BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF Mtnv^ W. Sage 1891 A.M..fiSt %^}j71.LI.. 93P6 olin 3 1924 028 942 070 Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028942070 ONTOLOGY OR THE THEORY OF BEING BY THE SAME AUTHOR THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC AN INQUIRY INTO THE PRINCIPLES OF ACCURATE THOUGHT AND SCIENTIFIC METHOD 2 vols. 8vo. Vol. I. Conception, Judgment, and Inference. 7i. 6d. net. Vol. II. Method, Science, and Certitude. ys. 6d, net. SCHOLASTICISM OLD AND NEW. An Intro- duction to Scholastic Philosophy, Medieval and Modern. By M. De Wulf, Doctor of Laws, Doctor of Philosophy and Letters, Professor at the University of Louvain. Translated by P. Coffey, Ph.D. 8vo, 6s. net. HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL PHILOSOPHY. By M. De Wulf, Doctor of Laws, Doctor of Philosophy and Letters, Professor at the University of Louvain. Translated by P. Coffey, Ph.D. 8vo, los. 6d. net. LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., LONDON, NEW YORK, BOMBAY, CALCUTTA, AND MADRAS ONTOLOGY OR THE THEORY OF BEING AN INTRODUCTION TO GENERAL METAPHYSICS P. COFFEY, Ph.D. (Louvain) PROFESSOR OF LOGIC AND METAPHYSICS, MAYNOOTH COLLEGE, IRELAND LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO. 39 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON FOURTH AVENUE & 30th STREET, NEW YORK BOMBAY, CALCUTTA AND MADRAS I914 TO THE STUDENTS PAST AND PRESENT OF MAYNOOTH COLLEGE PREFACE It 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 Logic, ^ 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. In 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 " medieval " 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, Efificient 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 ' 2 vols. Longmans, igi2. 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 Schoolmen 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, Urraburu,^ has been most frequently consulted. Much assistance has also been derived from Kleutgen's Philosophie der Vorzeit^ a monumental work which ought to have been long since translated into English. And finally, the excellent treatise in the Louvain Cours de Philosophie, by the present Cardinal Archbishop of Mechlin,* 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. 1 Insiitutiones Metaphysica, quas Romce, in Pontificia Universitate Gregoriana tradiderat P. Joannes Josephus Urraburu, S.J. Volumen Secundum : Ontologia ^Rome, 1891). "French version by Sieep, 4 vols. Paris, Gaume, 1868. 'Ontologie, ou Metaphysique GMrale, par D. Mercier. Louvain, 3me ^dit., igo2. 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. Departments of Metaphysics: Cosmology, Psychology and Natural Theology 18 VII. Departments of Metaphysics : Ontology and Epistemology ... 20 VIII. Remarks on some Misgivings and Prejudices 23 CHAPTER I. Being and its Primary Determinations. 1. 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 " Being " ? 36 3. Real Being and Logical Being 42 4. Real Being and Ideal Being 45 5. Fundamental Distinctions in Real Being 46 CHAPTER II. Becoming and its Implications, 6. The Static and the Changing '' 5^ 7. The Potential and the Actual : (a) Possibility, Absolute, Relative, and Adequate 52 8. (b) Subjective " Potentia," Active and Passive 54 g. (c) Actuality : its Relation to Potentiality 56 10. Analysis of Change 61 11. Kinds of Change 68 CHAPTER III. Existence and Essence. iz. Existence ... 74 13. Essence 75 14. Characteristics of Abstract Essences ........ 79 15. Grounds of those Characteristics 82 16. Possible Essences as such are 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 ig. Critical Analysis of those Inferences 9^^ 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 zi. Distinction between Essence and Existence in actually existing Con- tingent or Created Beings loi 22. State of the Question 103 23. The Theory of Distinctions in its Application to the Question . . . 104 24. Solutions of the Question 107 CHAPTER IV. Reality as One and Manifold, 25. The Transcendental Attributes or Properties of Being : Unity, Truth and Goodness 114 26. Transcendental Unity 113 27. Kinds of Unity 116 28. Multitude and Number 118 29. The Individual and the Universal I20 30. The " Metaphysical Grades of Being " in the Individual .... 122 31. Individuality 123 32. The " Principle of Individuation " 125 33. Individuation of Accidents 133 34. Identity 135 35. Distinction I3g 36. Logical Distinctions and their Grounds 140 37. The Virtual Distinction and the Real Distinction 1^2 38. The Real Distinction and its Tests 1 148 39. Some Questionable Distinctions. The Scotist Distinction . . . .133 CHAPTER V. Reality and the True. 40. Ontological Truth Considered from Analysis of Experience . . . 158 41. Ontological Truth Considered Synthetically, from the Standpoint of its Ultimate Real Basis 160 42. Ontological Truth a Transcendental Attribute of Reality .... 163 43. Attribution of Falsity to Real Being ig. CHAPTER VI. Reality and the Good. 44. The Good as "Desirable" and as "Suitable" ig™ 45. The Good as an " End," " Perfecting " the " Nature " . . . . 168 46. The Perfect. Analysis of the Notion of " Perfection " . . . '. 171 47. Grades of Perfection. Reality as Standard of Value . . . 172 48. The Good, the Real, and the Actual ''173 49. Kinds of Goodness ; Divisions of the Good \ „ . 50. Goodness a Transcendental Attribute of Being ...... iTl 51. Optimism and Pessimism " ^0- 52. Evil : its Nature and Causes. Manicheism jg^ PAG9E igz 195 ig8 20I 203 203 TABLE OF CONTENTS xi CHAPTER VII. Real.ty 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 CHAPTER VIII. The Categories of Being. Substance and Accident, 59. The Conception of Ultimate Categories 207 (io. 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 . . . 219 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 236 67. Real Existence of Accidents. Nature of the Distinction between Accidents and Substance 240 68. Modal Accidents and the Modal Distinction 245 69. Distinction between Substance and its " Proper " Accidents. Unity of the Concrete Being 246 CHAPTER IX. Nature and Person. 