In De ente et essentia D. Thomae Aquinatis commentaria

Name: In De ente et essentia D. Thomae Aquinatis commentaria
Author: Tommaso de Vio Cajetan

First published 1907

Cajetan's complete commentary on De ente et essentia, using the public-domain Michael de Maria 1907 edition as the production fallback witness, with an aligned English translation.

Question I

Whether being is first known in the order and way of origin.

For clarification of the minor premise, there arises a question well-worn in this study: namely, whether being is first known by our intellect in the order of origin.

In this question there are five parts. First, the difficulty of the question will be explained; second, Scotus’s opinion with its foundations will be set forth; third, St. Thomas’s opinion will be set forth and Scotus’s opinion refuted at the same time; fourth, arguments will be brought against what St. Thomas says and answered; fifth, the principal arguments will be satisfied.

As to the first, it should be noted that the universal—which we assume is directly known only by the intellect—has a twofold totality: it is both a definable whole and a universal whole. These totalities differ in three ways. First, definitive totality is founded upon the actuality of the thing, whereas universal totality is founded upon power or potency. Second, the former is ordered to higher things, if it has them, whereas the latter is ordered to lower things. Third, the former is naturally prior to the latter. And just as the universal itself has a twofold totality, so it has a twofold confused cognition and a twofold distinct cognition. The first confused cognition is by which it is known as a definable whole, without resolving it into its definitive parts. The second confused cognition is by which it is known as a universal whole, without composing it with its subjective parts. The first distinct cognition is by which the definable whole is known, resolving it into each of the parts of its definition; and this corresponds to the first confused cognition. The second distinct cognition is by which the universal whole is known, composing it with its subjective parts; and this corresponds to the second confused cognition. Those two confused cognitions differ from one another in three ways. First, the first cognition regards the object as a definable whole, whereas the second regards it as a universal whole. Second, the first does not tolerate along with itself any distinct knowledge of the same object, whereas the second does tolerate distinct knowledge of the same object insofar as it is a definable whole, since that knowledge is not opposed to it. For I am similarly ignorant of animal in its species and know what animal is. Third, the first is naturally prior to the second. From this I establish a verbal distinction: let the first be called actual confused cognition, and the second virtual confused knowledge. And rightly so, because by the first cognition what is actually found in the object is confusedly known, whereas by the second what is virtually included in the object is confusedly known.

Those two distinct cognitions also differ in three ways. First, by the first cognition the thing is penetrated as a definable whole, whereas by the second it is penetrated as a universal whole. Second, the first tolerates along with itself some confused universal cognition of the same object, since that cognition is not opposed to it, whereas the second tolerates no confused cognition along with itself; for when animal is known with its species, ignorance of animal in itself cannot stand with that knowledge. From this follows the third difference: the second distinct cognition entails the first, but not conversely. From this I also establish a verbal distinction here: let the first be called actual distinct knowledge, and the second virtual distinct knowledge, because by the first the thing is penetrated according to what is actually found in it, whereas by the second the thing is known according to what is virtually included in it.

From these points I first draw the definitions of these four cognitions, and then their fourfold coordination. And because privation is known and defined through its habit, beginning with the distinct cognitions, it is said that actual distinct cognition is that by which what is actually found in the object is penetrated. Actual confused cognition is that by which what is actually found in the object is known without penetration. Virtual distinct cognition is that by which the object is penetrated according to what is virtually included in it. Virtual confused cognition is that by which the object is not perfectly known according to what is virtually included in it.

