59. THE CONCEPTION OF ULTIMATE CATEGORIES.—Having examined so far the
notion of real being itself, which is the proper subject-matter of
ontology, and those widest or transcendental notions which are coextensive
with that of reality, we must next inquire into the various modes in which
we find real being expressed, determined, actualized, as it falls within
our experience. In other words, we must examine the _highest categories of
being_, the _suprema genera entis_. Considered from the point of view of
the logical arrangement of our concepts, each of these categories reveals
itself as a primary and immediate limitation of the extension of the
transcendental concept of real being itself. Each is ultimately distinct
from the others in the sense that no two of them can be brought under any
other as a genus, nor can we discover any intermediate notion between any
one of them and the notion of being itself. The latter notion is not
properly a genus of which they would be species, nor can it be predicated
univocally of any two or more of them (2). Each is itself an ultimate
genus, a _genus supremum_.
By using these notions as predicates of our judgments we are enabled to
interpret things, to obtain a genuine if inadequate insight into reality;
for we assume as established in the _Theory of Knowledge_ that all our
universal concepts have real and objective validity, that they give us
real knowledge of the nature of those individual things which form the
data of our sense experience. Hence the study of the categories, which is
for Logic a classification of our widest concepts, become for Metaphysics
an inquiry into the modes which characterize real being.(215) By
determining what these modes are, by studying their characteristics, by
tracing them through the data of experience, we advance in our knowledge
of reality.
The most divergent views have prevailed among philosophers both as to what
a category is or signifies, and as to what or how many the really ultimate
categories are. Is a category, such as substance, or quality, or quantity,
a mode of real being revealed to the knowing mind, as most ancient and
medieval philosophers thought, with Aristotle and St. Thomas? or is it a
mental mode imposed on reality by the knowing mind, as many modern
philosophers have thought, with Kant and after him? It is for the Theory
of Knowledge to examine this alternative; nor shall we discuss it here
except very incidentally: for we shall assume as true the broad
affirmative answer to the first alternative. That is to say, we shall hold
that the mind is able to see, in the categories generally, modes of
reality; rejecting the sceptical conclusions of Kantism in regard to the
power of the Speculative Reason, and the principles which lead to such
conclusions.
As to the number and classification of the ultimate categories, this is
obviously a question which cannot be settled _a priori_ by any such purely
deductive analysis of the concept of being as Hegel seems to have
attempted; but only _a posteriori_, _i.e._ by an analysis of experience in
its broadest sense as including Matter and Spirit, Nature and Mind, Object
and Subject of Thought, and even the Process of Thought itself. Moreover
it is not surprising that with the progress of philosophical reflection,
certain categories should have been studied more deeply at certain epochs
than ever previously, that they should have been “discovered” so to speak,
not of course in the sense that the human mind had not been previously in
possession of them, but in the sense that because of closer study they
furnished the mind with a richer and fuller power of “explaining” things.
It is natural, too, that historians of philosophy, intent on tracing the
movement of philosophic thought, should be inclined to over-emphasize the
_relativity_ of the categories, as regards their “explaining” value—their
relativity to the general mentality of a certain epoch or period.(216) But
there is danger here of confounding certain large _hypothetical
conceptions_, which are found to yield valuable results at a certain stage
in the progress of the sciences,(217) with the categories proper of real
being. If the mind of man is of the same nature in all men, if it
contemplates the same universe, if it is capable of reaching truth about
this universe—real truth which is immutable,—then the modes of being which
it apprehends in the universe, and by conceiving which it interprets the
latter, must be in the universe as known, and must be there immutably.
Nowhere do we find this more clearly illustrated than in the futility of
the numerous attempts of modern philosophers to deny the reality of the
category of _substance_, and to give an intelligible interpretation of
experience without the aid of this category. We shall see that as a matter
of fact it is impossible to deny _in thought_ the reality of substance, or
to think at all without it, however philosophers may have denied it _in
language_,—or thought that they denied it when they only rejected some
erroneous or indefensible meaning of the term.
60. THE ARISTOTELIAN CATEGORIES.—The first palpable distinction we observe
in the data of experience is that between _substance_ and _accident_. “We
might naturally ask,” writes Aristotle,(218) “whether what is signified by
such terms as _walking_, _sitting_, _feeling well_, is a being (or
reality).... And we might be inclined to doubt it, for no single one of
such acts _exists by itself_ (καθ᾽ αὐτὸ πεφυκός), no one of them is
separable from _substance_ (οὐσία); it is rather to _him who_ walks, or
sits, or feels well, that we give the name of _being_. That which is a
being _in the primary meaning of this term_, a being _simply and
absolutely_, and not merely a being _in a certain sense_, or with a
qualification, is substance—ὡστε τὸ πρώτως ὂν καὶ οὐ τὶ ὂν ἀλλ᾽ ὂν ἁπλῶς ἡ
οὐσία ἂν εἴν.”(219) But manifestly, though substances, or what in ordinary
language we call “persons” and “things”—men, animals, plants, minerals—are
real beings in the fullest sense, nevertheless sitting, walking, thinking,
willing, and actions generally, are also undoubtedly realities; so too are
states and qualities; and shape, size, posture, etc. And yet we do not
find any of these latter actually existing in themselves like substances,
but only dependently on substances—on “persons” or “things” that think or
walk or act, or are large or small, hot or cold, or have some shape or
quality. They are all _accidents_, in contradistinction to substance.
It is far easier to distinguish between accidents and substance than to
give an exhaustive list of the ultimate and irreducible classes of the
former. Aristotle enumerates _nine_: Quantity (ποσόν), Quality (ποῖον),
Relation (πρὸς τι), Action (ποιέιν), Passion (πάσχειν), Where (ποῦ), When
(ποτέ), Posture (κεῖσθαι), External Condition or State (ἔχειν). Much has
been said for and against the exhaustive character of this classification.
Scholastics generally have defended and adopted it. St. Thomas gives the
following reasoned analysis of it:(220) Since accidents may be
distinguished by their relations to substance, we see that some affect
substances intrinsically, others extrinsically; and in the former case,
either absolutely or relatively: if relatively we have the category of
_relation_; if absolutely we have either _quantity_ or _quality_ according
as the accident affects the substance by reason of the matter, or the
form, of the latter. What affects and denominates a substance
extrinsically does so either as a cause, or as a measure, or otherwise. If
as a cause, the substance is either _suffering_ action, or _acting_
itself; if as a measure, it denominates the subject as in _time_, or in
_place_, or in regard to the relative position of its parts, its
_posture_, in the place which it occupies. Finally, if the accident
affects the substance extrinsically, though not as cause or as measure,
but only as characterizing its external condition and immediate
surroundings, as when we describe a man as clothed or armed, we have the
category of _condition_.
It might be said that all this is more ingenious than convincing; but it
is easier to criticize Aristotle’s list than to suggest a better one. In
addition to what we have said of it elsewhere,(221) a few remarks will be
sufficient in the present context.
Some of the categories, as being of lesser importance, we may treat
incidentally when dealing with the more important ones. _Ubi_, _Quando_,
and _Situs_, together with the analysis of our notions of Space and Time,
fall naturally into the general doctrine of _Quantity_. The final
category, ἔχειν, however interpreted,(222) may be referred to _Quality_,
_Quantity_, or _Relation_.
A more serious point for consideration is the fact, generally admitted by
scholastics,(223) that one and the same real accident may belong to
different categories if we regard it from different standpoints. _Actio_
and _passio_ are one and the same _motus_ or change, regarded in relation
to the agent and to the effect, respectively. _Place_, in regard to the
located body belongs to the category _ubi_, whereabouts; in regard to the
locating body it is an aspect of the latter’s _quantity_. _Relation_, as
we shall see, is probably not an entity really distinct from its
foundation—quality, quantity, or causality. The reason alleged for this
partial absence of real distinction between the Aristotelian categories is
that they were thought out primarily from a logical point of view—that of
predication.(224) And the reason is a satisfactory one, for real
distinction is not necessary for diversity of predication. Then, where
they are not really distinct entities these categories are at least
aspects so fundamentally distinct and mutually irreducible that each of
them is indeed a _summum genus_ immediately under the concept of being in
general.
It seems a bold claim to make for any scheme of categories, that it
exhausts all the known modes of reality. We often experience objects of
thought which seem at first sight incapable of reduction to any of
Aristotle’s _suprema genera_. But more mature reflection will always
enable us to find a place for them. In order that any extrinsic
denomination of a substance constitute a category distinct from those
enumerated, it must affect the substance _in some real_ way distinct from
any of those nine; and it must moreover _be not a mere complex or
aggregate_ of two or more of the latter. Hence denominations which objects
derive from the fact that they are terms of mental activities which are
really immanent, _actiones_ “_intentionales_,”—denominations such as
“being known,” “being loved,”—neither belong to the category of “_passio_”
proper, nor do they constitute any distinct category. They are _entia
rationis_, logical relations. Again, while efficient causation resolves
itself into the categories of _actio_ and _passio_, the causation of
final, formal and material causes cannot be referred to these categories,
but neither does it constitute any new category. The influence of a final
cause consists in nothing more than its being a good which is the term of
appetite or desire. The causation of the formal cause consists in its
formally constituting the effect: it is always either a substantial or an
accidental form, and so must be referred to the categories of substance,
or quality, or quantity. Similarly material causality consists in this
that the matter is a partial constitutive principle of the composite
being; and it therefore refers us to the category of substance. It may be
noted, too, that the ontological principles of a composite being—such as
primal matter and substantial form—since they are themselves not properly
“beings,” but only “principles of being,” are said to belong each to its
proper category, not formally but only referentially, not _formaliter_ but
only _reductivé_. Finally, the various properties that are assigned to
certain accidents themselves are either logical relations (such as “not
having a contrary” or “being a measure”), or real relations, or intrinsic
modes of the accident itself (as when a quality is said to have a certain
“intensity”); but in all cases where they are not mere logical entities
they will be found to come under one or other of the Aristotelian
categories.
