CHAPTER III. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE.

12. EXISTENCE.—In the preceding chapters we examined reality in itself and

in its relation to change or becoming. We have now to examine it in

relation to its actual existence and to its intrinsic possibility (7,

_a_).

_Existing_ or _being_ (in the participial sense: esse, _existere_, τὸ

εἶναι) is a simple, indefinable notion. A being is said to exist when it

is not merely possible but actual, when it is not merely potential in its

active and passive causes but has become actual through those causes

(_existere_: _ex-sisto_: _ex-stare_: to stand forth, distinct from its

causes); or, if it have no causes, when it simply is (_esse_),—in which

sense God, the Necessary, purely Actual Being, simply _is_. Thus,

existence implies the notion of actuality, and is conceived as that by

which any thing or essence _is, distinct from nothingness, in the actual

order_.(83) Or, again, it is _the actuality of any thing or essence_.

About any conceivable being we may ask two distinct questions: (_a_) What

is it? and (_b_) Does such a being actually exist? The answer to the

former gives us the _essence_, what is presented to the mind through the

concept; the answer to the latter informs us about the actual _existence_

of the being or essence in question.

To the mind of any individual man the real existence (as also the real

essence) of any being whatsoever, not excepting his own, can be known only

through its ideal presence in his mind, through the concept or percept

whereby it becomes for him a “known object,” an _objectum cognitum_. But

this actual presence of known being to the knowing mind must not be

confounded with the real existence of such being (4). Real being does not

get its real existence in our minds or from our minds. Our cognition does

not produce, but only discovers, actually existing reality. The latter, by

acting on the mind, engenders therein the cognition of itself. Now all our

knowledge comes through the senses; and sense cognition is excited in us

by the direct action of material or phenomenal being on our sense

faculties. But through sense cognition the mind is able to attain to a

knowledge both of the possibility and of the actual existence of

suprasensible or spiritual realities. Hence we cannot describe existence

as the power which material realities have to excite in us a knowledge of

themselves. Their existence is prior to this activity: _prius est esse

quam agere_. Nor can we limit existence to material realities; for if

there are spiritual realities these too have existence, though this

existence can be discerned only by intellect, and not by sense.

13. ESSENCE.—In any existing thing we can distinguish _what the thing is_,

its _essence_, from its actual _existence_. If we abstract from the actual

existence of a thing, not considering whether it actually exists or not,

and fix our attention merely on _what the thing is_, we are thinking of

its _real essence_. If we positively exclude the notion of actual

existence from our concept of the essence, and think of the latter as not

actually existing, we are considering it formally as a _possible essence_.

There is no being, even the Necessary Being, whose essence we cannot think

of in the former way, _i.e._ _without including_ in our concept the notion

of actual existence; but we cannot without error _positively exclude_ the

notion of actual existence from our concept of the Necessary Being, or

think of the latter as a _merely possible_ essence.

Taken in its widest sense, the essence of a thing (οὐσία, _essentia_, τὸ

τί ἐστι, _quod quid est_, _quidditas_) means _that by which a thing is

what it is_: _id quo res est id quod est_: that which gives us the answer

to the question, What is this thing? _Quid est haec res?_ τί ἐστι τόδε

τι.(84) Now of course any individual thing is what it is just precisely by

all the reality that is in it; but we have no direct or intuitive

intellectual insight into this reality; we understand it only by degrees;

we explore it from various points of view, abstracting and generalizing

partial aspects of it as we compare it with other things and seek to

classify and define it: _ratio humana essentias rerum quasi venatur_, as

the scholastics say: the human mind hunts, as it were, after the essences

or natures of things. Understanding the individual datum of sense

experience (what Aristotle called τόδε τι, or οὐσία πρώτη, and the

scholastics _hoc aliquid_, or _substantia prima_), _e.g._ this individual,

Socrates, first under the vaguest concept of being, then gradually under

the more and more determinate concepts of substance, corporeal, living,

sentient, rational, it finally forms the complex concept of his _species

infima_, expressed by his lowest class-name, “man,” and explicitly set

forth in the definition of his specific nature as a “rational animal”. Nor

does our reason fail to realize that by reaching this concept of the

_specific_ essence or nature of the individual, Socrates, it has not yet

grasped all the reality whereby the individual is what he is. It has

reached what he has in common with all other individuals of his class,

what is essential to him _as a man_; it has distinguished this from the

unanalysed something which makes him _this particular individual_ of his

class, and which makes his specific essence this _individual essence_

(_essentia_ “_atoma_,” or “_individua_”); and it has also distinguished

his essence from those accidental and ever varying attributes which are

not essential to him as a man, and from those which are not essential to

him as Socrates. It is only the unfathomed individual essence, as existing

_hic et nunc_, that is _concrete_. All the mind’s generic and specific

representations of it—_e.g._ of Socrates as a corporeal substance, a

living being, a sentient being, a rational animal—are _abstract_, and all

more or less inadequate, none of them exhausting its knowable reality. But

it is only in so far as the mind is able to represent concrete individual

things by such abstract concepts, that it can attain to _intellectual_

knowledge of their nature or reality. Hence it is that by the term

“essence,” simply and _sine addito_, we always mean the essence as grasped

by abstract generic or specific concepts (ἔιδος, _species_), and as thus

capable of definition (λόγος, _ratio rei_). “The essence,” says St.

Thomas, “is that by which the thing is constituted in its proper genus or

species, and which we signify by the definition which states what the

thing is”.(85) Thus understood, the essence is abstract, and gives the

specific or generic type to which the individual thing belongs; but we may

also mean by essence, the concrete essence, the individual person or thing

(_persona_, _suppositum_, _res individua_). The relations between the

objects of those two concepts of essence will be examined later.

Since the specific essence is conceived as the most fundamental reality in

the thing, and as the seat and source of all the properties and activities

of the thing, it is sometimes defined or described, in accordance with

this notion of it, as the primary constitutive of the thing and the source

of all the properties of the thing. Conceived as the foundation of all the

properties of the thing it is sometimes called _substance_ (οὐσία,

_substantia_). Regarded as the source of the thing’s activities, and the

principle of its growth or development, it is called the _nature_ of the

thing (φύσις, _natura_, from φύω, _nascor_).(86)

Since what makes a thing that which it is, by the same fact differentiates

this thing from every other thing, the essence is rightly conceived as

that which gives the thing its characteristic being, thereby marking it

off from all other being. In reality, of course, each individual being is

distinct by all that it is from every other. But since we get our

intellectual knowledge of things by abstracting, comparing, generalizing,

and classifying partial aspects of them, we apprehend part of the

imperfectly grasped abstract essence of each individual as common to other

classes (generic), and part as peculiar to that class itself

(differential); and thus we differentiate classes of things by what is

only part of their essence, by what we call the _differentia_ of each

class, _distinguishing mentally_ between it and the generic element: which

two are really _one_, really identical, in every individual of the species

thus defined and classified.

But in the Aristotelian and scholastic view of the constitution of any

_corporeal_ thing, there is a danger of taking what is really only part of

the essence of such a thing for the whole essence. According to this view

all corporeal substance is essentially composite, constituted by two

really distinct, substantial principles, primal matter (πρώτη ὕλη,

_materia prima_) and substantial form (ἔιδος, μορφή) united substantially,

as potential and actual principles, to form one composite nature or

essence. Now the kind, or species, or specific type, to which a body

belongs—_e.g._, a horse, an oak, gold, water, etc.—depends upon the

substantial form which actualizes the matter or potential principle. In so

far as the corporeal essence is known to us at all it is known through the

form, which is the principle of all the characteristic properties and

activities of that particular kind of body. Hence it is quite natural that

the εἲδος, μόρφη, or _forma substantialis_ of a body should often be

referred to as the specific essence of the body, though of course the

essence of the body really includes the material as well as the formal

factor.

We may look at the essence of any being from two points of view. If we

consider it as it is conceived actually to exist in the being, we call it

the _physical essence_. If we consider it after the manner in which it is

apprehended and defined by our intellects through generic and

differentiating concepts, we call it the _metaphysical essence_. Thus, the

essence of man conceived by the two defining concepts, “rational animal,”

is the metaphysical essence; the essence of man as known to be composed of

the two really distinct substantial principles, soul and body, is the

physical essence. Understood in this way both are one and the same essence

considered from different points of view—as existing in the actual order,

and as conceived by the mind.(87)

The physical essence of any being, understood as the constitutive

principle or principles from which all properties spring, is either

_simple_ or _composite_ according as it is understood to consist of one

such constitutive principle, or to result from the substantial union of

two constitutive principles, a material and a formal. Thus, the essence of

God, the essence of a purely spiritual being, the essence of the human

soul, are physically simple; the essence of man, the essences of all

corporeal beings, are physically composite.