70. Some Divisions of Substances 252 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 285 77. Nature of the Accident called Quality 286 78. Immediate Sub-Classes of Quality as Qenus Supremum .... 288 79. Habits and Dispositions 292 80. Powers, Faculties and Forces 298 81. Some Characteristics of Qualities 305 CHAPTER XI. Quantity, Space and Time. 82. Analysis of the Concept of Quantity 309 83. Corporeal Substance, Quantity and Extension 311 84. Place and Space 318 85. Time : its Apprehension and Measurement 322 86. Duration of Immutable Being : Eternity 328 xii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER XII. Relation; The Relative and the Absolute. PAGE 87. Importance of the Present Category 33^ 88. Analysis of the Concept of Relation 336 89. Logical Relations 33° go. Real Relations ; Their Existence Vindicated 34^ 91. Mutual and Mixed Relations ; Transcendental Relations .... 343 92. Predicamental Relations ; Their Foundations and Divisions . . . 345 93. In what does the Reality of Predicamental Relations Consist ? . . . 349 CHAPTER XIII. Causality; Classification of Causes. 94. Traditional Concept of Cause 357 95. Aristotle's Fourfold Division 3^^ 96. Material and Formal Causes 3^4 97. Efficient Cause; Traditional Concept Explained 3^6 98. Some Scholia on Causation. The Principle of Causality .... 369 99. Classification of Efficient Causes 37^ CHAPTER XIV. Efficient Causality; Phenomenism and Occasionalism. 100. Objective Validity of the Traditional Concept of Efficient Causality . 381 loi. Origin of the Concept of Efficient Cause 385 102. Analysis of Efficient Causality, or Actio and Passio : (a) The First Cause and Created Causes 3^8 103. (b) Actio Immanens and Actio Transiens 391 104. Erroneous Theories of Efficient Causality ; Imagination and Thought . 392 105. The Subject of Efficient Causality. Occasionalism 396 CHAPTER XV. Final Causes; Universal Order. 106. Tvco Conceptions of Experience, the Mechanical and the Teleological . 404 107. The Concept of Final Cause; Its Objective Validity in all Nature. Classiiication of Final Causes 406 108. Causality of the Final Cause ; Relation of the Latter to Efficient, Formal and Material Causes 411 log. Nature and the Laws of Nature. Character and Grounds of their Necessity and Universality. Scientific Determinism and Philosophic Fatalism 416 no. The Order of the Universe ; A Fact and its Implications . . . . 428 Index 435 GENERAL INTRODUCTION. I. Reason of Introductory Chapter. — It 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 scope 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 philosophus 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 " (vcnKa, post physica, the books after the physics : hence the name metaphysics,^ 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 " J^r«-physica," or "trans-physics." : in- ^ When the term " science " is used nowadays in contradistinction to " philo- sophy," it usu^ly 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 Philosophy of Nature) and those analytic studies which we nowadays describe as the physical sciences, bears witness to the close alliance which he conceived to exist between sense observation on the one hand and rational speculation on the other. This sane view of the continuity of human knowledge, a view to which the Schoolmen of the Middle Ages were ever faithful, was supplanted at the dawn of modern 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. ^ Cf. De Wulf, History of Medieval Philosophy, pp. a8-g, 66 ; Mercier, Ontologie, Introd., p. v., n. 2 i8 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. St. 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.i The term philosopkia 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 things 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 metaphysica [scientia] id est, transphysica, quia post physicam dicenda occuirit nobis, quibus ex sensibilibus competit in insensibilia devenire." — St. Thomas, In Lib. Boetii de TrinitaU, 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 static and immaterial 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.^ 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 (^v)(7), 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 ^ This is also the title of the social and ethnological study of the vaiious races of men, their primitive habits, customs, institutions, etc. 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 significance 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 Xogic on the one hand, and with Psychology on the other ; and nowadays it forms a distinct branch of speculative Philosophy i 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 and 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 Metaphysics: 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 Psychology), which would study things exempt from quantity and change not really but only by mental abstraction; and Special Metaphysics (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).^ 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 (oVtos-Xoyos). 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 " rational " in op- position to the empirical biological sciences ; and finally Natural Theology, which he entitled Theodicy {d£o C/. 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. It 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 ; 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, ^g 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 " : it is added on ab extra to the latter ^ 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 objectively 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 " rational," " sentient," " living," " 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 difierential modes of being. At first 1 Cf. ScoTus, SummaTheologica, edit, by Montefortino (Rome, 1900), i., p. 106, Ad tertium. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATIONS 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 differentia " three-sidedness," is unintelligible except as a mode of a " plane rectilinear figure ".