The “real being” which is thus “determined” into the supreme modes or
categories of substance and accidents is, of course, “being” considered
_substantially_ as _essential_ (whether possible or actual), and not
merely being that is actually existent, _existential_ being, in the
_participial_ sense. Furthermore, it is primarily finite or created being
that is so determined. The Infinite Being is above the categories,
_super_-substantial. It is because substance is the most perfect of the
categories, and because the Infinite Being verifies in Himself in an
incomprehensibly perfect manner all the perfections of substance, that we
speak of Him as a substance: remembering always that these essentially
finite human concepts are to be predicated of Him only _analogically_ (2,
5).
It may be inquired whether “accident” is a genus which should be
predicated _univocally_ of the nine Aristotelian categories as species? or
is the concept of “accident” only _analogical_, so that these nine
categories would be each a _summum genus_ in the strict sense, _i.e._ an
ultimate and immediate determination of the concept of “being” itself? We
have seen already that the concept of “being” as applied to “substance”
and “accident” is analogical (2). So, too, it is analogical as applied to
the various categories of accidents. For the characteristic note of
“accident,” that of “affecting, inhering in” a subject, can scarcely be
said to be verified “in the same way,” “univocally,” of the various kinds
of accidents; it is therefore more probably correct not to regard
“accident” as a genus proper, but to conceive each kind of accident as a
_summum genus_ coming immediately under the transcendental concept of
“being”.
61. THE PHENOMENIST ATTACK ON THE TRADITIONAL DOCTRINE OF
SUBSTANCE.—Passing now to the question of the existence and nature of
substances, and their relation to accidents, we shall find evidences of
misunderstandings to which many philosophical errors may be ascribed at
least in part. It is a fairly common contention that the distinction
between substance and accident is really a groundless distinction; that we
have experience merely of transient events or happenings, internal and
external, with relations of coexistence or sequence between them; that it
is an illusion to suppose, underlying these, an inert, abiding basis
called “substance”; that this can be at best but a useless name for each
of the collections of external and internal appearances which make up our
total experience of the outer world and of our own minds. This is the
general position of _phenomenists_. “What do you know of substance,” they
ask us, “except that it is an indeterminate and unknown something
underlying phenomena? And even if you could prove its existence, what
would it avail you, since in its nature it is, and must remain, unknown?
No doubt the mind naturally supposes this ‘something’ underlying
phenomena; but it is a mere mental fiction the reality of which cannot be
proved, and the nature of which is admitted, even by some who believe in
its real existence, to be unknowable.”
Now there can be no doubt about the supreme importance of this question:
all parties are pretty generally agreed that on the real or fictitious
character of substance the very existence of genuine metaphysics in the
traditional sense depends. And at first sight the possibility of such a
controversy as the present one seems very strange. “Is it credible,” asks
Mercier,(225) “that thinkers of the first order, like Hume, Mill, Spencer,
Kant, Wundt, Paulsen, Littré, Taine, should have failed to recognize the
substantial character of things, and of the _Ego_ or Self? Must they not
have seen that they were placing themselves in open revolt against sound
common sense? And on the other hand is it likely that the genius of
Aristotle could have been duped by the naïve illusion which phenomenists
must logically ascribe to him? Or that all those sincere and earnest
teachers who adopted and preserved in scholastic philosophy for centuries
the peripatetic distinction between substance and accidents should have
been all utterly astray in interpreting an elementary fact of common
sense?”
There must have been misunderstandings, possibly on both sides, and much
waste of argument in refuting chimeras. Let us endeavour to find out what
they are and how they gradually arose.
Phenomenism has had its origin in the _Idealism_ which confines the human
mind to a knowledge of its own states, proclaiming the unknowability of
any reality other than these; and in the _Positivism_ which admits the
reality only of that which falls directly within external and internal
sense experience. Descartes did not deny the substantiality of the soul,
nor even of bodies; but his idealist theory of knowledge rendered suspect
all information derived by his deductive, _a priori_ method of reasoning
from supposed innate ideas, regarding the nature and properties of bodies.
Locke rejected the innatism of Descartes, ascribing to sense experience a
positive rôle in the formation of our ideas, and proving conclusively that
we have no such intuitive and deductively derived knowledge of real
substances as Descartes contended for.(226) Locke himself did not deny the
existence of substances,(227) any more than Descartes. But unfortunately
he propounded the mistaken assumption of Idealism, that the mind can know
only its own states; and also the error of thinking that because we have
not an intuitive insight into the specific nature of individual substances
we can know nothing at all through any channel about their nature: and he
gathered from this latter error a general notion or definition of
substance which is a distinct departure from what Aristotle and the
medieval scholastics had traditionally understood by substance. For Locke
substance is merely a supposed, but unknown, support for accidents.(228)
Setting out with these two notions—that all objects of knowledge must be
states or phases of mind, and that material substance is a supposed, but
unknown and unknowable, substratum of the qualities revealed to our minds
in the process of sense perception—it was easy for Berkeley to support by
plausible arguments his denial of the reality of any such things as
material substances. And it was just as easy, if somewhat more audacious,
on the part of Hume to argue quite logically that if the supposed but
unknowable substantial substratum of external sense phenomena is illusory,
so likewise is the supposed substantial _Ego_ which is thought to underlie
and support the internal phenomena of consciousness.
Hume’s rejection of substance is apparently complete and absolute, and is
so interpreted by many of his disciples. But a thorough-going phenomenism
is in reality impossible; no philosophers have ever succeeded in thinking
out an intelligible theory of things without the concepts of “matter,” and
“spirit,” and “things,” and the “Ego” or “Self,” however they may have
tried to dispense with them; and these are concepts of substances. Hence
there are those who doubt that Hume was serious in his elaborate reasoning
away of substances. The fact is that Hume “reasoned away” substance only
in the sense of an unknowable substratum of phenomena, and not in the
sense of a something that exists in itself.(229) So far from denying the
existence of entities that exist in themselves, he seems to have
multiplied these beyond the wildest dreams of all previous philosophers
_by substantializing accidents_.(230) What he does call into doubt is the
capacity of the human mind to attain to a knowledge of the specific
natures of such entities; and even here the arguments of phenomenism
strike the false Cartesian theory of knowledge, rather than the sober and
moderate teachings of scholasticism regarding the nature and limitations
of our knowledge of substances.
62. THE SCHOLASTIC VIEW OF OUR KNOWLEDGE IN REGARD TO THE EXISTENCE AND
NATURE OF SUBSTANCES.—What, then, are these latter teachings? That we have
a direct, intellectual insight into the specific essence or nature of a
corporeal substance such as gold, similar to our insight into the abstract
essence of a triangle? By no means; Locke was quite right in rejecting the
Cartesian claim to intuitions which were supposed to yield up all
knowledge of things by “mathematical,” _i.e._ deductive, _a priori_
reasoning. The scholastic teaching is briefly as follows:—
First, as regards our knowledge of the _existence_ of substances, and the
manner in which we obtain our concept of substance. We get this concept
from corporeal substances, and afterwards apply it to spiritual
substances; so that our knowledge of the former is “immediate” only in the
relative sense of being prior to the latter, not in the sense that it is a
direct intuition of the natures of corporeal substances. We have no such
direct insight into their natures. But our concept of them as actually
existing is also immediate in the sense that _at first_ we _spontaneously_
conceive _every_ object which comes before our consciousness _as something
existing in itself_. The child apprehends each separate stimulant of its
sense perception—resistance, colour, sound, etc.—as a “this ”or a “that,”
_i.e._ as a separate something, existing there in itself; in other words
it apprehends all realities as substances: not, of course, that the child
has yet any reflex knowledge of what a substance is, but unknowingly it
applies to all realities at first the concept which it undoubtedly
possesses “something existing in itself”. It likewise apprehends each such
reality as “one” or “undivided in itself,” and as “distinct from other
things”. Such is the child’s immediate, direct, and implicit idea of
substance. But if we are to believe Hume, what is true of the child
remains true of the man: for the latter, too, “every perception is a
substance, and every distinct part of a perception a distinct
substance”.(231) Nothing, however, could be more manifestly at variance
with the facts. For as reason is developed and reflective analysis
proceeds, the child most undoubtedly realizes that not everything that
falls within its experience has the character of “a something existing in
itself and distinct from other things”. “Walking,” “talking,” and
“actions” generally, it apprehends as realities,—as realities which,
however, do _not_ “exist in themselves,” but in other beings, in the
beings that “walk” and “talk” and “act”. And these latter beings it still
apprehends as “existing in themselves,” and as thus differing from the
former, which “exist not in themselves but in other things”. Thus the
child comes into possession of the notion of “accident,” and of the
further notion of “substance” as something which not only exists in itself
(οὐσία, _ens in se subsistens_), but which is also a support or subject of
accidents (ὑποκείμενον, _substans_, _substare_).(232) Nor, indeed, need
the child’s reason be very highly developed in order to realize that if
experience furnishes it with “beings that do not exist in themselves,”
there must also be beings which do exist in themselves: that if
“accidents” exist at all it would be unintelligible and self-contradictory
to deny the existence of “substances”.
Hence, _in the order of our experience_ the first, _implicit_ notion of
substance is that of “something existing in itself” (οὐσία); the first
_explicit_ notion of it, however, is that by which it is apprehended as “a
subject or support of accidents” (ὑποκείμενον, _sub-stare_, _substantia_);
then by reflection we go back to the _explicit_ notion of it as “something
existing in itself”. In the _real_ or _ontological_ order the perfection
of “existing in itself” is manifestly more fundamental than that of
“supporting accidents”. It is in accordance with a natural law of language
that we name things after the properties whereby they reveal themselves to
us, rather than by names implying what is more fundamental and essential
in them. “To exist in itself” is an absolute perfection, essential to
substance; “to support accidents” is only a relative perfection; nor can
we know _a priori_ but a substance might perhaps exist without any
accidents: we only know that accidents cannot exist without some
substance, or subject, or power which will sustain them in existence.