The coordination of these cognitions is as follows: the first is of actual confused cognitions; the second, of virtual confused cognitions; the third, of actual distinct cognitions; the fourth, of virtual distinct cognitions. In the first are the cognitions by which substance is known in itself, though without penetration, and by which body, and animated body as such, and animal as such, and human being as such are known—always without penetration, that is, without possessing a clear and resolved formal account. In the third are the cognitions opposed to those just mentioned, namely, by which substance, body, animal, and human being are known quidditatively. In the second are the cognitions by which substance, body, animated body, and animal are known without composing them with their inferiors. In the fourth are the cognitions opposed to these, namely, by which substance is already composed with its inferiors through perfect cognition; that is, the universal whole with its parts; and by which body likewise is penetrated with its subjective parts, and so with the others. Since, as is clear from what has been said, the order of actual confused cognitions is prior to the others in the way of origin, the first known in the order of actual confused cognition will be the first known simply speaking. Thus, since here we ask what is simply first known by our intellect in the way of origin, we doubt about nothing other than what is first known in the order of actual confused cognition. The difficulty between us and Scotus therefore stands in this: whether, in the order of actual confused cognition by way of origin, the first known is being or the most specific species. From this the defect of Antonius Trombeta is clear: in raising this question he adduces St. Thomas’s opinion from the First Part, question 85, article 3. For St. Thomas made no comparison there among actual confused cognitions, which is the whole subject of this question; rather, he compared actual distinct cognitions with one another; he also compared the actual distinct cognition of a higher concept with the virtual distinct cognition of the same concept; he compared the virtual confused cognition of a higher concept with the virtual distinct cognition of the same concept; and he compared the actual confused cognition with the actual distinct cognition of the same object, as is clear to anyone who considers the passage. And this concerns the first part.

As to the second, Scotus, in I Sent. dist. III, q. 2, posits this conclusion: the first known by actual confused cognition is the most specific species, whose singular more effectively first moves the sense. And he proves it by three arguments.

The first is this. Unimpeded natural causes first produce the most perfect effect which they can first produce; this is clear because they act according to the utmost of their power. But the agents of the intellect’s first act are unimpeded natural causes. Therefore they first produce the most perfect effect which they can first produce; such an effect is nothing other than the actual confused concept of the most specific species. Therefore, and so on. The last assumption is proved as follows: if that concept, namely the most perfect one, were the concept of a more common thing, it would follow that those agents could never produce the concept of the most specific species. The consequence holds because no potency can produce an effect more perfect than its most perfect effect; but the concept of the most specific species is more perfect than the more common concept, as a whole is more perfect than its part. And Antonius Trombeta confirms this, saying: whenever two natural agents are equally proximate to a suitably disposed patient, what is more actual precedes what is less actual in acting upon the patient. But the objective accounts of the most specific species and of any higher concept are of this kind, namely, the most specific species is more actual. Therefore the most specific species produces its effect before the genus.

The second argument is this: metaphysical or most universal terms are last actually known by way of instruction. This is clear from Avicenna, I Metaph., cap. III, who says that metaphysics is last in the order of instruction. But those terms are most universal. Therefore the more universal things are not actually known first.

And Antonius Trombeta confirms it, saying that the order of the sciences, as regards us, is considered according to the order of things knowable as regards us. Therefore, if metaphysics is last as regards us, its terms will also be last known as regards us.

The third argument is this. If it were necessary to conceive the more universal things before conceiving the species, then, with the sense supposed to be in act and the intellect released, a great interval of time would occur before the intellect knew the species. The consequence holds because many intermediate predicates lie between the highest and the lowest.

Fourth, Antonius Trombeta argues for the same conclusion as follows: what is known first is what is more easily abstracted. But the most specific species is easiest to abstract. Therefore the most specific species is known first. The major is proved because, since the intellect understands only by abstracting, it is related to understanding as it is related to abstracting. The minor is clear because abstraction from things more alike is easier than from things less alike: individuals of one species are more alike among themselves than the species from which a genus, or any higher concept, is abstracted.

Fifth: that universal is known first by the intellect whose singular more powerfully moves the sense. But the singular of the most specific species moves the sense more powerfully than the singular of any higher concept. Therefore the most specific species is first known by the intellect. The major is clear because our intellectual cognition arises from sensory cognition. The minor is proved in two ways. First, the sense is moved by the singular. Therefore it is moved most by what is most singular—according to the topical rule, as from simply speaking to simply speaking. But what is most singular is the singular of the most specific species, because it is determined not only by the determination of singularity but also by a determinate nature no longer determinable by another nature; and this does not belong to the individuals of higher concepts. Therefore, and so on.