^ 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-rectilinearity, that which differentiates finite from infinite being, or substantial from accidental being, is itself also formally and explicitly being. But there are other cases in which the abstraction is manifestly objective. Thus, for example, the differentiating concept " rational " does not even implicitly include the generic concept " animal," for the former concept may be found realized in beings other than animals j and the differentiating concept " living " does not even imphcitly include the concept " corporeal," for it may be found realized in incorporeal beings. if) Since the notion of being is so simple that it cannot be analysed into simpler notions which might serve as its genus and differentia, 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 " : Ens est id quodexistit vel saltern existere potest. Or, considering its relation to its opposite we might say that " Being is that which is not absolute nothingness " : Ens est id quod nan 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, ' C/. Logic, i., pp. iig-20. ^ Cf. ScoTus, op. cit., i., pp. 104, i2g ; also Urraburu, Ontologia, Disp. III., Cap. III., Art. III., p. 155. 3* 36 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 " 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,^ 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 being is predicated analogically 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- tribution or by analogy of proportion. We may, for instance, speak not only ot a man as " healthy," but also of his food, his counten- ' Hence St. Thomas calls the things about which a generic or specific concept is predicated " analoga secundum esse et non secundum intentionem " (In i Sent., Dist. xix., q. 5, a. 2, ad i am) : we bring them under the same notion or " intentio " {e.g. " living being '|), but the content of this notion is realized in the various things (e.g. in Socrates, this horse, that rose-tree, etc.) in varying and unequal degrees of perfection. Hence, too, this univocal relation of the genus to its subordinate sub- jects is sometimes (improperly) called " analogy of inequality ". BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATIONS 37 ance, his occupation, his companionship, etc., as "healthy". Now 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, ^Q 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 " 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 " for the rains, or of the devout soul as " thirsting '' 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 itself 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 prin- 38 ONTOLOGY ceps), 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 is, 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 will be explained more fully below,^ that being is affirmed ofthe finite by virtue of its dependence on the infinite, and of accident by virtue of its dependence on substance.^ Being or reality is therefore predi- cated of its modes by analogy of proportion? 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 existence 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 ^ Cf. infra, ch. viii. 2 Cf, Kleutqen, Philosojihie der Vorzeit, §§ 599, 600. 3 This, of course, is the proper sort of analogical predication : the predication based upon similarity of proportions or relations. Etymologically, analogy means equality of proportions (cf. Logic, ii., p. 160). On the whole subject the student may consult with profit Cajetan's Opusculum de Nominum Analogia, published as an appendix to vol. iv. of St. Thomas' Qutestiones Disputata in De Maria's edition (1883). BEING AND ITS PRIMARY 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 " metaphor " perhaps too commonly connotes a certain transferred and improper extension of the meaning of terms, based upon ^ purely fanciful resemblance. AH our language is primarily and properly expifessive 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.^ 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 ^ Cf. Kleutgen, 0/. dt., §§ 40-42. 40 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 ; and it is therefore predicated of all univocally.^ 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 different 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 ; and, from this radical diversity in the modes of being, they infer that the common con- cept should not be regarded as simply the same, but only as proportionally 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 dependent 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,' "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 par excellence in one, and in the others only subordinate^ 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 iC/. ScoTUS, of. cit., i., pp. 318-22, 125-131, X02-7 (especially p. 128, A4 tertium ; p. 131, Ad sextum ; p. 321, Ad teriium. ' Kleutgen, op. cit., § 599. ' ibid., § 600. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATIONS , 41 [metaphor], or (fi) 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 all 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 ; 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." ' " 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 ; but what are we to conclude from it if not precisely this, which scholasticism teaches : that the perfections found in the various species of creatures can be affirmed of these in the same sense {univoci), 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- i SuAREZ, Metaph., 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 ; finite and infinite are not differentiae superadded to being, inasmuch as each of these differs by its whole reality, and not merely by a determining portion, from the other; 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 " ^ ; the infinite, and whatever perfections we predicate formally of the infinite, transcend all genera, species and differentiae, because the distinction of being into infinite and finite is prior to the distinction into genera, species and dif- ferentiae ; this latter distinction applying only to finite, not to infinite being.