According to our mode of conceiving, defining and classifying essences by

means of the abstract generic and differential grades of being which we

apprehend in them, all essences, even physically simple essences, are

conceived as logically and metaphysically composite. Moreover we speak and

think of their generic and differential factors as “material” and “formal”

respectively, after the analogy of the composition of corporeal or

physically composite essences from the union of two really distinct

principles, matter and form; the analogy consisting in this, that as

matter is the indeterminate principle which is determined and actuated by

form, so the _generic_ concept is the indeterminate concept which is made

definite and specific by that of the _differentia_.(88) But when we think

of the _genus_ of any corporeal essence as “material,” and the

_differentia_ as “formal,” we must not consider these “metaphysical parts”

as really distinct; whereas the “physical parts” of a corporeal substance

(such as man) are really distinct. The genus (animal), although a

metaphysical part, expresses the _whole essence_ (man) in an indeterminate

way; whereas the “matter” which is a physical part, does not express the

whole essence of man, nor does the soul which is also a physical part, but

only both together. Not a little error has resulted from the confusion of

thought whereby _genus_ and _differentia_ have been regarded as material

and formal constitutives in the literal sense of those expressions.

14. CHARACTERISTICS OF ABSTRACT ESSENCES.—When we consider the essences of

things not as actually existing, but as intrinsically possible—the

abstract, metaphysical essences, therefore—we find that when as objects of

our thought they are analysed into their simplest constituents and

compared or related with themselves and with one another they present

themselves to our minds in these relations as endowed with certain more or

less remarkable characteristics.

(_a_) In the first place, being abstract, they present themselves to the

mind as being what they are independently of actual existence at any

particular time or place. Their intelligibility is something apart from

any relation to any actual time or place. Being intrinsically possible,

they might exist at any time or place; but as possible, they are out of

time and out of place—_detemporalized_ and _delocalized_, if we may be

permitted to use such expressions.(89)

(_b_) Furthermore, since the intellect forms its notions of them, through

the aid of the senses and the imagination, from actual realizations of

themselves or their constituent factors, and since it understands them to

be intrinsically possible, or free from intrinsic incompatibility of their

constituent factors, it conceives them to be capable of indefinitely

repeated actualizations throughout time and space—unless it sees some

special reason to the contrary, as it does in the case of the Necessary

Being, and (according to some philosophers) in the case of purely

immaterial beings or pure spirits. That is to say it _universalizes_ them,

and sees them to be capable of existing at any and every conceivable time

and place. This relation of theirs to space is not likely to be confounded

with the _immensity_ or _ubiquity_ of God. But their corresponding

relation to time is sometimes described as _eternity_; and if it is so

described it must be carefully distinguished from the _positive_ eternity

of God, the Immutable Being. To distinguish it from the latter it is

usually described as _negative_ eternity,—this indifference of the

possible essence to actual existence at any particular point of time.

But apart from this relation which we conceive it as having to

existence in the order of actual reality, can we, or do we, or

must we conceive it as in itself an intrinsic possibility _from

all eternity_, in the sense that it _never began_ to be

intrinsically possible, and will never cease to be so? Must we

attribute to it a _positive_ eternity, not of course of actuality

or existence, but of _ideal_ being, as an object of thought to an

Eternally Existing Mind? What is this supposed eternal possibility

of the possible essence? Is it nothing actual: the possible as

such is nothing actual. But is it anything real? Has it only ideal

being—_esse ideale_ or _intentionale_? And has it this only in and

from the human mind, or independently of the human mind? And also

independently of the _actual_ essences from which the human mind

gets the data for its thought,—so that we must ascribe to it an

_eternal_ ideal being? To these questions we shall return

presently.

(_c_) Thirdly, essences considered apart from their actual existence, and

compared with their own constitutive factors or with one another, reveal

to the mind relations which the mind sees to be _necessary_, and which it

formulates for itself in _necessary_ judgments,—judgments _in materia

necessaria_. By virtue of the principle of identity an abstract essence is

_necessarily_ what it is, what the mind conceives it to be, what the mind

conceives as its definition. Man, as an object of thought, is

_necessarily_ a rational animal, whether he actually exists or not. And if

he is thought of as existing, he cannot at the same time be thought of as

non-existing,—by the principle of contradiction. An existing man is

necessarily an existing man,—by the principle of identity. These logical

principles are rooted in the nature of reality, whether actual or

possible, considered as an _object of thought_. There is thus a necessary

relation between any complex object of thought and each of the constituent

factors into which the mind can analyse it. And, similarly, there is a

necessary negative relation—a relation of exclusion—between any object of

thought and anything which the mind sees to be incompatible with that

object as a whole, or with any of its constituent factors.

Again, the mind sees necessary relations between abstract essences

compared with one another. Five and seven are _necessarily_ twelve.

Whatever begins to exist actually _must_ have a cause. Contingent being,

if such exists, is _necessarily_ dependent for its existence on some other

actually existing being. If potential being is actualized it _must_ be

actualized by actual being. The three interior angles of a triangle are

_necessarily_ equal to two right angles. And so on.

But is the abstract essence itself—apart from all mental analysis of it,

apart from all comparison of it with its constituent factors or with other

essences—in any sense _necessary_? There is no question of its actual

existence, but only of itself as an object of thought. Now our thought

does not seem to demand _necessarily_, or have a _necessary_ connexion

with, any particular object of which we do _de facto_ think. What we do

think of is determined by our experience of _actual_ things. And the

things which we conceive to be possible, by the exercise of our reason

upon the data of our senses, memory and imagination, are determined as to

their nature and number by our experience of actual things, even although

they themselves can and do pass beyond the domain of actually experienced

things. The only necessary object of thought is reality in general: for

the exercise of the function of thought necessarily demands an object, and

this object must be reality of some sort. Thought, as we saw, begins with

actual reality. Working upon this, thought apprehends in it the

foundations of those necessary relations and judgments already referred

to. Considering, moreover, the actual data of experience, our thought can

infer from these the actual existence of one Being Who must exist by a

necessity of His Essence.

But, furthermore, must all the possible essences which the mind

does or can actually think of, be conceived as _necessarily

possible_ in the same sense in which it is suggested that they

must be conceived as eternally possible? To this question, too, we

shall return presently.

(_d_) Finally, possible essences appear to the mind as _immutable_, and

consequently _indivisible_. This means simply that the relations which we

establish between them and their constitutive factors are not only

necessary but immutable: that if any constitutive factor of an essence is

conceived as removed from it, or any new factor as added, we have no

longer the original essence but some other essence. If “animal” is a being

essentially embodying the two objective concepts of “organism” and

“sentient,” then on removing either we have no longer the essence

“animal”. So, too, by adding to these some other element compatible with

them, _e.g._ “rational,” we have no longer the essence “animal,” but the

essence “man”. Hence possible essences have been likened to numbers,

inasmuch as if we add anything to, or subtract anything from, any given

number, we have now no longer the original number but another.(90) This,

too, is only an expression of the laws of identity and contradiction.

We might ask, however, whether, apart from analysis and comparison

of an abstract object of thought with its constitutive notes or

factors, such a possible essence is in itself _immutably_

possible. This is similar to the question whether we can or must

conceive such a possible essence as eternally and necessarily

possible.

15. GROUNDS OF THOSE CHARACTERISTICS.—In considering the grounds or

reasons of the various characteristics just enumerated it may be well to

reflect that when we speak of the _intrinsic possibility_ of a possible

essence we conceive the latter as something complex, which we mentally

resolve into its constitutive notes or factors or principles, to see if

these are compatible. If they are we pronounce the essence intrinsically

possible, if not we pronounce it intrinsically impossible. For our minds,

absence of internal incompatibility in the content of our concept of any

object is the test of its intrinsic possibility. Whatever fulfils this

test we consider capable of existing. But what about the possibility of

the notes, or factors, or principles themselves, whereby we define those

essences, and by the union of which we conceive those essences to be

constituted? How do we know that those abstract principles or factors—no

one of which can actually exist alone, since all are abstract—can in

certain combinations form _possible_ objects of thought? We can know this

only because we have either experienced such objects as actual, or because

we infer their possibility from objects actually experienced. And

similarly our knowledge of what is impossible is based upon our experience

of the actual. Since, moreover, our experience of the actual is finite and

fallible, we may err in our judgments as to what essences are, and what

are not, intrinsically possible.(91)

If now we ask ourselves what intelligible reason can we assign for the

characteristics just indicated as belonging to possible essences, we must

fix our attention first of all on the fundamental fact that the human

intellect always apprehends its object _in an abstract condition_. It

contemplates the essence apart from the existence in which the essence is

subject to circumstances of time and place and change; it grasps the

essence in a static condition as simply identical with itself and distinct

from all else; it sees the essence as indifferent to existence at any

place or time; reflecting then on the actualization of this essence in the

existing order of things, it apprehends the essence as capable of

indefinite actualizations (except in cases where it sees some reason to

the contrary), _i.e._ it _universalizes_ the essence; comparing it with

its constituent notes or elements, and with those of other essences, it

sees and affirms certain relations (of identity or diversity,

compatibility or incompatibility, between those notes or elements) as

holding good _necessarily_ and _immutably_, and independently of the

actual embodiment of those notes or elements in any object existing at any

particular place or time. All these features of the relations between the

constituents of abstract, possible essences, seem so far to be adequately

accounted for by the fact that the intellect apprehends those essences _in

the abstract_: the data in which it apprehends them being given to it

through sense experience. What may be inferred from the fact that the

human intellect has this power of abstract thought, is another

question(92). But granting that it does apprehend essences in this manner,

we seem to have in this fact a sufficient explanation of the features just

referred to.