Second, the same minor is proved as follows. A more actual singular moves the sense more powerfully. But the singular of the most specific species is more actual, since it is more perfect, because it adds to the other singulars. Therefore the singular of the most specific species moves more powerfully.

Sixth, as follows. What is more composite is known first. The most specific species is more composite than all higher concepts. Therefore the most specific species is known before all higher concepts. The major is found in the Commentator, I Physic. text. tertio. The minor is found in Porphyry, who says that the species abounds beyond the genus. And this concerns the second part.

CONCLUSION

Being concrete with a sensible quiddity is first known by actual confused cognition.

As to the third, two conclusions are posited. The first is: being concrete with a sensible quiddity is first known by actual confused cognition.

Before this conclusion is proved, I shall premise two points. First, I shall explain the meaning of the subject of the conclusion, namely, what it means to say being concrete with a sensible quiddity. Second, something presupposed by the conclusion itself will be explained. Regarding the first, know that being can terminate an act of the intellect under three conditions. First, as having the condition called total abstraction—not, I mean, from singulars, but from species and genera. Second, as having the condition called formal abstraction, likewise from species and genera. Third, as having neither of these conditions, though abstracted from singulars. In the first way being does not pertain to this question, because being as such is a universal whole, whereas we are speaking of actual, not virtual, confused cognition. In the second way being is a metaphysical term, and perhaps it has not yet become known even to very learned men. In the third way being is the first known, and it is called being concrete with a sensible quiddity, because it is not separated from the specific or generic quiddity by either of the said abstractions.

For fuller understanding of these matters, note that just as there is a twofold composition—namely, of form with matter, and of the whole with its parts—so there is a twofold abstraction by the intellect: one by which the formal is abstracted from the material, and one by which the universal whole is abstracted from its subjective parts. According to the first, quantity is abstracted from sensible matter; according to the second, animal is abstracted from ox and lion. I call the first formal abstraction, and the second total abstraction, because what is abstracted by the first abstraction is as a form of that from which it is abstracted, whereas what is abstracted by the second abstraction is as a universal whole in relation to that from which it is abstracted.

These two abstractions differ in four ways. First, in formal abstraction each of the two concepts is possessed separately and completely: namely, the concept of what is abstracted and the concept of that from which it is abstracted, that is, the formal and the material, so that one concept does not include the other. For line, insofar as it is line, has its complete definition, which does not include sensible matter; and conversely, the sensible matter of line has its complete definition, which does not include anything of line insofar as it is line. Otherwise natural definitions would abstract from sensible matter. In total abstraction, however, the two concepts do not remain separately complete, so that one does not include the other; only one does, namely, the concept of what is abstracted. For when I abstract animal from human being, the concepts of human being and animal do not cut each other off; rather, only the concept of animal does not include the concept of human being, since human being is not intelligible without animal. The foundation of this difference is that this abstraction occurs through considering something belonging to the account of the inferior and removing—that is, not considering—something belonging to the account of that same inferior. For animal is abstracted from human being by the intellect considering animal in human being and not rational, both of which belong to the account of human being. That abstraction, however, does not occur through considering something belonging to the account of the matter and not considering something belonging to its account; rather, it occurs through separating those things belonging to the formal account from those belonging to the material account, and conversely, as the example given shows.

Second, they differ because through formal abstraction actuality, distinction, and intelligibility arise in what is abstracted. In total abstraction, however, potentiality, confusion, and lesser intelligibility arise in what is abstracted. Third, they differ because in formal abstraction, the more abstract something is, the more it is known by nature; in total abstraction, the more abstract it is, the more it is known by us. The foundation of these differences is that formal abstraction occurs through separation from material potentialities and things of that sort. Total abstraction, however, occurs through separation from specific actualities; and the more abstract something is from these, the more potential it is, since a genus contains its inferiors in potency, and the less intelligible it is, since act in itself is more known than potency, as stated in Metaph. VI, text. II. Fourth, speculative sciences are diversified according to the various modes of formal abstraction, as is clear at the beginning of Metaph. VI. Total abstraction, however, is common to every science. For this reason metaphysical things as such are not compared with natural things in the manner of a universal whole to subjective parts, but as formals to materials, just as mathematical things are. Although metaphysical degrees are more universal than others and can be compared with other things as with subjective parts, because both abstractions can belong to the same thing, nevertheless, insofar as they stand under metaphysical consideration, they are not universals with respect to natural things but forms, and natural things are their matter.