^ 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 logical 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, discursivi, discurrendo. All this implies reflection on, and comparison of, our own ideas, our mental views of things. It involves the processes of defining and classifying, affirming and denying, abstracting and generalizing, analysing 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- ^ ScOTUS, op. cit., i., pp. 106-7, 128-9. " ibid., p. 107. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATIONS 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 intentiones 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 rationis — logical 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.^ These are not modes of reality as it is 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 rationis : relations of genus, species, differentia, proprium, accidens; the affirmative or negative relation between predi- cate and subject in judgment ; ^ the mutual relations of ante- cedent and consequent in inference. Now all these logical entities, or objecta secundae intentionis 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. We see 1 Cf. Kleutqen, La philosophie scolastique (" Die Philosophie der Vorzeit "). Fr. trans, by Sierp (Paris, 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, /«>- 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," "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 " : "illud quod habet esse objective tantum in intellectu, seu . . . id quod a ratione excogitatur ut ens, cum tamen in se entitatem nan habeat"} 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 reality ; for the latter, besides the ideal existence it has in the mind which thinks of it, has, 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" 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 entia 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, Metaph., Dist. 54, § i., 6. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATIONS 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).'' 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 interpretation, 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 modem times, have largely contributed to the formation 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 form, the simplicity and composition of beings, and the nature of the various distinctions — whether logical, virtual, formal, 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 "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 "objectum cognitum". Only by such mental 1 Cf. Logic, i., pp. 28-9. 46 ONTOLOGY mirroring, or reproduction, or reconstruction, can reality become so related and connected with mind as to reveal itself 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 sensibilis expressd), 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, i.e. whether it exists also mentally or not. That there is such real being, apart from the " thought "-being whereby the mind is constituted formally knowing, is proved elsewhere ; as also that this esse itUentionale has modes which cannot be attributed to the esse reale. We 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 being. Now if, for example, we attribute the unifying 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 real, 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 reale with the esse intentionale, and this with the thought-process itself, we find ourselves at the starting-point of Hegelian monism.' 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- 'C/. Kleutoen, op. cii., §§ 551-2, BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATIONS 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. {J}) Infinite Being and Finite Beings. — 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 Contingent Beings. — Necessary 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. It 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 alio. {d) Absolute Being and Relative Beings. — In modern philo- sophy the terms "absolute" and " relative," as applied to being, correspond roughly with the terms " God " and " 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-solvere, solvo = se-luo, from \uo>) : that, therefore, which is not bound up with anything else, 48 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; 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 anA 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.^ Thus, a man is a man absolutely, while he is a friend only relatively to others. It is obvious that the primary and general meaning of the terms " absolute " and " relative " 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 belong^ 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 " or " real "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; the potential is so only in ' Cf. Logic, i., pp. 70-1. BEING AND ITS PRIMARY DETERMINATIONS 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 " 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, viz. the concept of Actuality or Actual Reality itself Hegel and his followers have involved themselves in a pantheistic philo- sophy by neglecting to distinguish between those two totally different con- cepts.° A similar error has also resulted from failure to distinguish between ^ " Esse actum quemdam nominat : non enim dicitui esse aliquid ex hoc, quod est in potentia, sed ex hoc, quod est in actu." — St. Thomas, Conira Gent. I., i.. xxii,, 4. ^Certain medieval philosophers had made the same mistake. St. Thomas points out their error frequently. Cf. Contra Genies, i., c. xxvi : " Quia id, quod commune est, per additionem specificatur vel individuatur, aestimaverunt, divinum esse, cui nulla fit additio, non esse aliquid proprium, sed esse commune omnium : non considerantes, quod id, quod commune est, vel universale, sine additions esse non potest, sed sine additione consideratur. Non enim animal potest esse absque rationali vel irrationali differentia, quamvis sine his differentiis consideretur ; licet enim cogitetur universale absque additione, non tamen absque receptibilitate additionis est. Nam si animali nulla differentia addi posset, genus non esset ; et similiter est de omnibus aliis nominibus. Divinum autem esse est absque additione, non solum cogitatione, sed etiam in rerum natura ; et non solum absque additione, sed absque receptibilitate additionis. Unde ex hoc ipso quod additionem non recipit, nee recipere potest, magis concludi potest quod Deus non sit esse commune, sed esse proprium. Etenim ex hoc ipso suum esse ab omnibus aliis distinguitur, quia nihil ei addi potest." 