the being which realizes in all its fulness the reality of being is the Absolute Being in the highest possible sense of this term. This concept of Absolute Being is the richest and most compre- hensive of all possible concepts: it is the very antithesis of that other concept of n being in general " which is common to every- thing and distinguished only from nothingness. It includes in itself all actual and possible modes and grades and perfections of finite things, apart from their limitations, embodying all of them in the one highest and richest concept of that which makes all of them real and actual, via. the concept of Actuality or Actual Reality itsel( Hegel and his foIIowers have Involved themselves in a pantheistic philo- sophy by neglecting to distinguish between those two totally different con- cepts. 1I A similar error has also resulted from failure to distinguish between 1 U Esse aetum quemdam nominat: non enim dieitur esse aliquid ex hoc, quod est in potentia, sed ex hoc, quod est in aetu."-ST. THOMAS, Contra Gent. I., c. xxii., 4. II Certain medieval philosophers had made the same mistake. St. Thomas points out their error frequently. C/. Contra Gentes, i., c. xxvi: U Quia id, quod commune est, per additionem speeifieatur vel individuatur, restimaverunt, 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 irraûonali differentia, quamvis sine his differentiis consideretur; lieet enim cogitetur universale absque additione, non tamen absque reeeptibilitate additionis est. Nam si animali nulla differentia addi posset, genus non esset i et similiter est d omnibus aliis nominibus. Divinum autem esse est absque additione, non solum cogHatione, 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 eonc1udi pot est quod Deus non sit esse commune, sed esse proprium. Etenim ex hoc ipso suum esse ab omnibus aliis distinguitur quia nihil ei addi potest." ' ,.. 4 50 ONTOLOGY the various modes in which being that is relative may be dependent On being that is absolute. God is the Absolute Being; creatures are relative. So too is substance absolute being, compared with accidents as inhering and existing in substance. But God is not therefore to be conceived as the one all-pervading substance, of which aU finite things, all phenomena, would be only accidental manifestations. CHAPTER II. BECOMI G AND ITS IMPLICATIONS. 6. THE STATIC AND THE CHANGING.-The things we see around us, the things which make up the immediate data of our experience, not only are or exist . they also become, or come into actual existence; they change / they pass out of actual existence. The abstract notion of being represents its object to the mind in a static, permanent, changeless, self-identical condition; but if this condition were an adequate representation of reality change would be unreal, would be only an illusion. This is what the Eleatic philosophers of ancient Greece believed, distinguishing merely between being and nothingness. But they were mistaken; for change in things is too obviously real to be eliminated by calling it an illusion: even if it were an illusion, this illusion at least would have to be accounted for. In order, therefore, to understand reality we must employ not merely the notion of being (something static), but also the notion of becoming, change, process, appearing and disappearing (something kinetic, and something dynamic). In doing so, however, we must not fall into the error of the opposite extreme from the Eleatics-by regarding change as the adequate representation of reality. This is what Heraclitus and the later Ionians did: holding that nothing is, that all becomes Crmív'Ta pêt), that change is all reality, that the stable, the permanent, is non-existent, unreal, an illusion. This too is false; for change would be unintelligible without at least an abiding law of change, a permanent principle of some sort; which, in turn, involves the reality of some sort of abiding, stable, permanent being. We must then-with Aristotle, as against both of those one- sided conceptions-hold to the reality both of being and of becoming; and proceed to see how the stable and the changing can both be real. To convince ourselves that they are both real, very little 51 4 * 52 ONTOLOGY reflection is needed. We have actual experience of both those elements of reality in our consciousness and memory of our own selves. Every human individual in the enjoyment of his mental faculties knows himself as an abiding, self-identical being, yet as constantly undergoing real changes; so that throughout his life he is really the same being, though just as certainly he really changes. In external nature, too, we observe on the one hand innumerable processes of growth and decay, of motion and interaction; and on the other hand a similarly all-pervading element of sameness or identity amid all this never-ending change. 7. THE POTENTIAL AND THE ACTUAL. (a) POSSIBILITY, ABSOLUTE, RELATIVE, AND ADEQUATE.-It is from our experi- ence of actuality and change that we derive not only our notion of temporal duration, but also our notion of potential being or possibility, as distinct from that of actual being or actuality. It is from our experience of what actually exists that we are able to determine what can, and what cannot exist. We know from ex- perience what gold is, and what a tower is; and that it is intrin- sically possible for a golden tower to exist, that such an object of thought involves no contradiction, that therefore its existence is not impossible, even though it may never actually exist as a fact. Similarly, we know from experience what a square is, and what a circle is; and that it is intrinsically impossible for a square circle to exist, that such an object of thought involves a contra- diction, that therefore not only is such an object never actually existent in fact, but that it is in no sense real, in no way possible. Thus, 'intrinsic (or oliectz"ve, absolute, logical, metaphysical) possibility is the mere non-repugnance of an object of thought to actual existence. Any being or object of thought that is con- ceivable in this way, that can be conceived as capable of actually existing, is called intrinsically (or objectively, absolutely, logically, metaphysically) possible being. The absence of such intrinsic capability of actual existence gives us the notion of the intrinsi. cally (objectively, absolutely, logically, metaphysically) impos- sible. We shall return to these notions again. They are necessary here for the understanding of real change in the actual universe. Fixing our attention now upon the real changes which char- acterize the data of our experience, let us inquire what conditions are necessary in order that an intrinsically possible object of thought become here and now an actual being. It matters not BECOiJ,fING AND ITS IðfPLICATIONS 53 whether we select an example from the domain of organic nature, of inorganic nature, or of art-whether it be an oak, or an ice- berg, or a statue. In order that there be here and now an actual oak-tree, it is necessary not only (1) that such an object be in- trinsically possible, but (2) that there have been planted here an actual acorn, i.e. an actual being having in it subjectively and really the passive potentiality of developing into an actual oak- tree, and (3) that there be in the actual things around the acorn active powers or forces capable of so influencing the latent, passive potentiality of the acorn as gradually to evolve the oak-tree there- from. So, too, for the (I) intrinsically possible iceberg, there are needed (2) water capable of becoming ice, and (3) natural powers or forces capable of forming it into ice and setting this adrift in the ocean. And for the (I) intrinsically possible statue there are needed (2) the block of marble or other material capable of be- coming a statue, and (3) the sculptor having the power to mould this material into an actual statue. In order, therefore, that a thing which is not now actual, but only intrinsically or absolutely possible, become actual, there must actually exist some being or beings endowed with the active power or potency of making this possible thing actual. The latter is then said to be relatively, extrinsically possible-in relation to such being or beings. And obviously a thing may be possible relatively to the power of one being, and not possible relatively to lesser power of another being: the statue that is intrinsically possible in the block of marble, may be extrinsically possible relatively to the skilled sculptor, but not relatively to the unskilled person who is not a sculptor. Furthermore, relatively to the same agent or agents, the pro- duction of a given effect, the doing of a given thing, is said to be physically possible if it can be brought about by such agents act- ing according to the ordinary course of nature; if, in other words they have the physical power to do it. Otherwise it is said to be physically impossible, even though metaphysically or intrinsic- ally possible, e.g. it is physically impossible for a dead person to come to life again. A thing is said to be morally possible, in reference to free and responsible agents, if they can do it without unreasonable inconvenience; otherwise it is considered as morally impossible, even though it be both physically and metaphysically possible: as often happens in regard to the fulfilment of one's obligations. 54 ONTOLOGY That which is both intrinsically and extrinsically possible is said to be adequately possible. Whatever is intrinsically possible is also extrinsically possible in relation to God, who is Almighty, Omnipotent. 8. (b) SUBJECTIVE" POTENTIA," ACTIVE AND PASSIVE.- Furthermore, we conceive the Infinite Being, Almighty God, as capable of creating, or producing actual being from nothingness, i.e. without any actually pre-existing material out of whose passive potentiality the actual being would be developed. Creative power or activity does not need any pre-existing subject on which to exercise its influence, any subject in whose passz've potenti- ality the thing to be created is antecedently implicit. But all other power, all activity of created causes, does require some such actually existing subject. If we examine the activities of the agencies that fall within our direct experi- ence, whether in external nature or in our own selves, we shall find that in no case does their operative influence or causality extend beyond the production of changes in existing being, or attain to the production of new actual being out of nothingness. The forces of nature cannot produce an oak without an acorn, or an iceberg without water; nor can the sculptor produce a statue except from some pre-existing material. The natural passive potentiality of things is, moreover, limited in refer- ence to the active powers of the created universe. These, for example, can educe life from the passive potentiality of inorganic matter, but only by assimilating this matter into a living organism: they cannot restore life to a human corpse; yet the latter has in it the capacity to be restored to life by the direct influence of the Author of Nature. This special and supernatural potentiality in created things, under the influence of Omnipotence, is known as þotentz"a obedientalis. 1 This consideration will help us to realize that aU reality which is produced by change, and subject to change, is essenti- ally a mixture of becoming and being, of potentia! and actual The reality of such being is not tota simul Only immutable being, whose duration is eternal, has its reality Iota simul: it alone is purely actual, the" Actus Purus" .I. and its duration is one eternâl "now," without beginning, end, or succession. But mutable being, whose duration in actual existence is measured by time, is actualized only successively: its actuality at any par- ticular instant does not embody the whole of its reality: this 1 Cf. ST. THOMAS, QQ. DD. De Potentia, q. i. art. I, ad. 18. BECOMING AND ITS IflfPLICATIONS 55 latter includes also a U was tt and U wi'll be",. the thing was potentially what it now is actually, and it will become actually something which it now is only potentially; nor shall we have understood even moderately the nature or essence of any mutable being-an oak-tree, for example-until we have grasped the fact that the whole reality of its nature embraces more than what we find of it actually existing at any given instant of its existence. In other words, we have to bear in mind that the reality of such a being is not pure actuality but a mixture of potential and actual: that it is an actus non-þurus, or an actus mixtus. We have to note well that the potential being of a thing is something real-that it is not merely a modus loquendi, or a modus intelligendz: The oak is in the acorn in some true and real sense: the potentiality of the oak is something real in the acorn: if it were not so, if it were nothing real in the acorn, we could say with equal truth that a man or a horse or a house is potentially in the acorn; or, again with equal truth, that the oak is potentially in a mustard-seed, or a grain of corn, or a pebble, or a drop of water. Therefore the oak is really in the acorn-not actually but potentially, þotentia þassiva. The oak-tree is also really in those active forces of nature whose influence on the acorn develop the latter into an actual oak-tree: it is in those causes not actually, of course, but vz'rtu- ally, for they possess in themselves the oþerative power-þotentia activa sive oþerativa-to educe the oak-tree out of the acorn. These two potential conditions of a being-in the active causes which produce it, and in the pre-existing actual thing or things from which it is produced-are called each a real or subjective potency, potentia realis, or þotentia sulyectiva, in distinction from the mere logical or objective possibility of such a being. And just as the passive potentiality of the statue is something real in the block of marble, though distinct from the actuality of the statue and from the process by which this is actualized, so is the active power of making the statue something real in the sculptor, though distinct from the operation by which he makes the statue. If an agent's þower to act, to produce change, were not a reality in the agent, a reality distinct from the action of the latter; or if a being's capacity to undergo change, and thereby to become something other, were not a reality distinct from the process of change, and from the actual result of this process -it would follow not only that the actual alone is real, and 56 ONTOLOGY the merely possible or potential unreal, but also that no change can be real, that nothing can really become, and nothing really disappear. 1 9. (c) ACTUALITY: ITS RELATION TO .POTENTIALITY.-It is from our experience of change in the world that we derive our notions of the potential and the actual, of active power and passive potentiality. The term" act tt has primarily the same meaning as U action," "operation, J) that process by which a change is wrought. But the Latin word actus (Gr. ÈvÉP'YEta, ÈV7"EÀ XEta) means rather that which is achieved by the actio, that which is the correlative and complement of the passive potentiality, the actuality of this latter: that by which potential being is rendered formally actual, and, by way of consequence, this actual being itself. "Potentia activa" and its correlative "actus" might, perhaps, be appropriately rendered by "þower" (potestas agendz) and "action tJ or " oþeration ",. "þotentia passiva tJ and its correlative U actus," by "þotentiality" and "actuality" respectively. In these correlatives, the notion underlying the term" actual" is manifestly the notion of something completed, achieved, perfected-as compared with that of something incomplete, im- perfect, determinable, which is the notion of the potential. Hence the notions of þotentia and actus have been extended widely beyond their primary signification of power to act and the exercise of this power. Such pairs of correlatives as the deter- minable and the determined, the perfectible and the perfected, the undeveloped or less developed and the more developed, the generic and the specific, are all conceived under the aspect of this widest relation of the potential to the actual. And since we can distinguish successive stages in any process of develop- ment, or an order of logical sequence among the contents of our concept of any concrete reality, it follows that what will be con- ceived as an actus in one relation will be conceived as a þotentia in another. Thus, the disposition of any faculty-as, for exampl , the scientific habit in the intellect-is an actus or perfection of the faculty regarded as a þotentia ' but it is itself a þotentia which is actualized in the operation of actually studying. This illustrates the distinction commonly drawn between an "actus primus" and an "actus secundus" in any particular order or line of reality: the actus primus is that which presupposes no prior 1 ARISTOTLE, Metaþh., c. iv., v., aþud KLEUTGEN, oþ. cit., iii., p. 60. BECO fING AND ITS LJfPLICATIONS 57 actua1ity in the same order; the actus secundus is that which does presuppose another. The act of knowing is an actus secun- dus which presupposes the cognitive faculty as an actus primus: the faculty being the" first or fundamental equipment of the soul in relation to knowledge. Hence the child is said to have know- ledge" in actu primo" as having the faculty of reason; and the student to have knowledge "in actu secundo" as exercising this faculty. The actus or perfecting principles of which we have spoken so far are all conceived as presupposing an existing subject on which they supervene. They are therefore accidents as distinct from substantial constitutive principles of this subject; and they are therefore called accidental actualities, actus "accidentales JJ. But the actual existence of a being is also conceived as the com- plement and correlative of its essence: as that which makes the latter actual, thus transferring it from the state of mere possi- bility. Hence existence also is called an actus or actuaJ ity: the actus" existentialis," to distinguish it from the existing thing's activities and other subsequently acquired characters. In reference to these existence is a U first actuality "-" Esse est actus primus JJ ; "Prius est esse quam agere II : "Existence is the first actuality"; "Action presupposes existence tJ -while each of these in reference to existence, is a "second actuality," an actus secundus. When, furthermore, we proceed to examine the constitutive principles essential to any being in the concrete, we may be able to distinguish between principles which are determinable, pas- sive and persistent throughout all essential change of that being, and others which are determining, specifying, differen tiating principles. In water, for example, we may distinguish the passive underlying principle which persists throughout the decomposition of water into oxygen and hydrogen, from the active specifying principle which gives that substratum its specific nature as water. The former or material principle (vÀ1J, materia) is potentz'al, compared with the latter or formal principle (p,opcþry, Elöo , lJTEÀÉxeta, forma, species, actus) as actual. The concept of actus is thus applied to the essence itself: the actus u esselltialis JJ or "formalis JJ of a thing is that which we conceive to be the ultimate, completing and determining principle of the essence or nature of that thing. In reference to this as well as the other constitutive principles of the thing, the actual existence of the thing is a " second actuality," an actus secundus. 58 ONTOLOGY In fact all the constitutive principles of the essence of any ex- isting thing, and all the properties and attributes involved in the essence or necessarily connected with the essence, must all alike be conceived as logically antecedent to the existential actus whereby they are constituted something in the actual order, and not mere possible objects of our thought. And from this point of view the existence of a thing is called the ultimate actualization of its essence. Hence the scholastic aphorism: "Esse est ultimus actus rei". The term actus may designate that complement of reality by which potential being is made actual (actus" actuans "), or this actual being itself (actus" sÙnplidter dictus "). In the latter sense we have already distinguished the Being that is immutable, the Being of God, as the Actus Purus, from the being of all mutable things, which latter being is necessarily a mixture of potential and actual, an actus mixtus. Now if the essences of corporeal things are composite, if they are constituted by the union of some determining, formative principle with a determinable, passive principle-of" form" with "matter," in scholastic terminology-we may call these formative principles actus U informantes "-,. and if these cannot actually exist except in union with a material principle they may be called actus "non-subsistentes": e.g., the formative principle or "forma substantialis" of water, or the vital principle of a plant. If, on the other hand, there exist essences which, being simple, do not actualize any material, determinable principle, but subsist independently of any such, they are called actus" non-informantes," or actus" subsistentes n. Such, for example, are God, and pure spirits whose existence is known from revelation. Finally, there may be a kind of actual essence which, though it naturallyactual- izes a material principle de facto, can nevertheless continue to subsist without this latter: such an actual being would be at once an actus informans and an actus subsistens,. and such, in fact, is the human soul. Throughout all distinctions between the potential and the actual there runs the conception of the actual as something more peifect than the potential. There is in the actual something posi- tive and real over and above what is in the potential. This is an ultimate fact in our analysis; and its importance will be realized when we come to apply the notions we have been explaining to the study of change. BECOl'tfING AND ITS I1JfPLICATIONS 59 The notion of grades of perfection in things is one with which everyone is familiar. We naturally conceive some beings as higher upon the scale of reality than others; as having" more " reality, so to speak-not necessarily, of course, in the literal sense of size or quantity-than others; as being more perfect, nobler, of greater worth, value, dignity, excellence, than others. Thus we regard the infinite as more perfect than the finite, spiritual beings as nobler than material beings, man as a higher order of being than the brute beast, this again as surpassing the whole vegetable kingdom, the lowest form of life as higher on the scale of being than inorganic matter, the substance-mode of being as superior to all accident-modes, the actualized state of a being as more perfect than its potential state, 'i.e. as existing in its material, efficient and ideal or exemplar causes. The grounds and significance of this mental appreciation of relative values in things must be discussed elsewhere. We refer to it here in order to point out another scholastic aphorism, according to which the higher a thing is in the scale of actual being, and the more perfect it is accordingly, the more efficient it will also be as a principle of action, the more powerful as a cause in the production of changes in other things, the more operative in actualizing their passive potentialities; and conversely, the less actual a thing is, and therefore the more imperfect, the greater its passive capacity will be to undergo the influence of agencies that are actual and operative around it. " As passive potentiality," says St. Thomas,l " is the mark of potential being, so active power is the mark of actual being. For a thing acts, in so far as it is actual; but is acted on, so far as it is potential." Our knowledge of the nature of things is in fact exclusively based on our knowledge of their activities: we have no other key to the knowledge of what a thing is than our knowledge of what it does: "Operarz. sequitur esse " : "Qualis est oþeratio tal is est natura It _II Acting follows being ": "Conduct is the key to nature". A being that is active or operative in the production of a change is said to be the efficient cause of the change, the latter being termed the effect. Now the greater the change, i.e. the higher and more perfect be the grade of reality that is actualized in the change, the higher too in the scale of being must be the efficient cause of that change. There must be a proportion in degree of perfection or reality between effect and cause. The 1 Contra Gentes, II., c. vii. 60 ONTOLOGY former cannot exceed in actual perfection the active power, and therefore the actual being, of the latter. This is so because we conceive the effect as being produced or actualized through the oþerative 'influence of the cause, and with real dependence on this latter; and it is inconceivable that a cause should have power to actualize other being, distinct from itself, which would be of a higher grade of excellence than itsel( The nature of efficient causality, of the influence by which the cause is related to its effect, is not easy to determine; it will be discussed at a subse- quent stage of our investigations (Ich. xi.); but whatever it be, a little reflection should convince us of the truth of the principle just stated: that an effect cannot be more perfect than its cause. The mediæval scholastics embodied this truth in the form ula : Nemo dat quod non habet-a formula which we must not interpret in the more restricted and literal sense of the words giving and having, lest we be met with the obvious objection that it is by no means necessary for a boy to have a black eye himself in order to give one to his neighbour! What the formula means is that an agent cannot give to, or produce in, any potential subject, receptive of its causal influence, an actuality which it does not itself possess virtually, or in its active power: that no actuality surpassing in excellence the actual perfection of the cause itself can be found thus virtually in the active power of the latter. There is no question of the cause or agent transferring bodily as it were a part of its own actuality to the subject which is undergoing change 1; nor will such crude imagination images help us to understand what real change, under the influence of efficient causality, involves.! An analysis of change will enable us to appreciate more fully the real difficulty of explaining it, and the futility of any attempt to account for it without admitting the real, objective validity of the notions of actual and potential being, of active powers or forces and passive potentialities in the things that are subject to change. 1 C/. LAMINNE, Caus, et Eifet-Revul neo-scolastiq1l8, February, 1914, p. 38. \I 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 re- ducens subjectum quod patitur de potentia in actum."-Contra Gentls, L. III., c. lxix. BECOMING AND ITS Il'dPLICATIONS 61 10. ANALYSIS OF CHANGE. - Change (lI1"utatz"o, Motus, f'ETaßoJ\:i}, KílJ1](J't ) is one of those simplest concepts which cannot be defined. We may describe it, however, as the transition of a being from one state to anotlzer. If one thing entirely disappeared and another were substituted for it, we should not regard the former as having been changed into the latter. When one thing is put in the place of another, each, no doubt, undergoes a change of place, but neither is changed into the other. So, also, if we were to conceive a thing as absolutely ceasing to exist, as lapsing into nothingness at a given instant, and another as coming Into existence out of nothingness at the same instant (and in the same place), we should not consider this double event as consti- tuting a real change of the former thing into the latter. And although our senses cannot testify to anything beyond sequence in sense phenomena, our reason detects in real change something other than a total substitution of things for one another, or continuous total cessations and inceptions of existence in things. No doubt, if we conceive the whole phenomenal or perceptible universe and all the beings which constitute this universe as essentially contingent, and therefore dependent for their reality and their actual existence on a Supreme, Necessary Being who created and conserves them, who at any time may cease to conserve any of them, and pro- duce other and new beings out of nothingness, then such absolute cessations and inceptions of existence in the world would not be impossible. God might annihilate, i.e. cease to conserve in exis- tence, this or that contingent being at any instant, and at any instant create a new contingent being, i.e. produce it in its totality from no pre-existing material. But there is no reason to suppose that this is what is constantly taking place in Nature: that all change is simply a series of annihilations and creations. On the contrary, the modes of being which appear and disappear in real change, in the transition of anything from one state to a really different state of being, do not appear de novo, ex nzïzilo, as absolute beginnings out of nothingness; or disappear totaliter, in nihilum, as absolute endings or lapses of reality into nothingness. The real changes which take place in Nature are due to the operation of natural causes. These causes, being finite in their operative powers, cannot create, i.e. produce new being from nothingness. They can, however, with the concurrence of the Omnipotent Being, modify existing modes of being, i.e. make actual what was only potential in these latter. The notion of change is not 62 ONTOLOGY verified in the conception of successive annihilations and creations; for there is involved in the former concept not merely the notion of a real difference between the two actual states, that before and that after the change, but also the notion of some potential reality persisting throughout the change, something capable of being actu- ally so and so before the change and actually otherwise after the change. For real change, therefore, we require (r) two positive and really different states of the same being, a u terminus a quo II and a U terminus ad quem" ,. and (2) a real process of transition whereby something potential becomes actual. In creation there is no real and positive terminus a quo,. in annihilation there is no real and positive terminus ad quem,. these therefore are not changes in the proper sense of the term. Sometimes, too, change is affirmed, by purely extrinsic denomination, of a thing in which there is no real change, but only a relation to some other really changing thing. In this sense when an object unknown or unthought of becomes the actual object of somebody's thought or cognition, it is said to u change," though the transition from "unknown" to Hknown " involves no real change of st.ate in the object, but only in the knowing subject. If thought were in any true sense "constitutive" of reality, as many modern philosophers contend, the change in the object would of course be real. Since, therefore, change consists in this, that a thing which is actually in a given state ceases to be actually such and begins to be actually in another state, it is obvious that there persists throughout the process some reality which is in itself potential and indifferent to either actual state; and that, moreover, some- thing which was actual disappears, while some new actuality appears, in this persisting potentiality. The abiding potential principle is called the matter or subject of the change; the transient actualizing principles are called forms. Not all these "forms" which precede or result from change are necessarily positive entities in themselves: they may be mere privations of other forms (Hprivatz'o," crrép1Jer/s) : not all changes result in the acquisition of a new degree of positive actual being; some result in loss of perfection or actuality. Still, even in these cases, the state characterized by the less perfect degree of actuality has a determinate actual grade of being which is proper to itself, and which, as such, is not found actually, but only potentially, in the state characterized by the more perfect degree of actuality. When, then, a being changes from a more perfect to a less BECOlifING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 63 perfect state, the actuality of this less perfect state cannot be adequately accounted for by seeking it in the antecedent and more perfect state: it is not in this latter state actually, but only potenti'ally,. nor do we account for it by saying that it is H equiva- lently It in the greater actuality of the latter state: the two actualizing principles are really distinct, and neither is wholly or even partially the other. The significance of this consideration wiII appear presently in connection with the scholastic axiom: Quidquid movetU1" ab alio movetur. Meanwhile we must guard against conceiving the potential or material factor in change as a sort of actual but hidden core of reality which itself persists unchanged throughout; and the formative or actualizing factors as superficially adorning this substratum by constantly replacing one another. Such a sub- stitution of imagination images for intellectual thought will not help, but rather hinder, all accurate analysis. It is not the potential or material factor in things that changes, nor yet the actualizing or formal factors, but the things themselves; and if H things" are subject to "real change" it is manifest that this fact can be made intelligible, if at all, only by intellectually analysing the things and their changes into constitutive principles or factors which are nor themselves "things" or "changes". Were we to arrive only at principles of the latter sort, so far from explaining anything we would really only have pushed back the problem a step farther. It may be that no_ne of the attempts yet made by philosophers or scientists to offer an ultimat-e explanation of change is entirely satisfactory,-the scholastic explanation will be gradually outlined in these pages, -but it will be of advantage at least to recognize the short- comings of theories that are certainly inadequate. We are now in a position to state and explain the important scholastic aphorism embodying what has been called the Principle of Change (" Principium Motus"): Quidquid 1Ilovetur, ab alio movetur: "Whatever undergoes change is changed by something else ". The term motus is here taken in the wide sense of any real transition from potentiality to actuality, as is evident from the alternative statements of the same principle: Nihil potest seipsum reducere e potentia in actum: "Nothing can reduce itself from potentiality to actuality," or, again, Potentia, qua talis, nequit per semetipsam ad actum reduci, sed reducitur ab alio principio Ùz actu: "The potential as such cannot be reduced 64 ONTOLOGY by itself to the actual, but only by some other already actual principle ".1 This assertion, rightly understood, is self-evidently true; for the state of passive potentiality, as such, involves the absence of the correlative actuality in the potential subject; and since the actual, as such, involves a perfection which is not in the potential, the latter cannot confer upon itself this perfection: nothing can be the adequate principle or source_ of a perfection which is not in this principle or source: nemo dat quod non habet. \Ve have already anticipated the objection arising from the consideration that the state resulting from a change is sometimes in its totality less perfect than the state which existed prior to the change. Even in such cases there results from the change a new actuality which was not in the prior state, and which cannot be conceived as a mere part or residue of the latter, or regarded as equivalently contained in the latter. Even granting, as we must, that the net result of such a change is a loss of actuality or perfection in the subject of change, still there is always a gain which is not accounted for by the loss; there is always a new actual state which, as such, was not in the original state. A more obvious objection to the principle arises from the consideration of vital action; but it is based on a misunderstand- ing of the principle under discussion. Living things, it is objected, move themselves: their vital action is spontaneous and immanent: originating within themselves, it has its term too within them- selves, resulting in their gradual development, growth, increase of actuality and perfection. Therefore it would appear that they move and perfect themselves; and hencC'the so-called "principle of change" is not true universally. .. In reply to all this we admit that vital action is immanent, remaining within the agent to perfect the latter; also that it is spontaneous, inasmuch as when the agent -is actually exercising vital functions it need not be actually undergoing the causal influence of any other created agent, or actually dependent on any such agent. But it must, nevertheless, in such action, be dependent on, and influenced by, some actual being other than itself. And the reason is obvious: If by such action it increases 1 CJ. ZWLIARA, Ontologia (8), ix., Quilltum. C/. also ARISTOTLE, Metaþh. v., ST. THOMAS, In MetaPh., v., 14, and Contra Gmtts, 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, tam en simpliciter actus est prior potentia; quia potentia non educit se in actum. sed opportet quod educatur in actum per aliquid quod sit in actu. Oml1t: igitur quod est aliquo modo in potentia, habet aliquid prius se n. BECOMING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 65 its own actual perfection, and becomes actually other than it was before such action, then it cannot have given itself the actuality of this perfection, which it possessed before only potentially. No doubt, it is not merely passively potential in regard to such actual perfections, as is the case in non-vital change which results in the subject from the transitive action of some outside cause upon the latter. The living thing has the active power of causing or pro- ducing in itself these actual perfections: there is interaction between its vital parts: through one organ or faculty it acts upon another, thus educing an actuality, a new perfection, in this other, and thus developing and perfecting its own being. But even considered as active it cannot be the adequate cause of the actuality acquired through the change. If this actuality is some- thing really over and above the reality of its active and passive potential principles, then it remains true that change implies the influence of an actual being other than the subject changed: Quid Ijuid nzovetur, ab alio movetur. The question here arises, not only in reference to vital agents, but to all finite, created causes: Does the active cause of change (together with the passive potentiality of the subject of change, whether this subject be the agent itself as in immanent activity, or something other than the agent as in transitive activity),-does this active power account adequately for the new actuality educed in the change? It obviously does not; for the actuality acquired in the change is, as such, a new entity, a new perfection, in some degree positively surpassing the total reality of the combined active powers and passive potentialities which it replaces. In other words, if the actuality resulting from the change is not to be found in the immediate active and passive antecedents of the f:hange, then we are inevitably referred, for an adequate explanation of this actuality, to some actual being above and beyond these antecedents. And to what sort 01 actual being are we referred? To a being in which the actuality of the effect resides only in the same way as it resides in the immediate active and passive antecedents of the change, that is potenft"ally! No; for this would be useless, merely pushing the difficulty one step farther back. We are obliged rather to infer the existence of an Actual Being in whom the actuality of the said effect resides actually: not formally, of course, as it exists in itself when it is produced through the change; but eminently, eminenter, in such a way that its actualization outside Him- self and under His influence does not involve in Him any loss of perfection, any increase of perfection, or any manner of change whatsoever. We are compelled in this way to infer, from the existence of change in the universe of our direct experience, the existence of a transcendent Immovable Prime Mover, a P,..imum M ovens Immobile. All the active causes or principles of change which fall under our notice in the universe of direct experience are themselves subject to change. N one of them causes change in any other thing without itself undergoing change. The active power of finite causes is 5 66 ONTOLOG Y itself finite. By educing the potentiality of other things into actuality they gradually use up their own energy; they diminish and lose their active power of producing effects : this belongs to the very nature of finite causes as such. Moreover, they are themselves passive as well as active; interaction is uni- versal among the finite causes which constitute the universe of our direct experience: they all alike have passive potentiality and undergo change. N ow, if anyone finite cause in this system cannot adequately account for the new actuality evolved from the potential in any single process of change, neither can the whole system adequately account for it. What is true of them distributively is true of them taken all together when there is question of what belongs to their nature; and the fact that their active powers and passive potentialities fall short of the actuality of the effects we attribute to them is a fact that appertains to their very nature as finite things. The phenomenon of continuous change in the universe involves the continuous appearance of new actual being. To account for this constant stream of actuality we are of necessity carried beyond the system of finite, changing being itself; we are forced to infer the existence of a source and principle which must itself be purely actual and exempt from all change-a Being who can cause all the actuality that results from change without losing or gaining or changing in any way Himself, because He possesses all finite actuality in Himselfin a super- eminent manner which transcends all the efforts of finite human intelligence to comprehend or characterize in any adequate or positive manner. The scholastics expressed this in the simple aphorism: Omn6 novum ens est a Deo. And it is the realization of this profound truth that underlies their teaching on the necessity of the Divine Concursus, to.e. the influence of the Infinite First Cause or Prime Mover permeating the efficiency of all finite or created causes. Here, for example, is a brief recent statement of that doctrine :- " If we must admit a causal influence of these things [of direct experi- ence] on one another, then a closer examination will convince us that a finite thing can never be the adequate cause of any effect, but is always, meta- physically regarded, only a part-cause, ever needing to be completed by another cause. Every effect is-at least under one aspect, at least as an effect-something new, something that was not there before. Even were the effect contained, whether formally or virtually, in the cause, it is certainly not identical with this latter, for if it were there would be no causality, nothing would' happen '. In all causing and happening, something which was here- tofore only possible, becomes real and actual. But things cannot determine themselves to influence others, or to receive the influence of others, since they are not dependent in their being on one another. Hence the necessary inference that all being, all happening, all change, requires the concurrence of an Absolute Principle of being. When two things act on each other the Absolute Being must work in and with them, the same Absolute Being in both-to relate them to each other, and supplement their natural in- sufficiency. II U Such is the profound teaching about the Divine Concursus with every creature. . . . God works in all and with all. He permeates all reality, everywhere; there is no being beyond Him or independent of His conserving and concurring power. Just as creatures are brought into being only through God's omnipotence, and of themselves have no independent reality, so do BECO.vIING AND ITS llJfPLICATIONS 67 they need the self-same ever-present, aU-sustaining power to continue in this being and develop it by their activity. Every event in Nature is a tran- sitory, passing phenomenon, so bound up with conditions and circumstances that it must disappear W give place to some other. How could a mode of being so incomplete discharge its function In existence without the concur- rence of the First Cause?" 