It is therefore clear how being sometimes has formal abstraction, namely, when it is taken with precision from the other generic and specific accounts; and how it sometimes has total abstraction, namely, when it is considered as a universal whole containing the other genera and species in potency. It can also be clear how we now intend being to be concrete with a sensible quiddity: namely, when it is supported by neither of those abstractions, but is viewed in a sensible quiddity abstracted from singulars without any separation. Thus it is evident what is signified by the name “being concrete with a sensible quiddity.”

What the conclusion presupposes is that being can be known by actual confused cognition. The Scotists deny this, holding that being can be known only by distinct cognition. They argue as follows. What has a concept simply simple cannot be known by actual confused cognition. Being has a concept simply simple. Therefore. The major is clear from the fact that actual confused cognition occurs when the intellect proceeds to the object according to what is actually included in that object, without knowing how to resolve it into the parts of its account. But in what has a concept simply simple, the intellect cannot proceed according to one aspect and not according to another; otherwise its concept would be composite. The minor is clear because the concept of being is irresolvable.

But to see that the conclusion presupposes nothing false, and to make clear the insufficiency of this argument, observe that it is not of the account of actual distinct cognition that the object be known by resolving it into the parts of its account, as is clear when being is distinctly known. Rather, its account consists in this: the object is penetrated by the intellect according to everything actually found in it, whether this occurs through resolving the object into the parts of its account or through a clear intuition of a simple object. Likewise, it is not of the account of actual confused cognition that the intellect understand the object according to one aspect and be ignorant of it according to another; it is enough that the intellect proceed to the object itself actually without penetrating its actuality. Thus the account of actual confused cognition consists in the intellect proceeding to the object according to what is actually in it, without penetrating it. Whether this happens because the object is resolvable into several concepts or for some other reason is accidental to actual confused cognition. Thus Scotus’s argument assumes a false major and its proof commits the fallacy of consequence, moving negatively from an inferior to its superior, from the negation of one mode of confused cognition to the negation of every mode.

That this is so, and that being and anything simply simple can be known by actual confused cognition, I prove as follows. Whenever the intellect proceeds to being, conceiving it actually, without knowing how to separate being from substance and accident, it has confused actual cognition of being. But the intellects of many people are like this. Therefore, and so on. The major is made clear as follows: when the intellect actually proceeds to being, yet does not know how to separate its proper account from the proper accounts of substance and accident, it either has confused or distinct cognition. It does not have distinct cognition, because the inseparable effect of distinct cognition is to know the difference of that object from others; therefore it has confused cognition. And since it was posited that the cognition is actual, it follows that it is actual confused cognition. Experience teaches the minor: we see many people trained in studies for several years who still do not know how to distinguish the proper account of being from substance and accident. To say that they do not have an actual concept of being is foolish and contrary to experience. For they consider being according to what it actually has in itself and attain the whole of it; but because they do not comprehend it totally, they do not know how to separate it from others. Therefore what is presupposed in our conclusion is sound, and it is false that being is known by actual distinct cognition alone.

It remains to prove the conclusion. As to its first part, you have it from St. Thomas and Avicenna, who say that being is what is first impressed upon our intellect. The conclusion is therefore proved as follows. The most imperfect concept of all is first in the way of origin. But the actual confused concept of being is the most imperfect concept of all. Therefore it is first in the way of origin. The major is clear because the more imperfect things are prior in the way of generation, IX Metaph. text. XV. The minor is also self-evident, because every other concept adds something to the concept of being and is therefore more perfect than it, as a whole is more perfect than its part.