Can substance be apprehended by the senses, or only by intellect? Strictly
speaking, only by intellect: it is neither a “proper object” of any one
sense, such as taste, or colour, or sound; nor a “common object” of more
than one sense, as extension is with regard to sight and touch: it is, in
scholastic language, not a “_sensibile per se_,” not itself an object of
sense knowledge, but only “_sensibile per accidens_,” _i.e._ it may be
said to be “accidentally” an object of sense because of its conjunction
with accidents which are the proper objects of sense: so that when the
senses perceive accidents what they are really perceiving is the substance
affected by the accidents. But strictly and properly it is by intellect we
consciously grasp that which in the reality is the substance: while the
external and internal sense faculties make us aware of various qualities,
activities, or other accidents external to the “self,” or of various
states and conditions of the “self,” the intellect—which is a faculty of
the same soul as the sense faculties—makes us simultaneously aware of
corporeal substances actually existing outside us, or of the concrete
substance of the “ego” or “self,” existing and revealing itself to us in
and through its conscious activities, as the substantial, abiding, and
unifying subject and principle of these conscious activities.
Thus, then, do we attain to the concept of substance in general, to a
conviction of the concrete actual existence of that mode of being the
essential characteristic of which is “to exist in itself”.
In the next place, how do we reach a knowledge of the _specific natures_
of substances?(233) What is the character, and what are the limitations,
of such knowledge? Here, especially, the very cautious and moderate
doctrine of scholasticism has been largely misconceived and misrepresented
by phenomenists and others. About the specific nature of substances we
know just precisely what their accidents reveal to us—that and no more. We
have no intuitive insight into their natures; all our knowledge here is
abstractive and discursive. As are their properties—their activities,
energies, qualities, and all their accidents—so is their nature. We know
of the latter just what we can infer from the former. _Operari sequitur
esse_; we have no other key than this to knowledge of their specific
natures. We have experience of them only through their properties, their
behaviour, their activities; analysis of this experience, _a posteriori_
reasoning from it, inductive generalization based upon it: such are the
only channels we possess, the only means at our disposal, for reaching a
knowledge of their natures.
63. PHENOMENIST DIFFICULTIES AGAINST THIS VIEW. ITS VINDICATION.—Now the
phenomenist will really grant all this. His only objection will be that
such knowledge of substance is really no knowledge at all; or that, such
as it is, it is useless. But surely the knowledge that this mode of being
_really exists_, that there _is_ a mode of being which “exists in itself,”
is already some knowledge, and genuine knowledge, of substance? No doubt,
the information contained in this very indeterminate and generic concept
is imperfect; but then it is only a starting point, an all-important
starting point, however; for not only is it perfectible but every item of
knowledge we gather from experience perfects it, whereas without it the
intellect is paralysed in its attempt to interpret experience: indeed so
indispensable is this concept of substance to the human mind that, as we
have seen, no philosopher has ever been really able to dispense with it.
When phenomenists say that what _we_ call mind is only a bundle of
perceptions and ideas; when they speak of the flow of events, which is
_ourselves_, of which _we_ are conscious,(234) the very language they
themselves make use of cries out against their professed phenomenism. For
why speak of “we,” “ourselves,” etc., if there be no “we” or “ourselves”
other than the perceptions, ideas, events, etc., referred to?
Of course the explanation of this strange attitude on the part of these
philosophers is simple enough; they have a wrong conception of substance
and of the relation of accidents thereto; they appear to imagine that
according to the traditional teaching nothing of all we can discover about
accidents—or, as they prefer to term them, “phenomena”—can possibly throw
any light upon the nature of substance: as if the rôle of phenomena were
to cover up and conceal from us some sort of inner core (which they call
substance), and not rather to reveal to us the nature of that “being,
existing in itself,” of which these phenomena are the properties and
manifestations.
The denial of substance leads inevitably to the substantializing of
accidents. It is possible that the manner in which some scholastics have
spoken of accidents has facilitated this error.(235) Anyhow the error is
one that leads inevitably to contradictions in thought itself. Mill, for
instance, following out the arbitrary postulates of subjectivism and
phenomenism, finally analysed all reality into present sensations of the
individual consciousness, _plus_ permanent possibilities of sensations.
Now, consistently with the idealistic postulate, these “permanent
possibilities” should be nothing more than a certain tone, colouring,
quality of the “present” sensation, due to the fact that this has in it,
as part and parcel of itself, feelings of memory and expectation; in which
case the “present sensation,” taken in its concrete fulness, would be the
sole reality, and would exist in itself. This “solipsism” is the ultimate
logical issue of subjective idealism, and it is a sufficient _reductio ad
absurdum_ of the whole system. Or else, to evade this issue, the
“permanent possibilities” are supposed to be something really other than
the “present sensations”. In which case we must ask what Mill can mean by
a “permanent _possibility_”. Whether it be subjective or objective
possibility, it is presumably, according to Mill’s thought, some property
or appurtenance of the individual consciousness, _i.e._ a quality proper
to a subject or substance.(236) But to deny that the conscious subject is
a substance, and at the same time to contend that it is a “permanent
_possibility_ of sensation,” _i.e._ that it has properties which can
appertain only to a substance, is simply to hold what is
self-contradictory.
After these explanations it will be sufficient merely to state formally
the proof that substances really exist. It is exceedingly simple, and its
force will be appreciated from all that has been said so far: Whatever we
become aware of as existing at all must exist either in itself, or by
being sustained, supported in existence, in something else in which it
inheres. If it exists in itself it is a substance; if not it is an
accident, and then the “something else” which supports it, must in turn
either exist in itself or in something else. But since an infinite regress
in things existing not in themselves but in other things is impossible, we
are forced to admit the reality of a mode of being which exists in
itself—_viz._ substance.
Or, again, we are forced to admit the real existence of accidents—or, if
you will, “phenomena” or “appearances”—_i.e._ of realities or modes of
being whose nature is manifestly to modify or qualify in some way or other
some subject in which they inhere. Can we conceive a _state_ which is not
a state of something? a phenomenon or appearance which is not an
appearance of something? a vital act which is not an act of a living
thing? a sensation, thought, desire, emotion, unless of some conscious
being that feels, thinks, desires, experiences the emotion? No; and
therefore since such accidental modes of being really exist, there exists
also the substantial mode of being in which they inhere.
And the experienced realities which verify this notion of “substance” as
the “mode of being which exists in itself,” are manifestly _not one but
manifold_. Individual “persons” and “things”—men, animals, plants—are all
so many really and numerically distinct substances (38). So, too, are the
ultimate individual elements in the inorganic universe, whatever these may
be (31). Nor does the universal interaction of these individuals on one
another, or their manifold forms of interdependence on one another
throughout the course of their ever-changing existence and activities,
interfere in any way with the substantiality of the mode of being of each.
These mutual relations of all sorts, very real and actual as they
undoubtedly are, only constitute the universe a _cosmos_, thus endowing it
with _unity of order_, but not with _unity of substance_ (27).
Let us now meet the objection of Hume: that there is no substantial soul
distinct from its acts, that it is only the sum-total of the acts, each of
these being a substance. The objection has been repeated in the
metaphorical language in which Huxley and Taine speak of the soul, the
living soul, as nothing more than a _republic_ of conscious states, or the
movement of a _luminous sheaf_ etc. And Locke and Berkeley had already
contended that an apple or an orange is nothing more than a collection or
sum-total of sensible qualities, so that if we conceive these removed
there is nothing left, for beyond these there was nothing there.
Now we admit that the substance of the soul is not _adequately_ distinct
from its acts, or the substance of the apple or orange from its qualities.
As a matter of fact we never experience substance apart from accidents or
accidents apart from substance;(237) we do not know whether there exists,
or even whether there can exist, a created substance devoid of all
accidents; nor can we know, from the light of reason alone, whether any
accidents could exist apart from substance.(238) We have, therefore, no
ground in natural experience for demonstrating such an _adequate_ real
distinction (38) between substance and accidents as would involve the
separability of the latter from the former. But that the acts of the soul
are so many really distinct entities, each “existing in itself,” each
therefore a substance, so that the term “soul” is merely a title we give
to their sum-total; and similarly the terms “apple” and “orange” merely
titles of collections of qualities each of which would be an entity
existing in itself and really distinct from the others, each in other
words a substance,—this we entirely deny. We regard it as utterly
unreasonable of phenomenists thus to multiply substances. Our contention
is that the individual soul or mind is one substance, and that it is
_partially_ and _really_, though _not adequately_, distinct from the
various conscious acts, states, processes, functions, which are certainly
themselves real entities,—entities, however, the reality of which is
dependent on that of the soul, entities which this dependent or “inhering”
mode of being marks off as distinct in their nature, and incapable of
total identification with that other non-inhering or subsisting mode of
being which characterizes the substance of the soul.
We cannot help thinking that this phenomenist denial of substance, with
its consequent inevitable substantialization of accidents, is largely due
to a mistaken manner of regarding the concrete existing object as a mere
mechanical bundle of distinct and independent abstractions. Every aspect
of it is mentally isolated from the others and held apart as an
“impression,” an “idea,” etc. Then the object is supposed to be
constituted by, and to consist of, a sum-total of these separate
“elements,” integrated together by some sort of mental chemistry. The
attempt is next made to account for our total conscious experience of
reality by a number of principles or laws of what is known as “association
of ideas”. And phenomenists discourse learnedly about these laws in
apparent oblivion of the fact that by denying the reality of any
substantial, abiding, self-identical soul, distinct from the transient
conscious states of the passing moment, they have left out of account the
only reality capable of “associating” any mental states, or making mental
life at all intelligible. Once the soul is regarded merely as “a series of
conscious states,” or a “stream of consciousness,” or a succession of
“pulses of cognitive consciousness,” such elementary facts as memory,
unity of consciousness, the feeling of personal identity and personal
responsibility, become absolutely inexplicable.(239)
Experience, therefore, does reveal to us the real existence of substances,
of “things that exist in themselves,” and likewise the reality of other
modes of being which have their actuality only by inhering in the
substances which they affect. “A substance,” says St. Thomas, “is a thing
whose nature it is to exist not in another, whereas an accident is a thing
whose nature it is to exist in another.”(240) Every concrete being that
falls within our experience—a man, an oak, an apple—furnishes us with the
data of these two concepts: the being existing in itself, the substance;
and secondly, its accidents. The former concept comprises only
constitutive principles which we see to be _essential_ to that sort of
being: the material, the vegetative, the sentient, the rational principle,
in a man, or his soul and his body; the material principle and the formal
or vital principle in an apple. The latter concept, that of accidents,
comprises only those characteristics of the thing which are no doubt real,
but which do not constitute the essence of the being, which can change or
be absent without involving the destruction of that essence. An
intellectual analysis of our experience enables us—and, as we have
remarked above, it alone enables us—to distinguish between these two
classes of objective concepts, the concept of the principles that are
essential to the substance or being that exists in itself, and the concept
of the attributes that are accidental to this being; and experience alone
enables us, by studying the latter group, the accidents of the being,
whether naturally separable or naturally inseparable from the latter, to
infer from those accidents whatever we can know about the former group,
about the principles that constitute the specific nature of the particular
kind of substance that may be under investigation.