1 We have seen now that in the real order the potential pre- supposes the actual; for the potential cannot actualize itself, but can be actualized only by the action of some already actual be- ing. Nor can we avoid this consequence by supposing the potential being to have had no actual beginning in time, but to be eternally in process of actualization; for even so, it must be eternally actualized by some other actual being-a position which Aristotle and some scholastics admit to be possible. Whether, then, we con- ceive the actualization as beginning in time or as proceeding from all eternity, it is self-contradictory to suppose the potential as capable of actualizing itself. It is likewise true that the actual precedes the possible in the order of our knowledge. The concept of a thing as possible pre- supposes the concept of that thing as actual; for the possible is understood to be possible only by its intelligible relation to actual existence. This is evidently true of extrinsic possibility; but our knowledge even of the intrinsic possibility of a thing cannot be the first knowledge we possess in the order of time. Our first knowledge is of the actual; for the mind's first cognitive act must have for object either itself or something not itself. But it knows itself as a consciously acting and therefore actual being. And it comes to know things other than itself only by the fact that such other things act upon it either immediately or mediately through sense-consciousness; so that in every hypothesis its first known object is something actual.' The priority of the actual as compared with the potential In the real order, suggests a proof of the existence of God in the manner indicated above. It also affords a refutation of Hegelian monism. The conception of the world, including all the phenomena of mind and matter, as the gradual self-manifestation or evolution of a potential being eternally actualizing itself, is a self-contradictory conception. Scholastics rightly maintain that the realities from which we derive our first most abstract and transcendental notion of being in general, are actual realities. Hegelians seize on the object 1 KLIMKE, DI1' Monismus und seine þhilosoþhischen Grundlagen, p. 185. CJ. Irish Theological Quarterly, vol. vii. (April, 1912), p. 157 sqq., art. Reflections on Some Forms of Monism. II For relations of potentia and actus, cJ. MERCIER, Opstologie, 214. 5 * 68 ONTOLOGY of this notion, identify it with pure thought, proclaim it the sole reality, and endow it with the power of becoming actually everything. It is manifest, therefore, that they endow purely potential being with the power of actualizing itself. Nor can they fairly avoid this charge by pointing out that although their starting-point is not actual being (with which the scholastic philosophy of being commences), yet neither is it possible or potential being, but being which has neither of these determinations, being which abstracts from both, like the real being of the scholastics (7, 13). For though real being can be an object oj abstract human thought without either of the predicates" ex- istent n or" non-existent," yet it cannot be anything in the real order without either of them. There it must be either actually existent or else merely potential. But Hegelians claim absolutely indeterminate being to be as such something in the real order; and though they try to distinguish it from potential being they nevertheless think of it as potential being, for they distinctly and re- peatedly declare that it can become all things, and does become all things, and is constantly, eternally transforming itself by an internal dialectic process into the phenomena which constitute the worlds of mind and matter. Contrasting it with the abstract" inert" being which they conceive to be the object of the tradi- tional metaphysics, they endow" indeterminate being" with the active power of producing, and the passive potentiality of becoming, actually everything. Thus, in order to show a þ,--iori how this indeterminate being must evolve itself by internal logical necessity into the world of our direct and immediate ex- perience, they suppose it to be subject to change and to be at the same time self- actualizing, in direct opposition to the axiom that potential reality, reality which is subject to change, cannot actualize itself: Quidquid movetur ab alio moveatur ojortet. I I. KINDS OF CHANGE.-Following Aristotle,l we may re- cognize a broad and clear distinction between four great classes of change (p,eraßoÀ/j, tnutatio) in the phenomena of our sense experience: local change KíV'f)utf) IcaTà TÓ7rOV, cþopá, latio); quantitative change (KaTà TÒ 7rOUÓV, àV 1}utf) .;; cþ8íutf), augmentatio vel diminutio); qualitative change (KaTà TÒ 7roíov, àÀÀoíwu(s, alteratio); and substantial change (KaT' ovulav, ryÉVEUtÇ .;; cþ8opá). The three former are accidental, i.e. do not reach or affect the essence or substance of the thing that is changed; the fourth is substantial, a change of essence. Substantial change is regarded as taking place instantaneously, as soon as the condition brought about by the accidental changes leading up to it becomes naturally incompatible with the essence or nature of the subject. The accidental changes, on the other hand, are regarded as taking place gradual1y, as realizing and involving a succession of states or conditions in the subject. These changes, especial1y when they take place in corporeal things, are properly described as 1 Cf. Physics, v., I; De Anima, i., 3. BECO]lfING AND ITS IllfPLICATIONS 69 movement or motion (motus, mo!Ío). By movement or motion in the strict sense we therefore mean any change which takes place gradually or successively in a corporeal thing. It is only in a wider and improper sense that these terms are sometimes applied to activity of whatsoever kind, even of spiritual beings. In this sense we speak of thoughts, volitions, etc., as movements of the soul, motus animae; or of God as the Prime Mover ever in motion, the Primum Movens semþer in motu. With local change in material things, as also with quantitative change, growth and diminution of quantity (mass and volume), everyone is perfectly familiar. From the earliest times, more- over, we find both in science and philosophy the conception of matter as composed of, and divisible into, ultimate particles, themselves supposed to admit of no further real division, and hence called atoms (ã-TOfLOfti TÉfLvw). From the days of Grecian atomism men have attempted to show that all change in the Universe is ultimately reducible to changes of place, order, spatial arrangement and collocation, of those hypothetical atomic factors. It has likewise been commonly assumed that change in mass is solely due to change in the number of those atoms, and change in volume (of the same mass) to the relative density or closeness with which the atoms aggregate together; though some have held-and it is certainly not incon- ceivable-that exactly the same material entity, an atom let us say, may be capable of real contraction and expansion, and so of real change of volume: as distinct from the aÞParent contrac- tion and expansion of bodies, a change which is supposed to be due to change of density, i.e. to decrease or increase in the dimensions of the pores or interstices between the smaller con- stituent parts or molecules. However this may be, the attempts to reduce all change in physical nature to mere mechanical change i.e. to spatial motions of the masses (molar motions), the mole- cules (molecular motions), and the atoms or other ultimate com- ponents of matter (whether vibratory, undulatory, rotatory or translational motions), have never been satisfactory. Qualitative change is wider than material change, for it in- cludes changes in spiritual beings, i.e. in beings which are outside the category of quantity and have a mode of existence altogether different from the extensional, spatial existence which characterizes matter. When, for instance, the human mind acquires knowledge, it undergoes qualitative change. But matter, too, has qualities, 70 ONTOLOGY and is subject to qualitative change. It is endowed with active qualities, i.e. with powers, forces, energies, whereby it can not merely perform mechanical work by producing local changes in the distribution of its mass throughout space, but also produce physical and chemical changes which seem at least to be different in their nature from mere mechanical changes. It is likewise endowed withpassiv6 qualitIes which appear to the senses to be of various kinds, differing from one another and from the mechanical or quantitative characteristics of size, shape, motion, rest, etc. While these latter are called (( primary qualities" of bodies-because conceived to be more fundamental and more closely inherent in the real and objective nature of matter-or "common sensibles" (sensibzlia communi a), because perceptible by more than one of our external senses-the former are called "secondary qualities," because conceived to be less characteristic of the real and objective nature of matter, and more largely sub- jective products of our own sentient cognitive activity-or" proper sensibles" (sensibzlia proþria), because each of them is apprehended by only one of our external senses: colour, sound, taste, odour, temperature, material state or texture (e.g. roughness, liquidity, softness, etc.). Now about all these perceived qualities and their changes the question has been raised: Are they, as such, i.e. as perceived by us, really in the material things or bodies which make up the physical universe, and really different in these bodies from the quantitative factors and motions of the latter? Or, as such, are they not rather partially or wholly subjective phenomena-products, at least in part, of our own sense per- ception, states of our own consciousness, having nothing really corresponding to them in the external matter of the universe beyond the quantitative, mechanical factors and motions whereby matter acts upon our faculties of sense cognition and produces these states of consciousness In us? This is a question of the first importance, the solution of which belongs to Epistemology. Aristotle would not allow that the objective material universe can be denuded, in the way just suggested, of qualities and qualitative change; and scholastic philosophers have always held the same general view. What we have to note here, how- ever, in regard to the question is simply this, that even if the world of matter were thus simplified by transferring all qualitative change to the subjective domain of consciousness, the reality of qualitative change and all the problems arising from it would BECOMING AND ITS IlJ-fPLICATIONS 71 still persist. To transfer qualitative change from object to sub- ject, from matter to mind, is certainly something very different from explaining it as reducible to quantitative or mechanical change. The simplification thus effected would be more apparent than real: it would be simplifying the world of matter by trans- ferring its complexity to the world of mind. This consideration is one which is sometimes lost sight of by scientists who advance mechanical hypotheses as ultimate explanations of the nature and activities of the physical universe. If all material things and processes could be ultimately analysed into configurations and local motions of space-occupying atoms, homogeneous in nature and differing only in size and shape, then each of these ultimate atomic factors would be itself exempt from intrinsic change as to its own essence and in- dividuality. In this hypothesis there would be really no such thing as substantial change. The collection of atoms would form an immutable core of material reality, wholly simple and ever actual. Such an hypothesis, however, is utterly inadequate as an explanation of the facts of life and consciousness. And even as an account of the processes of the inorganic universe it en- counters insuperable difficulties. The common belief of men has always been that even in this domain of reality there are funda- mentally different kinds of matter, kinds which differ from one another not merely in the shape and size and configuration and arrangement of their ultimate actual constituents, but even in the very substance or nature of these constituents; and that there are some material changes which affect the actual substance itself of the matter which undergoes them. This belief scholastics, again following Aristotle, hold to be a correct belief, and one which is well grounded in reason. And this belief in turn in- volves the view that every type of actual material entity-whether merely inorganic, or endowed with life, or even allied with a higher, spiritual mode of being as in the case of man himself-is essentially composz'te, essentially a synthesis of potential and actual principles of being, and therefore capable of substantial change. The actually existing material being scholastics describe as materia secunda, the íiÀ"l ÈUXåT"l of Aristotle; the purely potential factor, which is actualized in this or that particular kind of matter, they describe as materia prz"ma, the VÀ"l 'TT"pWT"l of Aristotle; the actualizing, specifying, formative principle, they designate as forma substantialis (Elôos-). And since the purely potential prin- 72 , ONTOLOGY ciple cannot actual1y exist except as actuaHzed by some formative principle, all substantial change or transition from one substantial type to another is necessarily both a corrlJptio and a generatio. That is, it involves the actual disapp"earance of one substantial form and the actual appearance of anothe"r. Hence the scholastic aphorism regarding substantial change: Corruþtio unius est gen- eratio alterius: the corruption or destruction of one kind of material thing involves the generation of another kind. The concepts of materia prima and jörma substantialz's are concepts not of phenomenal entities directly accessible to the senses or the imagination, but of principles which can be reached only mediately and by intellect proper. They cannot be pictured in the imagination, which can only attain to the sensible. We may help ourselves to grasp them intellectual1y by the analogy of the shapeless block of marble and the figure educed there- from by the sculptor, but this is only an analogy: just as the statue results from the union of an accidental form with an existing matter, so this matter itself, the substance marble, is com posed of a substantial form and a primordial, potential matter. But there the analogy ceases. Furthermore, when we consider that the proper and primary objects of the human intellect itself are corporeal things or bodies, and that these bodies actually exist in nature only as composite substances, subject to essential or substantial change, we shall realize why it is that the concept of materia prima especial1y, being a mediate and negative concept, is so difficult to grasp; for, as the scholastics describe it, translating Aristotle's formula, it is in itself neque quid, neque quantum, neque quale, neque aliquid eorum quzöus ens determinatur. 1 But it is through intellectual concepts alone, and not through imagination images, that we may hope to analyse the nature and processes even of the world of corporeal reality; and, as St. Thomas well observes, it was because the ancient Greek atomists did not rise above the level of thinking in imagination images that they failed to recognize the existence, or explain the nature, of substantial change in the material universe : an observation which applies with equal 1 AE"/ B' 1$À7]J1, f] KaJ' &V7" JI P./j7"E 7"1, P.1}7"E 7I"oubJl, p'/j7"E 7I"oloJl, P./j7"E ð:ÀÀo p.7}BtJl ÀE'}'E7"a& ols tfJp&u7"a& 7"b (w.-Metaþh. vi., c. iii. II "Deeepit antiquos philosophos hane ration em indueentes, Ignorantia formæ substantialis. Non enim adhue tantum profeeerant ut intelleetus 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 BECOMING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 73 force to those scientists and philosophers of our own time who would fain reduce all physical processes to mere mechanical change. Those, then, are the principal kinds of change, as analysed by Aristotle and the scholastics. We may note, finally, that the distinction between immanent and transi#ve activity is also ap- plied to change-that is, to change considered as a process, not to the result of the change, to change in fieri, not in facto esse. Im- manent movement or activity (motto, actio Ùnmanens) is that of which the term, the educed actuality, remains within the agent-which latter is therefore at once both agens and þatiens. Vital action is of this kind. Transitive movement or activity, on the other hand (motzo, actz"o transz"ens), is that of which the term is some actuality educed in a being other than the agent. The þatz"ens is here really distinct from the agens,o and it is in the former, not in the latter, that the change takes place: actzo fit in þasso. All change in the inorganic universe is of this sort (101). accidentia, ut album et nigrum, magnum et parvum, et hujusmodi. Forma aut em substantialis non est sensibilis nisi per accidens, et ideo ad ejus cognitionem non bervenerunt, ut scirent ipsam materiam distinguere."-In Metaþh. vii., 2. CHAPTER III. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE. 12. EXISTENCE.-In the preceding chapters we examined reality in itself and in its relation to change or becoming. We have now to examine it in relation to its actual existence and to its intrinsic possibility (7, a). Existing or being (in the participial sense: esse, existere, 76 Elvat) is a simple, indefinable notion. A being is said to exist when it is not merely possible but actual, when it is not merely potential in its active and passive causes but has become actual through those causes (existere: ex-siSto: ex-stare: to stand forth, distinct from its causes); or) if it have no causes, when it simply is (esse),-in which sense God, the Necessary, purely Actual Being, simply z"s. Thus, existence implies the notion of actuality, and is conceived as that by which any thing or essence z"s, distinct from nothingness, in the actual order. 1 Or, again, it is the actualz"ty of any thing or essence. About any conceivable being we may ask two distinct questions: (a) What is it? and (b) Does such a being actually exist? The answer to the former gives us the essence, what is presented to the mind through the concept; the answer to the latter informs us about the actual existence of the being or essence in question. To the mind of any individual man the real existence (as also the real essence) of any being whatsoever, not excepting his own, can be known only through its ideal presence in his mind, through the concept or percept whereby it becomes for him a "known object," an obJectum cognitum. But this actual presence of known being to the knowing mind must not be confounded with the real existence of such being (4). Real being does not get its real existence in our minds or from our minds. Our cognition does not produce, but only discovers, actually existing reality. The latter, by acting on the mind, engenders therein the cognition 1 .. Esse actum quemdam nominat: non enim dicitur esse aliquid, ex hoc quod est in potentia, sed ex hoc quod cst in actu."-ST. THOMAS, Contra Gentes, i., ch. xxii., 4. 74 EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 75 of itself. N ow all our knowledge comes through the senses; and sense cognition is excited in us by the direct action of material or phenomenal being on our sense faculties. But through sense cognition the mind is able to attain to a knowledge both of the possibility and of the actual existence of suprasensible or spiritual realities. Hence we cannot describe existence as the power which material realities have to excite in us a knowledge of themselves. Their existence is prior to this activity: prius est esse quam agel'e. Nor can we limit existence to material realities; for if there are spiritual realities these too have existence, though this existence can be discerned only by intellect, and not by sense. 13. ESSENCE.-In any existing thing we can distinguish what the thing is, its essence, from its actual existence. If we abstract from the actual existence of a thing, not considering whether it actually exists or not, and fix our attention merely on what the thing is, we are thinking of its real essence. If we positively exclude the notion of actual existence from our con- cept of the essence, and think of the latter as not actually exist- ing, we are considering it formally as a possible essence. There is no being, even the Necessary Being, whose essence we cannot think of in the former way, i.e. without including in our concept the notion of actual existence; but we cannot without error positively exclude the notion of actual existence from our concept of the Necessary Being, or think of the latter as a merely possible essence. Taken in its widest sense, the essence of a thing (ovuía, essentia, TÒ Tí ÈUT/.., quod quid est, quÙlditas) means that by which a thing is what it is: id quo res est id quod est: that which gives us the answer to the question, What is this thing? Quid est haec res? Tl ÈUTt TóSe Tt; 1 Now of course any individual thing is what it is just precisely by all the reality that is in it; but we have no direct or intuitive intellectual insight into this reality; we understand it only by degrees; we explore it from various 1 The etymology of Aristotle'. description of tho essence as orb ort y Elva is not easy to explain. The expression orb Elval Bupposes a dative understood, e.g. .,.b àv6pcfJ7rqJ f!lva , the being proper to man. To the question .,.} O"'TI .,.b àv6pcfJ1rqJ Etval ; 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-orl v. Is the imperfect, .,.1 v, an archaic form for the present, orlIO"'TI; or is it a deliberate suggestion of the pro- found doctrine that the essence as ideal, or possible, is anterior to its actual, physical realization? Commentators are not agreed. CJ. MATTHIAS KAPPES, Aristotcles- Lexicon, p. 25 (Paderborn, 1894); MERCIER, Ontologi., p. 30 n. 76 ONTOLOGY points of view, abstracting and generalizing partial aspects of it as we compare it with other things and seek to classify and define it: ratio humana essentias rerum quasi venatur, as the scholastics say: the human mind hunts, as it were, after the essences or natures of things. Understanding the individual datum of sense experience (what Aristotle called Tóðe Tt, or oùuía TrpÓJ'T7], and the scholastics hoc aliquid, or substantl'a prima), e.g. this individual, Socrates, first under the vaguest concept of being, then gradually under the more and more determinate concepts of substance, corporeal, living, sentient, rational, it finally forms the complex concept of his species infima, expressed by his lowest class-name, U man, JJ and explicitly set forth in the definition of his specific nature as a It rational animal". N or does our reason fail to realize that by reaching this concept of the specific essence or nature of the individual, Socrates, it has not yet grasped all the reality whereby the individual is what he is. It has reached what he has in common with all other individuals of his class, what is essential to him as a man; it has distinguished this frorp the unanalysed something which makes him this particular in- dividual of his class, and which makes his specific essence this indivläual essence (essentia "atoma,n or U individua "); and it has also distinguished his essence from those accidental and ever varying attributes which are not essential to him as a man, and from those which are not essential to him as Socrates. It is only the unfathomed individual essence, as existing hic et nunc, that is concrete. All the mind's generic and specific repre- sentations of it-e.g. of Socrates as a corporeal substance, a living being, a sentient being, a rational animal-are abstract, and all more or less inadequate, none of them exhausting its knowable reality. But it is only in so far as the mind is able to represent concrete individual things by such abstract concepts, that it can attain to intellectual knowledge of their nature or reality. Hence it is that by the term" essence," simply and sine addito, we always mean the essence as grasped by abstract generic or specific concepts (èLðO , species), and as thus capable of definition (Àó,,/oç, ratio yet). "The essence," says St. Thomas, U is that by which the thing is constituted in its proper genus or species, and which we signify by the definition which states what the thing is ".1 Thus understood, -the essence is abstract, and I Essentia est ilIud per quod res constituitur in proprio genere vel specie, et quod significamus per definitionem indicantem quid est res.-De Ent. et Essentia, cb. i. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 77 gives the specific or generic type to which the individual thing belongs; but we may also mean by essence, the concrete essence, the individual person or thing (persona, supþositum, res individua). The relations between the objects of those two concepts of essence will be examined later. Since the specific essence is conceived as the most funda- mental reality in the thing, and as the seat and source of all the properties and activities of the thing, it is sometimes defined or described, in accordance with this notion of it, as the primary constitutive of the thing and the source of all the properties of the thing. Conceived as the foundation of all the properties of the thing it is sometimes called substance (òv(na, substantia). Regarded as the source of the thing's activities, and the principle of its growth or development, it is calJed the nature of the thing (cþvcytç, natura, from voo, nascor).l Since what makes a thing that which it is, by the same fact differentiates this thing from every other thing, the essence is rightly conceived as that which gives the thing its characteristic being, thereby marking it off from all other being. In reality, of course, each individual being is distinct by all that it is from every other. But since we get our intellectual knowledge of things by abstracting, comparing, generalizing, and classifying partial aspects of them, we apprehend part of the imperfectly grasped abstract essence of each individual as common to other classes (generic), and part as peculiar to that class itself (differ- ential); and thus we differentiate classes of things by what is only part of their essence, by what we call the dijferentia of each class, distinguishing mentally between it and the generic element: which two are really one, really identical, in every individual of the species thus defined and classified. But in the Aristotelian and scholastic view of the constitution of any corþoreal thing, there is a danger of taking what is really only part of the essence of such a thing for the whole essence. According to this view all corporeal substance is essentially com- posite, constituted by two really distinct, substantial principles, primal matter (TrpÓJ77) vÀ7}, materia prima) and substantial form (ltSot;', ,..tOpcþ ) united substantially, as potential and actual prin- ciples, to form one composite nature or essence. Now the kind, or species, or specific type, to which a body belongs-e.g., a horse, an oak, gold, water, etc.-depends upon the substantial form which 1 ARISTOTLE, Metaþh., . ,., .. i ST. 1 HOMAS, De Pole-wilL Dc.i, q. ix., art. I. 78 ONTOLOGY actualizes the matter or potential principle. In so far as the corporeal essence is known to us at all it is known through the form, which is the principle of all the characteristic properties and activities of that particular kind of body. Hence it is quite natural that the EìSo , p,ópcfY1} , or forma substantialis of a body should often be referred to as the specific essence of the body, though of course the essence of the body really includes the material as well as the formal factor. We may look at the essence of any being from two points of view. If we consider it as it is conceived actually to exist in the being, we call it the physical essence. If we consider it after the manner in which it is apprehended and defined by our intellects through generic and differentiating concepts, we call it the meta- physz'cal essence. Thus, the essence of man conceived by the two defining concepts, (( rational animal," is the metaphysical essence; the essence of man as known to be composed of the two really distinct substantial principles, soul and body, is the physical es- sence. Understood in this way both are one and the same essence considered from different points of view-as existing in the actual order, and as conceived by the mind. 1 The physical essence of any being, understood as the con- stitutive principle or principles from which all properties spring, is either simple or composite according as it is understood to con- sist of one such constitutive principle, or to result from the sub- stantial union of two constitutive principles, a material and a formal. Thus, the essence of God, the essence of a purely spiritual being, the essence of the human soul, are physically simple; the essence of man, the essences of all corporeal beings, are physically com posite. According to our mode of conceiving, defining and classifying essences by means of the abstract generic and differential grades of being which we apprehend in them, all essences, even physically simple essences, are conceived as logically and metaphysically com- posite. Moreover we speak and think of their generic and differen- 1 Sometimes, however, the expression .. metaphysical essence" is used to sig- nify those objective concepts, and those only, without which the thing cannot be con- ceived, (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 wMch the thing cannot actually exist, includ- ing, therefore, all such necessary properties. Taken in this sense the physical es- sence 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. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 79 tial factors as (C material" and U formal" respectively, after the analogy of the composition of corporeal or physically composite essences from the union of two really distinct principles, matter and form; the analogy consisting in this, that as matter is the indeterminate principle which is determined and actuated by form, so the generic concept is the indeterminate concept which is made definite and specific by that of the differentia. 1 But when we think of the genus of any corporeal essence as u material," and the differentia as (( formal," we must not consider these (( metaphysical parts" as reaIly distinct; whereas the U physical parts" of a corporeal substance (such as man) are really distinct. The genus (animal), although a metaphysical part, expresses the whole essence (man) in an indeterminate way; whereas the (( matter Jt which is a physical part, does not express the whole essence of man, nor does the soul which is also a physical part, but only both together. Not a little error has resulted from the confusion of thought whereby genus and differentia have been regarded as material and formal constitutives in the literal sense of those expressions. 14. CHARACTERISTICS OF ABSTRACT ESSENCES.-When we consider the essences of things not as actually existing, but as intrinsically possible-the abstract, metaphysical essences, there. fore-we find that when as objects of our thought they are analysed into their simplest constituents and compared or related with themselves and with one another they present themselves to our minds in these relations as endowed with certain more or less remarkable characteristics. (a) In the first place, being abstract, they present themselves I Et ex noc patet ratio, writes St. Thomas, quare genus et species et differentia se habeant proportion aliter 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 dieimus eum esse ex corpore et anima. Ex corpore enim et anima dicitur esse homo, sicut ex duabus rebus quædam tertia res constituta, quæ neutra ilIarum 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 in- tellectus [conceptus] tertius ex duobus inte11ectibus. Intellectus enim animalis est sine determinatione formae specialis naturam exprimeml rei, ex eo quod est materiale respectu ultimae perfection is. Intellectus autem hujus differentiae, rationalis, consistit in determinatione formae specialis: ex qui bus duobus intellectibus constituitur intel. lectus speciei vel definitionis. Et ideo sieut res constituta ex aliquibus non recipit prædicationem earum rerum ex quibus constituitur; ita nec intellectus recipit præ. dicationem eorum intellectuum ex quibus constituitur; non enim dicimus, quod definitio sit genus vel differentia.-De Ente et Essentia, cap. iii. 80 ONTOLOGY to the mind as being what they are independently of actual existence at any particular time or place. Their intelligibility is something apart from any relation to any actual time or place. Being intrinsically possible, they might exist at any time or place; but as possible, they are out of time and out of place- detemporalzzed and delocalzzed, if we may be permitted to use such expressions. 1 (b) Furthermore, since the intellect forms its notions of them, through the aid of the senses and the imagination, from actual realizations of themselves or their constituent factors, and since it understands them to be intrinsicaIly possible, or free from intrinsic incompatibility of their constituent factors, it conceives them to be capable of indefinitely repeated actualizations through- out time and space-unless it sees some special reason to the contrary, as it does in the case of the Necessary Being, and (according to some philosophers) in the case of purely immaterial beings or pure spirits. That is to say it universalizes them, and sees them to be capable of existing at any and every conceivable time and place. This relation of theirs to space is not likely to be confounded with the immensity or ubiquz"ty of God. But their corresponding relation to time is sometimes described as eternity,. and if it is so described it must be carefully distinguished from the positive eternity of God, the I mmutable Being. To distinguish it from the latter it is usually described as negative eternity,-this indifference of the possible essence to actual existence at any particular point of time. But apart from this relation which we conceive it as having to existence in the order of actual reality, can we, or do we, or must we conceive it as in itself an intrinsic possibility from all eternity, in the sense that it never began to be intrinsically possible, and wiII never cease to be so? Must we attribute to it a þosi/ive eternity, not of course of actuality or existence, but of ideal being, as an object of thought to an Eternally Existing Mind? What is this supposed eternal possibility of the possible essence? Is it nothing actual: the possible as such is nothing actual. But is it anything real? Has it only ideal being-esse ideale or intentionale' And has it this only in and from the human mind, or independently of the human mind? And also independ- ently of the actual essences from which the human mind gets the data for its thought,-so that we must ascribe to it an eternal ideal being? To these questions we shall return presently. (c) Thirdly, essences considered apart from their actual exist- ence, and compared with their own constitutive factors or with one another, reveal to the mind relations which the mind sees to 1 CJ. MERCIER, Psyc1wlogie, vol. ii., 169 (6th edit., 1903, pp. 24-5). EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 81 be necessary, and which it formulates for itself in necessary judg- ments,-judgments -in materia necessaria. By virtue of the principle of identity an abstract essence is necessarily what it is, what the mind conceives it to be, what the mind conceives as its definition. Man, as an object of thought, is necessarily a rational animal, whether he actuaIly exists or not. And if he is thought of as existing, he cannot at the same time be thought of as non- existing,-by the principle of contradiction. An existing man is necessarily an existing man,-by the principle of identity. These logical principles are rooted in the nature of reality, whether actual or possible, considered as an object of thought. There is thus a necessary relation between any complex object of thought and each of the constituent factors into which the mind can analyse it. And, similarly, there is a necessary negative relation-a relation of exclusion-between any object of thought and anything which the mind sees to be incompatible with that object as a whole, or with any of its constituent factors. Again, the mind sees necessary relations between abstract essences compared with one another. Five and seven are necessarily twelve. \Vhatever begins to exist actually must have a cause. Contingent being, if such exists, is necessarily dependent for its existence on some other actually existing being. If potential being is actualized it must be actualized by actual being. The three interior angles of a triangle are necessarily equal to two right angles. And so on. But is the abstract essence itself-apart from all mental analysis of it, apart from all comparison of it with its constituent factors or with other essences-in any sense necessary? There is no question of its actual existence, but only of itself as an object of thought. Now our thought does not seem to demand necessarily, or have a necessary connexion with, any particular object of which we do de facto think. What we do think of is determined by our experience of actual things. And the things which we conceive to be possible, by the exercise of our reason upon the data of our senses, memory and imagination, are determined as to their nature and number by our experience of actual things, even although they themselves can and do pass beyond the domain of actually experienced things. The only necessary object of thought is reality in general: for the exercise of the function of thought necessarily demands an object, and this object must be reality of some sort. Thought, as we saw, begins with actual 6 82 ONTOLOGY reality. Working upon this, thought apprehends in it the founda- tions of those necessary relations and judgments already referred to. Considering, moreover, the actual data of experience, our thought can infer from these the actual existence of one Being Who must exist by a necessity of His Essence. But, furthennore, must all the possible essences which the mind does or can actually think of, be conceived as necessan7y þossible in the same sense in which it is suggested that they must be conceived as eternally possible? To this question, too, we shall return presently. (d) Finally, possible essences appear to the mind as 'immut- able, and consequently indivisz'ble. This means simply that the relations which we establish between them and their constitutive factors are not only necessary but immutable: that if any con- stitutive factor of an essence is conceived as removed from it, or any new factor as added, we have no longer the original essence but some other essence. If U animal" is a being essentially embodying the two objective concepts of U organism" and cc sentient," then on removing either we have no longer the essence U animal ft. So, too, by adding to these some other element compatible with them, e.g. "rational," we have no longer the essence U animal," but the essence (( man". Hence possible essences have been likened to numbers, inasmuch as if we add anything to, or subtract anything from, any given number, we have now no longer the original number but another. 1 This, too, is only an expression of the laws of identity and contradic tion. We might ask, however, whether, apart from analysis and comparison of an abstract object of thought with its constitutive notes or factors, such a possible essence is in itself immutably possible. This is similar to the question whether we can or must conceive such a possible essence as eternally and necessarily possible. 15. GROUNDS OF THOSE CHARACTERISTICS.