50 ONTOLOGY the various modes in which being that is relative may be dependention 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 all finite things, all phenomena, would be only accidental manifestations. CHAPTER II. BECOMING 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 lonians did: holding that nothing is, that all becomes {iravTa pet), 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. («) 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 objective, 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 BECOMING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 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 (i) 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 ibe 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 ; 1 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 botk 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 csi^ableoi creating, or producing actual hdingfrom 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 passive 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 potentiaUty in created things, under the influence of Omnipotence, is known as potentia obedientalis} This consideration will help us to realize that all reality which is produced by change, and subject to change, is essenti- ally a mixture of becoming and being, of potential and actual. The reality of such being is not tola simul. Only immutable being, whose duration is eternal, has its reality tota simul: it ?iS.oxi^ is purely actual, ihe " Actus Purus" ; and its duration is one eternal " 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. i8. BECOMING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 55 latter includes also a " was " and " wzU 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-purus, 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 intelligendi. 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 '^ot&sy&sHA.y, potentia passiva. 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 virtu- ally, for they possess in themselves the operative power — potentia activa sive operativa — 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 potentia subjectiva, 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 power 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.'^ 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 " has primarily the same meaning as "action," "operation," that process by which a change is wrought. But the Latin word actus (Gr. evepr^eia, ivreXexeca) means rather that which is achieved by the acito, 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 adiva" and its correlative "actus" might, perhaps, be appropriately rendered by "power" {potestas agendt) and " action " or " operation ' ' ; "potentia passiva " and its correlative "actus," by "potentiality" 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 potentia 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 2. potentia in another. Thus, the disposition of any faculty — as, for example, the scientific habit in the intellect — is an actus or perfection of the faculty regarded as a potentia ; but it is itself a potentia which is actualized in the operation of actually studying. This illustrates the distinction commonly drawn between an "actus rimus " and an " actus secundus " in any particular order or line of reality: the actus primus is that which presupposes no prior ' Aristotle, Metaph., c. iv.j v., apud Kleutqen, op. cit., iii., p. 60. BECOMING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 57 actuality in the same order; the actus secundus is that which dpes 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 prima" 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 constitive principles of this subject ; and they are therefore called accidental actualities, actus " accidentales" . 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 actuality : the actus " existentialis," to distinguish it from the existing thing's activities and other subsequently acquired characters. In reference to these existence is a " first actuality " — " Esse est actus primus" ; " Prius est esse quam agere" : "Existence is the first actuality " ; " Action presupposes existence " — 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, differentiating 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 (vXt), materia) is potential, compared with the latter or formal principle (jiop<^ri, etSos, evreXij(eia, forma, species, actus') as actual. The concept of actus is thus applied to the essence itself: the actus " essentialis" or "formalis" 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. S8 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 adus 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 " simplidter 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 " 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 ". 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 naturally actual- 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 perfect 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. BECOMING AND ITS IMPLICATIONS 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,^ " 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 : " Operari sequitur esse" : " Qualis est operatio talis est natura" — " 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 ^ Contra Gentes, II., c. vii. 6o ONTOLOG Y 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 operative infitience 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 itself 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 (ch. XL) ; 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 mediaeval scholastics embodied this truth in the formula : 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 ^ ; 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, Cause et Effet — Revue neo-scolastique, February, 1914, p. 38. ^ 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 icalefactum ; sed quia virtute caloiis, 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."— Co»