It may, perhaps, be urged against all this, that experience does _not_
warrant our placing a _real_ distinction between the entities we describe
as “accidents” and those which we claim to be constitutive of the
“substance,” or “thing which exists in itself”; that all the entities
without exception, which we apprehend by distinct concepts in any concrete
existing being such as a man, an oak, or an apple, are only one and the
same individual reality looked at under different aspects; that the
distinction between them is only a logical or mental distinction; that we
separate in thought what is one in reality because we regard each aspect
in the abstract and apart from the others; that to suppose in any such
concrete being the existence of two distinct modes of reality—_viz._ a
reality that exists in itself, and other realities inhering in this
latter—is simply to make the mistake of transferring to the real order of
concrete things what we find in the logical order of conceptual
abstractions.
This objection, which calls for serious consideration, leads to a
different conclusion from the previous objection. It suggests the
conclusion, not that substances are unreal, but that accidents are unreal.
Even if it were valid it would leave untouched the existence of
substances. We hope to meet it satisfactorily by establishing presently
the existence of accidents really distinct from the substances in which
they inhere. While the objection draws attention to the important truth
that distinctions recognized in the conceptual order are not always real,
it certainly does not prove that all accidents are only mentally distinct
aspects of substance. For surely a man’s thoughts, volitions, feelings,
emotions, his conscious states generally, changing as they do from moment
to moment, are not really identical with the man himself who continues to
exist throughout this incessant change; yet they are realities, appearing
and disappearing and having all their actuality in him, while he persists
as an actual being “existing in himself”.
64. ERRONEOUS VIEWS ON THE NATURE OF SUBSTANCE.—If we fail to remember
that the notion of substance, as “a being existing in itself and
supporting the accidents which affect it,” is a most abstract and generic
notion; if we transfer it in this abstract condition to the real order; if
we imagine that the concrete individual substances which actually exist in
the real order merely verify this widest notion and are devoid of all
further content; that they possess in themselves no further richness of
reality; if we forget that actual substances, in all the variety of their
natures, as material, or living, or sentient, or rational and spiritual,
are indeed full, vibrant, palpitating with manifold and diversified
reality; if we rob them of all this perfection or locate it in their
accidents as considered apart from themselves,—we are likely to form very
erroneous notions both of substances and of accidents, and of their real
relations to one another. It will help us to form accurate concepts of
them, concepts really warranted by experience, if we examine briefly some
of the more remarkable misconceptions of substance that have at one time
or other gained currency.
(_a_) Substance is not a concrete core on which concrete accidents are
superimposed, or a sort of kernel of which they form the rind. Such a way
of conceiving them is as misleading as it is crude and material. No doubt
the language which, for want of better, we have to employ in regard to
substance and accidents, suggests fancies of that kind: we speak of
substance “supporting,” “sustaining” accidents, and of these as “supported
by,” and “inhering in” the former. But this does not really signify any
juxtaposition or superposition of concrete entities. The substance is a
subject determinable by its various accidents; these are actualizations of
its potentiality; its relation to them is the relation of the potential to
the actual, of a “material” or “determinable” subject to “formal” or
“determining” principles. But the appearance or disappearance of accidents
never takes place in the same concrete subject: by their variations the
concrete subject is changed: at any instant the substance affected by its
accidents is one individual concrete being (27), and the inevitable result
of any modification in them is that this individual, concrete being is
changed, is no longer the same. No doubt, it preserves its substantial
identity throughout accidental change, but not its concrete identity,—that
is to say, not wholly. This is the characteristic of every finite being,
subject to change and existing in time: it has the actuality of its being,
not _tota simul_, but only gradually, successively (10). From this, too,
we see that although substance is a more perfect mode of being than
accident—because the former exists in itself while the latter has its
actuality only in something else,—nevertheless, created, finite substance
is a mode of being which is itself imperfect, and perfectible by
accidents: another illustration of the truth that all created perfection
is only relative, not absolute. To the notion of “inherence” we shall
return in connexion with our treatment of accidents (65).
(_b_) Again, substance is wrongly conceived as an _inert_ substratum
underlying accidents. This false notion appears to have originated with
Descartes: he conceived the two great classes of created substances,
matter and spirit, as essentially inert. For him, matter is simply a _res
extensa_; extension in three dimensions constitutes its essence, and
extension is of course inert: all motion is given to matter and conserved
in it by God. Spirit or soul is simply a _res cogitans_, a being whose
essence is thought; but in thinking spirit too is passive, for it simply
receives ideas as wax does the impress of a seal. Nay, even when soul or
spirit wills it is really inert or passive, for God puts all its volitions
into it.(241) From these erroneous conceptions the earlier disciples of
Descartes took the obvious step forward into Occasionalism; and to them
likewise may be traced the conviction of many contemporary philosophers
that the human soul—a being that is so eminently vital and active—cannot
possibly be a substance: neither indeed could it be, if substance were
anything like what Descartes conceived it to be. The German philosophers,
Wundt and Paulsen, for example, argue that the soul cannot be a substance.
But when we inquire what they mean by substance, what do we find? That
with them the concept of substance applies only to the _corporeal_
universe, where it properly signifies the atoms which are “the absolutely
permanent substratum, qualitatively and quantitatively unchangeable, of
all corporeal reality”.(242) No wonder they would argue that the soul is
not a substance!
No actually existing substance is inert. What is true, however, is this,
that when we conceive a being as a substance, when we think of it under
the abstract concept of substance, we of course abstract from its concrete
existence as an active agent; in other words we consider it not from the
_dynamic_, but from the _static_ aspect, not as it is in the concrete, but
as constituting an object of abstract thought: and so the error of
Descartes seems to have been that already referred to,—the mistake of
transferring to the real order conditions that obtain only in the logical
order.
(_c_) To the Cartesian conception of substances as inert entities endowed
only with motions communicated to them _ab extra_, the mechanical or
atomist conception of reality, as it is called, Leibniz opposed the other
extreme conception of substances as _essentially active entities_. For him
substance is an _ens præditum vi agendi_: activity is the fundamental note
in the concept of substance. These essentially active entities he
conceived as being all _simple_ and _unextended_, the corporeal no less
than the spiritual ones. And he gave them the title of _monads_. It is
unnecessary for our present purpose to go into any details of his
ingenious dynamic theory of the universe as a vast system of these monads.
We need only remark that while combating the theory of inert substances he
himself erred in the opposite extreme. He conceived every monad as endowed
essentially with active tendency or effort which is never without its
effect,—an exclusively _immanent_ effect, however, which is the constant
result of constant immanent action: for he denied the possibility of
transitive activity, _actio transiens_; and he conceived the immanent
activity of the monad as being in its nature _perceptive_,(243) that is to
say, _cognitive_ or _representative_, in the sense that each monad, though
“wrapt up in itself, doorless and windowless,” if we may so describe it,
nevertheless mirrors more or less inchoatively, vaguely, or clearly, all
other monads, and is thus itself a miniature of the whole universe, a
microcosm of the macrocosm. Apart from the fancifulness of his whole
system, a fancifulness which is, however, perhaps more apparent than real,
his conception of substance is much less objectionable than that of
Descartes. For as a matter of fact every individual, actually existing
substance is endowed with an internal directive tendency towards some term
to be realized or attained by its activities. Every substance has a
transcendental relation to the operations which are natural to it, and
whereby it tends to realize the purpose of its being. But nevertheless
substance should not be defined by action, for all action of created
substances is an accident, not a substance; nor even by its transcendental
relation to action, for when we conceive it under this aspect we conceive
it as an _agent_ or _cause_, not as a _substance_ simply. The latter
concept abstracts from action and reveals its object simply as “a reality
existing in itself”. When we think of a substance as a principle of action
we describe it by the term _nature_.
(_d_) A very widespread notion of substance is the conception of it as a
“_permanent_,” “_stable_,” “_persisting_” subject of “_transient_,”
“_ephemeral_” realities called accidents or phenomena. This view of
substance is mainly due to the influence of Kant’s philosophy. According
to his teaching we can think the succession of phenomena which appear to
our sense consciousness only by the aid of a pure intuition in which our
sensibility apprehends them, _viz._ _time_. Now the application of the
category of substance to this pure intuition of our sensibility engenders
a _schema_ of the imagination, _viz._ the _persistence_ of the object in
time. Persistence, therefore, is for him the essential note of substance.
Herbert Spencer, too, has given apt expression to this widely prevalent
notion: “Existence means nothing more than persistence; and hence in Mind
that which persists in spite of all changes, and maintains the unity of
the aggregate in defiance of all attempts to divide it, is that of which
existence in the full sense of the word must be predicated—that which we
must postulate as the substance of Mind in contradistinction to the
varying forms it assumes. But if so, the impossibility of knowing the
substance of Mind is manifest.”(244)
Thus, substance is conceived as the unique but hidden and unknowable basis
of all the phenomena which constitute the totality of human experience.