-In considering the grounds or reasons of the various characteristics just enu- merated it may be well to reflect that when we speak of the intrinsic possibility of a possible essence we conceive the latter as something complex, which we mentally resolve into its con- stitutive notes or factors or principles, to see if these are com- patible. If they are we pronounce the essence intrinsically possible, if not we pronounce it intrinsically impossible. For 1 Cf. ARISTOTLE, Metaþh., L. viii., IO; ST. THOMAS, In viii., Metaþh., Lect. iii., par. l. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 83 our minds, absence of internal incompatibility in the content of our concept of any object is the test of its intrinsic possi- bility. Whatever fulfils thi9 test we consider capable of ex- Istmg. But what about the possibility of the notes, or factors, or principles themselves, whereby we define those essences, and by the union of which we conceive those essences to be con- stituted ? How do we know that those abstract principles or factors-no one of which can actually exist alone, since all are abstract-can in certain combinations form possible objects of thought? We can know this only because we have either ex- perienced such objects as actual, or because we infer their possi- bility from objects actually experienced. And similarly our knowledge of what is impossible is based upon our experience of the actuaJ. Since, moreover, our experience of the actual is finite and fallible, we may err in our judgments as to what essences are, and what are not, intrinsically possible. l If now we ask ourselves what intelligible reason can we assign for the characteristics just indicated as belonging to possible essences, we must fix our attention first of all on the fundamental fact that the human intel1ect always apprehends its object in an abstract condition. It contemplates the essence apart from the existence in which the essence is subject to circumstances of time and place and change; it grasps the essence in a static condition as simply identical with itself and distinct from all else; it sees the essence as indifferent to existence at any place or time; reflecting then on the actualization of this essence in the existing order of things, it apprehends the essence as capable of indefinite actualizations (except in cases where it sees some reason to the contrary), z:e. it universalzzes the essence; comparing it with its constituent notes or elements, and with those of other essences, it sees and affirms certain relations (of identity or diversity, com- patibility or incompatibility, between those notes or elements) as holding good necessarily and immutably, and independently of the actual embodiment of those notes or elements in any object existing at any particular place or time. All these features of the relations between the constituents of abstract, possible essences, seem so far to be adequately accounted for by the fact 1 Cf. MERCIJ<'R, Ontologie, pp. 42-3. How do we know that not only water (H,P) i8 a possible essence but also bydrogen di-oxide (H 2 0!j)? Because the latter substance bas been actually fo.,med by chemists (cf. ROSCOE, Elementa.,y Chemist.,y, Lesson VI.). Is hydrogen tri-oxyde (H!jOIl) a possible substance? We may ask chemists,-and they may not be able to tell us with any certainty whether it is or not. 6* 84 ONTOLOGY that the intellect apprehends those essences t'n the abstract: the data in which it apprehends them being given to it through sense experience. What may be inferred from the fact that the human intellect has this power of abstract thought, is another question 1. But granting that it does apprehend essences in this manner, we seem to have in this fact a sufficient explanation of the features just referred to. We have, however, already suggested other questions about the reality of those possible essences Is their possibility, so far as known to us, explained by our experience of actual things? Or must we think them as eternally, necessarily and immutably possible? From the manner in which we must apprehend them, can we infer anything about the reality of an Eternal, Immut- able, Necessary Intelligence, in whose Thought and Essence alone those essences, as apprehended by our minds, can find their ultimate ground and explanation? These are the questions we must now endeavour to examine. 16. POSSIBLE ESSENCES AS SUCH ARE SOMETHING DISTINCT FROM MERE LOGICAL BEING, AND FROM NOTHINGNESS.- There have been philosophers who have held that the actual alone is real, and only while it is actual ; that a purely (intrin- sically) possible essence as such is nothing real; that the actual alone is possible; that the purely possible as such is impossible. This view is based on the erroneous assumption that whatever is or becomes actual is so, or becomes so, by some sort of un- intelligible fatalistic necessity. Apart from the fact that it is incompatible with certain truths of theism, such as the Divine Omnipotence and Freedom in creating, it also involves the denial of all real becoming or change, and the assertion that all 1 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 cor- poreal 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 (Cj. DE MUNNYNCK, Praelectiones de De;' Exi.stmtia, p. 23). But is this a fact? This is the really debatable point. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 8S actuality is eternal; for if anything becomes actual, it was previ- ously either possible or impossible; if impossible, it could never become actual; if possible, then as possible it was something different from the impossible, or from absolute nothingness. Moreover, the intrinsically possible is capable of becoming actual, and may be actualized if there exists some actual being with power to actualize it; but absolute nothingness-or, in other words, the intrinsically impossible-cannot be actualized, even by Omni- potence; therefore the possible essence as such is something positive or real, as distinct from nothingness. Finally, in- trinsically possible essences can be clearly distinguished from one another by the mind; but their negation which is pure non- entity or nothingness cannot be so distinguished. It is therefore clear that possible essences are in some true sense something positive or real. From which it follows that nothingness, in the strict sense, is not the mere absence or negation of actuality, but also the absence or negation of that positive or real something which is intrinsic possibility; in other words that nothingness in the strict sense means intrinsic impossibility. Even those who hold the opinion just rejected-that the purely possible essence as such has no reality in any conceivable sense-would presumably admit that it is an object of human thought at all events; they would accord to it the being it has from the human mind which thinks it. It would therefore be an ens rationÚ according to this view, having only the ideal being which consists in its being constituted and contem plated by the human mind. That it has the ideal being, the esse ideate or esse in- tentionate, which consists in its being contemplated by the human mind as an object of thought, no one will deny. But a little reflection will show, firstly, that this ideal being is something more than the ideal being of an ens ratzonÚ, of a mere logical entity; and, secondly, that a possible essence must have some other ideal being than that which it has in the individual human mind. The possible essence is not a mere logical entity; for the latter cannot be conceived as capable of existing apart from the human mind, in the world of actual existences (3), whereas the former can be, and is in fact, conceived as capable of such existence. Its ideal being in the human mind is, therefore, something other than that of a mere logical entity. The ideal being which it has in the human mind as an object 86 ONTOLOGY of thought is undoubtedly derived from the mind's knowledge of actual things. We think of the essences of actually experienced realities apart from their actual existence. Thus abstracted, we analyse them, compare them, reason from them. By these pro- cesses we can not merely attain to a know ledge of the actual existence of other realities above and beyond and outside of our own direct and immediate intuitional experience, but we can also form concepts of multitudes of realities or essences as intrin- sically possible, thus giving these latter an ideal existence in our own minds. Here, then, the question arises: Is this the only ideal being that can be ascribed to such essences? In other words, are essences intrinsically possible because we think them as intrinsically possible? Or is it not rather the case that we think them to be intrinsically possible because they are intrinsi- cally possible? Does our thought constitute, or does it not rather merely discover, their intrinsic possibility? Does the latter result from, or is it not rather presupposed by, our thought- activity? The second alternative suggested in each of these questions is the true one. As our thought is not the source of their actuality, neither is it the source of their intrinsic possibility. Solipsism is the reductio ad absurdum of the philosophy which would reduce all actuality experienced by the individual mind to phases, or phenomena, or self-manifestations, of the individual mind itself as the one and only actuality. And no less absurd is the philosophy which would accord to all z'ntrinsically þossible realities no being other than the ideal being which they have as the thought-objects of the individual human mind. The study of the actual world of direct experience leads the impartial and sincere inquirer to the conclusion that it is in some true sense a manifestation of mind or intelligence: not, however, of his own mind, which is itself only a very tiny item in the totality of the actual world, but of one Supreme Intelligence. And in this same Intelligence the world of possible essences too will be found to have its original and fundamental ideal being. 17. POSSIBLE ESSENCES HAVE, BESIDES IDEAL BEING, NO OTHER SORT OF BEING OR REALITY PROPER AND INTRINSIC TO THEMSELVES.-Before inquiring further into the manner in which we attain to a knowledge of this Intelligence, and of the ideal being of possible essences in this Intelligence, we may ask whether, above and beyond such ideal being, possible essences have not perhaps from all eternity some being or reality proper EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 87 and intrinsic to themselves; not indeed the actual being which they possess when actualized in time, but yet some kind of intrinsic reality as distinct from the extrinsic ideal being, or esse intentionale, which consists merely in this that they are ob- jects of thought present as such to a Supreme Intelligence or Mind. Some few medieval scholastics 1 contended that possible essences have from all eternity not indeed the existence they may receive by creation or production in time, but an intrinsic essential being which, by creation or production, may be trans- ferred to the order of actual existences, and which, when actual existence ceases (if they ever receive it), still continues immu- table and incorruptible: what these writers called the esse essentiae, as distinct from the esse existenti'ae, conceiving it to be intermediate between the latter on the one hand and mere ideal or logical being on the other, and hence calling it esse diminutu11l or secundum quid. Examining the question from the standpoint of theism, these authors seem to have thought that since God understands these essences as possible from all eternity, and since this knowledge must have as its term or object some- thing real and positive, these essences must have some real and proper intrinsic being from all eternity: otherwise they would be simply nothingness, and nothingness cannot be the term of the Divine Intelligence. But the obvious reply is that though possible essences as such are nothing actual they must be distin- guished as realities, capable of actually existing, from absolute nothingness / and that as thus distinguished from absolute nothing- ness they are really and positively intelligible to the Divine Mind, as indeed they are even to the human mind. To be intelligible they need not have actual being. They must, no doubt, be capable of having actual being, in order to be understood as realities: it is precisely in this understood capability that their reality consists, for the real includes not only what actually exists but whatever is capable of actual existence. \Vhatever is opposed to absolute nothingness is real; and this manifestly in- cludes not only the actual but whatever is intrinsically possible. Realities or essences which have not actual being have only 1 Among others Henry of Ghent (t 1293; if. DR WULF, History of Medieval PhilosoPhy, pp. 364-6; KLEUTGEN, Philosoþhie der Vorzcit, Dissert. vi., cap. ii., 2 5 81 -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. 65 0 - 6 3. 88 ONTOLOGY ideal being; and ideal being means simply presence in some mind as an object of thought. Scholastic philosophers generally 1 hold that possible essences as such have no other being than this; that before and until such essences actually exist they have of themselves and in themselves no being except the ideal being which they have as objects of the Divine Intelligence and the virtual being they have in the Divine Omnipotence which may at any time give them actual existence. One convincing reason for this view is the consideration that if possible essences as such had from all eternity any proper and intrinsic being in themselves, God could neither create nor annihilate. For in that hypothesis essences, on becoming actual, would not be produced a nihilo, inasmuch as before becoming actual they would in themselves and from all eternity have had their own proper real being; and after ceasing to be actual they would still retain this. But crea- tion is the production of the whole reality of actual being from nothingness; and is therefore impossible if the actual being is merely produced from an essence already real, z:e. having an eternal positive reality of its own. The same is true of annihila- tion. The theory of eternally existing uncreated matter is no less incompatible with the doctrine of creation than this theory of eternally real and uncreated forms or essences. Again, what could this supposed positive and proper reality of the possible essence be? If it is anything distinct from the mere ideal being of such an essence, as it is assumed to be, it must after all be actual being of some sort, which would ap- parently have to be actualized again in order to have actual existence! Finally, this supposed eternal reality, proper to possible essences, cannot be anything uncreated. F or whatever is uncreated is God; and since it is these supposed proper realities of possible essences that are made actual, and constitute the existing created universe, the latter would be in this view an actualization of the Divine Essence itself,-which is pantheism pure and simple. And neither can this supposed eternal reality, proper to possible essences, be anything created. For such crea- tion would be eternal and necessary; whereas God's creative activity is admitted by all scholastics to be essentially free; and although they are not agreed as to whether "creation from all 1 Cf. URRABURU, oþ. cU., pp. 652-3, for references; among others, to ST. THOMAS, D. Potentia, q. 3, art. I, ad 2 um ; art. 7, ad IOum; art. 5, argum. 2 0 ; ibid., ad 2 um . Summa Theol. t i., q. 14, art. 9; q. 45, art. I; ibid., art. 2, ad 2 um ; q. 61, art. 2 corp. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 89 eternity" (" creatio ab aeterno") is possible, they are agreed that it is not a fact. Possible essences as such are therefore nothing actual. Furthermore, as such they have in themselves no positive being. But they are not therefore unreal. They are positively intelligible as capable of actual existence, and therefore as distinct from logical entities or entia rationis which are not capable of such existence. They are present as objects of thought to mind; and to some mind other than the individual human mind. About this ideal being which they have in this Mind we have now in the next place to inquire. r 8. INFERENCES FROM OUR KNOWLEDGE OF POSSIBLE ESSENCES.-We have stated that an impartial study of the actual world will lead to the conclusion that it is dependent on a Su- preme Intelligence; and we have suggested that in this Supreme Intelligence also possible essences as such have their primary ideal being (r6, 17). When the existence of God has been established -as it may be established by various lines of argument-from actual things, we can clearly see, as will be pointed out presently, that in the Divine Essence all possible essences have the ultimate source of their possibility. But many scholastic philosophers contend that the nature and properties of possible essences, as ap- prehended by the human mind, furnish a distinct and conclusive argument for the existence of a Supreme Uncreated Intelligence. l Others deny the validity of such a line of reasoning, contending that it is based on misapprehension and misinterpretation of those characteristics. All admit that it is not human thought that makes essences possible: they are intelligible to the human mind because they are possible, not vice versa. OJ For the human mind the immediate source and ground of their intrinsic possibility and characteristics is the fact that they are given to it in actual experience while it has the power of considering them aþar/from their actual existence. 1 Among others, BALMES (Fundamental Philosophy, bk. iv., ch. xxvi.), LEPIDI (Ontologia, quoted by De Munynck, Praelectim,es de Dei Existentia, Louvain, 1904, p. 19); DE MUNYNCK (ibid., pp. 19-23, 46-7, 75); HICKEY (Theolo,(fia Naturalis, pp. 31-4); DRISCOLL (God, pp. 72 sqq.); LACORDAIRE (God, p. 21); KLEUTGEN, Pl.ilosoPhie der Vorzeit, Dissert. iv., 476. OJ Truth is not the work of any human intelligence, says St. Augustine, nor can anyone arrogate to himself the right to say" my truth," or .. thy truth," but all must say simply II the truth": II Quapropter, nullo modo negaveris esse incommuta- bilem veri tatem, haec omnia, quae incommutabiliter vera sunt, continentem, quam non possis dicere vel tuam vel meam, vel cujuscumque hominis, sed omnibus in- commutabilia vera cementibus, tamquam miris modis secretum et publicum lumen, praesto use ac Be praebere communiter: omne autem quod communiter omnibus 9 0 ONTOLOG Y But (1) are they not independent of experienced actuality, no less than of the human mind, so that we are forced to infer from them the reality of a Supreme Eternal Mind in which they have eternal ideal being? (2) Is not any possible essence (e.g. "water," or "a triangle ") so neces- sarily what it is that even if it never did and never will exist, nay even were there 1JO human or other finite mini! to conceive it, it would still be what it is (e.g. "a chemical compound of oxygen and hydrogen," or" a plane rectilinear three-sided figure ")_so that there must be some Necessarily Existing Intelligence in and from which it has this necessary truth as a possible essence? 1 These essences, as known to us, are so far from being grounded in, ratiocinantibus atque intelligentibus praesto est, ad ullius eorum proprie naturam rertinere quis dixerit? "-D, Libero Arbitrio, lib. ii., ch. xii. Cf. his striking ex. pression 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 parti- bus non compleatur It (apud MERCIER, Ontologie, pp. 35-6). 1 Cf BALMES (Fu1ldamental 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, aU sensible representations, a1ld 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 under- standing 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 possibiIity. What is remarkable in this phenomenon, is precisely this, that our understanding feels itself forced to give its assent to a pro- position which affirms an absolutely necessary connection without any relation to an existillg 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, ii 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 sup- position, 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, indepmdent of a being upon which it is based. We repeat, that this is an illusion, which disappears so socn 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 ullderstandillg 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 givÎ1zg to EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 9 1 or explained by, the things of our actual experience, that we rather regard the latter as grounded in the fonner. Do we not consider possible essences as the prototypes and exemplars to which actual things must conform in order to be actual, in order to exist at all? 1 (3) Finally, the relations which we apprehend as obtaining between them, we see to be necessary and immutable relations. They embody neces- sary truths which are for our minds the standards of all truth. Such neces- sary truths cannot be grounded either in the contingent human mind, or in the contingent and mutable actuality of the things of our immediate ex- perience. Therefore we can and must infer from them the reality of a Necessary, Immutable Being, of whose essence they must be imitations. If, then, this ideal order of intrinsically possible essences is logically and ontologically prior to the contingent actualizations of any of them (even though it be posterior to them in the order of our knowledge, which is based on actual experience), there must be likewise ontologically prior to all contingent actualities (including our own minds) some Necessary Intellt:gence in which this order of possible essences has its ideal being. 19. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THOSE INFERENCES.- The validity of the general line of argument indicated in the preceding paragraphs has been seriously questioned. Among other criticisms the following points have been urged ;- (I) Actual things furnish the basis of Irrefragable proofs of the existence of God-the Supreme, Necessary, Eternal, Omniscient, and Omnipotent Being. But we are here inquiring whether a mind which has not yet so our mind faculties perceptive of the necessary relation of certain ideas, based npon 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 (oþ. cit., pp. 22-3); II Ponamul mundum non esse, nee sup- ponamus Dei existentiam. In nihilo iIlo, omne ens actuale exc1udens, 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 funda- mentum metaphysicum realismi platonici.-Habet praeterea mirum hoc systema, ut omnes sciunt, fundamentum criteriologicum.) Essentiae sunt, nec tamen existunt. IlIa realitas, praeter mundum totum, praeter entia rationis, indestructi- bilis perseverat, nee tamen actualis est. Haec quomodo intelligi possit nescimus, nisi ponatur iIlam fundari in plenitudine aeterna, infinita, absoluta TOÛ Esse absoluti. Hoc ente supremo posito, omnia lucidissima se praebent intellectui; iIlo Deo optimo-quem non possumus, perspectis ilIis altissimis, non adorare-sublato, admittendae Bunt essentiae rerum ab aeterno realt;s sine actuali existentia; atque proinde quid non-individuale est reale in se, quod tamen concipi non potest nisi objective in mente." 1 Cf. ST. AUGUSTINE, De Libero Arbitrio, lib. ii., ch. viii. C/. especially MERCIER, Ontologie, pp. 40-49. 9 2 ONTOLOGY analysed actual being as to see how it involves this conclusion, or a mind which abstracts altogether from the evidence furnished by actual things for this conclusion, can prove the existence of such a being from the separate consideration of possible essences, their attributes and relations. Now it is not evident that to such a mind possible essences reveal themselves as having eternal ideal being. Such a mind is, no doubt, conscious that it is not itself the cause of their possibility. But it sees that actual things þlus the abstract character of its own thought account sufficiently for all their features as it knows them. To the question: Is not their ideal being eternal f it can only answer: That will depend on whether the world of actual things can be shown to involve the existence of an Eternal Intelligence. Until this is proved we cannot say whether possible essences have any ideal being other than that which they have in human minds. (2) The actual things from which we get our concepts of possible essences do not exist necessarily. But, granted their existence, we know from them that certain essences are dø facto possible. They are not neces- sadly given to us as possible, any more than actual things are necessarily given to us as actual. Of course, when they are thought of at all, they are, as objects of thought, necessarily and immutably identical with themselves, and related to one another as mutually compatible or incompatible, etc. But this necessity of relations, hypothetical as it is and contingent on the mental processes of analysis and comparison, involved as it is in the very nature of being and thought, and expressed as it is in the principles of identity and contradiction, is just as true of actual contingent essences as of possible essences j 1 and it is something very different from the sort of necessity claimed for possible essences by the contention that they must be conceived as having ideal being necessarily. The ideal being they have in the human mind is certainly not necessary: the human mind might never have conceived these possible essences. But must the human mind conceive a possible essence as having some ideal being necessarily 1 No j unless that mind has already convinced itself, from a study of actual things, that an Eternal, Necessary, Omniscient In- telligence exists: to which, of course, such essences would be eternally and necessarily present as objects of thought. If the human mind had already reached this conviction it could then see that" even if there were no human in- tellect, things would still be true in relation to the Divine Intellect. But if both intellects were, þer t"tlZþossibile, conceived as non-existent truth would persist no longer." 2 Suppose, therefore, that it has not yet reached this conviction, or abstracts altogether from the existence of God as known from actual things j and then, further, imagines the actual things of its experience and all human intellects and finite intellects of whatsoever kind as non-existent: must it still conceive possible things as possible? No j possibility and impossibility, 1 It is, for example, just as necessarily and immutably true of any actuallyexist- ing man that he cannot be at the same time existing and not existing as it is that a man cannot be an irrational animal. 2" Unde, etiamsi intellectus humanus non esset, adhuc res dicerentur verae in ordine ad intellectum divinum. Sed si uterque intellectus, quod est impossibile, in- teIligeretur auferri, nullo modo ratio veritatis remaneret."-ST. THOMAS, De Veri- tate, q. i., art. ii. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 93 truth and falsity will now have ceased to have any meaning. After such at- tempted abstraction the mind would have before it only what Balmes de- scribes as "the abyss of nothing u. And Balmes is right in saying that the mind is unable "to abstract all existence n. But the reason of the inability is not, as Balmes contends, because when it has removed actual things and finite minds there still remains in spite of it a system or order of possible essences which forces it to infer and posit the existence of an Eternal, Necessary Mind as the source anc ground of that order. The reason rather is because the mind sees that the known actual things, from which it got all its notions of possible essences, necessarily imply, as the only intelligible ground of their actuality, the existence of a Necessary Being, in whose Intelligence they must have been contained ideally, and in whose Omnipotence they must have been contained virtually, from all eternity. From contingent actuality, as known to it, the mind can argue to the eternal actuality of Necessary Being, and to the impossibility either of a state of absolute nothingness, or of an order of purely possible things apart from all actuality. (3) Of course, whether the mind has thus thought out the ultimate im- plications of the actuality of experienced things or not, once it has thought and experienced those things it cannot by any effort banish the memory of them from its presence: they are there still as objects of its thought even when it abstracts from their actual existence. But if, while it has not yet seen that their actuality implies the existence of a Necessary, Omniscient and Omnipotent Being, it abstracts not only from their actual existence but from the existence of all finite minds (itself included), then in that state, so far as its knowledge goes, there would be neither actual nor ideal nor possible being. Nor can the fact that an ideal order of possible things still persists in its own thought mislead it into concluding that such an ideal order really persists in the hypothesis it has made. For it knows that this ideal order still persists for itself simply because it cannot" think itself away n. It sees all the time that if it could effectively think itself away, this ideal order would have to disappear with it, leaving nothing-so far as it knows-either actual or possible. Mercier has some apposite remarks on this very point. "From the fact," he writes, U that those abstract essences, grasped by our abstractive thought from the dawn of our reason, have grown so familiar to us, we easily come to look upon them as pre-existing archetypes or models of our thoughts and of things j they form a fund of predicates by which we are in the habit of interpreting the data of our experience. So, too, the hypothetically necessary relations established by abstract thought between them we come to regard as a sort of eternal system of principles, endowed with a sort of legislative power, to which created things and intelligences must conform. But they have really no such pre-existence. The eternal pre-existence of those essence-types, which Plato called the 'intelligible world,' the Tó7Tor vOT/Tór, and the supposed eternal legislative power of their relations, are a sort of mental optical illusion. Those abstract essences, and the principles based upon them, are the products of our mental activity working on the data of our actual experience. When we enter on the domain of sþeculaft."ve reflection . . . they are there before us j . . . but we must not forget that reflection is consequent on the spontaneous thought- activity which-by working abstractively on the actual data of sensIble, con- tingent, changeable, temporal realities-set them up there. . . . We know 94 ONTOLOGY from psychology how those ideal, abstract essence-types are formed. . . . But because we have no actual memory of their formation, which is so rapid as practically to escape consciousness in spontaneous thought, we are naturally prone to imagine that they are not the product of our own mental action on the data of actual experience, but that they exist in us, or rather above us, and independently of us. We can therefore understand the psychological illusion under which Plato wrote such passages as the following: 'But if anyone should teU me why anything is beautiful, either because it has a bloom- ing, florid colour, or figure, or anythingelse of the kind, I dismiss aU otherreasons, for I am confounded by them aU; but I simply, whoUy, and perhaps naively, confine myself to this, that nothing else causes it to be beautiful, except either the presence or communication of that abstract beauty, by whatever means and in whatever way communicated; for I cannot yet affirm with certainty, but only that by means of beauty all beautiful things become beautiful (ro/ lCa)...éf Tà lCaÀà yíYVfTat lCaÀá). For this appears to me the safest answer to give both to myself and others, and adhering to this I think that I shall never fall [into error]. . . . And that by magnitude great things become great, and greater things greater; and by littleness less things become less.' I St. Augustine's doctrine on the invariable laws of numbers, on the immutable principles of wisdom, and on truth generaUy, draws Its inspiration from this Platonic idealism." 2 But this Platonic doctrine, attributing to the abstract essences conceived by our thought a reality independent both of our thought and of the actual sense data from which directly or indirectly we derive our concepts of them, is rejected as unsound by scholastics generally. When we have proved from actual things that God exists, and is the Intelligent and Free Creator of the actual world of our direct experience, we can of course consider the Divine Intellect as contemplating from all eternity the Divine Essence, and as seeing therein the eternal archetypes or ideas of all actual and possible essences. We may thus regard the Divine Mind as the eternal TÓ1rOr v07]Tór, or mundus in- telligibilis. This, of course, is not Plato's thought; it is what St. Augustine substituted for Platonism, and very properly. But we must not infer, from this truth, that when we contemplate possible essences, with all the character- istics we may detect in them, we are contemplating this mundus intelligibilis which is the Divine Mind. This was the error of the ontologists. They in- ferred that since possible essences, as known by the human mind, have ideal being independently of the latter and of all actual contingent reality, the human mind in contemplating them has really an intuition of them as they are seen by the Divine Inte]]ect Itself in the Divine Essence; so that. in the words of Gioberti, the Primum Ontologicum, the Divino Being Himself, is also the pri1Jlum lo.l[icum, or first reality apprehended by human thought. a N ow those authors who hold that the ideal order of possible essences contemplated by the human mind is seen by the latter, as so contemplated, to have some being, some ideal being, really independent of the human mind itself, and of the actual contingent things from which they admit that the human mind derives its knowledge of such essences,-these authors do not hold, but deny, that this independent ideal being, which they claim for these I Phædo, 100, C. ff. I MERCIER, Ontologie, pp. 45-7. :I Cf. DE MUNNYNCK, op. cit., pp. 24-5. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 95 essences, is anything Divine, that It is the Divine Essence as seen by the Divine Intellect to be imitable ad extra. l Hence they cannot fairly be charged with the error of ontologism. Renouncing Plato's exaggerated realism, and holding that our knowledge of the ideal order of possible essences is derived by our mind from its con- sideration of actual things, they yet hold that this ideal order is seen to have some sort of being or reality independent both of the mind and of actual things. 2 This is not easy to understand. When we ask, Is this supposed independent being (or reality, or possibility) of possible essences the ideal being they have in the Divine mind ?-we are told that it is not; I but that it is something from which we can infer, by reasoning, this eternal, necessary, and immutable ideal being of these same essences in the Divine Mind. The considerations urged in the foregoing paragraphs will, however, have shown that the validity of this line of reasoning from possible essences to the reality of an Eternal, Divine, Immutable Intelligence is by no means evident or free from difficulties. Of course, when the existence of God has been proved from actual things, the conception of the Divine Inte1ligence and Essence as the ultimate source of all possible reality, no less than of all actual reality, will be found to shed a great deal of new light upon the intrinsic pos- sibility of possible essences. Since, however, our knowledge of the Divine is merely analogical, and since God's intuition of possible essences, as imitations of His own Divine Essence, completely transcends our comprehension, and is totally different from our abstractive knowedge of such essences, our concep- tion of the manner in which these essences are related to the Divine Nature and the Divine Attributes, must be determined after the analogy of the manner in which O1lr own minds are related to these essences. 20. ESSENCES ARE INTRINSICALLY POSSIBLE, NOT BECAUSE GOD CAN MAKE THEM EXIST ACTUALLY; NOR YET BECAUSE HE FREELY WILLS THEM TO BE POSSIBLE; NOR BECAUSE HE UNDER- STANDS THEM AS POSSIBLE; BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE MODES IN WHICH THE DIVINE ESSENCE IS IMITABLE ad e.rtra.-(a) The ultimate source of the extrinsic possibility of all contingent realities is the Divine Omnipotence: just as the proximate source of the extrinsic possibility of a statue is the power of the sculptor to educe it from the block of wood or marble. But just as the power of the sculptor presupposes the z'ntrinsz'c possibility of the statue, so does the Divine Omnipotence presuppose the intrinsic possibility of all possible things. It is not, as William of Ockam ct 1347), a scholastic of the decadent period, erroneously thought, 1 Cf. De MUNNYNCK, oþ. cU., pp. 24-5. I ibid., pp. 22, 24. I" Quæ objecta non divina esse, luce clarius apparet. Attamen ilia ponderando, modumqu, insþiciendo quo rsþrestntantur a ments humana, atque praesupponendo valorem objectivum intellectus, concludimus ex ideil ad realitateø illas quæ in Esse divino fundantur . . . ratione horum [objectorum scil. idearum nostrarum] per- cipimus, ope ratiocinii, ilia positive aeterna et immutabilia, quæ reâpse in Deitate fundantur, atque sunt ipse Deus quatenus imitabilis."-ibid., pp. 24-5. Cf. extract quoted above, p. 91 n. 9 6 ONTOLOGY because God can create things that such things are intrinsically possible, but rather because they are intrinsically possible He can create them. (b) Not less erroneous is the voluntarist theory of Descartes, according to which possible essences are intrinsically possible be cause God freely willed them to be possible. l The actuality of all created things depends, of course, on the free will of God to create them; but that possible essences are what they are, and are related to each other necessarily as they are, because God has willed them to be such, is absolutely incredible. Descartes seems to have been betrayed into this strange error by a false notion of what is requisite for the absolute freedom and independence of the Divine Will: as if this demanded that God should be free to will, e.g. that two plus two be five, or that the radii of a circle be unequal, or that creatures be independent of Himself, or that blasphemy be a virtuous act I The intrinsic possibility of essences is not dependent on the Free Will of God; the actualization of possible essences is; but God can will to actualize only such essences as He sees, from comprehending His own Divine Es- sence, to be intrinsically possible. But it derogates in no way from the supremacy of the Divine Will to conceive its free volition as thus consequent on, and illumined by, the Divine Knowledge; whereas it is incompatible with the wisdom and sanctity of God, as well as inconceivable to the human mind, that the necessary laws of thought and being-such as the principles of contradiction and identity, the principle of causality, the first principles of the moral order-should be what they are simply because God has freely willed them to be so, and might therefore have been other- wise. From the fact that we have no direct intuition of the Divine Being, some philosophers have concluded that all speculation on the relation of God to the world of our direct experience is necessarily barren and fruitless. This is a phase of agnosticism; and, like all error, it is the exaggeration of a truth: the truth being that while we may reach real knowledge about the Divine Nature and attributes by such speculation, we can do so only on con- dition that we are guided by analogies drawn from God's creation, and re- member that our concepts, as applied to God, are analogical (2). 1" Non ideo voluit Deus mundum creare in tempore, quia vidit melius sic fore, quam si creassd ab æterno; nee voll/it tres angulos trianguli æquales esse duobus rectis, quia cognovit aliter fieri non þOSS8. Sed contra, quia voluit creare mundum in tempore, ideo sic melius est, quam bi creatus fuisset ab æterno, et quia voluit tres angulos trianguli neeessa,io æquales eSS8 duobus ,.eetis, idcireo jam ve1'um est, et aliter fieri non þotest, atque ita de reliquis."-DEsCARTES, in Resþ. ad Sext. Objec. ti-ones, ad 6um scrupulum. EX1STENCE AND ESSENCE 97 "We can know God only by analogy with contingent and finite beings, and consequently the realities and laws of the contingent and finite world must necessarily serve as our term of comparison. But, among finite realities, we see an essential subordination of the extrinsically possible to the intelli- gible, of this to the intrinsically possible, and of this again to the essential type which is presupposed by our thought. Therefore, a þari, we must con- sider the omnipotent will of God, which is the first and universal cause of all [contingent] existences, as under the direction of the Divine Omniscience, and this in turn as having for its object the Divine Essence and in it the essential types whose intrinsic possibility is grounded on the necessary imitability of the Divine Being. "When, therefore, in defence of his position, Descartes argues that' In God willing and knowing are one and the same; the reason why He knows anything is because He wills it, and for this reason only can it be true: Ex /toe iPso quod Deus aliquid vetit, ideo cognoscit, et ideo tantum lalis res est vera '-he is only confusing the issue. We might, indeed, retort the argu- ment: 'In God willing and knowing are one and the same; the reason why He wills anything is because He knows it, and for this reason only can it be good: Ex hoc iþso quod aliquid cognoscit, ideo vult, et ideo tantum talis res est bona,' but both inferences are equally unwarranted. For, though willing and knowing are certainly one and the same in God, this one and the same thing is formally and for our minds neither will nor intellect, but a reality transcending will and intellect, a substance infinitely above any sub- stances known to us: 1J1r pOVUw1 supersubstanlia, as the Fathers of the Church and the Doctors of the Schools call it. But of this transcendent substance we have no intuitive knowledge. We must therefore either abandon all attempts to find out anything about it, or else apprehend it and designate it after the analogy of what we know from direct experience about created life and mind. And as in creatures will is not identical with intellect, nor either of these with the nature of the being that possesses them; so what we con- ceive in God under the concept of will, we must not identify in thought with what we conceive in Him under the concept of intellect, nor may we with impunity confound either in our thought with the Nature or Essence of the Divine Being." 