We have, however, already suggested other questions about the reality of

those possible essences. Is their possibility, so far as known to us,

explained by our experience of actual things? Or must we think them as

eternally, necessarily and immutably possible? From the manner in which we

must apprehend them, can we infer anything about the reality of an

Eternal, Immutable, Necessary Intelligence, in whose Thought and Essence

alone those essences, as apprehended by our minds, can find their ultimate

ground and explanation? These are the questions we must now endeavour to

examine.

16. POSSIBLE ESSENCES AS SUCH ARE SOMETHING DISTINCT FROM MERE LOGICAL

BEING, AND FROM NOTHINGNESS.—There have been philosophers who have held

that the actual alone is real, and only while it is actual; that a purely

(intrinsically) possible essence as such is nothing real; that the actual

alone is possible; that the purely possible as such is impossible. This

view is based on the erroneous assumption that whatever is or becomes

actual is so, or becomes so, by some sort of unintelligible fatalistic

necessity. Apart from the fact that it is incompatible with certain truths

of theism, such as the Divine Omnipotence and Freedom in creating, it also

involves the denial of all real becoming or change, and the assertion that

all actuality is eternal; for if anything becomes actual, it was

previously either possible or impossible; if impossible, it could never

become actual; if possible, then as possible it was something different

from the impossible, or from absolute nothingness. Moreover, the

intrinsically possible is capable of becoming actual, and may be

actualized if there exists some actual being with power to actualize it;

but absolute nothingness—or, in other words, the intrinsically

impossible—cannot be actualized, even by Omnipotence; therefore the

possible essence as such is something positive or real, as distinct from

nothingness. Finally, intrinsically possible essences can be clearly

distinguished from one another by the mind; but their negation which is

pure non-entity or nothingness cannot be so distinguished. It is therefore

clear that possible essences are in some true sense something positive or

real. From which it follows that nothingness, in the strict sense, is not

the mere absence or negation of actuality, but also the absence or

negation of that positive or real something which is intrinsic

possibility; in other words that nothingness in the strict sense means

intrinsic impossibility.

Even those who hold the opinion just rejected—that the purely possible

essence as such has no reality in any conceivable sense—would presumably

admit that it is an object of human thought at all events; they would

accord to it the being it has from the human mind which thinks it. It

would therefore be an _ens rationis_ according to this view, having only

the ideal being which consists in its being constituted and contemplated

by the human mind. That it has the ideal being, the _esse ideale_ or _esse

intentionale_, which consists in its being contemplated by the human mind

as an object of thought, no one will deny. But a little reflection will

show, firstly, that this ideal being is something more than the ideal

being of an _ens rationis_, of a mere logical entity; and, secondly, that

a possible essence must have some other ideal being than that which it has

in the individual human mind.

The possible essence is not a mere logical entity; for the latter cannot

be conceived as capable of existing apart from the human mind, in the

world of actual existences (3), whereas the former can be, and is in fact,

conceived as capable of such existence. Its ideal being in the human mind

is, therefore, something other than that of a mere logical entity.

The ideal being which it has in the human mind as an object of thought is

undoubtedly derived from the mind’s knowledge of actual things. We think

of the essences of actually experienced realities apart from their actual

existence. Thus abstracted, we analyse them, compare them, reason from

them. By these processes we can not merely attain to a knowledge of the

actual existence of other realities above and beyond and outside of our

own direct and immediate intuitional experience, but we can also form

concepts of multitudes of realities or essences as intrinsically possible,

thus giving these latter an ideal existence in our own minds. Here, then,

the question arises: Is this the only ideal being that can be ascribed to

such essences? In other words, are essences intrinsically possible because

_we think_ them as intrinsically possible? Or is it not rather the case

that we think them to be intrinsically possible because they are

intrinsically possible? Does our thought constitute, or does it not rather

merely discover, their intrinsic possibility? Does the latter result from,

or is it not rather presupposed by, our thought-activity? The second

alternative suggested in each of these questions is the true one. As our

thought is not the source of their actuality, neither is it the source of

their intrinsic possibility. Solipsism is the _reductio ad absurdum_ of

the philosophy which would reduce all _actuality_ experienced by the

individual mind to phases, or phenomena, or self-manifestations, of the

individual mind itself as the one and only actuality. And no less absurd

is the philosophy which would accord to all _intrinsically possible_

realities no being other than the ideal being which they have as the

thought-objects of the individual human mind. The study of the _actual_

world of direct experience leads the impartial and sincere inquirer to the

conclusion that it is in some true sense a manifestation of mind or

intelligence: not, however, of his own mind, which is itself only a very

tiny item in the totality of the actual world, but of one Supreme

Intelligence. And in this same Intelligence the world of possible essences

too will be found to have its original and fundamental ideal being.

17. POSSIBLE ESSENCES HAVE, BESIDES IDEAL BEING, NO OTHER SORT OF BEING OR

REALITY PROPER AND INTRINSIC TO THEMSELVES.—Before inquiring further into

the manner in which we attain to a knowledge of this Intelligence, and of

the ideal being of possible essences in this Intelligence, we may ask

whether, above and beyond such ideal being, possible essences have not

perhaps from all eternity some being or reality proper and intrinsic to

themselves; not indeed the actual being which they possess when actualized

in time, but yet some kind of _intrinsic_ reality as distinct from the

_extrinsic_ ideal being, or _esse intentionale_, which consists merely in

this that they are objects of thought present as such to a Supreme

Intelligence or Mind.

Some few medieval scholastics(93) contended that possible essences have

from all eternity not indeed the existence they may receive by creation or

production in time, but an intrinsic essential being which, by creation or

production, may be transferred to the order of actual existences, and

which, when actual existence ceases (if they ever receive it), still

continues immutable and incorruptible: what these writers called the _esse

essentiae_, as distinct from the _esse existentiae_, conceiving it to be

intermediate between the latter on the one hand and mere ideal or logical

being on the other, and hence calling it _esse diminutum_ or _secundum

quid_. Examining the question from the standpoint of theism, these authors

seem to have thought that since God understands these essences as possible

from all eternity, and since this knowledge must have as its term or

object something real and positive, these essences must have some real and

proper intrinsic being from all eternity: otherwise they would be simply

nothingness, and nothingness cannot be the term of the Divine

Intelligence. But the obvious reply is that though possible essences as

such are _nothing actual_ they must be distinguished as realities, capable

of actually existing, from _absolute nothingness_; and that as thus

distinguished from absolute nothingness they are really and positively

intelligible to the Divine Mind, as indeed they are even to the human

mind. To be intelligible they need not have actual being. They must, no

doubt, be capable of having actual being, in order to be understood as

realities: it is precisely in this understood capability that their

reality consists, for the real includes not only what actually exists but

whatever is capable of actual existence. Whatever is opposed to absolute

nothingness is real; and this manifestly includes not only the actual but

whatever is intrinsically possible.

Realities or essences which have not actual being have only ideal being;

and ideal being means simply presence in some mind as an object of

thought. Scholastic philosophers generally(94) hold that possible essences

as such have no other being than this; that before and until such essences

actually exist they have of themselves and in themselves no being except

the ideal being which they have as objects of the Divine Intelligence and

the virtual being they have in the Divine Omnipotence which may at any

time give them actual existence. One convincing reason for this view is

the consideration that if possible essences as such had from all eternity

any proper and intrinsic being in themselves, God could neither create nor

annihilate. For in that hypothesis essences, on becoming actual, would not

be produced _ex nihilo_, inasmuch as before becoming actual they would in

themselves and from all eternity have had their own proper real being; and

after ceasing to be actual they would still retain this. But creation is

the production of _the whole reality_ of actual being from nothingness;

and is therefore impossible if the actual being is merely produced from an

essence already real, _i.e._ having an eternal positive reality of its

own. The same is true of annihilation. The theory of eternally existing

uncreated _matter_ is no less incompatible with the doctrine of creation

than this theory of eternally real and uncreated forms or essences.

Again, what could this supposed positive and proper reality of the

possible essence be? If it is anything distinct from the mere ideal being

of such an essence, as it is assumed to be, it must after all be _actual_

being of some sort, which would apparently have to be actualized again in

order to have actual existence! Finally, this supposed eternal reality,

proper to possible essences, cannot be anything uncreated. For whatever is

uncreated is God; and since it is these supposed proper realities of

possible essences that are made actual, and constitute the existing

created universe, the latter would be in this view an actualization of the

Divine Essence itself,—which is pantheism pure and simple. And neither can

this supposed eternal reality, proper to possible essences, be anything

created. For such creation would be eternal and necessary; whereas God’s

creative activity is admitted by all scholastics to be essentially free;

and although they are not agreed as to whether “creation from all

eternity” (“_creatio ab aeterno_”) is possible, they are agreed that it is

not a fact.

Possible essences as such are therefore nothing actual. Furthermore, as

such they have in themselves no positive being. But they are not therefore

unreal. They are positively intelligible as capable of actual existence,

and therefore as distinct from logical entities or _entia rationis_ which

are not capable of such existence. They are present as objects of thought

to mind; and to some mind other than the individual human mind. About this

ideal being which they have in this Mind we have now in the next place to

inquire.