What is to be said of such a conception? There is just this much truth in
it: that substance is _relatively_ stable or permanent, _i.e._ in
comparison with accidents; the latter cannot survive the destruction or
disappearance of the substance in which they inhere, while a substance can
persist through incessant change of its accidents. But accidents are not
_absolutely_ ephemeral, nor is substance _absolutely_ permanent: were an
accident to exist for ever it would not cease to be an accident, nor would
a substance be any less a substance were it created and then
instantaneously annihilated. But in the latter case the human mind could
not apprehend the substance; for since all human cognitive experience
takes place _in time_, which involves _duration_, the mind can apprehend a
substance only on condition that the latter has some permanence, some
appreciable duration in existence. This fact, too, explains in some
measure the error of conceiving permanence as essential to a substance.
But the error has another source also: Under the influence of subjective
idealism philosophers have come to regard the individual’s consciousness
of his own self, the consciousness of the _Ego_, as the sole and unique
source of our concept of substance. The passage we have just quoted from
Spencer is an illustration. And since the spiritual principle of our
conscious acts is a permanent principle which abides throughout all of
them, thus explaining the unity of the individual human consciousness,
those who conceive substance in general after the model of the _Ego_,
naturally conceive it as an essentially stable subject of incessant and
evanescent processes.
But it is quite arbitrary thus to conceive the _Ego_ as the sole type of
substance. Bodies are substances as well as spirits, matter as well as
mind. And the permanence of corporeal substances is merely relative.
Nevertheless they are really substances. The relative stability of spirit
which is immortal, and the relative instability of matter which is
corruptible, have nothing to do with the substantiality of either. Both
alike are substances, for both alike have that mode of being which
consists in their existing in themselves, and not by inhering in other
things as accidents do.
(_e_) Spencer’s conception of substance as the permanent, unknowable
ground of phenomena, implies that substance is one, not manifold, and thus
suggests the view of reality known as _Monism_. There is yet another
mistaken notion of substance, the notion in which the well known
pantheistic philosophy of Spinoza has had its origin. Spinoza appears to
have given the ambiguous definition of Descartes—“_Substantia est res quae
ita existit, ut nulla alia re indigeat ad existendum_”—an interpretation
which narrowed its application down to the Necessary Being; for he defined
substance in the following terms: “_Per substantiam intelligo id quod est
in se et per se concipitur: hoc est, id cujus conceptus non indiget
conceptu alterius rei a quo formari debeat_”. By the ambiguous phrase,
that substance “requires no other thing for existing,” Descartes certainly
meant to convey what has always been understood by the scholastic
expression that substance “exists _in_ itself”. He certainly did not mean
that substance is a reality which “exists _of_ itself,” _i.e._ that it is
what scholastics mean by _Ens a se_, the Being that has its actuality from
its own essence, by virtue of its very nature, and in absolute
independence of all other being; for such Being is One alone, the
Necessary Being, God Himself, whereas Descartes clearly held and taught
the real existence of finite, created substances.(245) Yet Spinoza’s
definition of substance is applicable only to such a being that our
concept of this being shows forth the actual existence of the latter as
absolutely explained and accounted for by reference to the essence of this
being itself, and independently of any reference to other being. In other
words, it applies only to the Necessary Being. This conception of
substance is the starting-point of Spinoza’s pantheistic philosophy.
Now, the scholastic definition of substance and Spinoza’s definition
embody two entirely distinct notions. Spinoza’s definition conveys what
scholastics mean by the Self-Existent Being, _Ens a se_; and this the
scholastics distinguish from caused or created being, _ens ab alio_. Both
phrases refer formally and primarily, not to the mode of a being’s
existence when it does exist, but to the origin of this existence in
relation to the being’s essence; and specifically it marks the distinction
between the Essence that is self-explaining, self-existent, essentially
actual (“_a_ se”), the Necessary Being, and essences that do not
themselves explain or account for their own actual existence, essences
that have not their actual existence from themselves or of themselves,
essences that are in regard to their actual existence contingent or
dependent, essences which, therefore, if they actually exist, can do so
only dependently on some other being whence they have derived this
existence (“_ab_ alio”) and on which they essentially depend for its
continuance.
Not the least evil of Spinoza’s definition is the confusion caused by
gratuitously wresting an important philosophical term like _substance_
from its traditional sense and using it with quite a different meaning;
and the same is true in its measure of the other mistaken notions of
substance which we have been examining. By defining substance as an _ens
in se_, or _per se stans_, scholastic philosophers mean simply that
substance does not depend _intrinsically_ on any _subjective_ or
_material_ cause in which its actuality would be supported; they do not
mean to imply that it does not depend _extrinsically_ on an efficient
cause from which it has its actuality and by which it is conserved in
being. They assert that all _created_ substances, no less than all
accidents, have their being “_ab alio_” from God; that they exist only by
the Divine creation and conservation, and act only by the Divine
_concursus_ or concurrence; but while substances and accidents are both
alike dependent on this extrinsic conserving and concurring influence of a
Divine, Transcendent Being, substances are exempt from this other and
distinct mode of dependence which characterizes accidents: intrinsic
dependence on a subject in which they have their actuality.(246)
When we say that substance exists “_in_ itself,” obviously we do
not attach to the preposition “_in_” any _local_ signification, as
a part existing “in” the whole. Nor do we mean that they exist
“in” themselves in the same sense as they have their being “in”
God. In a certain true sense all creatures exist “in” God: _In
ipso enim vivimus, et movemur, et sumus_ (Acts xxii., 28), in the
sense that they are kept in being by His omnipresent conserving
power. But He does not sustain them as a subject in which they
inhere, as substance sustains the accidents which determine it,
thereby giving expression to its concrete actuality.(247) By
saying that substance exists “in itself” we mean to exclude the
notion of its existing “in another” thing, as an accident does.
And this we shall understand better by examining a little more
closely this peculiar mode of being which characterizes accidents.
65. THE NATURE OF ACCIDENT. ITS RELATION TO SUBSTANCE. ITS CAUSES.—From
all that has preceded we will have gathered the general notion of
_accident_ as that mode of real being which is found to have its reality,
not by existing in itself, but by affecting, determining, some substance
in which it inheres as in a subject. What do we mean by saying that
accidents _inhere in_ substances as their _subjects_? Here we must at once
lay aside as erroneous the crude conception of something as located
spatially within something else, as contained in container, as _e.g._
water in a vessel; and the equally crude conception of something being in
something else as a part is in the whole, as _e.g._ an arm is in the body.
Such imaginations are wholly misleading.
The actually existing substance has its being or reality; it is an actual
essence. Each real accident of it is likewise a reality, and has an
essence, distinct from that of the substance, yet not wholly independent
of the latter: it is a determination of the determinable being of the
substance, affecting or modifying the latter in some way or other, and
having no other _raison d’être_ than this rôle of actualizing in some
specific way some receptive potentiality of the concrete substance. And
since its reality is thus dependent on that of the substance which it
affects, we cannot ascribe to it actual essence or being in the same sense
as we ascribe this to substance, but only analogically(248) (2). Hence
scholastics commonly teach that we ought to conceive an accident rather as
an “entity _of an entity_,” “ens _entis_,” than as an entity simply;
rather as inhering, indwelling, affecting (_in_-esse) some subject, than
simply as existing itself (_esse_); as something whose essence is rather
the determination, affection, modification of an essence than itself an
essence proper, the term “essence” designating properly only a substance:
_accidentis esse est inesse_.(249) This conception might, no doubt, if
pressed too far, be inapplicable to absolute accidents, like quantity,
which are something more than mere modifications of substance; but it
rightly emphasizes the dependence of the reality of accident on that of
substance, the non-substantial and “diminished” character of the
“accident”-mode of being; it also helps to show that the “inherence” of
accident in substance is a relation—of determining to determinable
being—which is _sui generis_; and finally it puts us on our guard against
the errors that may be, and have been, committed by conceiving accidents
in the abstract and reasoning about them apart from their substances, as
if they themselves were substances.
This “inherence” of accident in substance, this mode of being whereby it
affects, determines or modifies the substance, differs from accident to
accident; these, in fact, are classified into _suprema genera_ by reason
of their different ways of affecting substance (60). To this we shall
return later. Here we may inquire, about this general relation of accident
to substance, whether it is _essential_ to an accident _actually to inhere
in_ a substance, if not immediately, then at least through the medium of
some other accident. We suggest this latter alternative because as we
shall see presently there are some accidents, such as colour, taste,
shape, which immediately affect the _extension_ of a body, and only
through this the substance of the body itself. Now the ordinary course of
nature never presents us with accidents except as inhering, mediately or
immediately, in a substance. Nor is it probable that the natural light of
our reason would ever suggest to us the possibility of an exception to
this general law. But the Christian philosopher knows, from Divine
Revelation, that in the Blessed Eucharist the _quantity_ or _extension_ of
bread and wine, together with the taste, colour, form, etc., which affect
this extension, _remain in existence_ after their connatural substance of
bread and wine has disappeared by transubstantiation. In the supernatural
order of His providence God preserves these accidents in existence without
a subject; but in this state, though they do not _actually inhere_ in any
substance, they _retain their natural aptitude and exigence_ for such
inherence. The Christian philosopher, therefore, will not define accident
as “the mode of being which inheres in a subject,” but as “the mode of
being which _in the ordinary course of nature_ inheres in a subject,” or
as “the mode of being which has _a natural exigence_ to inhere in a
subject”. It is not _actual inherence_, but the _natural exigence to
inhere_, that is essential to an accident as such.(250)
Furthermore, an accident needs a substance not formally _qua_ substance,
or as a mode of being naturally existing in itself; it needs a substance
_as a subject_ in which to inhere, which it will in some way affect,
determine, qualify; but the subject in which it immediately inheres need
not always be a substance: it may be some other accident, in which case
both of course will naturally require some substance as their ultimate
basis.
Comparing now the concept of accident with that of substance, we find that
the latter is presupposed by the former; that the latter is prior _in
thought_ to the former; that we conceive accident as something over and
above, something superadded to substance as subject. For instance, we can
define matter and form without the prior concept of body, or animality and
rationality without the prior concept of man; but we cannot define colour
without the prior concept of body, or the faculty of speech without the
prior concept of man.(251)
Substance, therefore, is prior _in thought_ to accident; but is the
substance itself also prior _temporally_ (prior _tempore_) to its
accidents? It is prior in time to some of them, no doubt; the individual
human being is thus prior, for instance, to the knowledge he may acquire
during life. But there is no reason for saying that a substance must be
prior _in time_ to _all_ its accidents;(252) so far as we can discover, no
created substance comes into existence devoid of all accidents: corporeal
substance devoid of internal quantity, or spiritual substance devoid of
intellect and will.
