Whether a Circumstance Is an Accident of a Human Act?
Objection 1: It would seem that a circumstance is not an accident of
a human act. For Tully says (De Invent. Rhetor. i) that a
circumstance is that from "which an orator adds authority and
strength to his argument." But oratorical arguments are derived
principally from things pertaining to the essence of a thing, such as
the definition, the genus, the species, and the like, from which also
Tully declares that an orator should draw his arguments. Therefore a
circumstance is not an accident of a human act.
Obj. 2: Further, "to be in" is proper to an accident. But that which
surrounds (_circumstat_) is rather out than in. Therefore the
circumstances are not accidents of human acts.
Obj. 3: Further, an accident has no accident. But human acts
themselves are accidents. Therefore the circumstances are not
accidents of acts.
_On the contrary,_ The particular conditions of any singular thing
are called its individuating accidents. But the Philosopher (Ethic.
iii, 1) calls the circumstances particular things [*_ta kath'
ekasta_], i.e. the particular conditions of each act. Therefore the
circumstances are individual accidents of human acts.
_I answer that,_ Since, according to the Philosopher (Peri Herm. i),
"words are the signs of what we understand," it must needs be that in
naming things we follow the process of intellectual knowledge. Now
our intellectual knowledge proceeds from the better known to the less
known. Accordingly with us, names of more obvious things are
transferred so as to signify things less obvious: and hence it is
that, as stated in _Metaph._ x, 4, "the notion of distance has been
transferred from things that are apart locally, to all kinds of
opposition": and in like manner words that signify local movement are
employed to designate all other movements, because bodies which are
circumscribed by place, are best known to us. And hence it is that
the word "circumstance" has passed from located things to human acts.
Now in things located, that is said to surround something, which is
outside it, but touches it, or is placed near it. Accordingly,
whatever conditions are outside the substance of an act, and yet in
some way touch the human act, are called circumstances. Now what is
outside a thing's substance, while it belongs to that thing, is
called its accident. Wherefore the circumstances of human acts should
be called their accidents.
Reply Obj. 1: The orator gives strength to his argument, in the first
place, from the substance of the act; and secondly, from the
circumstances of the act. Thus a man becomes indictable, first,
through being guilty of murder; secondly, through having done it
fraudulently, or from motives of greed or at a holy time or place,
and so forth. And so in the passage quoted, it is said pointedly that
the orator "adds strength to his argument," as though this were
something secondary.
Reply Obj. 2: A thing is said to be an accident of something in two
ways. First, from being in that thing: thus, whiteness is said to be
an accident of Socrates. Secondly, because it is together with that
thing in the same subject: thus, whiteness is an accident of the art
of music, inasmuch as they meet in the same subject, so as to touch
one another, as it were. And in this sense circumstances are said to
be the accidents of human acts.
Reply Obj. 3: As stated above (ad 2), an accident is said to
be the accident of an accident, from the fact that they meet in the
same subject. But this happens in two ways. First, in so far as two
accidents are both related to the same subject, without any relation
to one another; as whiteness and the art of music in Socrates.
Secondly, when such accidents are related to one another; as when the
subject receives one accident by means of the other; for instance, a
body receives color by means of its surface. And thus also is one
accident said to be in another; for we speak of color as being in the
surface.
Accordingly, circumstances are related to acts in both these ways. For
some circumstances that have a relation to acts, belong to the agent
otherwise than through the act; as place and condition of person;
whereas others belong to the agent by reason of the act, as the manner
in which the act is done.
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