18. INFERENCES FROM OUR KNOWLEDGE OF POSSIBLE ESSENCES.—We have stated

that an impartial study of the _actual_ world will lead to the conclusion

that it is dependent on a Supreme Intelligence; and we have suggested that

in this Supreme Intelligence also possible essences as such have their

primary ideal being (16, 17). When the existence of God has been

established—as it may be established by various lines of argument—from

_actual_ things, we can clearly see, as will be pointed out presently,

that in the Divine Essence all possible essences have the ultimate source

of their possibility. But many scholastic philosophers contend that the

nature and properties of possible essences, as apprehended by the human

mind, furnish a distinct and conclusive argument for the existence of a

Supreme Uncreated Intelligence.(95) Others deny the validity of such a

line of reasoning, contending that it is based on misapprehension and

misinterpretation of those characteristics.

All admit that it is not human thought that makes essences

possible: they are intelligible to the human mind because they are

possible, not _vice versa_.(96) For the human mind the immediate

source and ground of their intrinsic possibility and

characteristics is the fact that they are given to it in _actual_

experience while it has the power of considering them _apart from

their actual existence_.

But (1) are they not independent of experienced actuality, no less

than of the human mind, so that we are forced to infer from them

the reality of a Supreme Eternal Mind in which they have eternal

ideal being?

(2) Is not any possible essence (_e.g._ “water,” or “a triangle”)

so necessarily what it is that even if it never did and never will

exist, nay even were there no human or other finite mind to

conceive it, it would still be what it is (_e.g._ “a chemical

compound of oxygen and hydrogen,” or “a plane rectilinear

three-sided figure”)—so that there must be some Necessarily

Existing Intelligence in and from which it has this necessary

truth as a possible essence?(97) These essences, as known to us,

are so far from being grounded in, or explained by, the things of

our actual experience, that we rather regard the latter as

grounded in the former. Do we not consider possible essences as

the prototypes and exemplars to which actual things must conform

in order to be actual, in order to exist at all?(98)

(3) Finally, the relations which we apprehend as obtaining between

them, we see to be necessary and immutable relations. They embody

necessary truths which are for our minds the standards of all

truth. Such necessary truths cannot be grounded either in the

contingent human mind, or in the contingent and mutable actuality

of the things of our immediate experience. Therefore we can and

must infer from them the reality of a Necessary, Immutable Being,

of whose essence they must be imitations.

If, then, this ideal order of intrinsically possible essences is

logically and ontologically prior to the contingent actualizations

of any of them (even though it be posterior to them _in the order

of our knowledge_, which is based on _actual experience_), there

must be likewise ontologically prior to all contingent actualities

(including our own minds) some _Necessary Intelligence_ in which

this order of possible essences has its ideal being.

19. CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THOSE INFERENCES.—The validity of the

general line of argument indicated in the preceding paragraphs has

been seriously questioned. Among other criticisms the following

points have been urged(99):—

(1) _Actual_ things furnish the basis of irrefragable proofs of

the existence of God—the Supreme, Necessary, Eternal, Omniscient,

and Omnipotent Being. But we are here inquiring whether a mind

which has not yet so analysed actual being as to see how it

involves this conclusion, or a mind which abstracts altogether

from the evidence furnished by actual things for this conclusion,

can prove the existence of such a being from the separate

consideration of possible essences, their attributes and

relations. Now it is not evident that to such a mind possible

essences reveal themselves as having _eternal_ ideal being. Such a

mind is, no doubt, conscious that it is not itself the cause of

their possibility. But it sees that actual things _plus_ the

abstract character of its own thought account sufficiently for all

their features as it knows them. To the question: Is not their

ideal being _eternal_? it can only answer: That will depend on

whether the world of actual things can be shown to involve the

existence of an Eternal Intelligence. Until this is proved we

cannot say whether possible essences have any ideal being other

than that which they have in human minds.

(2) The actual things from which we get our concepts of possible

essences do not exist _necessarily_. But, granted their existence,

we know from them that certain essences are _de facto_ possible.

They are not _necessarily_ given to us as possible, any more than

actual things are necessarily given to us as actual. Of course,

when they are thought of at all, they are, as objects of thought,

necessarily and immutably identical with themselves, and related

to one another as mutually compatible or incompatible, etc. But

this necessity of relations, hypothetical as it is and contingent

on the mental processes of analysis and comparison, involved as it

is in the very nature of being and thought, and expressed as it is

in the principles of identity and contradiction, is just as true

of actual contingent essences as of possible essences;(100) and it

is something very different from the sort of necessity claimed for

possible essences by the contention that they must be conceived as

having ideal being _necessarily_. The ideal being they have in the

human mind is certainly not necessary: the human mind might never

have conceived these possible essences.

But must the human mind conceive a possible essence as having

_some_ ideal being _necessarily_? No; unless that mind has already

convinced itself, from a study of _actual_ things, that an

Eternal, Necessary, Omniscient Intelligence exists: to which, of

course, such essences would be eternally and necessarily present

as objects of thought. If the human mind had already reached this

conviction it could then see that “even if there were no human

intellect, things would still be true in relation to the Divine

Intellect. But if both intellects were, _per impossibile_,

conceived as non-existent truth would persist no longer.”(101)

Suppose, therefore, that it has not yet reached this conviction,

or abstracts altogether from the existence of God as known from

_actual_ things; and then, further, imagines the actual things of

its experience and all human intellects and finite intellects of

whatsoever kind as non-existent: must it still conceive possible

things as possible? No; possibility and impossibility, truth and

falsity will now have ceased to have any meaning. After such

attempted abstraction the mind would have before it only what

Balmes describes as “the abyss of nothing”. And Balmes is right in

saying that the mind is unable “to abstract all existence”. But

the reason of the inability is not, as Balmes contends, because

when it has removed actual things and finite minds there still

remains in spite of it a system or order of possible essences

which forces it to infer and posit the existence of an Eternal,

Necessary Mind as the source and ground of that order. The reason

rather is because the mind sees that the known _actual_ things,

from which it got all its notions of possible essences,

necessarily imply, as the only intelligible ground of their

actuality, the existence of a Necessary Being, in whose

Intelligence they must have been contained ideally, and in whose

Omnipotence they must have been contained virtually, from all

eternity. From contingent _actuality_, as known to it, the mind

can argue to the eternal actuality of Necessary Being, and to the

impossibility either of a state of absolute nothingness, or of an

order of purely possible things apart from all actuality.

(3) Of course, whether the mind has thus thought out the ultimate

implications of the actuality of experienced things or not, once

it has thought and experienced those things it cannot by any

effort banish the memory of them from its presence: they are there

still as objects of its thought even when it abstracts from their

actual existence. But if, while it has not yet seen that their

actuality implies the existence of a Necessary, Omniscient and

Omnipotent Being, it abstracts not only from their actual

existence but from the existence of all finite minds (itself

included), then in that state, so far as its knowledge goes, there

would be neither actual nor ideal nor possible being. Nor can the

fact that an ideal order of possible things still persists in its

own thought mislead it into concluding that such an ideal order

really persists in the hypothesis it has made. For it knows that

this ideal order still persists for itself simply because it

cannot “think itself away”. It sees all the time that if it could

effectively think itself away, this ideal order would have to

disappear with it, leaving nothing—so far as it knows—either

actual or possible. Mercier has some apposite remarks on this very

point. “From the fact,” he writes, “that those abstract essences,

grasped by our abstractive thought from the dawn of our reason,

have grown so familiar to us, we easily come to look upon them as

pre-existing archetypes or models of our thoughts and of things;

they form a fund of predicates by which we are in the habit of

interpreting the data of our experience. So, too, the

hypothetically necessary relations established by abstract thought

between them we come to regard as a sort of eternal system of

principles, endowed with a sort of legislative power, to which

created things and intelligences must conform. But they have

really no such pre-existence. The eternal pre-existence of those

essence-types, which Plato called the ‘intelligible world,’ the

τόπος νοητός, and the supposed eternal legislative power of their

relations, are a sort of mental optical illusion. Those abstract

essences, and the principles based upon them, are the products of

our mental activity working on the data of our actual experience.

When we enter on the domain of _speculative reflection_ ... they

are there before us; ... but we must not forget that reflection is

_consequent_ on the spontaneous thought-activity which—by working

abstractively on the actual data of sensible, contingent,

changeable, temporal realities—set them up there.... We know from

psychology how those ideal, abstract essence-types are formed....