If prior in thought, though not necessarily in time, to its accidents, is
a substance prior to its accidents _really_, _ontologically_ (prior
_natura_)? Yes; it is the real or ontological principle of its accidents;
it sustains them, and they depend on it. It is a passive or material cause
(using the term “material” in the wide sense, as applicable even to
spiritual substances), or a receptive subject, determined in some way by
them as formal principles. It is at the same time an efficient and passive
cause of some of its own accidents: the soul is an efficient cause of its
own immanent processes of thought and volition, and at the same time a
passive principle of them, undergoing real change by their occurrence. Of
others it is merely a receptive, determinable subject, of those, namely,
which have an adequate and necessary foundation in its own essence, and
which are called _properties_ in the strict sense: without these it cannot
exist, though they do not constitute its essence, or enter into the
concept of the latter; but it is not prior to them in time, nor is it the
_efficient cause_ of them; it is, however, a real principle of them, an
essence from the reality of which they necessarily result, and on which
their own reality depends. Such, for instance, is the faculty of thought,
or volition, or speech in regard to man.
The accident-mode of being is, therefore, a mode of being which determines
a substance in some real way. Its _formal effect_ is to give the substance
some real and definite determination: not _esse simpliciter_ but _esse
tale_. With the substance it constitutes a concrete real being which is
_unum per accidens_, not _unum per se_.
The accident has no _formal cause_: it is itself a “form” and its
causality is that of a formal cause, which consists in its communicating
itself to a subject, and, by its union therewith, constituting some new
reality—in this case a concrete being endowed with “accidental” unity.
Accidents have of course, a _material cause_; not, however, in the sense
of a _materia ex qua_, a material from which they are constituted,
inasmuch as they are simple “forms”; but in the sense of a _subject_ in
which they are received and in which they inhere; and this “material
cause” is, proximately or remotely, _substance_.
Substance also is the _final cause_, the _raison d’être_, of the reality
of the accidental mode of being. Accidents exist for the perfecting of
substances: _accidentia sunt propter substantiam_. As we have seen
already, and as will appear more clearly later on, the fundamental reason
for the reality of an accidental mode of being, really distinct from the
created or finite substance (for the Infinite Substance has no accidents),
is that the created substance is imperfect, limited in its actual
perfection, does not exist _tota simul_, but develops, through a process
of change in time, from its first or _essential_ perfection, through
_intermediate_ perfections, till it reaches the _final_ perfection (46) of
its being.
Have all accidents _efficient causes_? Those which are called common
accidents as distinct from _proper_ accidents or _properties_ (66) have
undoubtedly efficient causes: the various agencies which produce real but
accidental changes in the individual substances of the universe. _Proper_
accidents, however, inasmuch as they of necessity exist simultaneously
with the substances to which they belong, and flow from these substances
by a necessity of the very essence of these latter, cannot be said to have
any efficient causes other than those which contribute by their efficiency
to the _substantial changes_ by which these substances are brought into
actual existence; nor can they be said to be _caused efficiently_ by these
substances themselves, but only to “flow” or “result” necessarily from the
latter, inasmuch as they come into existence simultaneously with, but
dependently on, these substances. Hence, while substances are universally
regarded as _real principles_ of their properties—as, for instance, the
soul in regard to intellect and will, or corporeal substance in regard to
quantity—they are not really efficient causes of their properties, _i.e._
they do not _produce_ these properties by _action_. For these properties
are antecedent to all _action_ of the substance; nor can a created
substance _act_ by its _essence_, but only through active powers, or
faculties, or forces, which meditate between the essence of a created
substance and its actions, and which are the proximate principles of these
actions, while the substance or nature is their remote principle. Hence
the “properties” which necessarily result from a substance or nature, have
as their efficient causes the agencies productive of the substance
itself.(253)
66. MAIN DIVISIONS OF ACCIDENTS.—These considerations will help us to
understand the significance of a few important divisions of accidents:
into proper and common, inseparable and separable. We shall then be in a
position to examine the nature of the distinction between accidents and
substance, and to establish the existence of accidents really distinct
from substance.
(_a_) The attributes which we affirm of substance, other than the notes
constitutive of its essence, are divided into _proper_ accidents, or
_properties_ in the strict sense (ἴδιον, _proprium_), and _common_
accidents, or accidents in the more ordinary sense (συμβεβηκός,
_ac-cidens_). A property is an accident which belongs exclusively to a
certain class or kind of substance, and is found _always_ in _all_ members
of that class, inasmuch as it has an adequate foundation in the nature of
that substance and a necessary connexion therewith. Such, for instance,
are the faculties of intellect and will in all spiritual beings; the
faculties of speaking, laughing, weeping in man; the temporal and spatial
mode of being which characterizes all created substances.(254) When
regarded from the logical point of view, as attributes predicable of their
substances considered as logical subjects, they are distinguished on the
one hand from what constitutes the essence of this subject (as _genus_,
_differentia_, _species_), but also on the other hand from those
attributes which cannot be seen to have any absolutely necessary connexion
with this subject. The latter attributes alone are called _logical
accidents_, the test being the absence of a necessary connexion in thought
with the logical subject.(255) But the former class, which are
distinguished from “logical” accidents and called _logical properties_
(“_propria_”) are none the less _real accidents_ when considered from the
ontological standpoint; for they do not constitute the essence of the
substance; they are outside the concept of the latter, and
super-added—though necessarily—to it. Whether, however, all or any of
these “properties,” which philosophers thus classify as real or
ontological accidents, “proper” accidents, of certain substances, are
_really_ distinct from the concrete, individual substances to which they
belong, or are only aspects of the latter, “substantial modes,” only
_virtually_ distinct in each case from the individual substance itself,—is
another and more difficult question (69). Such a property is certainly not
really separable from its substance; we cannot conceive either to exist
really without the other; though we can by abstraction think, and reason,
and speak, about either apart from the other.(256) Real inseparability is,
however, regarded by scholastic philosophers as quite compatible with what
they understand by a real distinction (38).
A _common_ accident is one which has no such absolutely necessary
connexion with its substance as a “property” has; one which, therefore,
can be conceived as absent from the substance without thereby entailing
the destruction of the latter’s essence, or of anything bound up by a
necessity of thought with this essence. And such common accidents are of
two kinds.
They may be such that in the ordinary course of nature, and so far as its
forces and laws are concerned, they are never found to be absent from
their connatural substances—_inseparable_ accidents. Thus the colour of
the Ethiopian is an inseparable accident of his human nature as an
Ethiopian; he is naturally black; but if born of Ethiopian parents he
would still be an Ethiopian even if he happened to grow up white instead
of black. We could not, however, conceive an Ethiopian, or any other human
being, existing without the faculties (not the use) of intellect and will,
or the faculty (not the organs, or the actual exercise of the faculty) of
human speech.
Or common accidents may be such that they are sometimes present in their
substances, and sometimes absent—_separable_ accidents. These are by far
the most numerous class of accidents: thinking, willing, talking, and
actions generally; health or illness; virtues, vices, acquired habits;
rest or motion, temperature, colour, form, location, etc.
(_b_) The next important division of accidents is that into mere
_extrinsic denominations_ and intrinsic accidents; the latter being
subdivided into _modal_ and _absolute_ accidents, respectively.
An _absolute_ accident is one which not merely affects its substance
intrinsically, giving the latter an actual determination or mode of being,
of some sort or other, but which has moreover some entity or reality
proper to itself whereby it thus affects the substance, an entity really
distinct from the essence of the substance thus determined by it. Such,
for instance, are all vital activities of living things;(257) knowledge,
and other acquired habits; quantity, the fundamental accident whereby
corporeal substances are all capable of existing extended in space; and
such sensible qualities and energies of matter as heat, colour, mechanical
force, electrical energy, etc. Such, too, according to many, are
intellect, will, and sense faculties in man.
There are, however, other intrinsic determinations of substance, other
modifications of the latter, which do not seem to involve any new or
additional reality in the substance, over and above the modification
itself. Such, for instance, are motion, rest, external form or figure, in
bodies. These are called _modal_ accidents. They often affect not the
substance itself immediately, but some absolute accident of the latter,
and are hence called “accidental modes”. Those enumerated are obviously
modes of the quantity of bodies. Now the appearance or disappearance of
such an accident in a substance undoubtedly involves a real change in the
latter, and not merely in our thought; when a body moves, or comes to
rest, or alters its form, there is a change in the reality as well as in
our thought; and in this sense these accidents are real and intrinsic to
their substances. Yet, though we cannot say that motion, rest, shape,
etc., are really identical with the body and only mentally distinct
aspects of it, at the same time neither can we say that by their
appearance or disappearance the body gains or loses any reality other than
an accidental determination of itself; whereas it does gain something more
than this when it is heated, or electrified, or increased in quantity;
just as a man who acquires knowledge, or virtue, is not only really
modified, but is modified by real entities which he has acquired, not
having actually possessed them before.
Finally, there are accidents which do not affect the substance
intrinsically at all, which do not determine any real change in it, but
merely give it an extrinsic denomination in relation to something outside
it (60). Thus, while the _quality_ of heat is an absolute accident in a
body, the _action_ whereby the latter heats neighbouring bodies is no new
reality in the body itself, and produces no real change in the latter, but
only gives it the extrinsic denomination of _heating_ in reference to
these other bodies in which the effect really takes place. Similarly the
_location_ of any corporeal substance in _space_ or in _time_ relatively
to others in the space or time series—its _external_ place (_ubi_) or time
(_quando_), as they are called—or the relative position of its parts
(_situs_) in the place occupied by it: these do not intrinsically
determine it or confer upon it any intrinsic modification of its
substance. Not, indeed, that they are mere _entia rationis_, mere logical
fictions of our thought. They are realities, but not realities which
affect the substances denominated from them; they are accidental modes of
other substances, or of the absolute accidents of other substances.