1 (c) Philosophers who deny the validity of all the arguments advanced by theists in proof of the existence of a transcendent Supreme Being, distinct from the world of direct human experi- ence, endeavour to account in various ways for the intrinsic possibility of abstract essences. Agnostics either deny to these latter any reality whatsoever (16), or else declare the problem of their reality insoluble. Monists of the materialist type-who try to reduce all mind to matter and its mere mechanical energies (I I)-treat the question in a still more inadequate and unsatis- factory manner; while the advocates of idealistic monism, like Hegel and his followers, refer us to the supposed Immanent Mind 1 MERCIER, Dþ. dt., pp. 5 8 - 60 . 7 9 8 ONTOLOGY of the universe for an ultimate explanation of all intrinsic possi- bility. Certainly this must have its ultimate source in some mind; and it is not in referring us to an Eternal Mind that these philo- sophers err, but in their conception of the relation of this mind to the world of direct actual experience. It is not, however, with such theories we are concerned just now, but only with theories put for- ward by theists. And among these latter it is surprising to find some few l who maintain that the intrinsic possibility of abstract essences depends ultimately and exclusively on these essences themselves, irrespective of things actually experienced by the human mind, irrespective of the human mind itself, and irrespec- tive of the Divine Mind and the Divine Nature. As to this view, we have already seen (19) that if we abstract from all human minds, and from all actual things that can be directly experienced by such minds, we are face to face either with the alternative of absolute nothingness wherein the true and the false, the possible and the impossible, cease to have any intelligible meaning, or else with the alternative of a Supreme, Eternal, Necessary, Omniscient and Omnipotent Being, whose actual existence has been, or can be, inferred from the actual data of human experience. N ow the theist, who admits the existence of such a Being, cannot fail to see that possible essences must have their primary ideal being in the Divine Intellect, and the ultimate source of their intrinsic possibility in the Divine Essence Itself. For, knowing that God can actualize intrinsically possible essences by the creative act, which is intelligent and free, he will understand that these essences have their ideal being in the Divine Intellect; that the Divine Intellect sees their intrinsic possibility by contemplating the Divine Essence as the Un- created Prototype and Exemplar of all intrinsically possible things; and that these latter are intrinsically possible precisely because they are possible adumbrations or imitations of the Divine Nature. (d) But are we to conceive that essences are intrinsically possible precisely because the Divine Intellect, by understanding them, makes them intrinsically possible? Or should we rather conceive their intrinsic possibility as antecedent to this act by which the Divine Intellect understands them, and as dependent only on the Divine Essence Itself, so that essences would be 1 URRABURU (oþ. cit. Disp. iii., cap. ii., iii., p. 67I) mentions Wolff, Leibniz, Genuensis and Storchenau as holding this view. EXISTENCE AiVD ESSENCE 99 intrinsically possible simply because the Divine Essence is what it is, and because they are possible imitations or expressions of it? Here scholastics are not agreed. Some 1 hold that the intrinsic possibility of essences is formally constituted by the act whereby the Divine Intellect, contemplat- ing the Divine Essence, understands the latter to be indefinitely imitable ad extra ' so that as the actuality of things results from the Fiat of the Divine Will, and as their extrinsic possibility is grounded in the Divine Omnipotence, so their intrinsic possibility is grounded in the Divine Intellect. The latter, by understanding the Divine Essence, would not merely give an ideal being to the intrinsic possibility of essences, but would make those essences formally possible, they being only virtually possible in the Divine Essence considered antecedently to this act of the Divine Intel- lect. Or, rather, as some Scotists explain the matter,i this ideal being which possible essences have from the Divine Intellect is not as extrinsic to them as the ideal being they have from the human intellect, but is rather the very first being they can be said formally to have, and is somehow intrinsic to them after the analogy of the being which mere logical entities, entia rationis, derive from the human mind: which being is intrinsic to these entities and is in fact the only being they have or can have. Others 3 hold that while, no doubt, possible essences have ideal being in the Divine Intellect from the fact that they are objects of the Divine Knowledge, yet we must not conceive these essences as deriving their intrinsic possibility from the Divine Intellect. For intellect as such presupposes its object. Just, therefore, as possible essences are not intrinsically possible because they are understood by, and have ideal being in, the human mind, so neither are they intrinsically possible because they are understood by, and have ideal being in, the Divine Mind. In order to be understood actually, in order to have ideal being, in order to be objects of thought, they must be intelligible; and in order to be intelligible they must be intrinsically possible. Therefore they are formally constituted as intrinsically possible essences, not by the fact that they are understood by the Divine Intellect, but by the fact that ante- 1 Among others, Liberatore, Lahousse, Pesch, Harper. Ct. URRABURU, oþ. cit., ibid. \I Dupasqnier, MastriU8 and Rada, øþud URRABURU, oþ. cit., ibid., pp. 679-81 · Urraburu, Schiffini, Mendive. Cf. URRABURU, oþ. cit., ibid., p. 671. 7 .,. 100 ONTOLOG y cedentIy to this act (in our way of conceiving the matter: for there is yeally no priority of acts or attributes in God) they are already possible imitations of the Divine Essence Itself. This view seems preferable as being more in accordance with the analogy of what takes place in the human mind. The speculative intellect in man does not constitute, but presupposes its object. Now, while actual things are the objects of God's practical science-the (( scientia visionis," which reaches what is freely decreed by the Divine WiII,-possible things are the objects of God's speculative science-the (( scientz"a st'mplicis intelli"gentiae," which is not, like the former, productive of its object, but rather contemplative of objects presented to it by and in the Divine Essence. Why, then, ultimately will the notions cc square" and (( circle tJ not coalesce so as to form one object of thought for the human mind, while the notions II equilateral" and "triangle tt will so coalesce? Because the Essence of God, the Necessary Being, the First Reality, and the Source of all contingent reality, affords no basis for the former as a possible expression or imitation of Itself; in other words, because Being is not expressible by nothingness, and a "square circle Jt is nothingness: while the Divine Essence does afford a basis for the latter; because Necessary Being is in some intelIigible way imitated, expressed, manifested, by whatever has any being to distinguish it from nothingness, and an "equilateral triangle tt has such being and is not nothingness. It is hardly necessary to add that when we conceive the Divine Essence, contemplated by the Divine Intellect, as contain- ing in itself the exem plars or prototypes of all possible things, we are not to understand the Divine Essence as the formal exemplar of each, or, a fortiori, as a vast collection of such form- ally distinct exemplars; but only as virtually and equivalently the exemplar of each and all. We are not to conceive that possible essences are seen by the Divine Intellect imaged in the Divine Essence as t'n a mirror, but rather as in their supreme source and princzple: so that they are faint and far off reflections of It, and, when actualized, become for us the only means we have, in this present state, for reaching any knowledge of the Deity: videmus nunc per speculum. 1 1 I Cor. xiii. 12. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 101 2 I. DISTINCTION BETWEEN ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE IN ACTUALLY EXISTING CONTINGENT OR CREATED BEINGS.- Passing now from the consideration of possible essences as such, to the consideration of actually existing essences, we have to examine a question which has given rise to a great deal of controversy, partly on account of its inherent difficulty, and partly because of a multitude of ambiguities arising from con- fusion of thought: What is the nature of the distinction between essence and existence in the actually existing things of our experience? We have seen already that the concepts of essence and ex- istence are distinct from each other (12, 13); in other words, that in all cases there is at least a logical distinction between the essence and the existence of any being. We must, however, distinguish between created or contingent beings and the Uncreated, Necessary, Self-Existent Being. The latter exists essentÙzlly, eternally, by His own Essence, so that in Him essence and existence are yeally identical. His essence is formally His Existence; and, therefore, in thinking of His Essence we cannot positively exclude the notion of existet1j:e or think of Him as non-existent. The distinction between essence and existence, which we find in our thoughts, is, therefore, when applied to God, a purely logical distinction, due solely to our finite human mode of thinking, and having no ground or basis or reason in the reality which is the object of our thought. On this there is complete unanimity among scholastic philo- sophers. But while we conceive that God actually exists by that whereby He is God, by His Essence Itself, we do not conceive that any created or contingent being exists by that whereby it is what it is, by its essence. We do not, for example, regard the essence of Socrates, whether specific or individual (that whereby he is a man, or that whereby he is this man, Socrates), as that whereby he actually exists. In other words, the essence of the existing Socrates, being a contingent essence, does not necessarily demand or imply that it actually exist. Our concept of such an essence does not include the note of actual existence. Therefore if we find such an essence actually existing we con- sider this actually existing essence as caused or produced, and conserved in existence, by some other being, viz. by the Necessary Being: so that if it were not so created and con- 102 ONTOLOGY served it would be a pure possibility and nothing actual. 1 The same difference between the Necessary Being and contingent beings will be seen from considering their existence. The abstract concept of existence is rendered definite and determinate by the essence which it actualizes. Now every finite essence is of some particular kind; and its existence is rendered deter- minate by the fact that it is the existence of a definite kind of essence. The existence of a contingent being we conceive as the actuality of its essence; and its essence as a definite poten- tiality of existence. Thus if we conceive existence as a perfec- tion it is restricted by the finite nature of the potentiality which it actualizes. But the existence of the Necessary Being is the plenitude of actuality, an existence not restricted by being the existence of any essence that is determinate because finite, but of an essence that is determinate by being above all genera and species, by being infinite, by being Itself pure actuality, in no sense potential but perfectly and formally identical with actual existence. While, therefore, the essence of the Necessary Being is a necessarily existing essence, that of a contingent being is not necessarily existent, but is conceived as a potentiality which has been de facto actualized or made existent by the Necessary Being, and which may again cease to be actually existent. 2 On this too there is unanimity among scholastic philosophers. 1 II Ex hoc ipso quod quidditati esse attribuitur, non solum esse, sed ipsa quid- ditaa creari dicitur: quia antequam esse babeat, nihil est, nisi forte in intellectu creantis, ubi non est creatura, sed creatrix essentia. "-ST. THOMAS, De Potentia, q. iii., art. v., ad 2 urn. e " 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 partieipationis, sicut calor aliis corporibus ab igne [i.,. as caused or produced in them. C/. Kleutgen, oþ. cit., Disliert., i., c. iii., 6I]. Ipsum igitur esse competit aliis omnibus a primo agente per participationem quamdam. Quod autem alicui competit per participa- tionem, non est substantia ejus. Impossibile est igitur quod substantia alterius entis praeter agens prim urn sit ipsum esse. Hine est quod Exod. iii., proprium nomen Dei ponitur esse qui ed, quia ejull solius proprium est, quod sua substantia non sit aliud quam suum esse. "-ST. THOMAS, Contra Gmtes, L. ii., cap. 52, n. 7. " Quod inest alicui ab agente, oportet esse aeturn ejus; agentis enim est facere aliquid actu. Ostensum est autern supra, quod omnes aliae substantiæ habent esse a primo agente, et per hoc ipsæ l!Iubstantiæ 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 reeeptum 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 reeeptum est per modum actus, et ita invenitur actus et potentia in in- EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 10 3 We distinguish mentally or logically between the essence of an actually existing contingent being and its existence; consider- ing the former as the potential principle, in relation to the latter as the actualizing principle, of the contingent existing reality. But is the distinction between such an essence and its existence something more than a logical distinction? Is it a real distinc- tion? This is the question in dispute. And in order to avoid mis- understanding, we must be clear on these two points: firstly, of what essence and existence is there question? and secondly, what exactly are we to understand by a real distinction in this matter? 22. STATE OF THE QUESTION.-In the first place, there is no question here of the relation of a possible essence as such to ex- istence. The possible essence of a contingent being, as such, has no reality outside the Divine Essence, Intellect, Will, and Omni- potence. Before the world was created the possible essences of all the beings that constitute it were certainly really distinct from the actual existence of these beings which do constitute the created universe. On this point there can be no difference of opinion. To contend that it is on the eternal reality of the pos- sible essence that actual existence supervenes, when a contingent being begins to exist, would be equivalent to contending that it is the Divine Essence that becomes actual in the phenomena of our experience: which is the error of Pantheism. Again, before a contingent thing comes into actual existence it may be virtually and potentially in the active powers and passive potentialities of other actually existing contingent things: as the oak, for instance, is in the passive potentiality of the acorn and in the active powers of the natural agencies whereby it is evolved from the acorn; or the statue in the block of marble and in the mind and artistic power of the sculptor. But neither is there any question here of the relation of such potential being telligentiis [i... pure spirits), non tamen fonna et materia nisi aequivoce."-D. E1Jt. et EssBntia, cap. v. Cf. also Summa Theol., P. i., q. iii., art. 4; q. xiii., art. II; q. lxxv., art. 5, ad 4 urn. QuodlibBta, ii., art. 3 ; ix., art. 6. De Potentia, q. vii., art. 2. In Metaþh., 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 (01'. dt., Dissert. vi., c. ii., 574, n. 2) : II 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." 10 4 ONTOLOG Y or essence as a thing has in its causes to the actual existence of this thing when actually produced. Whatever being or essence it has in its active and passive causes is certainly really distinct from the existence which the thing has when it has been actually produced. Nor is there any doubt or dispute about this point. At the same time much controversy is due to misunderstandmgs arising from a confusion of thought which fails to distinguish between the essence as purely possible, the essence as virtually or potentially in its causes, and the essence as actually existing. It is about the distinction between the latter and its existence that the whole question is raised. And it must be borne in mind that this essence, whether it is really distinct from its existence or not, is itself a positive reality from the moment it is created or produced. The question is whether the creative or productive act-whereby this essence is placed "outside its causes," and is now no longer merely possible, or merely virtual or potential in its causes, but something real in z'tself-has for its term one realz"ty, or two realities, vzz. the essence as real subjective potentiality of existence, and the existential act or perfection whereby it is con- stituted actually existent. l The question is exclusively concerned with the essence which began to exist when the contingent being came into actual ex- istence, and which ceases to exist when, or if, this being again passes out of actual existence; and the question is whether this essence which actually exists is really distinct from the existence whereby it actually exists. Finally, the question concerns the essence and existence of any and every actual contingent reality, whether such reality be a substance or an accident. Of course it is primarily concerned with the essence and existence of sub- stances; but it also applies to the essence and existence of accidents in so far as these latter will be found to be really distinct from the substances in which they inhere, and to have reality proper to themselves. 23. THE THEORY OF DISTINCTIONS IN ITS ApPLICATION TO THE QUESTION.-In the next place, what are we to understand by a real distinction in this matter? Ambiguity and obscurity of thought in regard to the theory of di'stz"nctz"ons, and in regard to the application of the theory to the present question, has been probably the most fertile source of much tedious and fruitless controversy in this connexion. 1 Ct. URRABURU, oj. cit., 249, 50. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 10 5 Anticipating what will be considered more fully at a later stage (30), we must note here the two main classes of distinction which, by reflecting on our thought-processes, we discover between the objects of our thought. The real distinction is that which exists in things independently of the consideration of our minds; that which is discovered, but not made, by the mind; that which is given to us in and with the data of our experience. For example, the act of thinking is a reality other than, and therefore really distinct from, the mind that thinks; for the mind persists after the act of thinking has passed away. Opposed to this is the mental or logical distinction, which is the distinction made by the mind itself between two different concepts of one and the same reality; which is not in the reality independently of our thought, but is introduced into it by our thought, regarding the same reality under different aspects or from different points of view. The mind never makes such a distinction without some ground or reason for doing so. Sometimes, however, this reason will be found exclusively in the mind itself-in the limitations of its modes of thought-and not in the reality which is the matter or object of the thought. The distinction is then said to be purely logical or mental. Such distinctions are entia rationis, logical entities. An example would be the distinction between the concept "man tJ and the concept "rational animal," or, in general, between any definable object of thought and its definition; the distinction, therefore, between the essence and the existence of the Necessary Being is a purely logical distinction, for in a definition it is the essence of the thing we define, and existence is of the essence or definition of the Necessary Being. Sometimes, again, the reason for making a mental distinction will be found in the reality itself. What is one and the same reality presents different aspects to the mind and evokes different concepts of itself in the mind: though really one, it is virtually manifold; and the distinction between the concepts of these various aspects is commonly known as a virtual distinction. For example, when we think of any individual man as a "rational animal, tJ though our concept of "animal nature" is distinct from that of " rational nature," we do not regard these in him as two realities co-existing or combining to form his human nature, but only as two distinct aspects under which we view the one reality which is his human nature. And we view it under 106 ONTOLOGY these two aspects because we have actual experience of instances in which animal nature is really distinct and separated from rationality, e.g., in the brute beast. Or, again, since we can recog- nize three grades of life in man-vegetative, sentient, and rational-we conceive the one principle of life, his soul, as virtu- ally three principles; and so we distinguish mentally or virtually between three souls in man, although in reality there is only one. Or, once more, when we think of the Wisdom, the Will, and the Omnipotence of God, we know that although these concepts represent different aspects of the Deity, these aspects are not distinct realities in Him; but that because of His infinite perfec- tion and infinite simplicity they are all objectively one and the same self-identical reality. A virtual distinction is said to be imperfect (thus approaching nearer to the nature of a purely logical distinction) when each of the concepts whereby we apprehend the same reality only pre- scinds expNeitly from what is expressed by the other, although one of them is found on analysis to include z'mþlicitly what is expressed by the other. Such is the distinction between the being and the life of any living thing; or the distinction between the spirituality and the immorta1ityof the human soul; or the distinction between Injinz'te Wisdom and Infinite Power: the dis- tinction between the divine attributes in general. A virtual dis- tinction is said to be perfect (thus approaching nearer to the nature of a real distinction) when neither of the concepts includes either explicitly or implicitly what is expressed by the other. Such, for instance, is the distinction between the principle of intellectual life and the principle of animal or sentient life in man; for not only can these exist separately (the former with- out the latter, e.g. in pure spirits, the latter without the former, e.g. in brute beasts), but also it will be found that by no analysis does either concept in any way involve the other. l Our only object in setting down the various examples just given is to illustrate the general scholastic teaching on the doctrine of distinction. In themselves they are not beyond dispute, for the general doctrine of distinction is not easy of application in detail; but they will be sufficient for our present purpose. Probably the greatest difficulty in applying the general doctrine will be found to lie in discriminating between virtuaJ distinctions-especially perfect virtual distinctions-and real dis- 1 C/. REINSTADLER, Ontologia, lib. ii., cap. i., art. ii., 2. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 10 7 tinctions. 1 And this difficulty will be appreciated still more when we learn that a real distinction does not necessarily involve separability of the objects so distinguished. In other words there may be, in a composite existing individual being, constitutive factors or principles, or integral parts, each of which is a positive real entity, really distinct from the others, and yet incapable of existing separately or In isolation from the others. " Separa- bility," says Mercier,2 "is one of the signs of a real distinction; but it is neither essential to, nor a necessary property of the latter. Two separable things are of course really distinct from each other; but two entities may be really distinct from each other without being separable or capable of existing apart from each other. Thus we believe that the Intellect and the will in man are really distinct from each other, and both alike from the sub- stance of the human soul; yet they cannot exist isolated from the sou1." Therefore, even though the objects which we appre- hend as distinct, by means of distinct concepts, be understood to be such that they cannot actually exist in isolation from each other, but only as united in a composite individual being, still if it can be shown that each of them has its own proper reality in dependently of our thought, so that the distinction between them is not the result of our thought, or introduced by our thought into the individual thing or being which we are considering, then the distinction must be regarded as real. If, on the other hand, it can be shown that the different aspects which we apprehend in any datum by means of distinct concepts have not, apart from the consideration of the mind, apart from the analytic activity of our own thought, each its own proper reality, but are only distinct mental views of what is objectively one and the same reality, then the distinction must be regarded as logical, not real, -and this even although there may be in the richness and fulness of that one reality comparatively to the limited capacity of our minds, as well as in the very constitution and modes of thought of our minds themselves, a reason or basis for, and an explana- tion of, the multiþlidty of concepts whereby we attain to an under- standing of some one realz"ty. 24. SOLUTIONS OF THE QUESTION.-Postponing further 1 Zigliara (Ontologia (14), iiI. iv.) gives the virtual distinction as a sub-class of the real distinction; adding, however (according to Goudin, Metaþh., Disp. i., q. iii. art. ii., i) that U this virtual distinction is not &0 much a [real] dili1tinction as the basis of a [mental] distinction". 2 oþ. cit., p. 110. 108 ONTOLOGY consideration of the serious problems on the validity of know- ledge and its relation to reality, to which those reflections inevitably give rise, let us now return to the main question: the nature of the distinction between the essence and the exis- tence of any actually existing contingent being. We need not be surprised to find that the greatest minds have been unable to reach the same solution of this question. For it is but a phase of the more general metaphysical problem-at once both ontological and epistemological-of the nature of reality and the relation of the human mind thereto. Nor will any serious modern philosopher who is at all mindful of the wealth of current controversial literature on this very problem, or of the endless variety of conflicting opinions among contemporary thinkers in regard to it, be disposed to ridicule the medieval controversies on the doctrine of distinction as applied to essence and existence. No doubt there has been a good deal of mere verbal, and perhaps trifling, argumentation on the matter: it lends itself to the dialectical skill of the controversialist who cc takes sides," as well as to the serious thought of the open- minded investigator. It is not, however, through drawing different conclusions from the same premisses that conflicting solutions of the question have been reached, but rather through fundamentally different attitudes in regard to the premisses themselves which different philosophers profess to find in the common data of their experience. When we have once grasped what philosophers mean by a logical or a real distinction as a pplied to the relation between essence and existence we shall not get any very material assistance towards the choice of a solu- tion by considering at length the arguments adduced on either side. 1 Those who believe there is a real distinction 2 between the essence and the existence of all actually existing contingent beings mean by this that the real essence which comes into 1 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, oþ. cU., 25 1 -4. Besides St. Thomas (if. s!lþra, p. 102, n. 2), Albertus Magnus (n93-1280), Aegidius Romanl1s (t circa 1300), Capreolus (1380-1444), Soncinas (t 1494), Cajetan (1468-1534), Sylvester Ferrariensis (1474-1528), Dominicus Bañez (1528-1604), John of St. Thomas (15ð9-1644), Goudin (1639-95), are among the most noted scholastics to hold this view. It is supported by the members of the Dominican Order gener- ally; and by not a few Jesuits among recent scholastic writers; also by MERCIER, oþ. cit., 48-51. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 10<} actual existence by creation, or by the action of created causes, is a reality distinct from the existence whereby it actually exists. The actually existing essence is the total term of the creative or productive act; but what we apprehend in it under the concept of essence is really distinct from what we apprehend in it under the concept of existence: the existence being a real principle which actualizes the essence, and this latter being itself another real principle which is in itself a positive, subjective potentz'ality of existence.! Neither, of course, can actually exist without the other: no actual existence except that of a real essence; no existing essence except by reason of the existence which makes it actual. But these two real principles of existing contingent being, inseparable as they are and correlative, are nevertheless distinct realities-distinct in the objective order and independently of our thought,-and form by their union a really comþosz'te product: the existing thing. We might attempt to illustrate this by the analogy of a body and its shape or colour. The body itself is really distinct from its actual shape and colour: it may lose them, and yet remain the same body; and it may acquire other shapes and colours. At any time the body has actually some particular shape and colour; but that by which it is formally so shaped and coloured is something really different from the body itself. Furthermore, before the body actually possessed this particular shape and colour, these were in it þotentt"ally: that is to say, there were then in the body the real, passive, subjective potentialities of this particular shape and colour. So too that by which a real (contingent) essence actually exists (i.e. the existential act, existence) is really distinct from that which actually exists (i.e. the essence, the þotentiality of that existential act). The analogy is, however, at best only a halting one. For while it is comparatively easy to understand how the passive, subjective þotentiality of a shape or colour can be something real in the already actually existt"ng body, it is not so easy to understand how the þotentia/ity of existence, i.e. the real essence, can be anything that is itself real and really distinct from the existence. 2 The oak is really in the acorn, for the passive, subjective potentiality of the oak is in the actual acorn ; but is this potentiality anything really distinct from the acorn ? or should we not rather say that the actual acorn is þotentially the oak, or is the potentiality of the oak? At all events even if it is really distinct from the actual acorn, it is in the actual acorn. But is it possible to conceive a real, subjective potentlalty which does not reside in anything actual' a Now if the real essence is really distinct from its existence it must be conceived as a real, subjective þotentiality of existence. Yet it cannot be conceived as a potentiality t"t, anything actual: except indeed in the actually existing essence which is the composite result of its union with the existential act. It is not a 1 Cf. KLEUTGEN, oþ. cit., S 575. I ibid., S 577. a C/. URRABURU, oþ. dt., Disp. iv., cap. i., art. 2, pp. 730-31. 110 ONTOLOGY real, subjective potentiality antecedentJy to the existential act, and on which the latter is, as it were, superimposed: 1 in itself, it is, in fact, nothing real except as actualized by the latter; but, as we have already observed, the process of actualization, whether by direct creation or by the action of created causes, must be conceived as having for its total term or effect a composite reality resulting from what we can at best imperfectJy describe as the union of two correlative, con-created, or co-produced principles of being, a potential and an actual, really distinct from each other: that whereby the thing can exist, the potentiality of existence, the essence; and that whereby the thing does exist, the actuality of essence, the existence. The description is im- perfect because these principles are not con-created or co-produced separ- ately; but, rather, the creation or production of an existing essence, the efficiency by which it is "placed outside its causes, n has one single, though composite, term: the actually existing thing. This view, thus advocating a real distinction between essence and existence, may obviously be regarded as an emphatic ex- pression of the objective validity of intellectual knowledge. It might be regarded as an application of the more general view that the objective concepts between which the intellect distin- guishes in its interpretation of reality should be regarded as re- presenting distinct realities, except when the distinction is seen to arise not from the nature of the object but from the nature of the subject, from the limitations and imperfections of our own modes of thought. But in the case of any particular (disputed) distinction, the onus probandi should lie rather on the side of those who contend that such distinction is logical, and not real. On the other hand, many philosophers who are no less firmly convinced ofthe objective validity of intellectual knowledge observe that it is possible to push this principle too far, or rather to err by excess in its application. Instead of placing the burden of proof solely on the side of the logical distinction, they would place it rather more on the side of the real distinction-in conformity with the maxim of method, Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessz"tatem. And they think that it is an error by excess to hold the distinction between essence and existence to be real. This brings us to the second alternative opinion: that the distinction in question is not real, but only virtual. 1 .. Esse rei quamvis sit aliud ab ejus essentia, non tamen est intelJigendum, 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 Metaþh., L. iv., 1. 2. 2 Among the advocatt:s of this view are Alexander of Hales (t 1245), Aureolus (t 13 22 ), Durandus (t 1332), Gabriel Biel (t 1495), Suarez (1548-1617), oIetus EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE III According to this view, the essence and the existence of any existing contingent being are one and the same reality. There is, however, in this reality a basis for the two distinct objective concepts-of essence and of existence-whereby we apprehend it. For the contingent being does not exist necessarily: we see such beings coming into existence and ceasing to exist: we can there- fore think of what they are without thinking of them as actually existent: in other words, we can think of them as possible, and of their existence as that by which they become actual. This is a sufficient reason for distinguishing mentally, in the existing being, the essence which exists and the existence by which it ex- ists. 1 But when we think of the essence of an actually existing being as objectively possible, or as potential in its causes, we are no longer thinking of it as anything real in itself, but only of its ideal being as an object of thought in our minds, or of the ideal being it has in the Divine Mind, or of the potential being it has in created causes, or of the virtual being it has in the Divine Omnipotence, or of the ultimate basis of its possibility in the Divine Essence. But all these modes of "being" we know to be really distinct from the real, contingent essence itself which begins to exist actually in time, and may cease once more to exist in time when and if its own nature demands, and God wills, such cessation. But that the real, contingent essence itself which so exists, is something really distinct from the existence whereby it exists; that it forms with the latter a really com- posite being; that it is in itself a real, subjective potentiality, receptive of existence as another and actualizing reality, really distinct from it, so that the creation or production of any single actually existing contingent being would have for its term two really distinct principles of being, a potential and an actual, essence and existence, created or produced þer modum unz'us, so to speak: for asserting all this it is contended by supporters of (1532-1596), Vasquez (1551-1604), Gregory of Valentia (+circa 1600), and the Jesuits generally: some few regarding the distinction as þurely logical, B.g. Franzelin (aþud MERCIER, oþ. cU., 47, p. no, n. 2). For details and arguments on both sides, if. URRABURU, oþ. cit., Disp. iv., cap. i., art. 2. 1" Compositum ex esse et essentia dicitur de ratione entis creati secundum funda- mentum, quod in ipso ente creato babet; 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 ninc fit, ut essentia creaturae concipiatur a nobis ut potentiale quid, esse vera ut modus seu actus, quo talis essentia ens in actu constituitur."-SuAREZ, Metaþh., Disp. xxxi., 13. 112 ONTOLOGY the virtual distinction that we have no sufficient justifying reason. 1 Hence they conclude that a real distinction must be denied: Entia non sunt multiplz"canda praeter necessitatem. Though each of these opinions has been defended with a great deal of ability, and an exhaustive array of arguments, a mere rehearsal of these latter w uld not give much material assistance towards a solution of the question. We therefore abstain from repeating them here. There are only a few points in connexion with them to which attention may be directed. In the first place, some defenders of the real distinction urge that were the distinction not real, things would exist essentially, i.e. necessarily; and thus the most fundamental ground of distinction between God and creatures, be- tween the Necessary Being and contingent beings, would be destroyed: creatures would be no longer in their very constitution composite, mixtures of potentiality and actuality, but would be purely actual, absolutely simple and, in a word, identical with the Infinite Being Himself. Supporters of the virtual distinction deny that those very serious consequences follow from their view. They point out that though the existence of the creature is really identical with its essence, the essence does not exist necessarily or a se.i the whole existing essence is ab alia, is caused, contingent; and the funda- mental distinction between such a being and the Self-Existing Being is in this view perfectly clear. Nor is the creature, they contend, purely actual and absolutely simple; it need not have existed, and it may cease to exist; it has, therefore, a potentiality of non-existence, which is inconceivable in the case of the Necessary and purely Actual Being; it is, therefore, mutable as regards existence ; besides which the essences even of the most simple created beings, namely pure spirits are composite in the sense that they have faculties and operations really distinct from their substance. Secondly, it is alleged by some defenders of the real distinction that this latter view of the nature of existing contingent reality is a cardinal doctrine in the whole philosophical system of St. Thomas, and of scholastics generally: so fundamental, in fact, that many important doctrines, unanimously held to be true by all scholastics, cannot be successfully vindicated apart from it. 2 To which it is replied that there are no important trutbs of scholastic philosophy which cannot be defended quite adequately apart altogether from the view one may hold on the present question; and that, this being the case, it is unwise to endeavour to base admittedly true doctrines, which 1 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 }'letaPh., L. vii., text 22. .. Non omne acceptum," writes St. Thomas, "est receptum in aliquo subjecto; alioquin non posset did quod tota substantia rei creatae sit accept a a Deo, cum totius substantiae non sit aliquod subjectum receptivum"- Summa Theol., I., q. xxvii., art. ii., ad. 3um. 2 C/. MERCIER, oþ. cit., 49. Some of these doctrines we shall examine later, by way of iHustration, in connexion with the Unity of being. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE 113 can be better defended otherwise, upon an opinion which can at best claim only the amount of probability it can derive from the intrinsic merits of the arguments by which it is itself supported. l Before passing from this whole question we must note the existence of a third school of thought, identified mainly with the followers of Duns Scotus. 2 These authors contend that the distinction between essence and existence is not a real distinction, nor yet, on the other hand, is it merely a virtual dis- tinction, but one which they call formalis, actualis ex natura rei, that between a reality and its intrinsic modes. It is better known as the " Scotistic" distinction. We shall see the nature of it when dealing ex þro- fesso with the general doctrine of distinctions. The multiplicity of these views, and the unavoidable difficulty experienced in grasping and setting forth their meaning with any tolerable degree of clearness, would suggest the reflection that in those controversies the medieval scholastics were perhaps endeavouring to think and to express what reality is, apart from thought and" independently of the consideration of the mind "- a task which, conceived in these terms, must appear fruitless; and one which, anyhow, involves in its very nature the closest scrutiny of the epistemological problem of the power of the human mind to get at least a true and valid, if not adequate and comprehensive, insight into the nature of reality. 