But because we have no actual memory of their formation, which is

so rapid as practically to escape consciousness in spontaneous

thought, we are naturally prone to imagine that they are not the

product of our own mental action on the data of actual experience,

but that they exist in us, or rather above us, and independently

of us. We can therefore understand the psychological illusion

under which Plato wrote such passages as the following: ‘But if

anyone should tell me why anything is beautiful, either because it

has a blooming, florid colour, or figure, or anything else of the

kind, I dismiss all other reasons, for I am confounded by them

all; but I simply, wholly, and perhaps naïvely, confine myself to

this, that nothing else causes it to be beautiful, except either

the presence or communication of that abstract beauty, by whatever

means and in whatever way communicated; for I cannot yet affirm

with certainty, but only that by means of beauty all beautiful

things become beautiful (τῷ καλῷ τὰ καλὰ γίγνεται καλά). For this

appears to me the safest answer to give both to myself and others,

and adhering to this I think that I shall never fall [into

error].... And that by magnitude great things become great, and

greater things greater; and by littleness less things become

less.’(102) St. Augustine’s doctrine on the invariable laws of

numbers, on the immutable principles of wisdom, and on truth

generally, draws its inspiration from this Platonic

idealism.”(103)

But this Platonic doctrine, attributing to the abstract essences

conceived by our thought a reality independent both of our thought

and of the actual sense data from which directly or indirectly we

derive our concepts of them, is rejected as unsound by scholastics

generally. When we have proved from actual things that God exists,

and is the Intelligent and Free Creator of the actual world of our

direct experience, we can of course consider the Divine Intellect

as contemplating from all eternity the Divine Essence, and as

seeing therein the eternal archetypes or ideas of all actual and

possible essences. We may thus regard the Divine Mind as the

eternal τόπος νοητός, or _mundus intelligibilis_. This, of course,

is not Plato’s thought; it is what St. Augustine substituted for

Platonism, and very properly. But we must not infer, from this

truth, that when we contemplate possible essences, with all the

characteristics we may detect in them, we are contemplating this

_mundus intelligibilis_ which is the Divine Mind. This was the

error of the ontologists. They inferred that since possible

essences, as known by the human mind, have ideal being

independently of the latter and of all actual contingent reality,

the human mind in contemplating them has really an intuition of

them as they are seen by the Divine Intellect Itself in the Divine

Essence; so that, in the words of Gioberti, the _Primum

Ontologicum_, the Divine Being Himself, is also the _primum

logicum_, or first reality apprehended by human thought.(104)

Now those authors who hold that the ideal order of possible

essences contemplated by the human mind is seen by the latter, as

so contemplated, to have some being, some ideal being, really

independent of the human mind itself, and of the actual contingent

things from which they admit that the human mind derives its

knowledge of such essences,—these authors _do not hold_, but

_deny_, that this independent ideal being, which they claim for

these essences, is _anything Divine_, that it is the Divine

Essence as seen by the Divine Intellect to be imitable _ad

extra_.(105) Hence they cannot fairly be charged with the error of

ontologism.

Renouncing Plato’s exaggerated realism, and holding that our

knowledge of the ideal order of possible essences is derived by

our mind from its consideration of _actual_ things, they yet hold

that this ideal order is seen to have some sort of being or

reality independent both of the mind and of actual things.(106)

This is not easy to understand. When we ask, Is this supposed

independent being (or reality, or possibility) of possible

essences the ideal being they have in the Divine mind?—we are told

that it is not;(107) but that it is something from which we can

_infer, by reasoning_, this eternal, necessary, and immutable

ideal being of these same essences in the Divine Mind.

The considerations urged in the foregoing paragraphs will,

however, have shown that the validity of this line of reasoning

from possible essences to the reality of an Eternal, Divine,

Immutable Intelligence is by no means evident or free from

difficulties. Of course, when the existence of God has been proved

from actual things, the conception of the Divine Intelligence and

Essence as the ultimate source of all possible reality, no less

than of all actual reality, will be found to shed a great deal of

new light upon the intrinsic possibility of possible essences.

Since, however, our knowledge of the Divine is merely analogical,

and since God’s intuition of possible essences, as imitations of

His own Divine Essence, completely transcends our comprehension,

and is totally different from our abstractive knowledge of such

essences, our conception of the manner in which these essences are

related to the Divine Nature and the Divine Attributes, must be

determined after the analogy of the manner in which our own minds

are related to these essences.

20. ESSENCES ARE INTRINSICALLY POSSIBLE, NOT BECAUSE GOD CAN MAKE THEM

EXIST ACTUALLY; NOR YET BECAUSE HE FREELY WILLS THEM TO BE POSSIBLE; NOR

BECAUSE HE UNDERSTANDS THEM AS POSSIBLE; BUT BECAUSE THEY ARE MODES IN

WHICH THE DIVINE ESSENCE IS IMITABLE _ad extra_.—(_a_) The ultimate source

of the _extrinsic_ possibility of all contingent realities is the Divine

Omnipotence: just as the proximate source of the extrinsic possibility of

a statue is the power of the sculptor to educe it from the block of wood

or marble. But just as the power of the sculptor presupposes the

_intrinsic_ possibility of the statue, so does the Divine Omnipotence

presuppose the intrinsic possibility of all possible things. It is not, as

William of Ockam († 1347), a scholastic of the decadent period,

erroneously thought, because God can create things that such things are

intrinsically possible, but rather because they are intrinsically possible

He can create them.

(_b_) Not less erroneous is the _voluntarist_ theory of Descartes,

according to which possible essences are intrinsically possible because

God freely willed them to be possible.(108) The _actuality_ of all created

things depends, of course, on the free will of God to create them; but

that possible essences are what they are, and are related to each other

necessarily as they are, because God has willed them to be such, is

absolutely incredible. Descartes seems to have been betrayed into this

strange error by a false notion of what is requisite for the absolute

freedom and independence of the Divine Will: as if this demanded that God

should be free to will, _e.g._ that two _plus_ two be five, or that the

radii of a circle be unequal, or that creatures be independent of Himself,

or that blasphemy be a virtuous act! The intrinsic possibility of essences

is _not_ dependent on the Free Will of God; the actualization of possible

essences is; but God can will to actualize only such essences as He sees,

from comprehending His own Divine Essence, to be intrinsically possible.

But it derogates in no way from the supremacy of the Divine Will to

conceive its free volition as thus consequent on, and illumined by, the

Divine Knowledge; whereas it is incompatible with the wisdom and sanctity

of God, as well as inconceivable to the human mind, that the necessary

laws of thought and being—such as the principles of contradiction and

identity, the principle of causality, the first principles of the moral

order—should be what they are simply because God has freely willed them to

be so, and might therefore have been otherwise.

From the fact that we have no direct intuition of the Divine

Being, some philosophers have concluded that all speculation on

the relation of God to the world of our direct experience is

necessarily barren and fruitless. This is a phase of agnosticism;

and, like all error, it is the exaggeration of a truth: the truth

being that while we may reach real knowledge about the Divine

Nature and attributes by such speculation, we can do so only on

condition that we are guided by analogies drawn from God’s

creation, and remember that our concepts, as applied to God, are

analogical (2).

“We can know God only by analogy with contingent and finite

beings, and consequently the realities and laws of the contingent

and finite world must necessarily serve as our term of comparison.

But, among finite realities, we see an essential subordination of

the extrinsically possible to the intelligible, of this to the

intrinsically possible, and of this again to the essential type

which is presupposed by our thought. Therefore, _a pari_, we must

consider the omnipotent will of God, which is the first and

universal cause of all [contingent] existences, as under the

direction of the Divine Omniscience, and this in turn as having

for its object the Divine Essence and in it the essential types

whose intrinsic possibility is grounded on the necessary

imitability of the Divine Being.

“When, therefore, in defence of his position, Descartes argues

that ‘In God willing and knowing are one and the same; the reason

why He knows anything is because He wills it, and for this reason

only can it be true: _Ex hoc ipso quod Deus aliquid velit, ideo

cognoscit, et ideo tantum talis res est vera_’—he is only

confusing the issue. We might, indeed, retort the argument: ‘In

God willing and knowing are one and the same; the reason why He

wills anything is because He knows it, and for this reason only

can it be good: _Ex hoc ipso quod aliquid cognoscit, ideo vult, et

ideo tantum talis res est bona_,’ but both inferences are equally

unwarranted. For, though willing and knowing are certainly one and

the same _in God_, this one and the same thing is formally and for

our minds neither will nor intellect, but a reality transcending

will and intellect, a substance infinitely above any substances

known to us: ὑπερούσια, _supersubstantia_, as the Fathers of the

Church and the Doctors of the Schools call it. But of this

transcendent substance we have no intuitive knowledge. We must

therefore either abandon all attempts to find out anything about

it, or else apprehend it and designate it after the analogy of

what we know from direct experience about created life and mind.

And as in creatures will is not identical with intellect, nor

either of these with the nature of the being that possesses them;

so what we conceive in God under the concept of will, we must not

identify in thought with what we conceive in Him under the concept

of intellect, nor may we with impunity confound either in our

thought with the Nature or Essence of the Divine Being.”(109)

(_c_) Philosophers who deny the validity of all the arguments advanced by

theists in proof of the existence of a transcendent Supreme Being,

distinct from the world of direct human experience, endeavour to account

in various ways for the intrinsic possibility of abstract essences.

Agnostics either deny to these latter any reality whatsoever (16), or else

declare the problem of their reality insoluble. Monists of the materialist

type—who try to reduce all mind to matter and its mere mechanical energies

(11)—treat the question in a still more inadequate and unsatisfactory

manner; while the advocates of idealistic monism, like Hegel and his

followers, refer us to the supposed Immanent Mind of the universe for an

ultimate explanation of all intrinsic possibility. Certainly this must

have its ultimate source in some mind; and it is not in referring us to an

Eternal Mind that these philosophers err, but in their conception of the

relation of this mind to the world of direct actual experience. It is not,

however, with such theories we are concerned just now, but only with

theories put forward by theists. And among these latter it is surprising

to find some few(110) who maintain that the intrinsic possibility of

abstract essences depends ultimately and exclusively on these essences

themselves, irrespective of things actually experienced by the human mind,

irrespective of the human mind itself, and irrespective of the Divine Mind

and the Divine Nature.