Finally, the accident which we call a “_real_ relation” presupposes in its
subject some absolute accident such as quantity or quality, or some real
and intrinsic change determining these, or affecting the substance itself;
but whether relation is itself a reality over and above such foundation,
is a disputed question.
From these classifications of accidents it will be at once apparent that
the general notion of accident, as a dependent mode of being, superadded
to the essence of a substance and in some way determining the latter, is
realized in widely different and merely analogical ways in the different
ultimate classes of accidents.
67. REAL EXISTENCE OF ACCIDENTS. NATURE OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN
ACCIDENTS AND SUBSTANCE.—It would be superfluous to prove the general
proposition that accidents really exist. In establishing the real
existence of substances we have seen that the real existence of some
accidents at least has never been seriously denied. These are often called
nowadays _phenomena_; and philosophers who have denied or doubted the real
existence of substances have been called “phenomenists” simply because
they have admitted the real existence only of these phenomena; though, if
they were as logical as Hume they might have seen with him that such
denial, so far from abolishing substance, could only lead to the
substantializing of accidents (63).
But while undoubtedly there are realities which “exist in themselves,”
such as individual men, animals and plants, there is no reason for
attributing this same mode of existence to entities such as the thoughts,
volitions, emotions, virtues or vices, of the individual man; or the
instinct, hunger, or illness of the dog; or the colour, perfume, or form
of the rose. The concrete individual man, or dog, or rose, reveals itself
to our minds as a substantial entity, affected with these various
accidental entities which are really distinct from the substantial entity
itself and from one another. Nay, in most of the instances just cited,
they are physically separable from the substantial entity in which they
inhere; not of course in the sense that they could actually exist without
it, but in the sense that it can and does continue to exist actually
without them (38); for it continues to exist while they come and go,
appear and disappear.(258) Of course the _concrete individual_ man, or
dog, or rose, does not continue to _exist actually unchanged_, and
_totally_ identical with itself throughout the change of accidents (64),
for the accidents are part of the concrete individual reality; nay, even
the substance itself of the concrete individual does not remain totally
unaffected by the change of the accidents; because if they _really_ affect
it, as they do, their change cannot leave it totally unaffected; substance
is not at all a changeless, concrete core, surrounded by an ever-changing
rind or vesture of accidents; or a dark, hidden, immutable and inscrutable
background of a panorama of phenomena (64). But though it is beyond all
doubt really affected by the change of its accidents, it is also beyond
all doubt independent of them in regard to the essential mode of its
being, in as much as it exists and continues to exist in itself throughout
all fluctuation of its accidents; while these on the other hand have only
that essentially dependent mode of being whereby they are actual only by
affecting and determining some subject in which they inhere and which
supports their actuality.
The existence, therefore, of some accidents, which are not only really
distinct but even physically separable from their substances, cannot
reasonably be called into question. To deny the existence of such
accidents, or, what comes to the same thing, their real distinction from
substance, is to take up some one of these three equally untenable
positions: that all the changes which take place within and around us are
substantial changes; or, that there is no such thing as real change, all
change being a mental illusion; or, that contradictory states can be
affirmed of the same reality.(259)
But the nature of the real distinction between accidents and substance is
not in all cases so easy to determine. Nor can we discuss the question
here in reference to each _summum genus_ of accident separately. Deferring
to the chapter on _Relation_ the question of the distinction of this
particular accident from substance and the other categories, we may
confine our attention here to the distinction between substance and the
three classes of accidents we have called _extrinsic denominations_,
_modal_ accidents, and _absolute_ accidents respectively. “There are
accidents,” writes Kleutgen,(260) “which place nothing and change nothing
in the subject itself, but are ascribed to it by reason of some extrinsic
thing; others, again, produce indeed in the subject itself some new mode
of being, but without their existing in it as a new reality, distinct from
its reality; others, finally, are themselves a new reality, and have thus
a being which is proper to themselves, though this being is of course
dependent on the substance. These latter alone can be _really_ distinct
from the substance, in the full sense in which a real distinction is that
between thing and thing. Now Cartesian philosophers have denied that there
are any such accidents as those of the latter class; rejecting the
division of accidents into absolute and modal, they teach that all
accidents are mere _modifications_ or determinations of substance, that
they consist solely of various locations and combinations of the ultimate
parts of a substance, or relations of the latter to other substances.”
Now all _extrinsic denominations_ of a substance do seem on analysis
ultimately to resolve themselves partly into relations of the latter to
other substances, and partly into modal or absolute accidents of other
substances. Hence we may confine our attention here to the distinction
between these two classes of accident and their connatural substances.
And, approaching this question, it will be well for us to bear two
things in mind. In the first place, our definitions both of
substance and of accident are abstract and generic or universal.
But the abstract and universal does not exist _as such_. The
concrete, individual, actually existing substance is never
_merely_ “a being that naturally exists in itself,” nor is the
accident of such a substance _merely_ a verification of its
definition as “a being that naturally inheres in something else”.
In every case what really and actually exists is _the individual_,
a being concreted of substance and accidents, a being which is
ever and always a _real unity_, composite no doubt, but really
one; and this no matter what sort of distinction we hold to obtain
between the substance and its accidents. This is important; its
significance will be better appreciated according as we examine
the distinctions in question. Secondly, as scholastics understand
a real distinction, this can obtain not merely between different
“persons” or “things” which are separate from one another in time
or space, but also between different constitutive principles of
any one single concrete, composite, individual being (38). We have
seen that they are not agreed as to whether the essence and the
existence of any actual creature are really distinct or not (24).
And it may help us to clear up our notion of “accident” if we
advert here to their discussion of the question whether or not an
accident ought to be regarded as having an existence of its own,
an existence proper to itself.
Those who think that the distinction between essence and existence
in created things is a real distinction, hold that accidents as
such have no existence of their own, that they are actualized by
the existence of the substance, or rather of the concrete,
composite individual; that since the latter is a real unity—not a
mere artificial aggregation of entities, but a being naturally
one—it can have only one existence: _Impossibile est quod unius
rei non sit unum esse_;(261) that by this one existence the
concrete, composite essence of the substance, as affected and
determined by its accidents, is actualized. They contend that if
each of the principles, whether substantial or accidental, of a
concrete individual being had its own existence, their union, no
matter how intimate, could not form a natural unitary being, an
individual, but only an aggregate of such beings. It is neither
the matter, nor the form, nor the corporeal substance apart from
its accidents, that exists: it is the substance completely
determined by all its accidents and modes that is the proper
subject of existence.(262) It alone is actualized, and that by
_one_ existence, which is the “ultimate actuality” of the
concrete, composite, individual essence: _esse est ultimus actus_.
Hence it is too, they urge, that an accident should be conceived
not properly as “a being,” but only as that whereby a being is
such or such: Accidens non est ens, sed _ens entis_. But it cannot
be so conceived if we attribute to it an existence of its own; for
then it would be “a being” in the full and proper sense of the
word.
This is the view of St. Thomas, and of Thomists generally. The
arguments in support of it are serious, but not convincing. And
the same may be said of the reasons adduced for the opposite view:
that existence not being really distinct from essence, accidents
in so far as they can be said to have an essence of their own have
likewise an existence of their own.
Supporters of this view not only admit but maintain that the
entity of a real, existing accident is a “diminished” entity,
inasmuch as it is dependent in a sense in which a really existing
substance is not dependent. They simply deny the Thomist assertion
that substantial and accidental principles cannot combine to form
a real and natural unit, an individual being, if each be accorded
an existence appropriate and proportionate to its partial essence;
nor indeed can Thomists _prove_ this assertion. Moreover, if
existence be not _really_ distinct from essence, there is no more
inconvenience in the claim that partial existences can combine to
form one complete existence, _unum esse_, than in the Thomist
claim that partial essences, such as substantial and accidental
constitutive principles, can combine to form one complete essence,
one individual subject of existence. Then, furthermore, it is
urged that the substance exists prior _in time_ to some of its
accidents; that it is prior _in nature_ to its properties, which
are understood to _proceed_ or _flow_ from it; and that therefore
its existence cannot be theirs, any more than its essence can be
theirs. Finally, it is pointed out that since existence is the
actuality of essence, the existence which actualizes a substance
cannot be identical with that which actualizes an accident. At all
events, whether the one existence of the concrete individual
substance as determined by its accidents be as it were a simple
and indivisible existential act, which actualizes the composite
individual subject, as Thomists hold, or whether it be a composite
existential act, really identical with the composite individual
subject, as in the other view,(263) this concrete existence of the
individual is constantly varying with the variation of the
accidents of the individual. This is equally true on either view.
Inquiring into the distinction between substance and its intrinsic
accidents, whether modal or absolute, we have first to remark that all
accidents cannot possibly be reduced to relations; for if relation itself
is something _extrinsic_ to the things related, it must at least
presuppose a real and _intrinsic_ foundation or basis for itself in the
things related. Local motion, for instance, is a change in the spatial
relations of a body to other bodies. But it cannot be _merely_ this. For
if spatial relations are not mere subjective or mental fabrications, if
they are in any intelligible sense _real_, then a change in them must
involve a change of _something intrinsic_ to the bodies concerned. Now
Descartes, in denying the existence of _absolute_ accidents, in reducing
all accidents to _modes_ of substances, understood by modes not any
_intrinsic_ determinations of substance, but only extrinsic determinations
of the latter. All accidents of _material_ substance were for him mere
locations, arrangements, dispositions of its extended parts: extension
being its essence. Similarly, all accidents of spiritual substance were
for him mere modalities and mutual relations of its “thought” or
“consciousness”: this latter being for him the essence of spirit. We have
here not only the error of identifying or confounding accidents such as
thought and extension with their connatural substances, spirit and matter,
but also the error of supposing that extrinsic relations and modes of a
substance, and changes in these, can be real, without there being in the
substances themselves any intrinsic, real, changeable accidents, which
would account for the extrinsic relations and their changes. If there are
no intrinsic accidents, really affecting and determining substances, and
yet really distinct from the latter, then we must admit either that all
change is an illusion or else that all change is substantial; and this is
the dilemma that really confronts the Cartesian philosophy.