1 C/. URRABURU, ibid., art. iii., Obj. 9, Resp. 2 This view is advocated by, among others, Duns Scotus (1266-1308), Henry of Ghent (t 1293), Francis de Vittoria (1480-1566), Dominicus de 80to (1496-1560), Molina (1535-1600), Fonseca (1548-97), and 8cotists generally. 8 CHAPTER IV. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD. 25 THE TRANSCENDENTAL ATTRIBUTES OR PROPERTIES OF BEING: UNITY, TRUTH, AND GOODNESS.-So far, we have analysed the notions of Real Being, of Becoming or Change, of Being as Possible and as Actual, of Essence and Existence. Before approaching a study of the Categories or Suprema Genera Entis, the highest and widest modes in which reality manifests itself, we have next to consider certain attributes or properties of being which reveal themselves as co-extensive with reality itself. Taking human experience in its widest sense, as embracing all modes that are cognitive or allied with consciousness, as includ- ing intellect, memory, imagination, sense perception, will and appetite, as speculative, ethical or moral, and esthetic or artistic, -we find that the reality which makes up this complex human experience of ours is universally and necessarily characterized by certain features which we call the transcendental attributes or properties of being, inasmuch as they transcend all specific and generic modes of being, pervade all its categories equally, and are inseparable from any datum of experience. We shall see that they are not really distinct from the reality which they characterize, but only logically distinct from it, being aspects under which we apprehend it, negations or other logical relations which we necessarily annex to it by the mental processes whereby we seek to render it actually intelligible to our minds. The first in order of these ontological attributes is unity: the concept of that whereby reality considered in itself becomes a definite object of thought. The second in order is truth: which is the conception of reality considered in its relation to cogni- tive experience, to intellect. The third is goodness: the aspect under which reality is related as an object to appetitive experi- ence, to will. Now when we predicate of any reality under our considera- aion that it is" one:' or " good," or "true "-in the ontological II4 REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 115 sense to be explained,-that which we predicate is not a mere ens rationis, but something real, something which is really identical with the subject, and which is distinguished from the latter in our judgment only by a logical distinction. The attribution of any of these properties to the subject does not, however, add anything real to the latter: it adds merely some logical aspect involved in, or supposed by, the attribution. At the same time, this logical aspect gives us real information by making explicit some real feature of being not explicitly revealed in the concept of being itself, although involved in, and following as a property from, the latter. There do not seem to be any other transcendental properties of being besides the three enumerated. The terms "reality," "thing," "something," are synonymous expressions of the con- cept of being itself, rather than of properties of being. " Exis- tence JJ is not a transcendental attribute of being, for it is not co-extensive with reality or real being. And although reality must be "either possible or actual," "either necessary or con- tingent," "ez'ther infinite or finite," etc., this necessity of verifying in itself one or other member of any such alternatives is not a property of being, but rather something essentially rooted in the very concept of reality itself. Some would regard as a distinct transcendental attribute of being the conception of the latter as an object of esthetic contemplation, as manifesting order and harmony, as beautiful. This conception of being will be found, however, to flow from the more fundamental aspects of reality considered as true and as good, rather than directly from the con- cept of being itsel[ 26. TRANSCENDENTAL UNITY.-When we think of anything as one we think of it as undivided in itself. The unity or one- ness of being is the undividedness of being: Unum est id quod est indivisum in se: Universaliter quaecunque non habent divisionem, inquantum non habent, sic unum dÙ:untur. 1 When, therefore, we conceive being as undivided into constitutive parts, and un- multiplied into repetitions of itself, we conceive it as a being, as one. For the concept of being, formally as one, it does not seem necessary that we conceive being as divided or distinct from all other being. This second negation, of identity with other being, rather follows the conception of being as one: being is distinct from other being because it is already itself one: it is 1 ARISTOTLE, M etaþh.. lib. 5, text ii., cap. 6; ST. THOMAS, in loe. et alibi. 8* 116 ONTOLOGY a prior negation that formally constitutes its unity, namely, the negation of internal dz'vision or multiplication of itself: God was truly one from all eternity, before there was any other being, any created being, distinct from Him. The division or distinc- tion of an object of thought from whatever is not itself is what constitutes the notion of otherness. 1 It is manifest that being and unity are really identical, that when we think of being we think of what is really undivided in itself, that once we introduce dividedness into the object of our concept we are no longer thinking of being but of beings, i.e. of a multitude or plurality each member of which is a being and one. For being, as an object of thought, is either simple or composite. If simple, it is not only undivided but indivisible. If composite, we cannot think of it as a being, capable of existing, so long as we think its parts as separate or divided: only when we think of them as actually united and undivided have we the concept of a being: and eo ipso we have the concept of being as one, as a unity.2 Hence the scholastic formulæ: Ens et unum convertuntur, and Omne ens est unum. The truth embodied in these is so self- evident that the expression of it may seem superfluous; but they are not mere tautologies, and in the interests of clear and con- sistent thinking our attention may be profitably directed to them. The same remark applies to much in the present and subse- quent chapters on the transcendental attributes of being. 27. KINDS OF UNITV.-(a) The unity we have been de- scribing has been called transcendental, to distinguish it from /Jredicamental unity-the unity which is proper to a special category of being, namely, quantity, and which, accordingly, is also called quantitative or mathematical unity. While the fonner is common to all being, with which it is really identical, and to which it adds nothing real, the latter belongs and is applicable, properly speaking, only to the mode of being which is corporeal. 1" Si . . . modus entis accipiatur . . . secundum division em unius ab altero, . . . hoc exprimit hoc nomen aliquid, dicitur enim aliquid quasi alittd quid. Unde sicut ens dicitur 1mum inquantum est indivisum in se, ita dicitur aliquid inquantum est ab aliis diversum."-ST. THOMAS, De Veritate, q. I, a. I. s" 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, Sum'ta Theol., i., q: xi., a. I. REALITY AS ONE AND AfANIFOLD II7 which exists only as affected by quantity, as occupying space, as capable of measurement; and therefore, also, this latter unity adds something real to the being which it affects, namely, the at- tribute of quantity, of which unity is the measure and the generat- ing principle. l For quantity, as we shall see, is a mode of being really distinct from the corporeal substance which it affects. The quantity has its own transcendental unity; so has the substance which it quantifies; so has the composite whole, the quantified body, but this latter transcendental unity, like the composite being with which it is identical, is not a unum per se but only a unum per acddens (if. b, infra). We derive our notion of quantitative or mathematical unity, which is the principle of counting and the standard of measuring, from dividing mentally the continuous quantity or magnitude which is one of the immediate data of sense experience. Now the distinction between this unit and transcendental unity supposes not merely that quantity is really distinct from the corporeal substance, but also that the human mind is capable of conceiving as real certain modes of being other than the cor- poreal, modes to which quantitative concepts and processes, such as counting and measuring, are not þroperly applicable, as they are to corporeal reality, but only in an analogical or trans- ferred sense (2). The notion of transcendental unity, therefore, bears the same relation to that of quantitative unity, as the notion of being in general bears to that of quantified or corporeal being. (b) Transcendental unity may be either essential (or sub- stantial, "unum per se," H unum simpliciter"), or accidental (" unum per accidens," U unum secundum quid"). The former characterizes a being which has nothing in it beyond what is essential to it as such, e.g. the unity of any substance: and this unity is twofold-( I) unity of simplicity and (2) unity 01 composi- tion-according as the substance is essentially simple (such as the human soul or a pure spirit) or essentially composite (such as man, or any corporeal substance: since every such substance is com- posed essentially of a formative and an indeterminate principle). 2 1" Unum vero quod est principium numeri, addit supra substantiam rationem mensuriu, 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 divisionll continui causatur."-ST. THOMAS, In Metaþh., lib. 4, lect. 2, par. b. 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. 118 ONTOLOGY Accidental unity is the unity of a being whose constituent factors or contents are not really united in such a way as to form one essence, whether simple or composite. It is threefold: (I) collective unity, or unity of aggregation, as of a heap of stones or a crowd of men; (2) artificial unity, as of a house or a picture; and (3) natural or physical unity, as of any existing substance with its connatural accidents, e.g. a living organism with its size, shape, qualities, etc., or the human soul with its faculties. l (c) Transcendental unity may be either individual (singular, numerical, concrete, real) or universal (specific, generic, abstract, logical). The former is that which characterizes being or reality considered as actually existing or as proximately capable of existing: the unity of an individual nature or essence: the unity whereby a being is not merely undivided in itself but incapable of repetition or multiplication of itsel( It is only the individual as such that can actually exist: the abstract and universal is incapable of actually existing as such. We shall examine pre- sently what it is that indz'viduates reality, and what it is that renders it capable of existing actually in the form of" things" or of " persons" -the forms in which it actually presents itself in our experience. Abstract or universal unity is the unity which characterizes a reality conceived as an abstract, universal object by the human intellect. The object of a specific or generic concept, "man" or If animal," for example, is one in this sense, undivided in itself, but capable of indefinite multiplication or repetition in the only mode in which it can actually exist-the individual mode. The universal is unum aÞtu11t inesse pluribus. Finally, we can conceive any nature or essence without con- sidering it in either of its alternative states-either as individual or as universal. Thus conceived it is characterized by a unity which has been commonly designated as abstract, or (by Scot- ists) as formal unity. 28. MULTITUDE AND NUMBER.- The one has for its corre- The existence of a real distinction between the essential constitutive factors of a composite substance is universally regarded by scholastics as compatible with esseptial unity-unitas þer 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 U1zum þer Sl (unum comþositio1lis) in the view of those who place a real distinction between these factors. 10f course essential unity of composition is also" natural ". Cf. KLEUTGEN, oþ. cit., S 63 1 -8. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 119 lative the manifold. Units, one of which is not the other, con- stitute multitude or plurality. If unity is the negation of actual division in being, multitude results from a second negation, that, namely, by which the undivided being or unit is marked off or divided from other units. l We have defined unity by the negation of actual intrinsic dividedness; and we have seen it to be com- patible with eztrinsic dividedness, or otherness. Thus the vague notion of dividedness is anterior to that of unity. Now multitude involves dividedness; but it also involves and presupposes the intrinsic undividedness or unity of each constituent of the mani- fold. In the real order of things the one is prior to all divided- ness,. but on account of the sensuous origin of our concepts we can define the former only by exclusion of the latter. The order in which we obtain these ideas seems, therefore, to be as follows: "first being, then dz'videdness, next unity which excludes dividedness, and finally multitude which consists of units". 2 The relation of the one to the manifold is that of undivided being to divided being. The same reality cannot be one and manifold under the same aspect; though obviously a being may be actually one and potentially manifold or vice versa, or one under a certain aspect and manifold under another aspect. From the transcendental plurality or multitude which we have just described we can distinguish predicamental or quanti- tative plurality: a distinction which is to be understood in the same way as when applied to unity. Quantitative multitude is the actually separated or divided condition of quantified being. Number is a multitude measured or counted by unity: it is a counted, and, therefore, necessarily a definite and finite multitude. N ow it is mathematical unity that is, properly, the principle of number and the standard or measure of all counting; and there- fore it is only to realities which fall within the category of quantity-in other words, to material being-that the concept of number is properly applicable. No doubt we can and do 1" Unum quod convertitur cum ente ponit quidem ipsum ens, sed nihil super- addit, 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 alia divisum, et unum eorum non esse alterum."-ST. THOMAS, De Potent., q. 9, a. 7. 2" 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 Metaþh., lib. 10, lect. 4, par. c. 120 ONTOLOGY conceive transcendental unity after the analogy of the quantita- tive unity which is the principle of counting and measuring; and no doubt we can use the transcendental concept of "actually undivided being" as a principle of enumeration, and so "count" or "enumerate" spiritual beings; but this counting is only analogical; and many philosophers, following Aristotle and St. Thomas, hold that the concepts of numerical multiplicity and numerz'cal distinction are not properly applicable to immaterial beings, that these latter differ individually from one another not numerically, but each by its whole nature ,or essence, that is, fòrmally .1 29. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE UNIVERSAL.-We have dis- tinguished transcendental unity into individual and universal (27, c). Reality as endowed with universal unity is reality as apprehended by abstract thought to be capable of indefinite repetition or multiplication of itself in actual existence. Reality as endowed with individual unity is reality apprehended as actually existing, or as proximately capable of actually existing, and as therefore incapable of any repetition or multiplication of itself, of any division of itself into other" selves" or communica- tion of itself to other "selves". While, therefore, the universal has its reality only in the individuals to which it communicates itself, and which thus embody it, the individual has its reality in itself and of its own right, so to speak: when it actually exists it is "sui juris," and as such incommunicable, "incommunz o - cabilis". The actually existing individual is called in Latin a "supþositum It-a term which we ShSlll render by the English " thing JJ or U individual thing". It was called by Aristotle the ovuía 7rp(J)T , substantz'a prima, "first substance," or "first essence," to distinguish it from the substance or essence con- ceived by abstract thought as universal; the latter being desig- nated as ovuta UVTepa, substantz'a secunda, "second substance" or " second essence". N ow it is a fundamental assumption in Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy that whatever actually exists, or whatever 1 Omnis pluralita.a eonsequitur aliquam divisionem. Est autem duplex divisio: una materialis quæ fit secundum division em eontinui, et hane sequitur numerus, qui est species quantitatis. Unde talil't 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 eontingit esse in rebus immaterialibus.- ST. THOMAS, Summa Theol., i., q. xxx., art. 3. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 121 is real in the sense that as such it is proximately capable of actual existence, is and must be individual: that the universal as such is not real, i.e. as such cannot actually exist. And the manifest reason for this assumption is that whatever actually exists must be, with entire definiteness and determinateness, its own self and nothing else: it cannot be ca pable of division or repetition of itself, of that which it really is, into "other JJ realities which would still be "that individual thing ". But reality considered as universal tS capable of such repetition of itself indefinitely. Therefore reality cannot actually exist as uni- versal, but only as Individual. This is merely plain common sense; nor does the idealistic monism which appears to attribute reality to the universal as such, and which inter- prets reality exclusively according to the forms in which it presents itself to abstract thought, really run counter to this consideration j for what it really holds is not that universals as such are real, but that they are phases of the all-one reality which is itself ons indIvidual being. But many modern philosophers hold that individuality, no less than universality, is a form of thought. No doubt "individuality" in the abstract is, no less than universality, an object abstracted from the data of experience by the mind's analysis of the latter. But this is not what those philosophers mean. They mean that the individual as such is not a real datum of experi- ence. From the Kantian view that individuality is a purely mental form with which the mind invests the datum, they draw the subjectivist conclusion that the world, thus interpreted as consisting of "individuals," is a pheno- menal or mental product for the objective validity of which there can be to man's !iìpeculative reason no !iìufficient guarantee. To this theory we oppose that of Aristotle and the scholastics, not merely that the individual alone is actually existent, but that as actually exist nt and as individual it is actually given to us and apprehended by us in internal and external sense experience j and that although in the inorganic world, and to some extent in the lower forms of life, we may not be able to determine for certain what portions of this experience are distinct individuals, still in the world of living things generally, and especially of the animal kingdom, there can be no difficulty in determining this, for the simple reason that here reality is given to us in sense experience as consisting of distinct individuals. At the same time it is true that we can understand these individual realities, interpret them, read the meaning of them, only by the intellectual function of judgment, i.e. by the analytic and synthetic activity whereby we abstract and universalize certain aspects of them, and use these aspects as predicates of the individuals. Now, seeing that intellectual thought, as dis- tinct from sense experience, apprehends its objects only as abstract and potentially universal, only as static, self-identical, 122 ONTOLOGY possible essences, and nevertheless predicates these of the con- crete, individual, contingent, actually existing (( things" of sense experience, identifying them with the latter in affirmative judg- ments; seeing moreover, that-since the intellectual knowledge we thus acquire about the data of sense experience is genuine and not chimerical-those" objects" of abstract thought must be likewise real, and must be really in those individual sense data (according to the theory of knowledge which finds its expression in Moderate Realism),-there arises immediately the problem, or rather the group of problems, regarding the relations between reality as revealed to intellect, z:e. as abstract and universal, and reality as revealed to sense, z'.e. as concrete and individ ual. In other words, we have to inquire how we are to interpret in- tellectually the fact that reality, which as a possible essence is unz'versal for abstract thought, is nevertheless, as actuallyexist- ing, individualized for sense-and consequently for intellect re- flecting on the data of sense. 1 30. THE "METAPHYSICAL GRADES OF BEING JJ IN THE IN- DIVIDUAL.- What, then is the relation between all that intellect can apprehend in the individual, viz. its lowest class essence or specific nature, and its whole nature as an individual, its essentza atoma or individual nature? We can best approach this problem by considering first these various abstract thought-objects which intellect can apprehend in the individual. What are called the metaphysical grades of being, those positive moments of perfection or reality which the mind detects in the individual, as, for instance, substantiality, materiality, organic life, animality, rationality, individuality, in the individual man-whether we describe them as "phases" or "aspects JJ or "formalities" of being-are undoubtedly distinct objects for ab- stract thought. Why does it thus distinguish between them, and express them by distinct concepts, even when it finds them 1 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 indi- vidual spiritual realities subsisting apart from matter, vi,.. 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 proþer application within it, that we can have any knowledge of suprasensible or spiritual realities, VJZ. by applying those concepts analoKically to the latter. REALITY AS ONE AND lJfANIFOLD 12 3 embodied in a single individual? Because, reflecting on the manner in which reality presents itself, through sense experience, as actually existing, it finds resemblances and differences between individually distinct data. It finds in some of them grades of reality which it does not find in others, individual, specific, and generic grades; and some-transcendental-grades common to all. N ow between these various grades of being as found in one and the same individual it cannot be denied that there exists a logical distinction with a foundation or ground for it in the in- dividual reality; because tbe latter, being more or less similar to other individual realities, causes the mind to apprehend it by a number of distinct concepts: the individuality whereby it differs really from all other individuals of the same species; the specific, differential and generic grades of being whereby it is conceptually identified with wider and wider classes of things; and the trans- cendental grades whereby it is conceptually identified with all others. The similarity of really distinct individuals, which is the conceptual identity of their qualities, is the ground on which we conceptually identify their essences. Now is there any reason for thinking that these grounds of similarity, as found in the in- dividual, are really dzStznct from one another in the latter? They are certainly conceptually distinct expressions-each less in- adequate than the wider ones-of what is really one individual essence. But we must take them to be all really identical in and with this individual essence, unless we are prepared to hold con- ceptual plurality as such to be real plurality; in which case we should also hold conceptual unity as such to be real unity. But this latter view is precisely the error of extreme realism, of reify- ing abstract concepts and holding the "universale a parte rei": a theory which leads logically to monism. l 3 1 . INDIVIDUALITY.-The distinction, therefore, between these grades of being in the individual, is a virtual distinction, -i.e. a logical distinction with a ground for it in the reality. This is the sort of distinction which exists between the specific nature of the individual, t:e. what is contained in the definition of the lowest class to which it belongs, and its z'ndividuality, i.e. what consti- tutes its nature or essence as an z'ndividual. No doubt the concrete existing individual contains, besides its individual nature or essence, a variety of accidental characteristics which serve as 1 The "formal-actual" distinction, which Scotists advocate between these rade8 of being, we shall examine later. 12 4 ONTOLOG Y marks or signs whereby its individuality is revealed to us. These are called "individualizing characteristics," "notae individu- antes," the familiar scholastic list of them being "forma, figura, locus, tempus, stirps, patn'a, nomen," with manifest reference to the individual "man ". But though these characteristics enable us to mark off the individual in space and time from other in- dividuals of the same class, thus revealing individuality to us in the concrete, it cannot be held that they constitute the in- dividuality of the nature or substance in each case. If the human substance, essence, or nature, as found in Socrates, were held to differ from the human substance, essence, or nature, as found in Plato, only by the fact that in each it is affected by a different set of accidents, i.e. of modes accidental to the substance as found in each, then it would follow that this substance is not merely conceptually identical in both, but that it is really identical in both; which is the error of extreme realism. As a matter of fact it is the converse that is true: the sets of accidents are distinct because they affect individual substances already really and individually distinct. It is manifest that the accidents which are separab/6 from the individual substance, e.g. name, shape, size, appearance, location, etc., cannot constitute its individuality. There are, however, other characteristics which are inseparable from the individual substance, or which are properti'es of the latter, e.g. the fact that an individual man was born of certain parents. Perhaps it is such characteristics that give its individuality to the individual sub- stance? 1 To think so would be to misunderstand the question under discussion. We are not now inquiring into the extrinsic causes whereby actually existing reality is individuated, into the efficient principles of its individuation, but into the formal and intrinsic principle of the latter. There must obviously be some- thing intrinsic to the individual reality itself whereby it is individu- ated. And it is about this intrinsic something we are inquiring. The individual man is this individual, human nature is thus individuated in him, by something that is essential to human 1 Cf. URRABURU, op. cU., p. 280: .. Principium . . . intrinsicum vel forma]e est aliquid insitum rei, pertinensque ad intrinsecam et ultimam individui constitu- tlonem, et fundans farmalitatem illam, quae illdividuatio dicitur. Sicut nim materia est in homine, v.g. principium et fundamentum propter quod est, ac praedi- catur materialis, et forma fundat in eadem praedicatum rationalis, totaque natura composita, humanitas, praedicatum hominis; ita quaerimus quid sit illud primum principium, uncle existit in quavis individuo sua peculiaris ac propria individuatio." REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 125 nature as found in him. This something has been called-after the analogy of the differentia specifica which differentiates species within a genus-the differentia 'individua of the individual. It has also been called by some the di'fferentia numerica, and by Scotists the haecceitas. However we are to conceive this some- thing, it is certain at all events that, considered as it is really found in the individual, it cannot be anything really distinct from the specific nature of the latter. No doubt, the dijferentia specifica, considered in the abstract, it is net essential and intrinsic to the natura genen'ca considered in the abstract: it is extrinsic and accidental to the abstract content of the latter notion; but this is because we are conceiving these grades of being in the abstract. The same is true of the dijferent1.a t'ndividua as com- pared with the natura specifica in the abstract. But we are now considering these grades of reality as they are actually in the concrete individual being: and as they are found here, we have seen that a real distinction between them is inadmissible. 32. THE Ie PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUATION ".-How, then, are we to conceive this something which individuates reality? It may be well to point out that for the erroneous doctrine of extreme realism, which issues in monism, the problem of individua- tion, as here understood, does not arise. For the monist all plurality in being is merely apparent, not real: there can be no question of a real distinction between individual and individual. 1 Simi- larly, the nominalist and the conceptualist evade the problem. For these the individual alone is not merely formally real: it alone is fundamentally real: the universal is not even funda- mentally real, has no foundation in reality, and thus all scientific knowledge of reality as revealed in sense experience is rendered 1 In ancient Greece the Eleaticl!I 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 regreaø. A l!Iimilar argument wal!l 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. 126 ONTOLOGY impossible. But for the moderate realist, while the individual alone is formally real, the universal is fundamentally real, and hence the problem arises. It may be forcibly stated in the form of a paradox: That whereby Socrates and Plato are really dis- tinct from each other as individuals is really identical with the human nature which is really in both. But what individuates human nature in Socrates, or in Plato, is logically distinct from the human nature that is really in Socrates, and really in Plato. We bave only to inquire, therefore, whether the intrinsic principle of individuation is to be conceived merely as a negation, as some- thing negative added by the mind to the concept of the specific nature, whereby the latter is apprehended as incapable of multi- plication into" others n each of which would be formally that same nature, or, in other words, as incommunicable; or is the intrinsic ground of this incommunicability to be conceived as something positive, not indeed as something really distinct from, and super- added to, the specific nature, but as a positive aspect of the latter, an aspect, moreover, not involved in the concept of the specific nature considered in the abstract. Of the many views that have been put forward on this question two or three call for some attention. In the opinion of Thomists generally, the principle which individuates matertlzl things, thus multiplying numerically the same specific nature, is to be conceived as a positive mode affecting the latter and reveal- ing it in a new aspect, whereas the specific nature of the sp'iritual individual is itself formally an individual. The principle of the latter's individuation is already involved in the very concept of its specific nature, and therefore is not to be conceived as a distinct positive aspect of the latter but simply as the absence of plurality and communicability in the latter. In material things, moreover, the positive mode or aspect whereby the specific nature is found numerically multiplied, and incommunicable as it exists in each, consists in the fact that such a specific nature involves in its very constitution a material principle which is actually allied with certain quantitative dimensions. Hence the principle which individuates material substances is not to be conceived-after the manner in which Scotists conceive it-as an ultimate differentia affecting the formal factor of the nature, determining the specific nature just as the differentia specijica determines the generic nature, but as a material differentiating principle. What individuates the material individual, what marks it off as one in itself, distinct REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 127 or divided from other individuals of the same specific nature, and incommunicable in that condition, is the material factor of that individual's nature-not, indeed, the material factor, materia prima, considered in the abstract, but the material factor as proximately capable of actual existence by being allied to certain more or less definite spatial or quantitative dimensions: (( matter affected with quantity": "materia quantitate signata ".1 In regard to material substances this doctrine embraces two separate contentions: (a) that the principle which individuates such a substance must be conceived as something positive, not really distinct from, but yet not contained in, the specific nature considered in the abstract; (b) that this positive aspect is to be found not in the formal but in the material principle of the com- posite corporeal substance. To the former contention it might be objected that what individuates the specific nature cannot be conceived as anything positive, superadded to this nature: it cannot be anything acd- dental to the latter, for if it were, the individual would be only an accidental unity, a " unum per acddens," and would be constituted by an accident, which we have seen to be inadmissible; nor, on the other hand, can it be anything essentzal to the specific nature, for if it were, then individuals should be capable of adequate essential definition, and furthermore the definition of the specific nature would not really give the whole essence or quÙldz"tas of the individuals-two consequences which are commonly rejected by all scholastics. To this, however, it is replied that the principle of individuation 'is something essential to the specific nature in the sense that it is something intrinsic to, and really identical with, the whole real substance or entity of this nature, though not involved in the abstract concept by the analysis of which we reach the definition or quidditas of this nature. What individuates Socrates is certainly essential to Socrates, and is therefore really identical with his human nature; it is intrinsic to the human nature in him, a mode or aspect of his human sub- stance; yet it does not enter into the definition of his nature- II animal rationale" -for such definition abstracts from individual- ity. When, therefore, we say that definition of the specific nature 1 Materia. . . dupliciter accipitur, scilicet, ut signata et non signata. Et dicitur signata, secundum quod consideratur cum determinatione dimensionum harum scilicet vel illarum i non signata autem, quæ sine determinatione dimensionum consideratur. Secundum hoc igitur est sciendum, quod materia signata est in- dividuationis principium.-ST. THOMAS, De Veri tate, q. ii., art. 6, ad. 7 am . 128 ONTOLOGY gives the whole essence of an individual, we mean that it gives explicitly the abstract (specific) essence, not the individuality which is really identical with this, nor, therefore, the whole sub- stantial reality of the individual. We give different answers to the questions, (( What is Socrates?" and u Who is Socrates? It. The answer to the former question-a" man," or a "rational animal" -gives the "essence," but not explicitly the whole substantial reality of the individual, this remaining incapable of adequate conceptual analysis. The latter question we answer by giving the notes that reveal individuality. These, of course, are H accidental" in the strict sense. But even the principles which constitute the individuality of separate individuals of the same species, and which differentiate these individuals numerically from one another, we do not describe as essentz'al differences, whereas we do describe specific and generic differences as essentiaL The reason of this is that the latter are abstract, universal, conceptual, amenable to intellectual analysis, scientifically important, while the former are just the reverse; the universal differences alone are principles about which we can have scientific knowledge, for" all science is of the abstract and universal"; 1 and this is what we have in mind when we describe them as "essential JJ or "formal," and individual differences as " entitative" or (( material ". The second point in the Thomistic doctrine is that corporeal substances are individuated by reason of their materiality. The formative, specific, determining principle of the corporeal sub- stance is rendered incommunicable by its union with the material, determinable principle; and it becomes individually distinct or separate by the fact that this latter principle, in order to be cap- able of union with the given specific form, has in its very essence an exigence for certain more or less determinate dimensions in space. Corporeal things have their natural size within certain limits. The individual of a given corporeal species can exist only because the material principle, receptive of this specific form, has a natural relation to the fundamental property of corporeal things, viz. quantity, within certain more or less determinate limits. The form is rendered incommunicable by its reception in the matter. This concrete realization of the form in the matter is individually distinct and separate from other realizations of the same specific form, by the fact that the matter of this realization Cf. URRABURU, oþ. cU., Dist>. ii., cap. 2, iii., pp. 271-3. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 12 9 demands certain dimensions of quantity: this latter property being the root-principle of num rical multiplication of corporeal individuals within the same species. On the other hand, incorporeal substances such as angels or pure spirits, being U pure" forms, "formæ subsistentes," wholly and essentially unallied with any determinable material principle, are of themselves not only specific but individual; they are them- selves essentially incommunicable, superior to all multiplication or repeated realization of themselves: they are such that each can be actualized only "once and for all": each is a species in itself: it is the full, exhaustive, and adequate expression of a divine type, of an exemplar in the Divine Mind: its realization is not, like that of a material form, the actuation of an indefinitely determinable material princi pie: it sums up and exhausts the im- itable perfection of the specific type in its single individuality, whereas the perfection of the specific type of a corporeal thing cannot be adequately expressed in any single individual reaTIza- tion, but only by repeated realizations; nor indeed can it ever be adequately, exhaustively expressed, by any finite multitude of these. It follows that in regard to pure spirits the individuating principle and the specific principle are not only really but also logically, conceptually identical; that the distinction between individual and individual is here properly a specific distinction; that it can be described as numerical only in an analogical sense, if by numerical we mean material or quantitative, i.e. the distinc- tion between corporeal individuals of the same species (28). But the distinction between individual human souls is not a specific or formal distinction. These, though spiritual, are not pure spirits. They are spiritual substances which, of their very nature, are essentially ordained for union with matter. They all belong to the same species-the human species. But they do not constitute individuals of this species unless as existing actu- ally united with matter. Each human soul has a transcendental relation to its own body, to the " materia signata" for which, and in which, it was created. For each human soul this relation is unique. Just as it is the material principle of each human being, the matter as allied to quantitative dimensions, that individuates the man, so it is the unique relation of his soul to the material princi pIe thus spatially determined, that individuates his soul. N ow the soul, even when disembodied and existing after death, 9 13 0 ONTOLOGY necessarily retains in its very constitution this essential relation to its own body; and thus it is that disembodied souls, though not actually allied with matter, remain numerically distinct and individuated in virtue of their essential relation, each to its own body. We see, therefore, that human souls, though spiritual, are an entirely different order of beings, and must be conceived quite differently, from pure spirits. We must be content with this brief exposition 01 the Thomistic doctrine on Individuation. A discussion of the arguments for and against it would carry us too far. 1 There is no doubt that what reveals the individuality of the corporeal substance to us is its material principle, in virtue of which its existence is circumscribed within certain limits of time and space and affected with individual characteristics, II notae individuantes n. But the Thomistic doctrine, which finds In II materia slgnata JJ the fonnal, intrinsic, constitutive principle of individuation, goes much deeper. It is intimately connected with the Aristotelian theory of knowledge and reality. According to this philosophy the formative principle or ,,80S, the forma su!Jtanft"alis, is our sole key to the intelligibility of corporeal things: these are inte11igible in so far forth as they are actual, and they are actual in virtue of their II forms n. Hence the tendency of the scholastic commentators of Aristotle to use the term " form n as synonymous with the term" nature,JI though the whole nature of the corporeal substance embraces the material as well as the formal principle: for even though it does, we can understand nothing about this "nature JI beyond what is intelligible in it in virtue of its II form II The material principle, on the other hand, is tbe potential, indeterminate principle, in itself unintelligible. We know that in ancient Greek philosophy it was regarded as the åÀoyov, the surd and contingent principle in things, the element which resisted rational analysis and fell outside the scope of "science," or "knowledge of the necessary and universal JI. While it revealed the forms or natures of things to sense, it remained itself impervious to intellect, which grasped these natures and rendered them intelligible only by divesting them of matter, by abstracting them from matter. Reality is intelligible only in so far forth as it is immaterial, either in fact or by abstraction. The human intellect, being itself spiritual, is "receptive of forms without matter n. But being itself allied with matter, its proper object is none other than the natures or essences of corporeal things, abstracted, however, from the matter in which they are actually" immersed ". The only reason, therefore, why any intelligible fonn or essence which, as abstract and universal, is "one JJ for intellect, is never- theless actually or potentially" manifold Jt in its reality, is because it is allied with a material principle. It is the latter that accounts for the numerical multiplication, in actual reality, of any intelligible fonn or essence. If the latter is material it can be actualized only by indefinitely repeated, numerically 1 These will easily be found in any of the fuller scholastic treatises. Cf. URRABURU, oþ. cil., Disp. ii., cap. 2, art. 4. Philosoþhia Lacencis, Logica, 1282 sqq. ; MERCIER, Ontologie, fi 36-42; KLEUTGEN, Philosoþhie Scolastique, 610 sqq.; BULLIAT, ThæsauTus Philosoþhial Thomisticae (Nanteø, 1899), pp. 171 gg.