As to this view, we have already seen (19) that if we abstract from all

human minds, and from all actual things that can be directly experienced

by such minds, we are face to face either with the alternative of absolute

nothingness wherein the true and the false, the possible and the

impossible, cease to have any intelligible meaning, or else with the

alternative of a Supreme, Eternal, Necessary, Omniscient and Omnipotent

Being, whose actual existence has been, or can be, inferred from the

actual data of human experience. Now the theist, who admits the existence

of such a Being, cannot fail to see that possible essences must have their

primary ideal being in the Divine Intellect, and the ultimate source of

their intrinsic possibility in the Divine Essence Itself. For, knowing

that God can actualize intrinsically possible essences by the creative

act, which is intelligent and free, he will understand that these essences

have their ideal being in the Divine Intellect; that the Divine Intellect

sees their intrinsic possibility by contemplating the Divine Essence as

the Uncreated Prototype and Exemplar of all intrinsically possible things;

and that these latter are intrinsically possible precisely because they

are possible adumbrations or imitations of the Divine Nature.

(_d_) But are we to conceive that essences are intrinsically possible

precisely because the Divine Intellect, by understanding them, makes them

intrinsically possible? Or should we rather conceive their intrinsic

possibility as antecedent to this act by which the Divine Intellect

understands them, and as dependent only on the Divine Essence Itself, so

that essences would be intrinsically possible simply because the Divine

Essence is what it is, and because they are possible imitations or

expressions of it? Here scholastics are not agreed.

Some(111) hold that the intrinsic possibility of essences is _formally_

constituted by the act whereby the Divine Intellect, contemplating the

Divine Essence, understands the latter to be indefinitely imitable _ad

extra_; so that as the actuality of things results from the _Fiat_ of the

Divine Will, and as their extrinsic possibility is grounded in the Divine

Omnipotence, so their intrinsic possibility is grounded in the Divine

Intellect. The latter, by understanding the Divine Essence, would not

merely give an ideal being to the intrinsic possibility of essences, but

would make those essences _formally_ possible, they being only _virtually_

possible in the Divine Essence considered antecedently to this act of the

Divine Intellect. Or, rather, as some Scotists explain the matter,(112)

this ideal being which possible essences have from the Divine Intellect is

not as extrinsic to them as the ideal being they have from the human

intellect, but is rather the very first being they can be said _formally_

to have, and is somehow intrinsic to them after the analogy of the being

which mere logical entities, _entia rationis_, derive from the human mind:

which being is intrinsic to these entities and is in fact the only being

they have or can have.

Others(113) hold that while, no doubt, possible essences have ideal being

in the Divine Intellect from the fact that they are objects of the Divine

Knowledge, yet we must not conceive these essences as deriving their

intrinsic possibility from the Divine Intellect. For intellect as such

presupposes its object. Just, therefore, as possible essences are not

intrinsically possible because they are understood by, and have ideal

being in, the human mind, so neither are they intrinsically possible

because they are understood by, and have ideal being in, the Divine Mind.

In order to be understood actually, in order to have ideal being, in order

to be objects of thought, they must be intelligible; and in order to be

intelligible they must be intrinsically possible. Therefore they are

formally constituted as intrinsically possible essences, not by the fact

that they are understood by the Divine Intellect, but by the fact that

antecedently to this act (in our way of conceiving the matter: for there

is _really_ no priority of acts or attributes in God) they are already

possible imitations of the Divine Essence Itself.

This view seems preferable as being more in accordance with the analogy of

what takes place in the human mind. The speculative intellect in man does

not constitute, but presupposes its object. Now, while _actual_ things are

the objects of God’s _practical science_—the “_scientia visionis_,” which

reaches what is freely decreed by the Divine Will,—_possible_ things are

the objects of God’s _speculative_ science—the “_scientia simplicis

intelligentiae_,” which is not, like the former, productive of its object,

but rather contemplative of objects presented to it by and in the Divine

Essence.

Why, then, ultimately will the notions “square” and “circle” not coalesce

so as to form one object of thought for the human mind, while the notions

“equilateral” and “triangle” will so coalesce? Because the Essence of God,

the Necessary Being, the First Reality, and the Source of all contingent

reality, affords no basis for the former as a possible expression or

imitation of Itself; in other words, because Being is not expressible by

nothingness, and a “square circle” is nothingness: while the Divine

Essence does afford a basis for the latter; because Necessary Being is in

some intelligible way imitated, expressed, manifested, by whatever has any

being to distinguish it from nothingness, and an “equilateral triangle”

has such being and is not nothingness.

It is hardly necessary to add that when we conceive the Divine Essence,

contemplated by the Divine Intellect, as containing in itself the

exemplars or prototypes of all possible things, we are not to understand

the Divine Essence as the _formal_ exemplar of each, or, _a fortiori_, as

a vast collection of such formally distinct exemplars; but only as

_virtually_ and _equivalently_ the exemplar of each and all. We are not to

conceive that possible essences are seen by the Divine Intellect imaged in

the Divine Essence _as in a mirror_, but rather _as in their supreme

source and principle_: so that they are faint and far off reflections of

It, and, when actualized, become for us the only means we have, in this

present state, for reaching any knowledge of the Deity: _videmus nunc per

speculum_.(114)

21. DISTINCTION BETWEEN ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE IN ACTUALLY EXISTING

CONTINGENT OR CREATED BEINGS.—Passing now from the consideration of

possible essences as such, to the consideration of actually existing

essences, we have to examine a question which has given rise to a great

deal of controversy, partly on account of its inherent difficulty, and

partly because of a multitude of ambiguities arising from confusion of

thought: What is the nature of the distinction between essence and

existence in the actually existing things of our experience?

We have seen already that the _concepts_ of essence and existence are

distinct from each other (12, 13); in other words, that in all cases there

is at least a _logical_ distinction between the essence and the existence

of any being. We must, however, distinguish between created or contingent

beings and the Uncreated, Necessary, Self-Existent Being. The latter

exists _essentially_, eternally, by His own Essence, so that in Him

essence and existence are _really identical_. His essence is _formally_

His Existence; and, therefore, in thinking of His Essence we cannot

positively exclude the notion of existence or think of Him as

non-existent. The distinction between essence and existence, which we find

in our thoughts, is, therefore, when applied to God, a _purely logical_

distinction, due solely to our finite human mode of thinking, and having

no ground or basis or reason in the reality which is the object of our

thought. On this there is complete unanimity among scholastic

philosophers.

But while we conceive that God actually exists by that whereby He is God,

by His Essence Itself, we do not conceive that any created or contingent

being exists by that whereby it is what it is, by its essence. We do not,

for example, regard the essence of Socrates, whether specific or

individual (that whereby he is a _man_, or that whereby he is _this_ man,

Socrates), as that whereby he actually exists. In other words, the essence

of the existing Socrates, being a contingent essence, does not necessarily

demand or imply that it actually exist. Our concept of such an essence

does not include the note of actual existence. Therefore if we find such

an essence actually existing we consider this actually existing essence as

caused or produced, and conserved in existence, by some other being,

_viz._ by the Necessary Being: so that if it were not so created and

conserved it would be a pure possibility and nothing actual.(115) The same

difference between the Necessary Being and contingent beings will be seen

from considering their existence. The abstract concept of existence is

rendered definite and determinate by the essence which it actualizes. Now

every finite essence is of some particular kind; and its existence is

rendered determinate by the fact that it is the existence of a definite

kind of essence. The existence of a contingent being we conceive as the

actuality of its essence; and its essence as a definite potentiality of

existence. Thus if we conceive existence as a perfection it is restricted

by the finite nature of the potentiality which it actualizes. But the

existence of the Necessary Being is the plenitude of actuality, an

existence not restricted by being the existence of any essence that is

determinate because finite, but of an essence that is determinate by being

above all genera and species, by being infinite, by being Itself pure

actuality, in no sense potential but perfectly and formally identical with

actual existence. While, therefore, the essence of the Necessary Being is

a necessarily existing essence, that of a contingent being is not

necessarily existent, but is conceived as a potentiality which has been

_de facto_ actualized or made existent by the Necessary Being, and which

may again cease to be actually existent.(116) On this too there is

unanimity among scholastic philosophers.

We distinguish mentally or logically between the essence of an actually

existing contingent being and its existence; considering the former as the

potential principle, in relation to the latter as the actualizing

principle, of the contingent existing reality. But is the distinction

between such an essence and its existence something more than a logical

distinction? Is it a real distinction? This is the question in dispute.

And in order to avoid misunderstanding, we must be clear on these two

points: firstly, of what essence and existence is there question? and

secondly, what exactly are we to understand by a real distinction in this

matter?

22. STATE OF THE QUESTION.—In the first place, there is no question here

of the relation of a _possible_ essence as such to existence. The possible

essence of a contingent being, as such, has no reality outside the Divine

Essence, Intellect, Will, and Omnipotence. Before the world was created

the possible essences of all the beings that constitute it were certainly

really distinct from the actual existence of these beings which do

constitute the created universe. On this point there can be no difference

of opinion. To contend that it is on the eternal reality of the possible

essence that actual existence supervenes, when a contingent being begins

to exist, would be equivalent to contending that it is the Divine Essence

that becomes actual in the phenomena of our experience: which is the error

of Pantheism.