68. MODAL ACCIDENTS AND THE MODAL DISTINCTION.—The real distinction which
we claim to exist between a substance and its intrinsic accidents is not
the same in all cases: in regard to some accidents, which we have called
intrinsic modes of the substance, it is a _minor_ or _modal_ real
distinction; in regard to others which we have called absolute accidents,
it is a _major_ real distinction (38). Let us first consider the former.
The term _mode_ has a variety of meanings, some very wide, some
restricted. When one concept determines or limits another in any way we
may call it a mode of the latter. If there is no real distinction between
the determining and the determined thought-object, the mode is called a
_metaphysical_ mode: as rationality is of animality in man. Again, created
things are all “modes” of being; and the various aspects of a creature may
be called “modes” of the latter: as “finiteness” is a mode of every
created being. We do not use the term in those wide senses in the present
context. Here we understand by a mode some positive reality which so
affects another and distinct reality as to determine the latter
proximately to some definite way of existing or acting, to which the
latter is itself indifferent; without, however, adding to the latter any
new and proper entity other than the said determination.(264) Such modes
are called _physical_ modes. And some philosophers maintain that there are
not only _accidental_ modes, thus really distinct from the substance, but
that there are even some _substantial_ modes really distinct from the
essence of the substance which they affect: for instance, that the really
distinct constitutive principles of any individual corporeal substance,
matter and form, are actually united only in virtue of a substantial mode
whereby each is ordained for union with the other; or that _subsistence_,
whereby the individual substance is made a subsistent and incommunicable
“person” or “thing,” is a substantial mode of the individual nature.(265)
With these latter we are not concerned here, but only with accidental
modes, such as external shape or figure, local motion, position,
action,(266) etc. Now when a substance is affected by such accidents as
these it is impossible on the one hand to maintain that they add any new
positive entity of their own to it; they do not seem to have any reality
over and above the determination or modification in which their very
presence in the substance consists. And on the other hand it cannot be
denied that they express some real predicate which can be affirmed of the
substance in virtue of their presence in it, and that independently of our
thought; in other words it cannot be maintained that they are mere
figments or forms of thought, mere _entia rationis_. If a piece of wax has
a certain definite shape, this shape is inseparable from the wax: it is
nothing except in the wax, for it cannot exist apart from the wax; but in
the wax it is something in some real sense distinct from the wax, inasmuch
as the wax would persist even if it disappeared. No doubt it is essential
to the wax, as extended in space, to have some shape or other; but it is
indifferent to any particular shape, and hence something distinct from it
is required to remove this indifference. This something is the particular
shape it actually possesses. The shape, therefore, is an accidental mode
of the extension of the wax, a mode which is really distinct, by a minor
real distinction, from this extension which is its immediate subject.(267)
Hence we conclude that there are accidental modes, or modal accidents,
really distinct from the subjects in which they inhere.
69. DISTINCTION BETWEEN SUBSTANCE AND ITS “PROPER” ACCIDENTS. UNITY OF THE
CONCRETE BEING.—Turning next to the distinction between absolute accidents
and substance, we have seen already that separable absolute accidents such
as acquired habits of mind and certain sensible qualities and energies of
bodies are really distinct from their subjects. Absolute accidents which
are _naturally inseparable_ from their subjects—such as external quantity
or spatial extension or volume is in regard to the corporeal substance—are
also really distinct from their subjects; though we cannot know by reason
alone whether or how far such accidents are _absolutely separable_ from
these subjects: from Christian Revelation we know that extension at least
is separable from the substance of a body, and with extension all the
other corporeal accidents which inhere immediately in extension.(268)
But a special difficulty arises in regard to the nature of the distinction
between a substance and its _proper_ accidents,(269) _i.e._ those which
have such an adequate and necessary ground in the essence of the substance
that the latter cannot exist without them: accidents which are
simultaneous with the substance and proceed necessarily from it, such as
the internal quantity of a corporeal substance, or the intellectual and
appetitive powers or faculties of a spiritual substance. The medieval
scholastic philosophers were by no means unanimous as to the nature of
this distinction. Their discussion of the question centres mainly around
the distinction between the spiritual human soul and its spiritual
faculties, intellect and will, and between these faculties themselves. It
is instructive—as throwing additional light on what they understood by a
real distinction—to find that while Thomists generally have held that the
distinction here in question is a real distinction, many other scholastics
have held that it is only a virtual distinction, while Scotists have
generally taught that it is a formal distinction (35-39).
Kleutgen(270) interprets the formal distinction advocated by Scotus in the
present context as really equivalent to the virtual distinction. St.
Bonaventure, after referring to the latter distinction, and to the real
distinction propounded by St. Thomas, adopts himself an intermediate view:
that the faculties of the soul are indeed really distinct from one
another, but nevertheless are not really distinct, as accidental entities,
from the substance of the soul itself. We see how this can be by
considering that the material and formal principles which constitute a
corporeal substance, though really distinct from each other, are not
really distinct from the substance itself. They are not accidents of the
latter but _constitute_ its essence, and so are to be referred _reductivé_
to the category of substance. So, by analogy, the faculties of the soul,
though really distinct from each other, do not belong to any accidental
category really distinct from the substance of the soul, but belong
_reductivé_ to the latter category, not indeed as constituting, but as
flowing immediately and necessarily from, the substance of the soul
itself.(271) And, like St. Thomas, he finds the ultimate source and
explanation of this multiplicity of faculties and forces _in the
finiteness_ of the created substance as such.(272) But St. Thomas went
farther than St. Bonaventure, for he taught—as indeed Thomists generally
teach, and many who are not Thomists—that the faculties of the human soul
are really distinct from one another, not merely as proximate principles
of really distinct vital acts, but as accidental entities or essences; and
that as such they are really distinct from the essence or substance itself
of the human soul. The arguments in favour of this view will be given in
their proper place in connexion with the category of _Quality_. If they
are not demonstrative in their force, they are certainly such that the
view for which they make is very highly probable; but we are concerned
here to show, in this concluding section, that the recognition of a real
distinction in general between substance and its accidents does not in any
way compromise the real unity of the concrete individual being. It has
been widely accused of doing so by philosophers who try to discredit this
view without fully understanding it. This characteristically modern
attitude is illustrated by the persistent attempts that have been made in
recent times to throw ridicule on what they describe as the “faculty
psychology”.(273)
The source of this groundless charge lies partly in the mistaken
conception of accident and substance as concrete entities superadded the
one to the other; partly in the mistaken notion that the union of
substance and accidents cannot result in a real unity, that there cannot
be more or less perfect grades of real unity (27); and partly in the false
assumption that real distinction always implies mutual separability of
concrete entities. Of these errors we need only refer to that concerning
unity.
Modern philosophers not uncommonly conceive the union of substance and
accidents as being necessarily a mere _mechanical_ union or aggregation,
and oppose it to “organic” unity which they regard as a real unity
involving the richness of an energetic, “living” multiplicity. This
involves a misrepresentation of the traditional scholastic view. The union
of substance and accident is not a mechanical union. Nothing could be
farther from the minds of the scholastic interpreters of Aristotle than
the conception of the ultimate principles of the universe of our
experience as inert entities moved according to purely mechanical laws; or
of the individual concrete being as a mere machine, or a mere aggregate of
mechanical elements. They recognized even in the individual inorganic
substance an internal, unifying, active and directive principle of all the
energies and activities of the thing—its substantial form. And if this is
all those philosophers mean by the metaphorical transference of the terms
“organic unity,” “internal living principle of development,” etc., to the
mineral world, they are so far in accord with the traditional scholastic
philosophy;(274) while if they mean that all substances are principles of
“vital” energy, or that all reality is one organic unity, in the literal
sense of these terms, they are committing themselves either to the
palpably false theory of pan-psychism, or to the gratuitous reassertion of
a very old and very crude form of monism.
By “organic” unity we understand the unity of any living organism, a unity
which is much more perfect than that of the parts of a machine, or than
any natural juxtaposition of material parts in an inorganic whole; for the
organs, though distinct in number and in nature from one another, are
united by an internal principle to form one living individual, so that if
any organ were separated from the living organism it would cease to be an
organ.(275) But organic unity is not by any means the most perfect kind of
unity conceivable.(276) The living organism exists and develops and
attains to the perfection of its being only through a multiplicity of
integral parts extended in space. The spiritual substance is subject to no
such dispersion of its being. From its union with the faculties whereby it
attains to its natural development, there results a real unity of a higher
order than that of any organism.
And nevertheless, even though the unity of the concrete spiritual
substance and its faculties be so far higher than a mechanical or even an
organic unity, it is not perfect. Even though the faculties of the soul be
determinations of its substance, even though they flow from it as
actualities demanded by its essence for the normal and natural development
of its being, still it is a complete subsisting essence of its kind
without them; it possesses its _essential_ perfection without them, so
that however intimate be their union with it they can never form one
essence with it; it needs them only for the fuller development of its
being by acquiring further _intermediate_ perfections and thus attaining
to its _final_ perfection (46).
And here we touch on the most fundamental ground of the distinction, in
all created things, between their substance and their accidental
perfections. Unlike the Necessary, Absolute Being, whose infinite
perfection is the eternal actuality of His essence, no creature possesses
the actuality of its being _tota simul_, but only by a progressive
development whereby it gradually acquires really new intermediate and
final perfections, really distinct from, though naturally due to, its
essence. Hence, even though some of its accidents—properties such as the
powers and faculties we have been discussing—be not really distinct from
the essence wherewith they are necessarily connected, this is not true of
its acquired habits and dispositions, or of the activities which proceed
from these latter as their proximate principles. At the same time the
concrete being is, at every moment of its existence and development, a
real unity, but a unity which, involving in itself as it does a real
multiplicity of distinct principles, must ever fall infinitely short of
the perfect type of real unity—that realized only in the Self-Existent,
Necessary Being.