-a useful book of reference for the teaching of St. Thomas. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 13 1 or materially distinct, alliances with matter. I t cannot be actualized " tota simul," or U once for all," as it were. It is, therefore, the material principle that not merely reveals, but also constitutes, the individuation of such corporeal fonns or essences. Hence, too, the individual as such cannot be adequately apprehended by intellect; for all inteHigible principles of reality are fonnal, whereas the individuating principle is material. On the other hand, if an intelIigible essence or fonn be purely spiritual, wholly unrelated to any indeterminate, material principle, it must be "one" not alone conceptually or logically but also really: it can exist only as "one" : it is of itself individual: It can be differentiated from other spiritual essences not materiaUy but only formally, or, in other words, not numerically but by a distinction which is at once individual and specific. Two pure spirits cannot be "two" numerically and "one" specifically, two for sense and one for intellect, as two men are: if they are distinct at all they must be distinct for intellect, 'i.e. they cannot be properly conceived as two members of the same species. In this solution of the question it is not easy to see how the material principle, which, by its alliance with quantity, individuates the form, is itself individuated so as to be the source and principle of a multiplicity of numeric- ally distinct and incommunicable realizations of this fonn. Perhaps the most that can be said on this point is that we must conceive quantity, which is the fundamental property of corporeal reality, as being itself essentially divisible, and the material principle as deriving from its essential relation to quantity its function of multiplying the same specific nature numerically. Of those who reject the Thomistic doctrine some few contend that it is the actual existence of any specific nature that should be conceived as individuating the latter. No doubt the universal as such cannot exist; reality in order to exist actually must be individual. Yet it cannot be actual existence that individuates it. We must conceive it as individual before conceiving it as actually existent; and we can conceive it as individual while abstracting from its existence. We can think, for instance, of purely possible individual men, or angels, as numerically or individually distinct from one another. Moreover, what individuates the nature must be essential to the latter, but actual existence is not essential to any finite nature. Hence actual existence cannot be the principle of individuation. 1 Can it be contended that possible existence is what individuates reality? No; for possible existence is nothing more than intrinsic capacity to exist actually, and this is essential to all reality: it is the criterion whereby we distinguish real being 1 A kindred view to this is the view that subsistence (" subsistmtia," II suþ- þositalitas ") or personality (" þersonalitas ") is the principle of individuation. We shall see later in what subsistence or personality is 8upposed to consist. Here it is sufficient to observe that the individual nature as such has not necessarily subsis. tence or personality; hence it cannot be individuated by this latter. 9* 13 2 ONTOLOGY from logical being; but real being, as such, is indifferent to uni- versality or individuality; as far as the simple concept of real being is concerned the latter may be either universal or individ- ual; the concept abstracts equally from either condition of being. The vast majority, therefore, of those who reject the Thom- istic doctrine on individuation, support the view that what in- dividuates any nature or substance is simply the whole reality, the total entity, of the individual. This total entity of the in- dividual, though really identical with the specific nature, must be conceived as something positive, superadded to the latter, for it involves a something which is logically or mentally distinct from the latter. This something is what we conceive as a differentia 'individua, after the analogy of the differentia sþedftca which con- tracts the concept of the genus to that of the species; and by Scotists it has been termed "haecceitas" or" thisness ". With- out using the Scotist terminology, most of those scholastics who reject the Thomist doctrine on this point advocate the present view. The individuality or II thisness" of the individual sub- stance is regarded as having no special principle in the individual, other than the whole substantial entity of the latter. If the nature is simple it is of itself individual; if composite, the in- trinsic principles from which it results-z'.e. matter and form essentially united-suffice to individuate it. In this view, therefore, the material principle of any individual man, for example, is numerically and individually distinct from that of any other individual, of z"tself and independently of its relation either to the formative principle or to quantity. The formative principle, too, is individuated of z"tself, and not by the material principle which is really distinct from it, or by its rela- tion to this material principle. Likewise the union of both principles, which is a substantial mode of the composite substance, is individuated and rendered numerically distinct from all other unions of these two individual principles, not by either or both these, but by itsel( And finally, the individual composite sub- stance has its individuation from these two intrinsic principles thus individually united. I t may be doubted, perhaps, whether this attempt at explaining the real, individual "manifoldness" of what is "one" for intellect, i.e. the universal, throws any real light upon the problem. No doubt, every element or factor which is grasped by intellect in its analysis of reality-matter, form, sub- REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 133 stance, accident, quantity, nay, even "individuality" itself-is apprehended as abstract and universal; and if we hold the doctrine of Moderate Realism, that the intellect in apprehending the universal attains to reality, and not merely to a logical figment of its own creation, the problem of relating in- telligibly the reality which is "one" for intellect with the same reality as manifestly "manifold U in its concrete realizations for sense, is a genuine philosophical problem. To say that what individuates any real essence or nature, what deprives it of the" oneness" and "universality" which it has for intellect, what makes it "this," "that, II or "the other" incommunicable individual, must be conceived to be simply the whole essential reality of that nature itself-leaves us still in ignorance as to why such a nature, which is really "one II for intellect, can be really "manifold II in its actualizations for sense experience. The reason why the nature which is one and universal for abstract thought, and which is undoubtedly not a logical entity but a reality capable of actual existence, can be actualized as a manifold of distinct in- dividuals, must be sought, we are inclined to think, in the relation of this nature to a material principle in alliance with quantity which is the source of all purely numerical, "space and time" distinctions. 33. INDIVIDUATION OF ACCIDENTS.- The rðle of quantity in the Thomistic theory of individuation suggests the question: How are accidents themselves individuated? We have referred already (29, n.) to the view that they are individuated by the in- dividual subjects or substances in which they inhere. If we dis- tir...:uish again between what reveals individuality and what con- stitutes it, there can be no doubt that when accidents of the same kind are found in individually distinct subjects what reveals the numerical distinction between the former is the fact that they are found inhering in the latter. So, also, distinction of individual substances is the e.rtrz'nsic, genett'c, or causal principle of the numerical distinction between similar accidents arising in these substances. But when the same kind of accident recurs succes- sively in the same individual substance-as, for example, when a man performs repeated acts of the same kind-what reveals the numerical or individual distinction between these latter cannot be the individual substance, for it is one and the same, but rather the time distinction between the accidents themselves. The intrinsic constitutive principle which formally individ- uates the accidents of individually distinct substances is, according to Thomists generally, their essential relation to the individual substances in which they appear. It is not clear how this theory can be applied to the fundamental accident of corporeal substances. If the function of formally individuating the corporeal substance itself is to be ascribed in any measure to quantity, it would seem 134 ONTOLOGY to follow that this latter must be regarded as individuated by itself, by its own total entity or reality. And this is the view held by most other scholastics in regard to the individuation of accidents generally: that these, like substances, are individuated by their own total positive reality. When there is question of the same kind of accident re- curring in the same individual subject, the "time n distinction between such successive individual accidents of the same kind would appear not merely to reveal their individuality but also to indicate a different relation of each to its subject as existing at that particular point of space and time: so that the relation of the accident to its individual subject, as here and now existing in the concrete, would be the individuating principle of the accident. Whether a number of accidents of the same species t'nfima, and distinct merely numerically, could exist simultaneously in the same individual subject, is a question on which scholastic philosophers are not agreed: the negative opinion, which has the authority of St. Thomas, being the more probable. Those various questions on the individuation of accidents will be better understood from a subsequent exposition of the scholastic doctrine on accidents eCho viii.). It may be well to remark that in inquiring about the individuation of substances and accidents we have been considering reality from a static standpoint, seeking how we are to conceive and interpret intellectually, or for abstract thought, the relation of the universal to the individual. If, how- ever, we ascribe to "time n distinctions any function in individuating accidents of the same kind in the same individual substance, we are introducing into our analysis the kinetic aspect of reality, or its subjection to processes of change. We may call attention here to a few other questions of minor import dis- cussed by scholastics. First, have all individuals of the same species the same substantial perfection, or can individuals have different grades of sub- stantial perfection within the same species? All admit the obvious fact that individual differs from individual within the same species in the number, variety, extent and intensity of their accidental properties and qualities. But, having the human soul mainly in view, they disagree as to whether the substantial perfection of the specific nature can be actualized in different grades in different individuals. According to the more common opinion there cannot be different substantial grades of the same specific nature, for the simple reason that every such grade of substantial perfection should be regarded as specific, as changing the species: hence, e.g. all human souls are substantially equal in perfection. This view is obviously based upon the conception of specific types or essences as being, after the analogy of REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 135 numbers, immutable when considered in the abstract. And it seems to be confirmed by the consideration that the intrinsic principle of individuation is nothi ng, or adds nothing, really dtSft"nct {rom the specific essence itself. Another question in connexion with individuation has derived at least an historical interest from the notable controversy to which it gave rise in the seventeenth century between Clarke and Leibniz. The latter, in accordance with the principles of his system of philosophy,-the Law of Su./lident Reason and the Law of Continuity among the monads or ultimate principles of being,-contended that two individual beings so absolutely alike as to be indiscernible would be eo iþso idenft"cal, in other words, that the reality of two such beings is impossible. Of course if we try to conceive two individuals so absolutely alike both in essence and accidents, both in the abstract and in the concrete, as to be indiscernible either by our senses or by our intellect, or by any intellect- even the Divine Intellect-we are simply conceiving tlee same tieing twice over. But is there anything impossible or contradictory in thinking that God could create two perfectly similar beings, distinct from each other only individually, so similar, however, that neither human sense nor human intellect could apprehend them as two, but only as one? The impossibility is not apparent. Were they two material individuals they should, of course, occupy the same space in order to have similar spatial relations, but impenetrability is not essential to corporeal substances. And even in the view that each is individuated by its " materia signata, II it is not impossible to conceive numerically distinct quantified matters allied at the same time to the same dimensions of space. If, on the other hand, there be question of two pure spirits, absolutely similar specifically, even in the Thomistic view that here the individual distinction is at the same time specific there seems to be no sufficient ground for denying that the Divine Omnipotence could create two or more such individually (and therefore specifically) distinct spirits: 1 such distinction remaining, of course, indiscernible for the finite human intellect. The argument of Leibniz, that there would be no sulfident reason for the creation of two such indiscernible beings, and that it would therefore be repugnant to the Divine Wisdom, is extrinsic to the question of their intrinsic possibility: if they be intrinsically possible they cannot be repugnant to any attribute of the Divinity, either to the Divine Omnipotence or to the Divine Wisdom. 34. IDENTITy.-Considering the order in which we acquire our ideas we are easily convinced that the notion of finite being is antecedent to that of infinite being. Moreover, it is from re- flection on finite beings that we arrive at the most abstract notion of being in general. We make the object of this latter notion definite only by dividing it off mentally from nothingness, conceived per modum entis, or as an ens rationis. Thus the natural way of making our concepts definite is by limiting them; it is only when we come to reflect on the necessary implications 1 The consistent attitude (or the Thomist here would, however, appear to be a denial that such a thing would be intrinsically possible. 13 6 ONTOLOGY of our concept of "infinite being JJ that we realize the possi- bility of conceiving a being which is definite without being really limited, which is definite by the very fact of its infinity, by its possession of unlimited perfection; and even then our im- perfect human mode of conceiving" infinite being n is helped by distinguishing or dividing it off from all finite being and con- trasting it with the latter. All this goes to prove the truth of the teaching of St Thomas, that the mental function of dividing or distinguishing precedes our concepts of unity and multitude. N ow the concepts of identity and distinction are closely allied with those of unity and multitude; but they add something to these latter. When we think of a being as one we must analyse it further, look at it under different aspects, and compare it with itself, before we can regard it as the same or identz'cal with itself. Or, at least, we must think of it twice and compare it with itself in the affirmative judgment "This is itself," "A is A," thus formulating the logical Principle of Identity, in order to come into possession of the concept of identity.l Every affirmative categorical judgment asserts identity of the predicate with the subject (" 5 is P "): asserts, in other words, that what we appre- hend under the notion of the predicate (P) is really identical with what we have apprehended under the distinct notion of the subject (5). The synthetic function of the affirmative categorical judgment identifies in the real order what the analytic function of mental abstraction had separated in the logical order. By saying that the affirmative categorical judgment asserts identity we mean that by asserting that" this is that," " man is rational" we identify cc this" with " that," cc man" with "rational," thus denying that they are two, that they are distinct, that they differ. Identity is one of those elementary concepts which cannot be defined; but perhaps we may describe it as the logical relation through whÙ;h the mind asserts the ol?;"ects of two or more of its thoughts to be really one. If the object formally represented by each of the concepts is one and the same-as, e.g. when we compare U A JJ with" A," or "man It with "rational animal," or, in general, any object with its definition-the identity is both real and logical (or conceptual, formal). If the concepts differ in their formal objects while 1 Hujusmodi relatio non potest consistere nisi in quodam ordine, quem ratio adinvenit alfcujus ad seipsum secundum aliquas ejus duas considerationes.-ST. THOMAS, Summa Theol., i., q. xxviii., art. 3, ad. 2 am. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 137 representing one and the same reality-as when we compare "St. Peter" with "head of the apostles:' or" man" with" rational II -the identity is real, but not logical or formal. Finally, if we represent two or more realities, "John, James, Thomas," by the same formal concept, "man," the identity is merely logz'cal or formal, not real. Of these three kinds of identity the first is some- times called adequate, the second and third z'nadequate. Logical identity may be specific or generic, according as we identify really distinct individuals under one specific concept, or really distinct species or classes under one generic concept. Again, it may be essential or accidental, according as the abstract and universal class-concept under which really distinct members are classified represents a common part of the essence of these members or only a common property or accident. Thus John, James and Thomas are essentially identical in their human nature; they are accidentally identical in being all three fair-haired and sir fiet in height. Logical identity under the concept of quality is based on the real relation of similarity I' logical identity under the concept of quantity is based on the real relation of equality. When we say that essential (logical) identity (e.g. the identity of John, James and Thomas under the concept of" man") is based on the fact that the really distinct individuals have really similar natures, we merely mean that our knowledge of natures or essences is derived from our knowledge of qualities, taking " qualities" in the wide sense of" accidents JJ generally: that the properties and activities of things are our only key to the nature of these things: Operari sequitur esse. I t is not ÎfJ1plied, nor is it true, that real similarity is a partial real identity: it is but the ground of a partial logical identity,-identity under the common concept of some quality (in the wide sense of this term). For example, the height of John is as really distinct from that of James as the humanity of John is from that of James. If, then, individual things are really distinct, how is it that we can re- present (even inadequately) a multitude of them by one concept? To say that we can do so because they reveal themselves to us as similar to one another is to say what is undoubtedly true; but this does not solve the problem of the relation between the universal and the individual in human experience: rather it places us face to face with this problem. Reverting now to real identity: whatever we can predicate affirmatively about a being considered as one, and as subject of a 13 8 ONTOLOGY judgment, we regard as real1y identical with that being. We cannot predicate a real part of its real whole, or vice versa. But our concepts, when compared together in judgment, bear logical relations of extension and intension to each other, that is, relations of logical part to logical whole. Thus, the logical identity of subject and predicate in the affirmative judgment may be only in adequate. l But the real identity underlying the affirmative judg- ment is an adequate real identity. When we say, for example, that U Socrates is wise," we mean that the object of our concept of" wisdom It is in this case really and adequately identical with the object of our concept of " Socrates": in other words that we are conceiving one and the same real being under two dis tinct concepts, each of which represents, more or less adequately, the whole real being, and one of them in this case less adequately than the other. We have to bear in mind that while considering being as one or manifold, identical or distinct, we are thinking of it in its static mode, as an object of abstract thought, not in its dynamÙ: and kinetic mode as actually existing in space and time, and subject to change. It is the identity of being with itself when considered in this static, unchanging condition, that is embodied in the logical Principle of Identity. In order, therefore, that this principle may find its application to being or reality as suly"ect to actual change-and this is the state in which de facto reality is presented to us as an immediate datum of experience-we must seize upon the changing reality and think of it in an indivisible instant apart from the change to which it is actually subject; only thus does the Principle of Identity apply to it-as being, not as becoming, not in fieri, but in facto esse. The Principle of Identity, which applies to all real being, whether possible or actual, tells us simply that" a thing is what it is ". But for the understanding of actual being as subject to real change we must supplement the Principle of Identity by another principle which tells us that such an actual being not only is actually what it is (Principle of Identity), but also that it is potentially something other than what t.t actually is, that it is potentially what it can become actually eCho ii.). We have seen that, since change is not continuous annihila tion and creation, the changing being must in some real and true sense persist throughout the process of change. It is from 1 Cf. Scieltce of Logic, vol. i., 59. REA.LITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 139 experience of change we derive our notion of time-duration; and the concept of permanence or stability throughout change gives us the notion of a real sameness or abiding self-identity which is compatible with real change. But a being which persists in ex- istence is identical with itself throughout its duration only in so far forth as it has not changed. Only the Necessary Being, whose duration is absolutely exempt from all change, is ab- solutely or metaphysically identical with Himself: His duration is eternity-which is one perpetual, unchanging now. A being which persists unchanged in its essence or nature, which is exempt from substantial change, but which is subject to accidental change, to a succession of accidental qualities such as vital actions-such a being is said to retain its physical identity with itself throughout those changes. Such, for in- stance, is the identity of the human soul with itself, or of any individual living thing during its life, or even of an inorganic material substance as long as it escapes substantial change. Finally, the persisting identity of a collection of beings, united by some moral bond so as to form a moral unit, is spoken of as moral identity as long as the bond remains, even though the con- stituent members may be constantly disappearing to be replaced by others: as in a nation, a religious society, a legal corporation, etc. 35. DISTINCTION.-Distinction is the correlative of identity; it is the absence or negation of the latter. We express the rela- tion called distinction by the negative judgment, "this is not that u; it is the relation of a being to whatever is not itself, the relation of one to other. Distinction may be either adequate or inadequate, according as we distinguish one total object of thought from another total object, or only from a part of itself. For example, the distinction between John and James is an adequate real distinction, while that between John and his body is an inadequate real distinction; the distinction between John's rationality and his animality is an adequate logical distinction, while the distinction between either of these and his humanity is an inadequate logical disinction. We have already (23) briefly explained and illustrated the most important classification of distinctions: that into real and logical; the sub-division of the latter into purely logical and virtual; and of the latter again into perfect (complete, adequate) and imperfect (incomplete, inadequate). But the theory there 14 0 ONTOLOGY briefly outlined calIs for some further analysis and amplifica- tion. 36. LOGICAL DISTINCTIONS AND THEIR GROUNDS.- The purely logical distinction must not be confounded with a mere verbal distinction, e.g. that between an C C edifice" and a H building," or between H truthfulness" and U veracity JI. A logical distinction is a distinction t'n the concepts: these must represent one and the same reality but in different ways: the one may be more explicit, more fulJy analysed than the other, as a definition is in compari- son with the thought-object defined; or the one may represent the object less adequately than the other, as when we compare (in intension) the concepts H man" and H animal tt; or the one may be predicated of the other in an affirmative judgment; or the one may represent the object as concrete and individual, the other the same object as abstract and universa1. 1 Comparing, in the next place, the purely logical with the virtual distinction, we see that the grounds for making these dis tinctions are different. Every distinction made by the mind must have an intelligible ground or reason of some sort-afunda- mentum distinctz'onz"s. N ow in the case of the purely logical distinction the ground is understood to consist exclusively in the needs of the mind itself-needs which spring from the mind's own limitations when confronted with the task of understanding or interpreting reality, of making reality intelligible. Purely logical distinctions are therefore seen to be a class of purely logical re lations, t:e. of those entia rationis which the mind must construct for itself in its effort to understand the reat They have no other reality as objects of thought than the reality they derive from the constitutive or constructive activity of the mind. They are modes, or forms, or terms, of the cognitive activity itself, not of 1 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 Tationis-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 Ka:1tian 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 me::ntal modes which must be applied to reality as a prerequisite condition for rendering the latter capable of apprehension in our experi- ence. This contention is examined in another context. Cf. infTa, pp. 145, 147, 151 REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 141 the reality which is the object apprehended and contemplated by means of this cognitive activity. The virtual distinction, on the other hand, although it also, as an object of thought, is only an ens ratioms-inasmuch as there is no real duality or plurality corresponding to it in the reality into which the mind introduces it, this reality being a real uniry-the virtual distinction is considered, nevertheless, to have a ground, or reason, or foundation (for making and introducing it) in the nature of this one reality; that is, it is regarded as having a real foundation, a fundamentum t'n reo In so far, there- fore, as our knowledge is permeated by virtual distinctions, reality cannot be said to be formally, but only fundamentally what this knowledge represents it to be. Does this fact interfere with the objective validity of our knowledge? Not in the least; for we do not ascribe to the reality the distinctions, and other such modes or forms, which we know by reflection to be formally characteristic not of things but of our thought or cognition of things. Our knowledge, therefore, so far as it goes, may be a faithful ap- prehension of reality, even though it be itself affected by modes not found in the reality. But what is this real foundation of the virtual distinction? What is thefundamentum in re? It is not a real or objective duality in virtue of which we could say that there are, in the ob- ject of our thought, two beings or realities one of which is not the other. Such duality would cause a real distinction. But just here the difficulties of our analysis begin to arise: for we have to fix our attention on actually existing realities; and, as- suming that each and everyone of these is an individual, we have to bear in mind the relation of the real to the actual, of reality as abstract and universal to reality as concrete and indi- vidual, of the simple to the composite, of the stable to the chang- ing, of essential to accidental unity-in any and every attempt to discriminate in detail between a real and a virtual distinction. N or is it easy to lay down any general test which will serve even theoretically to discriminate between them. Let us see what grounds have been mainly suggested as real foundations for the virtual distinction. If a being which is not only one but simple, manifests, in the superior grade of being to which it belongs, a perfection which is equivalent to many lesser perfections found really distinct and separate elsewhere, in separate beings of an inferior order, this is I4 ONTOLOGY considered a sufficient real ground for considering the former being, though really one and simple, as virtually manifold. l The human soul, as being virtually threefold-rational, sentient and vegetative-is a case in point: but only on the assumption that the soul of the individual man can be proved to be one and simple. This, of course, all scholastics regard as capable of proof: even those of them who hold that the powers or faculties whereby it immediately manifests these three grades of perfection are accidental realities, really distinct from one another and from the substance of the soul itself. Again, the being which is the object of our thought may be so rich in reality or perfection that our finite minds cannot adequately grasp it by any one mental intuition, but must pro- ceed discursively, by analysis and abstraction, taking in partial aspects of it successively through inadequate concepts; while realizing that these aspects, these objects of our distinct concepts, are only partial aspects of one and the same real being. This, in fact, is our common experience. But the theory assumes that we are able to determine when these objects of our concepts are only mental aspects of one reality, and when they are several separate realities; nay, even, that we can determine whether or not they are really diitinct entities united together to form one comþosite individual being, or only mentally distinct views of one simple individual being. For example, it is assumed that while the distinction between the sentient and the rational grades of being in a human individual can be shown to be only a virtual distinction, that between the body and the soul of the same individual can be shown to be a real distinction; or, again, that while the distinction between essence, intellect, and will in God, can be shown to be only a virtual distinction, that between essence, intellect, and will in man, can be shown to be a real distinction. 37. THE VIRTUAL DISTINCTION AND THE REAL DISTINC- TION.-Now scholastics differ considerably in classifying this, that, or the other distinction, as logical or as real; but this does 1 Thus the recognition of a virtual distinction in a being is a sign of the relative perfecti.on 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 imþerfection 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.-C.f. KLEUTGEN, oþ. cit., 633. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 143 not prove that it is impossible ever to determine with certitude whether any particular distinction is logical or real. What we are looking for just now is a general test for discriminating, if such can be found. And this brings us to a consideration of the test suggested in the very definitions themselves. At first sight it would appear to be an impracticable, if not even an unintel- ligible test: H The distinction is real if it exists in the reality- i.e. if the reality is two (or more) beings, not one being-antece- dently to, or independently of, the consideration of the mind; otherwise the distinction is logical ". But-it might be objected -how can we possibly know whether or not any object of per- ception or thought is one or more than one antecedently to, or independently of, the consideration of the mind? It is certainly impossible for us to know what, or what kind, reality is, or whether it is one or manifold, apart from and prior to, the exercise of our own cognitive activity. This, therefore, cannot be what the test means: to interpret it in such a sense would be absurd. But when we have perceived reality in our actual sense experience, when we have interpreted it, got the meaning of it, made it intelligible, and actually understood it, by the spon- taneous exercis of intellect, the judging and reasoning faculty: then, obviously, we are at liberty to reflect critically on those antecedent spontaneous processes, on the knowledge which is the result of them, and the reality which is known through them; and by such critical reflection on those processes, their objects and their products, on the (( reality as perceived and known tJ and on the II perceiving" and U knowing JJ of it, we may be able to distinguish between two classes of contributions to the total result which is the U known reality": those which we must re- gard as purely mental, as modes or forms or subjectively con- structed terms of the mental function of cognition itself (whether perceptual or conceptual), and those which we must regard as given or presented to the mind as objects, which are not in any sense constructed or contributed by the mind, which, therefore, are what they are independently of our mental activity, and which would be and remain what they are, and what we have apprehended them to be, even if we had never perceived or thought of them. This, according to the scholastics, is the sense -and it is a perfectly intelligible sense-in which we are called on to decide whether the related terms of any given distinction have been merely rendered distinct by the analytic activity of 144 ONTOLOGY the cognitive process, or are themselves distinct realities irrespec- tive of this process. That it is possible to carry on successfully, at least to some extent, this work of discrimination between the subjective and the objective factors of our cognitive experience, can scarcely be denied. It is what philosophers in every age have been attempting. There are, however, some distinctions about the nature of which philosophers have never been able to agree, some holding them to be real, others to be only virtual: the former view being indicative of the tendency to emphasize the rôle of cognition as a passive representation of objectively given reality; the latter view being an expression of the opposite tendency to emphasize the active or constitutive or constructive factors whereby cognition assimilates to the mind's own mode of being the reality given to it in experience. In aU cognition there is an assimilation of reality and mind, of object and subject. When certain distinctions are held to be real this consideration is emphasized: that in the cognitive process, as such, it is the mind that is assimilated to the objective reality.l When these same distinctions are held to be logical this other consideration is emphasized: that in the cognitive process reality must also be assimilated to mind, must be mentalized so to speak: Cognitum est in cognoscente secundum modum cognoscentis: that in this process the mind must often regard what is one reality under distinct aspects: and that if we regard these distinct aspects as distinct realities we are violating the principle, Entia non sunt multiplicanda þraeter necessitatem. Now those philosophers who hold certain distinctions to be virtual, and not real, thereby ascribe to cognitive experience a larger sphere of constitutive 1 u 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 ilIud recipit ab alio mere passive se habendo; inquantum vero cognitio est expressio, imitatio et imago objecti, procedit ab objecto "-SILVESTER MAURUS, Quaes . Philos., q. 2. This is the common scholastic distinction: cognition as a product re- presentative or expressive of reality is a product determined by the influence of reality (as active) on the mind (as passive) i 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 pro- cesses are partly at least processes of abstracting, comparing, relating, universa- lizing: processes which produce .. intentiones logicas" or .. mtia rationis," such as the" intøntio 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 II logical entities" and the reality which we interpret by means of them: of discriminating, in other words, between logical and real distinctions. REAL/TY AS ONE AND MAN/FOLD 145 or constructive influence than would be allowed to it by advocates of the reality of such distinctions. But by doing so are they to be regarded as call- ing into question the objective validity of human knowledge? By no means: the fact that the human mind can understand reality only by processes of abstracting, generalizing, comparing, relating, analysing and synthesizing- processes which involve the production of logical entities-in no way vitiates the value of these modes of understanding: it merely indicates that they ara less perfect than intuitive modes of understanding which would dispense with such logical entities,-the modes characteristic of pure, angelic in- tellig-ences, or the knowledge of the Deity. The objective validity of human cognition is not interfered with either by enlarging or by restricting the domain of the mind's constitutive activity in forming such logical entities; nor, therefore, by claiming that certain distinctions are real rather than virtual, or vice versa. It must be remembered, moreover, that the virtual distinction is not purely logical: it has a foundation in the reality, a "funda- mmtum in re " . and in so far as it has it gives us an insight into the nature of reality. No doubt, any particular distinction cannot be virtual andlat the same time simply real: either view of it must be erroneous: and pos ibly both, if it happen to be de facto a þurely logical distinction. But the error of con- founding a virtual distinction with a real is not so great as that of regarding either as a purely logical distinction. Now the tendency of much modern philosophy, under the influence of Kant, has been to regard all the categories in which the mind apprehends reality as being wholly and exclusively forms of cognition, as being in the reality neither formally nor even funda- mentally; and to infer from this an essential, constitutional inability of the mind to attain to a valid knowledge of reality. But if, as a matter of fact, these categories are in the reality formally, nay, even if they are in it only fundamentally, the inference that issues in Kantian subjectivism is unwar- ranted. And those categories we hold to be in the reality at least funda- mentally; we therefore reject the Kantian phenomenism of the speculative reason. Moreover, we can see no valid ground for admitting the Kantian division of the human mind into two totally separate cognitive compartments, the speculative and the practical reason, and ascribing to each compartment cognitive principles and capacities entirely alien to the other. To arrive at a right theory of knowledge hum m cognitive experience as a whole must be analysed ; but provided the analysis is really an analysis of this experience it may be legitimately directed towards discovering what the mental conditions must be-i.e. the conditions on the side of the knowing subject, the subject having the experience-which are necessan:ty þrerequlsite for having such experience. And if it be found by such analysis that cognitive experience presupposes in the knowing subject not merely a sentient and intelligent mind, but a mind which perceives, imagines, remembers reality in certain definite ways; which thinks reality in certain modes and through certain forms which by its own constitutive activity it constructs for itself, and which it recognizes by reflection to be its own constructions (e.g. distinctions, relations, affirma- tions and negations, abstractions, generalizations, etc.: intentiones logical, logical entities),-there is no reason whatever in all this for inferring that be- cause the mind is so constituted, because it has these modes of cognition, it 10 14 6 ONTOLOGY must necessarily fail to reach, by means of them, a true, valid, and genuine knowledge of reality. From the fact that human modes of cognition are human, and not angelic or divine; from the fact that reality can be known to man only through these modes, these finite modes of finite human faculties,- we may indeed infer that even our highest knowledge of reality is inadequate, that it does not comþrehend all that is in the reality, but surely not that it is essentially illusory and of its very nature incapable of giving us any true and valid insight into the nature of reality. Fixing our attention on the virtual distinction we see that the mind is supposed by means of it to apprehend, through a plurality of distinct concepts, what it knows somehow or other to be one being. Now if it knows the reality to be really one, it knows that the formal object of every distinct concept of this reality is really identical with the objects of all the other concepts of the latter. This condition of things is certainly verified when the mind can see that each of the distinct concepts, though not uplicitly presenting the objects of the others, nevertheless 'inz- pHcitly and necessarily involves all these other objects: 1 for by seeing that the distinct concepts necessarily involve one another objectively it sees that the reality apprehended through all of them must necessarily be one reality. This is what takes place in the impeifect virtual distinction: the concepts prescind from one another formally, not objectively. But suppose that the distinct concepts prescind from one another ol!fectively, so that they cannot be seen by any analysis to involve one another even 1 It is not necessary of course that this implicit embodiment of all the others, by anyone of them, be seen to be mutual. It is sufficient, for instance, that of the concepts a, b, & 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 reciþrocal. 