Again, before a contingent thing comes into actual existence it may be

virtually and potentially in the active powers and passive potentialities

of other actually existing contingent things: as the oak, for instance, is

in the passive potentiality of the acorn and in the active powers of the

natural agencies whereby it is evolved from the acorn; or the statue in

the block of marble and in the mind and artistic power of the sculptor.

But neither is there any question here of the relation of such potential

being or essence as a thing has in its causes to the actual existence of

this thing when actually produced. Whatever being or essence it has in its

active and passive causes is certainly really distinct from the existence

which the thing has when it has been actually produced. Nor is there any

doubt or dispute about this point. At the same time much controversy is

due to misunderstandings arising from a confusion of thought which fails

to distinguish between the essence as purely possible, the essence as

virtually or potentially in its causes, and the essence as actually

existing. It is about the distinction between the latter and its existence

that the whole question is raised. And it must be borne in mind that this

essence, whether it is really distinct from its existence or not, is

itself a positive reality from the moment it is created or produced. The

question is whether the creative or productive act—whereby this essence is

placed “outside its causes,” and is now no longer merely possible, or

merely virtual or potential in its causes, but something real _in

itself_—has for its term _one reality_, or _two realities_, _viz._ the

essence as real subjective potentiality of existence, and the existential

act or perfection whereby it is constituted actually existent.(117)

The question is exclusively concerned with the essence which began to

exist when the contingent being came into actual existence, and which

ceases to exist when, or if, this being again passes out of actual

existence; and the question is whether this essence which actually exists

is really distinct from the existence whereby it actually exists. Finally,

the question concerns the essence and existence of any and every actual

contingent reality, whether such reality be a substance or an accident. Of

course it is primarily concerned with the essence and existence of

substances; but it also applies to the essence and existence of accidents

in so far as these latter will be found to be really distinct from the

substances in which they inhere, and to have reality proper to themselves.

23. THE THEORY OF DISTINCTIONS IN ITS APPLICATION TO THE QUESTION.—In the

next place, what are we to understand by a _real_ distinction in this

matter? Ambiguity and obscurity of thought in regard to the theory of

_distinctions_, and in regard to the application of the theory to the

present question, has been probably the most fertile source of much

tedious and fruitless controversy in this connexion.

Anticipating what will be considered more fully at a later stage (30), we

must note here the two main classes of distinction which, by reflecting on

our thought-processes, we discover between the objects of our thought. The

_real_ distinction is that which exists in things independently of the

consideration of our minds; that which is discovered, but not made, by the

mind; that which is given to us in and with the data of our experience.

For example, the act of thinking is a reality other than, and therefore

_really_ distinct from, the mind that thinks; for the mind persists after

the act of thinking has passed away.

Opposed to this is the mental or logical distinction, which is the

distinction made by the mind itself between two different concepts of one

and the same reality; which is not in the reality independently of our

thought, but is introduced into it by our thought, regarding the same

reality under different aspects or from different points of view. The mind

never makes such a distinction without some ground or reason for doing so.

Sometimes, however, this reason will be found exclusively in the mind

itself—in the limitations of its modes of thought—and not in the reality

which is the matter or object of the thought. The distinction is then said

to be _purely_ logical or mental. Such distinctions are _entia rationis_,

logical entities. An example would be the distinction between the concept

“man” and the concept “rational animal,” or, in general, between any

definable object of thought and its definition; the distinction,

therefore, between the essence and the existence of the Necessary Being is

a purely logical distinction, for in a definition it is the essence of the

thing we define, and existence is of the essence or definition of the

Necessary Being.

Sometimes, again, the reason for making a mental distinction will be found

in the reality itself. What is one and the same reality presents different

aspects to the mind and evokes different concepts of itself in the mind:

though really one, it is virtually manifold; and the distinction between

the concepts of these various aspects is commonly known as a _virtual_

distinction. For example, when we think of any individual man as a

“rational animal,” though our concept of “animal nature” is distinct from

that of “rational nature,” we do not regard these in him as two realities

co-existing or combining to form his human nature, but only as two

distinct aspects under which we view the one reality which is his human

nature. And we view it under these two aspects because we have actual

experience of instances in which animal nature is really distinct and

separated from rationality, _e.g._, in the brute beast. Or, again, since

we can recognize three grades of life in man—vegetative, sentient, and

rational—we conceive the one principle of life, his soul, as virtually

three principles; and so we distinguish mentally or virtually between

three souls in man, although in reality there is only one. Or, once more,

when we think of the Wisdom, the Will, and the Omnipotence of God, we know

that although these concepts represent different aspects of the Deity,

these aspects are not distinct realities in Him; but that because of His

infinite perfection and infinite simplicity they are all objectively one

and the same self-identical reality.

A virtual distinction is said to be _imperfect_ (thus approaching nearer

to the nature of a purely logical distinction) when each of the concepts

whereby we apprehend the same reality only prescinds _explicitly_ from

what is expressed by the other, although one of them is found on analysis

to include _implicitly_ what is expressed by the other. Such is the

distinction between the _being_ and the _life_ of any living thing; or the

distinction between the spirituality and the immortality of the human

soul; or the distinction between _Infinite_ Wisdom and _Infinite_ Power:

the distinction between the divine attributes in general. A virtual

distinction is said to be _perfect_ (thus approaching nearer to the nature

of a real distinction) when neither of the concepts includes either

explicitly or implicitly what is expressed by the other. Such, for

instance, is the distinction between the principle of intellectual life

and the principle of animal or sentient life in man; for not only can

these exist separately (the former without the latter, _e.g._ in pure

spirits, the latter without the former, _e.g._ in brute beasts), but also

it will be found that by no analysis does either concept in any way

involve the other.(118)

Our only object in setting down the various examples just given is to

illustrate the general scholastic teaching on the doctrine of distinction.

In themselves they are not beyond dispute, for the general doctrine of

distinction is not easy of application in detail; but they will be

sufficient for our present purpose. Probably the greatest difficulty in

applying the general doctrine will be found to lie in discriminating

between virtual distinctions—especially perfect virtual distinctions—and

real distinctions.(119) And this difficulty will be appreciated still more

when we learn that a real distinction does not necessarily involve

_separability_ of the objects so distinguished. In other words there may

be, in a composite existing individual being, constitutive factors or

principles, or integral parts, each of which is a positive real entity,

really distinct from the others, and yet incapable of existing separately

or in isolation from the others. “Separability,” says Mercier,(120) “is

one of the signs of a real distinction; but it is neither essential to,

nor a necessary property of the latter. Two separable things are of course

really distinct from each other; but two entities may be really distinct

from each other without being separable or capable of existing apart from

each other. Thus we believe that the intellect and the will in man are

really distinct from each other, and both alike from the substance of the

human soul; yet they cannot exist isolated from the soul.” Therefore, even

though the objects which we apprehend as distinct, by means of distinct

concepts, be understood to be such that they cannot actually exist in

isolation from each other, but only as united in a composite individual

being, still if it can be shown that each of them has its own proper

reality independently of our thought, so that the distinction between them

is not the result of our thought, or introduced by our thought into the

individual thing or being which we are considering, then the distinction

must be regarded as real. If, on the other hand, it can be shown that the

different aspects which we apprehend in any _datum_ by means of distinct

concepts have not, apart from the consideration of the mind, apart from

the analytic activity of our own thought, each its own proper reality, but

are only distinct mental views of what is objectively one and the same

reality, then the distinction must be regarded as logical, not real,—and

this even although there may be in the richness and fulness of that one

reality comparatively to the limited capacity of our minds, as well as in

the very constitution and modes of thought of our minds themselves, a

reason or basis for, and an explanation of, the _multiplicity of concepts_

whereby we attain to an understanding of some _one reality_.

24. SOLUTIONS OF THE QUESTION.—Postponing further consideration of the

serious problems on the validity of knowledge and its relation to reality,

to which those reflections inevitably give rise, let us now return to the

main question: the nature of the distinction between the essence and the

existence of any actually existing contingent being. We need not be

surprised to find that the greatest minds have been unable to reach the

same solution of this question. For it is but a phase of the more general

metaphysical problem—at once both ontological and epistemological—of the

nature of reality and the relation of the human mind thereto. Nor will any

serious modern philosopher who is at all mindful of the wealth of current

controversial literature on this very problem, or of the endless variety

of conflicting opinions among contemporary thinkers in regard to it, be

disposed to ridicule the medieval controversies on the doctrine of

distinction as applied to essence and existence. No doubt there has been a

good deal of mere verbal, and perhaps trifling, argumentation on the

matter: it lends itself to the dialectical skill of the controversialist

who “takes sides,” as well as to the serious thought of the open-minded

investigator. It is not, however, through drawing different conclusions

from the same premisses that conflicting solutions of the question have

been reached, but rather through fundamentally different attitudes in

regard to the premisses themselves which different philosophers profess to

find in the common data of their experience. When we have once grasped

what philosophers mean by a logical or a real distinction as applied to

the relation between essence and existence we shall not get any very

material assistance towards the choice of a solution by considering at

length the arguments adduced on either side.(121)

Those who believe there is a real distinction(122) between the essence and

the existence of all actually existing contingent beings mean by this that

the real essence which comes into actual existence by creation, or by the

action of created causes, is a reality distinct from the existence whereby

it actually exists. The actually existing essence is the total term of the

creative or productive act; but what we apprehend in it under the concept

of _essence_ is really distinct from what we apprehend in it under the

concept of _existence_: the existence being a real principle which

_actualizes_ the essence, and this latter being itself another real

principle which is in itself a positive, subjective _potentiality_ of

existence.(123) Neither, of course, can actually exist without the other:

no actual existence except that of a real essence; no existing essence

except by reason of the existence which makes it actual. But these two

real principles of existing contingent being, inseparable as they are and

correlative, are nevertheless distinct realities—distinct in the objective

order and independently of our thought,—and form by their union a really

_composite_ product: the existing thing.