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 unifJersal; 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 inteIlect 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 inter- related. On the contrary, it should pronounce that whatever plurality can be unified by the dialecticaUy 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. REALITY AS ONE AND ftIANIFOLD 147 implicitly, but present to the mind, so far as they themselves are concerned, adequately distinct modes of being-as happens in the peifect virtual distinction, e.g. between organic life, sentient life, and intellectual life (in man), or between animality and rationality (in man),-then the all-important question arises: How do we know, in any given case of this kind, whether or not these adequately distinct thought-objects are identical with one another in the reality? What is the test for determining whether or not, in a given case, these objects, which are many for abstract intellectual thought, are one bez'ng in the real order? The answer seems to be that internal and external sense experience can and does furnish us with embodiments of these intellectual manifolds, -embodiments each of which we apprehend as a being that tS really one, as an individual subject of which they are conceptually distinct predicates. I t would appear, therefore, that we cannot reach a true conception of what we are to regard as really one, or really manifold, by abstract thought alone. It is external and internal sense experience, not abstract thought, which first brings us into direct and immediate mental contact with actually existing reality. What we have therefore to detennine is this: Does sense experience, or does it not, reveal reality to us as a real manifold, not as ons being but as beings coexisting outside one another in space, succeeding one another in time, interdependent on one another, interacting on one another, and by this interaction causing and undergoing real change, each producing others, or being produced by others, really distinct from itself? In other words, is separateness of existence in time or space, as revealed in sense experience, a sufficient index of the real manifoldness of corporeal being, and of the really distinct individuality of each such being ?-or are we to take it that because those space and time distinctions have to be apprehended by thought in order that not merely sense but intellect may apprehend corporeal beings as really manifold, therefore these distinctions are not t.n the reality given to us? Or, again, is each person's own conscious experience of himself as one being, of his own unity, and of his distinctness from Other persons, a sufficient index that the distinction between person and person is a real dis- tinction ?-or are we to take it that because hisfeeling of his individual unity through sense consciousness must be interpreted by the thought-conc þts of "one "-" individual "-" person "-" distinct" from "others," these con- cepts do not truly express what is really given him to interpret? Finally, if we can infer from the actually existing material reality which forms the immediate datum of direct experience, or from the human Ego as given in this experience, the actual existence of a real mode of being which is not material but sp;ritual, by what tests can we determine whether this spiritual mode of being is really one, or whether there is a real plurality of such beings? The solution of these questions bears directly on the validity of the adequate or " greater" real distinction, the" distinctio rea/is major seu absoluta ". 10 * 148 ONTOLOGY The philosophy which defends the validity of this distinction,-which holds that the distinction between individual human beings, and between individual living things generally, is in the fullest and truest sense a real dis- tinction,-is at all events in confonnity with universally prevailing modes of thought and language; while the monism which repudiates these spontaneous interpretations of experience as invalid by denying all real manifoldness to reality, can make itself intelligible only by doing violence to thought and language alike. Not that this alone is a disproof of monism; but at all events it creates a presumption against a system to find it running counter to any of those universal spontaneous beliefs which appear to be rooted in man's rational nature. On the other hand, the philosophy which accords with common belief in proclaiming a real plurality in being has to reconcile intellect with sense, and the universal with the individual, by solving the important problem of t"ndividuation: What is it that makes real being individual, if, notwithstanding the fact that intellect apprehends reality as abstract and universal, reality nevertheless can exist only as concrete and individual? (29-33). 38. THE REAL DrSTINCTION.-In the next place it must be remembered, comparing the virtual distinction with the real, that philosophers have recognized two kinds of real distinction: the major or absolute real distinction, and the minor real, or modal distinction. Before defining these let us see what are the usual signs by which a real distinction in general can be recognized. The relation of efficient causality, of efficient cause and effect, between two objects of thought, is sometimes set down as a sure sign of a (major) real distinction between them. 1 And the reasOn alleged is that a thing cannot be the efficient cause of itself: the efficient cause is necessarily extrinsic to the effect and cannot be really identical with the latter. It is to be noted that this test applies to reality as actually existing, as producing or undergoing change, and that it is derived from our sense experience of reality in process of change. But since our concept of efficient causality has its origin in our internal ex- perience of our own selves as active agents, as causing some portion of what enters into our experience, the test seems to assume that we have already introduced into this experience a real distinction between the self and what is caused by the sel( It is not clear that the relation of efficient cause to effect, as applied to created causes, can precede and reveal, in our experience, the relation of what is really one to what is really other, in this experience. If the reality revealed to us in our direct experience, the phenomenal universe, has been brought into existence by the creative act of a Supreme Being, this, of course, implies a real distinction between Creator and creature. But it does not seem possible in this case, or indeed in any case, to prove the exist- ence of the causal relation antecedently to that of the real distinction, or to utilize the former as an index to the latter. Two distinct thought-objects are regarded as really distinct (1) when they are found to exist separately and apart from each 1 Cf. URRABURU, oþ. cit., Disp. ii., cap. ii., art. 5 (p. 319). REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 149 other in time or space, as is the case with any two individuals such as John and James, or a man and a horse; (2) when, although they are found in the same individual, one of them at least is separable from the other, in the sense that it can actually exist without that other: for example, the soul of any individual man can exist apart from he material principle with which it is actu- ally united to form this living human individual; the individual himself can exist without the particular accidental modes, such as sitting, thinking, speaking, which actually affect his being at any particular instant of his existence. From this we can gather in the first place that the distinction between two" individuals," -individual "persons JJ or individual "things "-is a real distinction in the fullest and plainest sense of this expression, a major or absolute real distinction. It is, moreover, not merely real but actual. Two existing" individuals JJ are always actually divided and separate from each other, while each is actually one or actually undivided in itself. And they are so "independently of the consideration of the mind ". In the second place, assuming that the mind can apprehend, in the individuals of its experience, a unity resulting from the union or composition of separable factors or principles, whether essential or accidental [27(b)]; and assuming that it can know these factors to be really separable (though actually one and undivided), that is, separable in the sense that each of any two such factors, or at least one of them, could actually exist without the other,-it regards the distinction between such factors as. real. They are really distinct because though actually one and un- divided they are potentially manifold. If each has a positive entity of its own, so that absolutely speaking each could exist without the other, the distinction is still regarded as an absolute or major real distinction. For example, the human soul. can exist without the body; the body can exist without the soul, being actualized by the new formative principle or principles which replace the soul at death; therefore there is an absolute real distinction between the soul and the body of the living human individual: although both factors form one actual being, still, independently of the consideration of the mind the one factor Ú not the other: each is really, though only potentially, other than the factor with which it is united: the relation of "one" to H other JJ though not actually verified of either factor (since there is only one actual being: the existing individual 15 0 ONTOLOGY man), is potentially and really verified, i.e. verifiable of each. Again, the individual corporeal substance can, absolutely speaking, exist without its connatural accident of external or local exten- sion; this latter can, absolutely speaking, exist without its con- natural substance; 1 therefore these are absolutely and really distinct. If only one of the factors is seen to be capable of existing without the other, and the latter to be such that it could not actually exist except as united with the former, so that the separability is not mutual, the distinction is regarded still as real, but only as a minor or modal distinction. Such, for instance, is the distinction between a body and its location, or its state of rest or motion: and, in general, the distinction between a sub- stance and what are called its accidental modes or modal acci- dents. The distinction is regarded as real because reflection is held to assure us that it is in the reality itself independently of the mind, and not merely imposed by the mind on the reality because of some ground or reason in the reality. It is called a modal distinction rather than an absolute real distinction because those accidental modes of a substance do not seem to have of themselves sufficient reality to warrant our calling them" things" or "realities," but rather merely" modes" or "determinations" of things or realities. It is significant, as throwing light on the relation of the virtual to the real distinction, that some authors call the modal distinction not a real distinction but a "distinctio media," i.e. intermediate between a real and a logical distinction; and that the question whether it should be called simply a real distinction, or "intermediate" between a real and a logical dis- tinction is regarded by some as "a purely verbal question" 2 We shall recur to the modal distinction later (68). In the third place it must be noted that separability in the sense explained, even non-mutual, is not regarded as the only index to a real distinction. In other words, certain distinctions are held by some to be real even though this test of separability does not apply. For instance, it is commonly held that not merely in man but in all corporeal individuals the formative and the determinable principle of the nature or substance, the forma substantialis and the materia prima, are really distinct, although it is admitted that, apart from the case of the human soul, neither can actually exist except in union with the other. \Vhat is held 1 Cf. infra, 83. I ct. URRABURU, oþ. cit., ibid. p. 322. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD ISI in regard to accidental modes is also applied to these essential principles of the corporeal substance: viz. that there is here a special reason why such principles cannot actually exist in isola- tion. Of their very nature they are held to be such that they cannot be actualized or actually exist in isolation, but only in union. But this fact, it is contended, does not prove that the principles in question are merely mentally distinct aspects of one reality: the fact that they cannot actually exist as such sepa- rately does not prove that they are not really separable; and it is contended that they are really and actually separated whenever an individual corporeal substance undergoes substantial change. This, then, raises once more the question: What sort of "separation" or "separability II is the test of a real distinction? Is it separateness in and for sense perception, or separateness in and for intellectual thought? The former is certainly the fundamental index of the real distinction ; for all our knowledge of reality originates in sense experience, and separateness in time and space, which marks its data, is the key to our knowledge of reality as a manifold of really distinct individual beings ; and when we infer from sense- experience the actual existence of a sþiritual domain of reality we can con- ceive its" individuals II only after the analogy of the corporeal individuals of our immediate sense experience. Scholastic philosophers, following Aristotle, have always taken the manifoldness of reality, i.e. its presentation in sense experience in the form of "individuals," of "this nand "that," ".,.o È 1"&," "hoc aliquicf," as an unquestioned and unquestionable real datum. Not that they naïvely assumed everything þercet"ved by tlte senses as an individua1, in time and space, to be really an individual: they realized that what is per- ceived by sense as one limited continuum, occupying a definite portion of space, may be in reality an aggregate of many individuals; and they recog- nized the need of scrutinizing and analysing those apparent individuals in order to test their real individuality; but they held, and rightly, that sense experience does present to us some data that are unmistakably real indi- viduals-individual men, for instance. Next, they saw that intellectual thought, by analysing sense experience, amasses an ever-growing multitude of abstract and conceptually distinct thought-objects, which it utilizes as predicates for the interpretation of this sense experience. These thought- objects intellect can unite or separate; can in some cases positively see to be mutually compatible or incompatible; can form into ideal or possible com- plexes. But whether or not the conceþtually distinct, though mutually com- patible, thought-objects forming any such complex, will be also real!)' distinct from one another, is a question which evidently cannot arise until such a complex is considered as an actual or possible individual being: for it is the individual only that exists or can exist. They will be really distinct when found actualized in disNnct z'ndividuals. Even the conceþtually one and self-identical abstract thought-object will be really distinct from z"tself when embodied in distinct individuals; the one single abstract thought-object, "humanity,1I "human nature," is really distinct from itself In John and in James; the humanity of John is really otltcrthan the humanity of James. 15 2 ONTOLOGY Of course, if conceptually distinct thought-objects are seen to be mutually incompatible they cannot be found realized except in really distinct individuals: the union of them is only an ens rationis. Again it may be that the intellect is unable to pronounce positively as to whether they are compatible or not (18): as to whether the complex fonns a possible being or not. But when the intellect positively sees such thought-objects to be mutually compatible- by interpretation of, and inference from, its actual sense experience of them as embodied in individuals (I8)-and when, furthennore, it now finds a number of them co-existing in some one actual individual, the question recurs: How can it know whether they are really distinct from each other, though actually united to fonn one (essentially or accidentally composite) individual, or only conceptually distinct aspects of one (simple) individual [27 (b)]? This, as we have seen already, is the case for which it is really difficult to find a satisfactory test: and hence the different views to be found among scholastic philosophers as to the nature of the distinctions which the mind makes or discovers within the individual. The difficulty is this. The con- ceptual distinction between compatible thought-objects is not a proof of real distinction when these thought-objects are found united in one individual of sense experience, as e.g. animality and rationality in man; and the only dis- tinction given to us by sense experience, at least directly and immediately, as undoubtedly real, is the distinction between corporeal indivt."duals existing apart in space or time, as e.g. between man and man. How then, can we show that any distinctions withm the individual are real? Well, we have seen that certain entities, which are objects of sense or of thought, or of both, can disappear from the individual without the residue thereby perishing or ceasing to exist actually as an individual: the human soul survives, as an actual individual reality, after its separation from the material principle with which it formed the individual man; the individual man persists while the accidental modes that affect him disappear. In such cases as these, intellect, interpreting sense experience and reasoning from it, places a real distinction, in the composite individual, between the factors that can continue to exist without others, and these latter. In doing so it is appar- ently applying the analogy of the typical real distinction-that between one individual and another. The factor, or group of factors, which can continue to exist actually after the separation of the others, is an individual: and what were separated from it were apparently real entities, though they may have perished by the actual separation. But on what ground is the distinction be- tween the material principle and the vital principle of a plant or an animal, for example, regarded as real? Again on the ground furnished by the anal- ogy of the distinction between individuals of sense experience. Note that it is not between the material and the vital principles as objects of abstract thought, i.e. between the materiality and the vitality of the plant or the animal, that a real distinction is claimed: these are regarded only as con- ceptually distinct aspects of the plant or the animal; nor is it admitted that because one of these thought-objects is found embodied elsewhere in nature without the other-materiality without vitality in the inorganic universe-we can therefore conclude that they are really distinct in the plant or the animal. No; it is between the two principles conceived as coexisting and united in the concrete individual that the real distinction is claimed. And it is held to be REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 153 a real distinction because substantial change in corporeal things, i.e. corrup- tion and generation of individual corporeal substances, is held to be real. If it is real there is a real separation of essential factors when the individual perishes. And the factors continue to be real, as þotential principles of other individuals, when any individual corporeal substance perishes. Each principle may not continue to exist actually as such in isolation from the other-though some scholastics hold that, absolutely speaking, they could be conserved apart, as actual entities, by the Author of Nature. But they can actually exist as essential þrindþles of other actual individuals: they are real poten#- aNNes, which become actual in other individuals. Thus we see that they are conceived throughout after the analogy of the individual. Those who hold that, absolutely speaking, the material principle as such, materia þrima, could actually exist in isolation from any formative principle, should apparently admit that in such a case it would be an individual reality. 39. SOME QUESTIONABLE DISTINCTIONS. THE SCOTIST DISTINCTION.- The difficulty of discriminating between the virtual and the real distinction in an individual has given rise to the conception of distinctions which some maintain to be real, others to be less than real. The virtual distinction, as we have hitherto understood it, may be described as extrinsic inasmuch as it arises in the individual only when we consider the latter under different aspects, or in different relations to things extrinsic to it. By regarding an individual under different aspects-e.g. a man under the aspects of animality and rationality-we can predicate contradictory attributes of the individual, e.g. of a man that" he is similar to a horse," and that (( he is not similar to a horse ". Now it is maintained by some that although independently of the consideration of the mind the grounds of these contradictory predications are not actually distinct in the individual, neverthe- less even before such consideration the individual has a real intrinsÙ: taþacity to have these contradictory predicates affirmed of him: they can be affirmed of him not merely when he is regarded, and because he is regarded, under conceptually different aspects, but because these principles, (( animality" and U ration- ality," are already really in him not merely as aspects but as distinct capacities, as potentially distinct principles of contra- dictory predications. The virtual distinction, understood in this way, is described as intrinsic. I t is rejected by some on the ground that, at least in its application to finite realities, it involves a violation of the principle of contradiction: it seems to imp1y that one and the same individual has in itself absolutely (and not merely as con- 154 ONTOLOGY sidered under different aspects and relations) the capacity to verify of itself contradictory predicates. Scotus and his followers go even farther than the advocates of this intrinsic virtual distinction by maintaining the existence of a distinction which on the one hand they hold to be less than real because it is not between" thing and thing," and on the other hand to be more than logical or virtual, because it actually exists between the various thought-objects or "formalitates" (such, e.g. as animality and rationality) in the individual, inde- pendently of the analytic activity whereby the mind detects these in the latter. This distinction Scotists call a U formal distinction, actual on the part of the thing" - U distinctio formalis, actual is natura rei." Hence the name" formalists" applied to Scotists, from their advocacy of this U Scotistic" distinction. It is, they explain, a distinction not between Ie things Jt (U res") but between" formalities Jt (U formalitates "). By U thing Jt as op- posed to "formality tJ they mean not merely the individual, but also any positive thought-object which, though it may not be cap- able of existing apart, can really appear in, or disappear from, a thing which can so exist: for instance, the essential factors of a really composite essence, its accidental modes, and its real relations. By" formality" they mean a positive thought-object which is absolutely inseparable from the thing in which it is apprehended, which cannot exist without the thing, nor the thing without it: for instance, all the metaphysical grades of being in an individual, such as substantiality, corporeity, life, animality, rationality, individuality, in an individual man. The distinction is called "formal" because it is between such "formalities It-each of which is the positive term of a separate concept of the individual. It is called U actual on the side of the thing It because it is claimed to be actually in the latter apart from our mental apprehension of the individual. What has chiefly influenced Scotists in claiming this distinction to be thus actually in the individual, independently of our mental activity, is the consideration that these metaphysical grades are grounds on which we can predicate contradictory attributes of the same individual, e.g. of an individual man that (( he is similar to a horse tJ and that "he is not similar to a horse It: whence they infer that in order to avoid violation of the principle of contra- diction, we must suppose these grounds to be actually distinct in the thing. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 155 To this it is replied, firstly, that if such predications were truly contradictory we could avoid violation of the principle of contradiction only by inferring a real distinction-which Scotists deny to exist-between these grounds; secondly, that such pre- dications are not truly contradictory inasmuch as " he is similar" really means "he is partially similar," and "he is not similar" means U he is not completely similar": therefore when we say that a man's rationality" is not the principle whereby he resembles a horse," and his animality" is the principle whereby he resembles a horse," we mean (a) that his rationality is not the principle of complete resemblance, though we know it is the principle of partial resemblance, inasmuch as we see it to be really identical with that which is the principle of partial resemblance, viz. his animality; and we mean (b) that his animality is the principle of his partial resemblance to a horse, not of total resemblance, for we know that the animality of a man is not perfectly similar to that of a horse, the former being really identical with rationality, the latter with irrationality. When, then, we predicate of one thing that" it is similar to some other thing," and that" it is not similar to this other thing" we are not really predicating contradictories of the same thing; if we take the predicates as contradictories they are true of the same reality undoubtedly, but not under the same aspect. Scotists themselves admit that the real identity of these aspects involves no violation of the princi pIe of contradiction; why, then, should these be held to be actually distinct formalities independently of the considera- tion of the mind? How can a distinction that is actual inde- pendently of the mind's analysis of the reality be other than real? Is not predication a work of the mind? And must not the conditions on which reality verifies the predication be deter- mined by the mind? If, then, we see that in order to justify this predication-of" similar" and H not similar "-about any reality, it is merely necessary that the mind should apprehend this reality to be in its undivided unity equivalent to manifold grades of being or perfection which the mind itself can grasp as mentally distinct aspects, by distinct concepts, how can we be justified in sup- posing that these grades of being are not merely distinguishable, but actually distinct in the reality itself, independently of the m'ind? The Scotist doctrine here is indicative of the tendency to emphasize, per- haps unduly, the assimilation of reality as a datum with the mind which interprets this datum; to regard the constitution of reality itself as being wha.t 15 6 ONTOLOGY abstract thought, irrespective of sense experience, would represent it; and accordingly to place in the reality as being actually there, independently of thought, distinctions which as a matter of fact may be merely the product of thought itself. Scotists, by advocating an actual distinction between these grades of being, as "formalities n in the individual, have exposed themselves to the charge of extreme realism. They teach that each of these" fonnalities n has, for abstract thought, a formal unity which is sur." generis. And this unity is not regarded as a product of thought, any more than the distinction between such unities. Thus, the materiality apprehended by thought in all material things is one, not because it is made one by the abstracting and univer. salizing activity of thought, as most if not all other scholastics teach; it is not merely conceþtually one through our thought-activity, it is formally one apart from the latter; and it thus knits into a "formal n unity all material things. And so does " life IJ all living things; and "animality" all animals; and" rationality n all men. Now, if this" formal unity" of any such essential or metaphysical grade of being were regarded as a real unity, monism would be of course the logically inevitable corollary of the theory. But the" formal n unity of any such essential grade of being Scotists will not admit to be a real unity, though they hold it to be characteristic of reality independently of our thought. They contend that this unity is quite compatible with the real þlurality conferred upon being by the principles which individ- uate the latter; and thus they cannot be fairly accused of monism. Their reasoning here is characteristically subtle. Just as any metaphysical grade of being, considered as an object of thought, is in itself neither manifold individu. ally nor one universally-so that, as Thomists say, designating it in this con. dition as the unZ:versale directum, or metaþhysz.'cum, or fundamentale, or quoad rem conceþ/am, we can truly affirm of it in this condition neither that it is one (logically, as a universal) nor that it is manifold (really, as multiplied in actual individuals), I_SO likewise, Scotists contend, it is in this condition ontologz'cally, as an entity in the real order independently of thought, and as such has a unity of its own, a formal unity, which, while uniting in a formal unity all the individuals that embody it, is itself incapable of fitting this grade of being for actual existence, and therefore admits those ultimate individuating principles which make it a real manifold in the actual order. 2 Thus, the metaphysical grade of being, which, as considered in itself, 1 ST. THOMAS, De E11te et Esse11tia, cap. iv. : "Ideo, si quaeratur utrum ista natura possit dici una vel plures, neutrum concedendum est: quia utrumque est extra in. tellectum [conceptum] humanitatis, et utrumque pot est sibi accidere. Si enim pluralitas esset de ratione ejus, nunquam posset esse una: cum tamen una sit secundum quod est in Sorte. Similiter si unit as esset de inteUectu et ratione ejus, tunc esset una et eadem natura Sortis et Platonis, nec posset in pluribus plurificari." Cf. ZIGLIARA, Summa Philos., Ontologia (I), iv., v.; (3) iv. 2 "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 pona. tur."-ScoTUS, In L. Sent., 2, dist. iii., q. 7.-Cf. DE WULF, History of Medieval PhilosoPhy, p. 372. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD 157 Thomists hold to be an abstraction, having no other unity than that which thought confers upon it by making it logically universal, Scotists on the con- trary hold to be as such something positive in the ontological order, having there a "formal" unity corre5ponding to the" conceptual" or " logical" unity which thought confers upon it by universalizing it. The metaphysical grade of being, thus conceived as something positive in the real order, Scotists wiU not admit to be a "reality," nor the unity which characterizes it a "real" unity. But after aU, if such a "formality" with its proportionate" unity," is independent of thought j and if on the other hand" universality" is the work of thought, so that the universal as such cannot be real, it is not easy to see how the Scotist doctrine escapes the error of extreme realism. The meta- physical grade of being is a "formality" only because it is made abstract by thought j and it has "unity" only because it is made logically universal by thought j therefore to contend that as such it is something positive in the real order, independently of thought, is to " reify" the abstract and universal as such: which is extreme realism. CHAPTER V. REALITY AND THE TRUE. 40. ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH CONSIDERED FROM ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENCE.-We have seen that when the mind thinks of any reality it apprehends it as "one," that ontological unity is a transcendental attribute of being; and this consideration led us to consider the manifoldness and the distinctions which char- acterize the totality of our experience. N ow man himself is a real being surrounded by all the other real beings that constitute the universe. Moreover he finds himself endowed with faculties which bring him into conscious relations both with himself and with those other beings; and only by the proper interpretation of these relations can he understand aright his place in the uni- verse. The first in order of these relations is that of reality to mind (25). This relation between mind and reality is what we understand by Truth. N ow truth is attributed both to knowledge and to things. We say that a person thinks or judges truly, that his knowledge is true (or correct, or accurate), when things really are as he thinks or judges them to be. The truth which we thus ascribe to know- ledge, to the mind interpreting reality, is logical truth: a rela- tion of concord or conformity of the mind interpreting reality- or, of the mind's judgment about reality-with the reality itself.1 Logical truth is dealt with in Logic and Epistemology. We are concerned here only with the truth that is attributed to reality, to things themselves: ontological, metaphysical, transcendental truth, as it is called. There is nothing abstruse or far-fetched about the use of the terms" true" and u truth" as equivalent to ureal JJ and" reality". We speak of U true JJ gold, a "true" friend, a U veritable JJ hero, etc. Now what do we mean by thus ascrib- ing truth to a thing? \Ve mean that it corresponds to a mental type or ideal. \Ve call a liquid true wine or real wine, for 1 CJ. Science of Logic, ii., 248. Moral truth or veracity-the conformity of language with thought-is treated in Ethics. I5 8 REALITY AND THE TRUE 159 instance, when it verifies in itself the definition we have formed of the nature of wine. Hence whenever we apply the terms (I true" or u truth" to a thing we shall find that we are consider- ing that thing not absolutely and in itself but in rEference to an idea in our minds: we do not say of a thing simply that it is true, we say that it is truly such or such a thing, i.e. that it is really of a certain nature already conceived by our minds. If the appearance of the thing suggests comparison with some such ideal type or nature, and if the thing is seen on examination not really to verify this nature in itself, we say that it is not really or truly such or such a thing: e.g. that a certain liquid is not really wine, or is not true wine. When we have no such ideal type to which to refer a thing, when we do not know its nature, cannot classify and name it, we have to suspend our judgment and say that we do not know what the thing really is. Hence, for ex- ample, the new rays discovered by Röntgen were called provision- ally U X rays," their real nature being at first unknown. We see, then, that real or ontological truth is simply reality con- sidered as conformable with an ideal type, with an idea in the mind. Whence does tbe human mind derive these ideal types, these concepts or definitions of the nature of things? It derives them from actually experienced reality by abstraction, comparison, generalization, and reflection on the data of its experience. 1 Hence it follows that the ontological truth of things is not known by the mind antecedently to the formation of the mental type. It is, of course, in the things antecedently to any judgment we form about the things; and the logical truth of our judgments is dependent on it, for logical truth is the conformity of our judgments with the real nature of things. But antecedently to all exercise of human thought, antecedently to our conception of the nature of a thing, the thing has not for us formal or actual ontological truth: it has only fundamental or potential ontological truth. If in this condition reality had actual ontological truth for us, there would be no ground for our distinguishing mentally between the reality and the truth of things; whereas the exist- ence of this mental or logical distinction is undeniable. The concept of reality is the concept of something absolute; the concept of ontological truth is the concept of something relative, not of an absolute but of a relative property of being. 1 Cf. MERCIER, Ontologie, P. ii., 4, i. 160 ONTOLOGY But if for the human mind the ontological truth of things is-at least proximately, immediately, and in the first place-their conformity with the abstract concepts of essences or natures, concepts derived by the mind from an analysis of its experience, how can this ontological truth be one for all men, or immutable and necessary? For, since men form different and divergent and conflicting conceptions as to the natures of things, and so have different views and standards of truth for things, ontological truth would seem, accord- ing to the exposition just outlined, to be not one but manifold, not immutable but variable: consequences which surely cannot be admitted? The answer to this difficulty will lead us to a deeper and more fundamental conception of what ontological truth really is. First, then, we must consider that all men are endowed with the same sort of intellect, an intellect capable of some insight at least into the nature of things; that therefore they abstract the same transcendental notions and the same widest concepts from their experience: transcendental concepts of being, unity, truth, goodness; generic concepts of substance, matter, spirit, cause, of accident, quantity, multitude, number, identity, similarity, distinction, diversity, etc. They also fonn the same sþecific concepts of possible essences. Although, therefore, they may disagree and err in regard to the aþþlicalion of those concepts, especially of the lower, richer and more complex specific concepts, to the actual data of their experience, they agree in the fact that they have those common concepts or idea-types of reality; also in the fact that when they apply those concepts rightly (i.e. by logically true judgments) to the things that make up their experience, they have so far grasped the real natures of these things; and finally in recognizing that the ontological truth of these things lies in the confonnity of the latter with their true and proper mental types or essences. And just as each of these latter is one, indivisible, immutable, necessary and eternal (14, 15), so is the ontological truth of things, whether possible or actual, one, indivisible, immutable, necessary and eternal. Of course, just as the human mind does Dot constitute but only apprehends reality, so the human mind does not constitute the ontological truth of reality, but only apprehends it. Every reality is capable of producing in the human mind a more or less adequate mental representation of itself: in this lies what we may call the potential or fundamental ontological truth of reality. When it does produce such a mental concept of itself its relation of conformity to this concept is its formal ontological truth. Of course the human mind may err in applying to any reality a wrong concept; when it does it has so far failed to grasp the real nature of the thing and therefore the ontological truth which is really identical with this nature. But the thing still has its ontological truth, independently of the erring mind; not only fundamental truth, but also possibly formal truth in so far as it may be rightly apprehended, and thus related to its proper mental type, by other human minds. Reality itself, therefore, is not and cannot be false, as we shall see more fully later; error or falsity is an accident only of the mind interpreting reality. 41. ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH CONSIDERED SYNTHETICALLY, FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ITS ULTIMATE REAL BASIS.-So far we have explained ontological truth as a relation of reality to the REALITY AND THE TRUE J6J human intelligence; but this relation is not one of dependence. The objective term of the relation, the reality itself, is anterior to the human mind, it is not constituted by the latter. The sub- jective term, the abstract concept, is indeed as a vital product dependent on the mind, but as representative of reality it is determined only by the latter. Is there, however, an Intelligence to which reality is essentially conformed, other than the human intelligence? Granted the actual existence of contingent realities, and granted that the human mind can derive from these realities rational principles which it sees to be necessarily and universally applicable to all the data of experience, we can demonstrate the existence of a Necessary Being, a First and Self-Existent Intelli- gence. Realizing, then, that God has created all things according to Infinite Wisdom, we can see that the essences of things are imitations of exemplar ideas in the Divine Mind (20). On the Divine Mind they depend essentially for their reality and intel- ligibility. It is because all created realities, including the human mind itself, are adumbrations of the Divine Essence, that they are intelligible to the human mind Thus we see that in the onto- logical order, in the order of real gradation and dependence among things, as distinct from the order of human experience,! the reason why reality has ontological truth for the human mind is because it is antecedently and essentially in accord with the Divine Mind from which it derives its intelligibility. Although, therefore, ontological truth is for us proximately and immediately the conformity of reality with our own conceptions, it is primarily and fundamentally the essential conformity of all reality with the Divine Mind. All reality, actual and possible, including the Divine Essence itself, is actually comprehended by the Divine Mind, is actually in conformity with the exemplar ideas in the Divine Mind, and has therefore ontological truth even independ- ently of its relation to created minds; but Ie in the (impossible) hypothesis of the absence of all intellect, such a thing as truth would be inconceivable ".2 The reason, therefore, why things are onto logically true for our minds, why our minds can apprehend their essences, why we can have any true knowledge about them, is in fact because both our minds and all things else, being expressions of the Divine 1 Cf. Science of Logic, ii., 252-4. 2 .. Si ornniø inteJ1ectus (quod est irnpossibile) intelligeretur auferri, nullo modo ratio veritatis remaneret."-ST. THOMAS, De Veritate, q. i., art I, 2 in fine. II 162 ONTOLOGY Essence, are in essential conformity with the Divine Intellect. Not that we must know all this in order to have any logical truth, any true knowledge, about things; or in order to ascribe to things the ontological truth which consists in their conformity with our conception of their nature. The atheist can have a true knowledge of things and can recognize in them their conformity with his mental conception of their nature; only he is unaware of the real and fundamental reason why he can do so. N or can he, of course, while denying the existence of God, rise to the fuller conception of ontological truth which consists in the essential conformity of all reality with the Divine Intellect, and its essential dependence on the latter for its intelligibility to the human intellect. Naturally, it is this latter and fuller conception of ontological truth that has been at all times expounded by scholastic phil- osophers. 1 We may therefore, define ontological truth as the essential conformity of reality, as an ol?Ject of thought, with -intellect, and primarily and especially with the Divine Intellect. The conformity of reality with the Divine Intellect is described as essential to reality, in the sense that the reality is dependent on the Divine Intellect for its intelligibility; it derives its intelligibility from the latter. The conformity of reality with the human intellect is also essential in the sense that potentz."al confonnity with the latter is inseparable from reality; it is an aspect really identical with, and only logically distinct from, the latter. But inasmuch as the actual conformity of reality with our human conception of it is contingent on the existence of human intelligences, and is not ultimately dependent on the latter, inasmuch as reality does not derive its intelligibility ultimately from this conception-seeing that rather this conception is derived from the reality and is ultimately dependent on the Divine Exemplar,-this conformity of reality with the human mind is sometimes spoken of as accidental to reality in contrast with the relation of dependence which exists between reality and the Divine Mind. Bearing in mind that reality derives its intelligibility from its essential confonnity with the Divine Mind, and that the human mind derives its truth from the reality, we can understand how it has been said of truth in general that it is first in the Uncreated Intellect, then in things, then in created intel- lects; that the primary source and measure of all truth is the Divine Intellec t Itself Unmeasured, " mensurans, non mensuratus II ; that created reality is measured by, or conformed with, the Divine Intellect, and is in turn the measure of the human intellect, confonning the latter with itself, "mensurans et mensurata II ; and that, finally, the human intellect, measured by created reality and the Divine Mind, is itself the measure of no natural things but only of the products of human art, "intel1ectus noster . . . non mensurans (Juidem res naturales, sed artificiales tantum ". 2 1 Cf. ST. THOMAS, De Veritate, q. i., and þassim. II ST. THOMAS, De Verilate, q. i., art. 2. REALITY AND THE TRUE 16 3 Is truth one, then, or is it manifold? Logical truth is manifold-multi- plied by the number of created intelligences, and by the number of distinct cognitions in each. The primary ontological truth which consists in the con- formity of all reality with the Divine Intellect is one: there is no real plurality of archetype ideas in the Divine Mind; they are manifold only to our im- perfect human mode of thinking. The secondary ontological truth which consists in the conformity of things with the abstract concepts of created in- telligences is conditioned by, and multiplied with, the manifoldness of the latter. 1 Again to the question: Is truth eternal or temþoral ?-we reply in a similar way that the truth of the Divine comprehension of reality, actual and possible, is eternal, but that no other truth is eternal. There is no eternal truth outside of God. Created things are not eternal; and truth is consecu- tive on reality: where there is no reality there is no ontological truth: the conformity of things with human conceptions and the logical truth of the latter are both alike temporaJ.2 Finally, we may say that the truth of the Divine Intellect is immutable,- and so is the essential conformity of all reality with the Divine Intellect. The change to which created reality is essentially subject is itself essentially con- formed with the Divine Mind; it is, so to speak, part and parcel of the onto- logical truth of this reality in relation to the Divine Mind, and cannot there- fore interfere with this ontological truth. When the acorn grows into the oak the whole process has its ontological truth; that of the acorn changes, not into falsity, but into another truth, that of the oak. s We see, then, that as things change, their truth does not change in the sense of being lost or giving place to falsity: the truth of one state changes to the truth of another while the ontological truth of the changing reality perseveres immutably. The same immutability attaches to the truth of things in relation to the human mind: with the qualification, to which we shall return (43), that they may occasion false judgments in the human mind, and on that account be designated "false". Finally, the logical truth which has its seat in created intelligences is mutable: it may be increased or diminished, acquired or lost. 42. ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH A TRANSCENDENTAL ATTRIBUTE OF REALITY.-From what has been said it will be apparent that ontological truth is a transcendental attribute of reality. That is to say, whatever is real, whether actual or possible, is ontologi- cally true; or, in scholastic terminology, Ie Omne ens est verum I. Ens et verum convertuntur: All being is true; The real and the true are convertible terms". For in the first place there is no 1 ST. THOMAS, De V,ritat" q. i., art. 4; Summa Theol., i., q. 115, art. 6. 2.. Si intellectu8 humanu9 non esset, adhuc res dicerentur veræ in ordine ad intellectum divinum. Sed si uterque intellectus, quod est irnpossibile. intelli. geretur auferri, nullo modo ratio veritatis remaneret."-ST. THOMAS, De Veritate, q. i., art. 2. '" Si ergo accipiatur veritas 7'ei secundum crdinern ad inte"lectum divinum. tunc quidem mutatur veritas rei mutablis in aliam veritatem, non in falsitatem."- ST. TUOMAS, ibid., q. i., art. 6. II * 16 4 ONTOLOGY mode or category of real being, of which the human mind actually thinks, to which it does not attribute ontological truth in the sense of conformity with the right human conception of it. Moreover, the proper object of the human intellect is reality; all true knowledge is knowledge of reality. Reality of itself is manifestly knowable, intelligible, and thus potentially or funda- mentally true; and, on the other hand, intellect is, according to the measure of its capacity, a faculty of insight into all reality, into whatever is real: intelleetus þotens fled 01111ZÙZ,. anima. . . quodammodo flt omnia. l Deny either of these postulates regard- ing the terms of the ontological relation, reality and mind, and all rational thought is instantly pa sed. Hence, in so far as a reality becomes an actual object of human knowledge it has formal ontological truth in relation both to the human mind and to the Divine IVIind; while antecedently to human thought it is fundamentally true, or intelligible, to the human mind, and of course formalIy true in relation to the Divine Mind. Thus we see that whatever is real is ontologically true; that ontological truth is realIy identical with real being; that, applied to the latter, it is not a mere extrinsic denomination, but signifies an intrinsic, positive aspect of reality, viz. the real, essential, or transcendental relation of all real being to Mind or Intellect: a relation which is 10gicalIy or conceptually distinct from the notion of reality considered in itself. 43. ATTRIBUTION OF FALSITY TO REAL BEING.-If onto- logical truth is realIy identical with real being, if it is an essential aspect of the latter, a transcendental relation of reality to mind, it follows immediately that there can be no such thing as tran- scendental falsity: if whatever is real is ontologically true, then the ontologically false must be the unreal, must be nothingness. And this is really so: ontologically falsity is nothingness. We have, therefore, to discover the real meaning of attributing falsity to things, as when we speak of a false friend, false gold, false teeth, a false musical note, a false measure in poetry, etc. First of all, then, it will be noted that each such object has its own real nature and character, its proper mental correlate, and, therefore, its ontological truth. The false friend is a true or real deceiver, or traitor, or coward, or whatever his real character may be; the false gold is true or real bronze, or alloy, or what- ever it may be in reality; the false teeth are true or real ivory, 1 Cf. ARISTOTLE, De A1lima, iii.; ST. THOMAS, De Veritate, q. i., art. I. REALITY AND THE TRUE 16 5 or whatever substance they are made of; a false musical note is a true or real note but not the proper one in its actual setting; and so of a false measure in poetry. N ext, when we thus ascribe falsity to a friend, or gold, or such like, we see that the epithet U false " is in reality merely transferred from the false judgment which a person is liable to make about the object. We mean that to judge that person a friend, or that substance gold, or those articles real teeth, would be to form a false judgment. We see that it is only in the judgment there can be falsity; but we transfer the epithet to the object because the object is likely to oc- casion the erroneous judgment in the fallible human mind, by reason of the resemblance of the object to something else which it really is not. We see, therefore, that falsity is not in the objects, but is trans- ferred to them by a purely extrinsic denomination on account of appearances calculated to mislead. We commonly say, in such cases that CI things mislead us," that "appearanc.es deceive us". Things, however, do not deceive or mislead us necessarily, but only accidentally: they are the occasions of our allowing ourselves to be deceived: the fallibility and limitations of our own minds in interpreting reality are the real cause of our erroneous judg- ments. l Secondly, there is another improper sense in which we attri- bute falsity to works of art which fail to realize the artist's ideal. In this sense we speak of a "false U note in music, a "false" measure in poetry, a " false " tint in painting, a U false" curve in sculpture or architecture. "False" here means defective, bad, wanting in perfection. The object being out of harmony with the ideal or design in the practical intellect of the artist, we de- scribe it as "false" after the analogy of what takes place when we describe as " false gold" a substance which is out of harmony with the idea of gold in the speculative intellect. It is in rela- tion to the speculative, not the practical, intellect, that things have ontological truth. All created things are, of course, as such, in conformity not only with the Divine Intellect considered as speculative, but also with the Divine Intellect considered as 1" Res per se non fa)]unt, 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 cis non 6ubest, dicitur res ilia esse falsa. . . . Nec tamen res est hoc modo causa falsitatis in anima, quod necessario falsitatem causat."-ST. THOMAS, Summa Theol., i., q. 17, art. i., ad. 2; De Veritate, q. i" art. 10, C. 166 ONTOLOGY practical. For God, being omnipotent, does all things according to the designs of His Wisdom. For Him nothing is accidental, nothing happens by chance. But the world He has freely willed to create is not the best possible world. Both in the physical and in the moral order there are things and events which are defective, which fall short of their natural perfection. This d - fectiveness, which is properly physical or moral evil, is sometimes described as falsity, lying, vanity, etc., on account of the dis- crepancy between those things and the ideal of what they should be. But all such defective realities are known to be what they are by the Divine Mind, and may be known as they really are by the human mind. They have, therefore, their ontological truth. The question of their perfection or imperfection gives rise to the consideration of quite a different aspect of reality, namely its goodness. This, then, we must deal with in the next place. CHAPTER VI. REALITY AND THE GOOD 44. THE GOOD AS "DESIRABLE JJ AND AS "SUITABLE ".- The notion of the good (L. bonum,. Gr. åryaBóv) is one of the most familiar of all notions. But like all other transcendental or widely generic concepts, the analysis of it opens up some fundamental questions. The princes of ancient Greek philosophy, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, gave much anxious thought to its elucidation. The tentative gropings of Socrates involved an ambiguity which issued in the conflicting philosophies of Stoicism and Epicureanism. N or did Plato succeed in bringing down from the clouds the U Idea of the Good tJ which he so devotedly worshipped as the Sun of the Intellectual World. It needed the more sober and searching analysis of the Stagyrite to bring to light the formula so universally accepted in after ages: The Good of beings is that which all desire: Bonum est quod omnia appe/unt. 1 Let us try to reach the fundamental idea underlying the terms" good," "goodness," by some simple examples. The child, deriving sensible pleasure from a sweetmeat, crys out: That is good! Whatever gratifies its senses, gives it sensible delight, it lz'kes or loves. Such things it desires, seeks, yearns for, in their absence; and in their presence enJoys. At this stage the good means simply the pleasure-giving. But as reason develops the human being apprehends and describes as good not merely what is pleasure-giving, but whatever satisfies any natural need or craving, whether purely organic, or purely intellectual, or more widely human: food is good because it satisfies a physical, organic craving; knowledge is good because it satisfies a natural intellectual thirst; friendship is good because it satisfies a wider need of the heart. Here we notice a transition from" agreeable II in the sense of "pleasure-giving" to "agree- able " in the more proper sense of "suitable" or useful. The good is now conceived not in the narrow sense of what yields 1 Ka.\ws å7l"ftp JlaJlTO Tå")'a8ð..., ot ",åJITa Itp{ETo.&.-ARISTOTLE, l!.th., i. 16 7 168 ONTOLOGY sensible pleasure but in the wider sense of that which is useful or suitable for the satisfaction of a natural tendency or need, that which is the object if a natural tendency. Next, let us reflect, with Aristotle, that each of the individual persons and things that make up the world of our direct ex- perience has an end towards which it naturally tends. There is a purpose in the existence of each. Each has a nature, z:e. an essence which is for it a principle of development, a source of all the functions and activities whereby it continually adapts itself to its environment and thereby continually fulfils the aim of its existence. By its very nature it tends towards its end along the proper line of its development. l In the world of conscious beings this natural tendency is properly called appetite: sense appetite of what is apprehended as good by sense cognition, and rational appetite or will in regard to what is apprehended as good by intellect or reason. In the world of unconscious things this natural tendency is a real tendency and is analogous to conscious appetite. Hence it is that Aristotle, taking in all grades of real being, describes the good as that which is the object of any natural tendency or "appetite" whatsoever: the good is the "appetibile" or "desirable," that which all things seek: bonum est quod omnla appetunt. 45. THE GOOD AS AN U END,""PERFECTING" THE" NATURE". -So far, we have analysed the notion of what is U good" for some being / and we have gathered that it implies what sut"ts this being, what contributes to the latter's realization of its end. But we apply the term "good" to objects, and speak of their good- ness, apart from their direct and immediate relation of hel pfulness or suitability for us. When, for instance, we say of a watch that it is a good one, or of a soldier that he is a good soldier, what precisely do w mean by such attribution of goodness to things or persons? A little reflection will show that it is intelligible only in reference to an end or purpose. And we mean by it that the being we describe as good has the powers, qualities, equip- ments, which fit itfór its end or purpose. A being is good whose nature is equipped and adapted for the realization of its natural end or purpose. Thus we see that the notion of goodness is correlative with the notion of an end, towards which, or for which, a being has a natural tendency or desire. Without the concept of a nature as 1 CJ. Science of Logic, ii., 217. REALITY AND THE GOOD 16 9 tending to realize an end or purpose, the notion of u the good" would be inexplicable. l And the two formulæ, "The good is that which beings desire, or towards which they naturally tend," and II The good is that which is adapted to the ends which beings have in their existence," really come to the same thing; the former statement resolving itself into the latter as the more fundamental. For the reason why anything is desirable, why it is the object of a natural tendency, is because it is good, and not vice versa. The description of the good as that which is desir- able, "Bonum est id quod est appetibile," is an a posteriori descrip- tion, a description of cause by reference to effect. A thing is desirable because it is good. Why then is it good, and therefore desirable? Because it suits the natural needs, and is adapted to the nature, of the being that desires it or tends towards it; because it helps this being, agrees with it, by contributing towards the realization of its end: Bonum est id quod convenit naturæ aþjetentis: The good is that which suits the nature of the being that desires it. The greatest good for a being is the realization of its end; and the means towards this are also good because they contribute to this realization. No doubt, in beings endowed with consciousness the gradual realization of this natural tendency, by the normal functioning and development of their activities, is accompanied by pleasurable feeling. The latter is, in fact, not an end of action itself, but rather the natural concomitant, the effect and index, of the healthy and normal activity of the conscious being: delectatio sequitur oþerationem debitam. I t is the pleasure felt in tending towards the good that reveals the good to the conscious agent: that is, taking pleasure in its wide sense as the feeling of well- being, of satisfaction with one's whole condition, activities and environment. Hence it is the anticipated pleasure, connected by past association with a certain line of action, that stimulates the conscious being to act in that way again. It is in the first instance because a certain operation or tendency is felt to be 1 U Bonum autem, com habeat notionem appetibilis, importat habitudinem causæ finalis."-ST. THOMAS, Summa Theol., i., q. S. art. 2, ad. I. i Ie Prima autem non possunt notificari per aliqua priora, sed notificantur per posteriora, sicut causæ per proprios effectus. Cum aut em bonum proprie sit motivum appetitus, describitur bonum per motum appetitus, sicut sold 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. la. 17 0 ONTOLOGY pleasing that it is desired, and apprehended as desirable. Nor does the brute beast recognize or respond to any stimulus of action other than pleasure. But man-endowed with reason, and reflecting on the relation between his own nature and the activities whereby he duly orients his life in his environment- must see that what is pleasure-giving or If agreeable tJ in the ordinary sense of this term is generally so because it is U agree- able" in the deeper sense of being "suitable to his nature," " adapted to his end," and therefore" good ". The good, then, is whatever suits the nature of a being tending towards its end: bonum est conveniens naturæ appetentis. In what precisely does this suitability consist? What suits any nature perfects that nature, and suits it precisely in so far as it perfects it. But whatever perfects a nature does so only because and in so far as it is a realization of the end towards which this nature tends. Here we reach a new notion, that of" perfecting tJ or "perfection," and one which is as essentially connected with the notion of " end" or "purpose," as the concept of the U good " itself is. Let us compare these notions of" goodness," "end," and "per- fection JJ . We have said that a watch or a soldier are good when they are adapted to their respective ends. But they are so only because the end itself is already good. And we may ask why any such end is itself good and therefore desirable. For example, why is the accurate indication of time good, or the defence of one's country? And obviously in such a series of questions we must come to something which is good and desirable in and for itself, for its own sake and not as leading and helping towards some remoter good. And this something which is good in and for itself is a last or ultimate end-an absolute, not a relative, good. There must be such an absolute good, such an ultimate end, if goodness in things is to be made intelligible at all. And it is only in so far as things tend towards this absolute good, and are adapted to it, that they can be termed good. The realiza- tion of this tendency of things towards the absolute good, or ultimate end, is what constitutes the goodness of those things, and it does so because it perfects their natures. The end towards which any nature tends is the cause of this tendency, its final cause; and the influence of a final cause consists precisely in its goodness, i.e. in its power of actualizing and perfecting a nature. This influence of the good is sometimes described as the" diffusive" character of goodness: Bonum est dijfusivum sui: Goodness tends to diffuse or com- REALITY AND THE GOOD 171 municate itself, to multiply or reproduce itself. This character, which we may recognize in the goodness of finite, created things, is explained in the philo- sophy of theism as being derived, with this goodness itself, from the uncreated goodness of God who is the Ultimate End and Supreme Good of all reality. Every creature has its own proper ultimate end and highest perfection in its being a manifestion, an expression, a shewing forth, of the Divine Goodness. It has its own actuality and goodness, distinct from, but dependent on, the Divine Goodness; but inasmuch as its goodness is an expression or imitation of the Divine Goodness, we may, by an extrinsic denomination, say that the creature is good by tlte Divine Goodness. In a similar way, and without any suspicion of pantheism, we may speak of lhe goodness of creatures as being a þartieiþation of the Divine Goodness (5). 46. THE PERFECT. ANALYSIS OF THE NOTION OF PERFEC- TION.-It is the realization of the end or object or purpose of a nature that perfects the latter, and so far formally constitutes the goodness of this nature. N ow the notion of perfection is not exactly the same as the notion of goodness: although what is perfect is always good, what is good is not always perfect. The term (. perfect" comes from the Latin perjicere, perftctum, meaning fully made, thoroughly achieved, completed, finished. Strictly speaking, it is only finite being, potential being, capable of com- pletion, that can be spoken of as perftctible, or, when fullyactual- ized, perfect. But by universal usage the term has been extended to the reality of the Infinite Being: we speak of the latter as the Infinitely Peifect Being, not meaning that this Being has been U perfected," but that He is the purely Actual and Infinite Reality. Applied to any finite being, the term U perfect" means that this being has attained to the full actuality which we regard as its end, as the ideal of its natural capacity and tendency. The finite being is subject to change; it is not actualized all at once, but gradually; by the play of those active and passive powers which are rooted in its nature it is gradually actualized, and thus perfected, gaining more and more reality or being by the process. But what directs this process and determines the line of its ten- dency? The good which is the end of the being, the good towards which the being by its nature tends. This good, which is the term of the being's natural tendency-which is, in other words, its end-is the fundamental principle 1 which perfects the nature of the being, is the source and explanation of the process whereby 1 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: fi1Zis est f41timus in 8xecutiolle, sed þrimus in intentione: it is that for the sake of which, and with a view to which, the whole process of actualization or "perfecting It goes on. Cf. infra, 108. 17 2 ONTOLOGY this nature is perfected: bonum, est perftctivum: the good is the perftc#ng principle of reality. The end itself is "the good which perfects," bonum quod; the (( perfecting" itself is the formal cause of the goodness of the being that is perfected, bonum quo . the being itself which is perfected, and therefore ameliorated or increased in goodness, is the bonum CUt: In proportion, there- fore, to the degree in which a being actually possesses the perfec- tion due to its nature it is "good "; in so far as it lacks this perfection, it is wanting in goodness, or is, as we shall see, onto- logically" bad" or " evil ". While, then, the notion of the" good" implies a relation of the appetite or natural tendency of a being towards its end, the notion of "perfection," or "perfecting," conveys to our minds actual reality simply, or the actualizing of reality. The term " perfection tt is commonly used as synonymous with actual reality. In so far forth as a reality is actual we say it " has per- fection n. But we do not call it" perfect" simply, unless it has all the actuality we conceive to be due to its nature: so long as it lacks any of this it is only perfect secundum quid, t:e. in pro- portion to the actuality it does possess. Hence we define" the perfect" as that which z's actually lacking in nothing that is due to t"ts nature. The perfect is therefore not simply the good, but the com plete or finished good; and it is even logically distinct from the latter, inasmuch as the actuality connoted by the former has added to it the relation to appetite connoted by the latter. Similarly "goodness" is logically distinct from "perfection" by adding the like relation to the latter. Although a thing has goodness in so far as it has perfection, and vÙ:e versa, still its per- fection is its actuality simply, while its goodness is this actuality considered as the term of its natural appetite or tendency. 47. GRADES OF PERFECTION. REALITY AS STANDARD OF V ALUE.-W e may distinguish between stages of perfection in the changing reality of the same being, or grades of perfection in comparing with one another different classes or orders of being. In one and the same being we may distinguish between what is called its first or essential perfection, which means its essence or nature considered as capable of realizing its purpose in exist- ence by tending effectively towards its end; what is called its -intermediate or acddental perfection, which consists in all the powers, facuIties and functions whereby this tendency is gradu- ally actualized; and what is called its final or integral perfection, REALITY AND THE GOOD 173 which consists in its full actualization by complete attainment of its end. Again, comparing with one another the individual beings that make up our experience, we classify them, we arrange them in a hierarchical order of relative H perfection," of inferiority or superiority, according to the different grades of reality or perfec- tion which we think we apprehend in them. Thus, we look on living things as a higher, nobler, more perfect order of beings than non-living things, on animal life as a higher form of being than plant life, on intelligence as higher than instinct, on will as superior to sense appetite, on mind or spirit as nobler than matter, and so on. Now all such comparisons involve the apprehension of some standard of value. An estimation of relative values, or relative grades of perfection in things, is un- intelligible except in reference to some such standard; it in- volves of necessity the intuition of such a standard. We feel sure that some at least of our appreciations are unquestionably correct: that man, for instance, is superior to the brute beast, and the latter superior to the plant; that the lowest manifesta- tion of life-in the amæba, or whatever monocellular, microscopic germ may be the lowest-is higher on the scale of being than the highest expression of the mechanical, chemical and physical forces of the inorganic universe. And if we ask ourselves what is our standard of comparison, what is our test or measure, and why are we sure of our application of it in such cases, our only answer is that our standard of comparison is reality itself, actual being, perfection; that we rely implicitly on our intuition of such actual reality as manifested to us in varying grades or degrees within our experience; that without claiming to be infallible in our judgments of comparison, in our classifications of things, in our appreciations of their relative perfection, we may justly assume reality itself to be as such intelligible, and the human mind to be capable of obtaining some true and certain insight into the nature of reality. 4 8 . THE GOOD, THE REAL, AND THE ACTUAL.-Having compared (( perfection n with" goodness U and with H being," let us next compare the two latter notions with each other. We shall see presently that every actual being has its ontological goodness, that these are in reality identical. But there is a logical distinction between them. In the first place the term " being" is applied par excellence to substances rather than to 174 ONTOLOGY accidents. But we do not commonly speak of an individual substance, a person or thing, as good in reference to essential or substantial perfection. l When we describe a man, or a machine, as "good," we mean that the man possesses those accidental perfections, those qualities and endowments, which are suitable to his nature as a man; that the machine possesses those pro- perties which adapt it to its end. In the second place the notion of being is absolute; that of the good is relative, for it implies the notion not of reality simply but of reality as desirable, agreeable, suitable, as perfecting the nature of a subject, as being the end, or conducive to the end, towards which this nature tends. And since what thus peifects must be something not potential but actual, it follows that, unlike real truth, real good- ness is identical not with potential, but only with actual reality. It is not an attribute of the abstract, possible essence, but only of the concrete, actually existing essence. i From the fact that the notion of the good is relative it follows that the same thing can be simultaneously good and bad in different relations: "What is one man's meat is another man's poison ". 49. KINDS OF GOODNESS; DIVISIONS OF THE GOOD.-(a) The goodness of a being may be considered in relation to this being itself, or to other beings. What is good for a being itself, what makes it intrinsically and formally good, bonum sz.bi, is whatever perfects it, and in the fullest sense the realization of its end. Hence we speak of a virtuous, upright man, whose conduct is in keeping with his nature and conducive to the realization of his end, as a good man. But a being may also be good to others, bonum alterz by an extrinsic, active, effective goodness, inasmuch as by its action it may help other beings 1 " Licet bonum et ens sint idem secundum rem; quia tamen differunt secun- dum 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 dicitul' unumquodque ens simpliciter; per actus autem superadditos dicitur aliquid esse secundum quid. . . . Sic ergo secundum primum esse, quod est substantiale, dicit11r aliquid ens simpliciter et bonum secundum quid, id est, inquantum est ens; secundum vera ultimum actum dicitur aliquid ens secundum quid, et bonum simpliciter."-ST. THOMAS, Summa Theol., i., q. 5, art. I, ad. I. i" Respectus . . . qui importatur nomine boni est habitttdo þerfectivi 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 VeTitate, q. 26, art. 6. REALITY AND THE GOOD 175 in the realization of their ends. In this sense, a beneficent man, who wishes the weIl being of his feIlow-men and helps them to realize this weIl being, is caIled a good man. This kind of goodness is what is often nowadays styled philanthropy,. in Christian ethics it is known as charity. (b) We have described the good as the term or object of natural tendency or appetite. In the domain of beings not endowed with the power of conscious apprehension, determinism rules this natural tendency; this latter is always oriented towards the real good: it never acts amiss: it is always directed by the Divine Wisdom which has given to things their natures. But in the domain of conscious living agents this natural tendency is consequent on apprehension: it takes the form of instinctive animal appetite or of rational volition. And since this apprehen- sion of the good may be erroneous, since what is not reaIly good but evil may be apprehended as good, the appetite or wiII, which foIlows this apprehension-nil volitum nisi praecogni"tum-may be borne towards evil sub ratione boni. Hence the obvious dis- tinction between real good and apparent good-bonum verum and bonum apparens. (c) In reference to any individual subject-a man, for instance -it is manifest that other beings can be good for him in so far as any of them can be his end or a means to the attainment of his end. They are caned in reference to him objective goods, and their goodness objective goodness. But it is equaIIy clear that they are good for him only because he can perfect his own nature by somehow identifying or uniting himself with them, possessing, using, or enjoying them. This possession of the objective good constitutes what has been already referred to as formal or subjective goodness. 1 ( d) We have likewise already referred to the fact that in beings endowed with consciousness and appetite proper, whether sentient or rational, the function of possessing or attaining to what is objectively good, to what suits and perfects the nature of the subject, has for its natural concomitant a feeling of pleasure, satisfaction, weIl-being, delight, enjoyment. And we have observed that this pleasurable feeling may then become a stimulus to fresh desire, may indeed be desired for its own sake. Now this subjective, pleasure giving possession of an objective I Cf. the familiar ethical distinction between objective, and formal or subjective happiness, beatitudo objectiva and beatitudo formalis sel4 subjectiva. 176 ONTOLOGY good has been itself called by scholastics bonum delectabi'k- delectable or delight-giving good. The objective good itself considered as an end, and the perfecting of the subject by its attainment, have been called bonu'1Jl honestum-good which is really and absolutely such in itself. While if the good in question is really such only when considered as a means to the attain- ment of an end, of something that is good in itself, the former is called bonum utz'le-useful good. l In this important triple division bonum honestum is used in the wide sense in which it embraces any real good, whether physical or moral. As applied to man it would therefore embrace whatever perfects his physical life as well as whatever perfects his nature considered as a rational, and therefore moral, being. But in common usage it has been restricted to the latter, and is in this sense synonymous with moral good, virtue. 2 Furthermore, a good which is an end, and therefore desirable for its own sake, whether it be physical or moral, can be at the same time a means to some higher good and desired for the sake of this latter. Hence St. Thomas, following Aristotle, reduces all the moral goods which are desirable in themselves to two kinds: that which is desirable only for itself, which is the last end, final felicity; and those which, while good in themselves, are also conducive to the former, and these are the virtues. 3 When these various kinds of goodness are examined in reference to the nature, conduct and destiny of man, they raise a multitude of problems which belong properly to Ethics and Natural Theology. The fact that man has a composite nature which is the seat of various and conflicting tendencies, of the flesh and of the spirit; that he perceives in himself a "double law," a higher and a lower appetite; that he is subject to error in his apprehension of the good; that he apprehends a distinction between pleasure and duty j 1 II In motu appetitus, id quod est appetibile terminans motum appetitus secundum quid, ut medium per quod tenditur in aliud, vacatur 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. 2 Excellentia hominis maxime consideratur secundum virtutem, quae est dis positio perfecti ad optimum, ut dicitur in 6 Physic. Et ideo, honestum, þroþrie loquendo, in idem refertur cum virtute.-ibid., 2 8 2 ac , q. 145, art. I, c. au Eorum quae propter se apprehenduntur, quaedam apprehenduntur solum propter se, et nunquam propter aliud, sicut felicitas, quae cst 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 1. REALITY AND THE GOOD 177 that he feels the latter to be the path to ultimate happiness,-aII this accentuates the distinction between real and apparent good, between bonum honestum, bonum utile, and bonum delectabile. The existence of God is established in Natural Theology; and in Ethics, aided by Psychology, it is proved that no finite good can be the last end of man, that God, the Supreme, Infinite Good, is his last end, and that only in the possession of God by knowledge and love can man find his complete and final felicity. 5 o. GoODNESS A TRANSCENDENTAL ATTRIBUTE OF BEING. - \V e have shown that there is a logical distinction between the concept of (( goodness" and that of U being ft. We have now to show that the distinction is not real, in other words, that goodness is a transcendental attribute of all actual reality, that all being, in so far forth as it is actual, has goodness-transcendental or onto- logical goodness i