We might attempt to illustrate this by the analogy of a body and

its shape or colour. The body itself is really distinct from its

actual shape and colour: it may lose them, and yet remain the same

body; and it may acquire other shapes and colours. At any time the

body has actually some particular shape and colour; but that by

which it is formally so shaped and coloured is something really

different from the body itself. Furthermore, before the body

_actually_ possessed this particular shape and colour, these were

in it _potentially_: that is to say, there were then in the body

the real, passive, subjective potentialities of this particular

shape and colour. So too _that by which_ a real (contingent)

essence actually exists (_i.e._ the existential _act_, existence)

is really distinct from _that which_ actually exists (_i.e._ the

essence, the _potentiality_ of that existential act). The analogy

is, however, at best only a halting one. For while it is

comparatively easy to understand how the passive, subjective

_potentiality_ of a shape or colour can be _something real_ in the

_already actually existing_ body, it is not so easy to understand

how the _potentiality of existence_, _i.e._ the real essence, can

be anything that is itself real and really distinct from the

existence.(124) The oak is _really_ in the acorn, for the passive,

subjective potentiality of the oak is in the actual acorn; but is

this potentiality anything really distinct from the acorn? or

should we not rather say that the _actual_ acorn _is potentially_

the oak, or _is_ the potentiality of the oak? At all events even

if it is really distinct from the actual acorn, it is in the

actual acorn. But is it possible to conceive a _real, subjective

potentiality_ which _does not reside in anything actual_?(125) Now

if the real essence is really distinct from its existence it must

be conceived as a _real, subjective potentiality_ of existence.

Yet it cannot be conceived as a potentiality _in_ anything actual:

except indeed in the actually existing essence which is the

composite result of its union with the existential act. It is not

a real, subjective potentiality antecedently to the existential

act, and on which the latter is, as it were, superimposed:(126) in

itself, it is, in fact, nothing real except as actualized by the

latter; but, as we have already observed, the process of

actualization, whether by direct creation or by the action of

created causes, must be conceived as having for its total term or

effect a composite reality resulting from what we can at best

imperfectly describe as the union of two correlative, con-created,

or co-produced principles of being, a potential and an actual,

really distinct from each other: that whereby the thing _can_

exist, the potentiality of existence, the essence; and that

whereby the thing _does_ exist, the actuality of essence, the

existence. The description is imperfect because these principles

are not con-created or co-produced separately; but, rather, the

creation or production of an existing essence, the efficiency by

which it is “placed outside its causes,” has one single, though

composite, term: the actually existing thing.

This view, thus advocating a real distinction between essence and

existence, may obviously be regarded as an emphatic expression of the

objective validity of intellectual knowledge. It might be regarded as an

application of the more general view that the objective concepts between

which the intellect distinguishes in its interpretation of reality should

be regarded as representing _distinct realities_, except when the

distinction is seen to arise not from the nature of the object but from

the nature of the subject, from the limitations and imperfections of our

own modes of thought. But in the case of any particular (disputed)

distinction, the _onus probandi_ should lie rather on the side of those

who contend that such distinction is logical, and not real. On the other

hand, many philosophers who are no less firmly convinced of the objective

validity of intellectual knowledge observe that it is possible to push

this principle too far, or rather to err by excess in its application.

Instead of placing the burden of proof solely on the side of the logical

distinction, they would place it rather more on the side of the real

distinction—in conformity with the maxim of method, _Entia non sunt

multiplicanda praeter necessitatem_. And they think that it is an error by

excess to hold the distinction between essence and existence to be real.

This brings us to the second alternative opinion: that the distinction in

question is not real, but only virtual.(127)

According to this view, the essence and the existence of any existing

contingent being are one and the same reality. There is, however, in this

reality a basis for the two distinct objective concepts—of essence and of

existence—whereby we apprehend it. For the contingent being does not exist

necessarily: we see such beings coming into existence and ceasing to

exist: we can therefore think of _what they are_ without thinking of them

as _actually existent_: in other words, we can think of them as possible,

and of their existence as that by which they become actual. This is a

sufficient reason for distinguishing mentally, in the existing being, the

essence which exists and the existence by which it exists.(128) But when

we think of the essence of an actually existing being as objectively

possible, or as potential in its causes, we are no longer thinking of it

as anything real in itself, but only of its ideal being as an object of

thought in our minds, or of the ideal being it has in the Divine Mind, or

of the potential being it has in created causes, or of the virtual being

it has in the Divine Omnipotence, or of the ultimate basis of its

possibility in the Divine Essence. But all these modes of “being” we know

to be really distinct from the real, contingent essence itself which

begins to exist actually in time, and may cease once more to exist in time

when and if its own nature demands, and God wills, such cessation. But

that the real, contingent essence itself which so exists, is something

really distinct from the existence whereby it exists; that it forms with

the latter a really composite being; that it is in itself a real,

subjective potentiality, receptive of existence as another and actualizing

reality, really distinct from it, so that the creation or production of

any single actually existing contingent being would have for its term two

really distinct principles of being, a potential and an actual, essence

and existence, created or produced _per modum unius_, so to speak: for

asserting all this it is contended by supporters of the virtual

distinction that we have no sufficient justifying reason.(129) Hence they

conclude that a real distinction must be denied: _Entia non sunt

multiplicanda praeter necessitatem_.

Though each of these opinions has been defended with a great deal

of ability, and an exhaustive array of arguments, a mere rehearsal

of these latter would not give much material assistance towards a

solution of the question. We therefore abstain from repeating them

here. There are only a few points in connexion with them to which

attention may be directed.

In the first place, some defenders of the real distinction urge

that were the distinction not real, things would exist

essentially, _i.e._ necessarily; and thus the most fundamental

ground of distinction between God and creatures, between the

Necessary Being and contingent beings, would be destroyed:

creatures would be no longer in their very constitution composite,

mixtures of potentiality and actuality, but would be purely

actual, absolutely simple and, in a word, identical with the

Infinite Being Himself. Supporters of the virtual distinction deny

that those very serious consequences follow from their view. They

point out that though the existence of the creature is really

identical with its essence, the essence does not exist necessarily

or _a se_; the whole existing essence is _ab alio_, is caused,

contingent; and the fundamental distinction between such a being

and the Self-Existing Being is in this view perfectly clear. Nor

is the creature, they contend, purely actual and absolutely

simple; it need not have existed, and it may cease to exist; it

has, therefore, a potentiality of non-existence, which is

inconceivable in the case of the Necessary and purely Actual

Being; it is, therefore, mutable as regards existence; besides

which the essences even of the most simple created beings, namely

pure spirits are composite in the sense that they have faculties

and operations really distinct from their substance.

Secondly, it is alleged by some defenders of the real distinction

that this latter view of the nature of existing contingent reality

is a cardinal doctrine in the whole philosophical system of St.

Thomas, and of scholastics generally: so fundamental, in fact,

that many important doctrines, unanimously held to be true by all

scholastics, cannot be successfully vindicated apart from it.(130)

To which it is replied that there are no important truths of

scholastic philosophy which cannot be defended quite adequately

apart altogether from the view one may hold on the present

question; and that, this being the case, it is unwise to endeavour

to base admittedly true doctrines, which can be better defended

otherwise, upon an opinion which can at best claim only the amount

of probability it can derive from the intrinsic merits of the

arguments by which it is itself supported.(131)

Before passing from this whole question we must note the existence

of a third school of thought, identified mainly with the followers

of Duns Scotus.(132) These authors contend that the distinction

between essence and existence is not a real distinction, nor yet,

on the other hand, is it merely a virtual distinction, but one

which they call _formalis, actualis ex natura rei_, that between a

reality and its intrinsic modes. It is better known as the

“Scotistic” distinction. We shall see the nature of it when

dealing _ex professo_ with the general doctrine of distinctions.

The multiplicity of these views, and the unavoidable difficulty

experienced in grasping and setting forth their meaning with any

tolerable degree of clearness, would suggest the reflection that

in those controversies the medieval scholastics were perhaps

endeavouring to think and to express what reality is, apart from

thought and “independently of the consideration of the mind”—a

task which, conceived in these terms, must appear fruitless; and

one which, anyhow, involves in its very nature the closest

scrutiny of the epistemological problem of the power of the human

mind to get at least a true and valid, if not adequate and

comprehensive, insight into the nature of reality.