Antonius Trombeta replies that the perfection of a concept is twofold: objective perfection and perfection of evidence. That concept is more perfect with objective perfection which has a more perfect object positively; but that concept is more perfect in evidence which has an object including fewer things, according to Aristotle in the proem of Metaph. Hence, if the argument speaks of objective perfection, the major is false and the minor true; if it speaks of perfection of evidence, the major is true and the minor false.

Against this, I prove that the minor is true when speaking of perfection of evidence, so that the actual confused concept of being is the most imperfect as regards evidence. That concept is the least evident of all under which the intellect is more remote from knowledge of all other things than it is under any other concept. The actual confused concept of being is such that the intellect possessing it is farther from knowledge of other things than when possessing any other concept. Therefore the actual confused concept of being is the least evident of all. The major is clear from the fact that the evidence of a concept, since it is a proper perfection of the intellect, makes the intellect proportionately nearer to knowledge of other things as it is greater, especially since the intellect naturally proceeds from evident things to things non-evident to it. The minor is proved as follows. Whenever there are two concepts, one of which actually includes the other, but not conversely, the intellect possessing the one that actually includes the other is in a nearer disposition to know the other than conversely. Now the concept of being is related to other concepts in this way: it does not itself include the others, whereas the others actually include it. Therefore the intellect possessing the concept of being is farther from knowledge of the others than one possessing any other concept.

This is confirmed by Scotus, who says that a part of an account actually understood is sufficiently near to the intellect, so near that it could not be nearer. But what is brought forward from the proem of Metaph.—that evidence is measured according to an object including fewer things actually—is not relevant to the point, because that certainty is objective certainty. Our discourse, however, concerns evidence belonging on the side of the intellect; for from such evident and certain things the intellect proceeds to what is non-evident and uncertain to it.

The same conclusion is proved secondly as follows. Knowledge of the first principles is the first complex cognition. Therefore knowledge of being is the first incomplex cognition. The antecedent is clear because cognition which is from nature must precede cognition which is from effort; because there is knowledge in everyone, even in childhood; and because the first principles are presupposed for every discourse, as is held in primo Post. The consequence is proved because being is the term from which the first principle is formed. If being were not first known but something else were, then another composition could be made by the intellect while knowledge of the principle had still not been acquired, and so on.

Scotus’s position itself is argued against as follows. The most specific species is not simply the most confused object. Therefore its actual confused cognition is not simply first, and consequently it is not the first known. The consequence follows from the opposing position, which says that the most specific species is first known precisely because it is the most confused.

The antecedent is proved as follows. A genus is more confused than a species. Therefore the species itself is not the most confused. The consequence is again evident. The antecedent is proved because what contains more things is more confused. A genus contains more things than a species; for animal contains more things than human being. Therefore, and so on.

He replies that containment is twofold: some is actual and some potential; and that which contains more actually, not potentially, is more confused. Now genus contains more in potency, whereas species contains more in act; and therefore species is more confused.

On the contrary, that which contains more without order is more confused than that which contains more with order. But that which contains actually contains more in an ordered way, for species contains its definitive parts in an ordered way; whereas that which contains in potency contains more without order. Therefore that which contains more potentially is more confused.

Anthony Trombetta replies that genus contains species in an ordered way and not without order, because it regards them only through the intermediacy of differences, which are very well ordered.

On the contrary, genus contains species and differences not in act but in potency, as Porphyry says. Therefore it contains them indistinctly. The inference holds, because it is act that distinguishes, Metaphysics VII, text XLIX. Then the other contains indistinctly; therefore it does not contain them in an ordered way. The inference holds, because order without distinction cannot be imagined (even if license to invent were granted). But what he said—that genus regards species only through ordered differences—does not help, because genus contains not only species but also the differences ordered among themselves without order, as has been proved.

Observe here that confusion does not follow from the containment of many things, as the Scotists imagine; for thus the universe would be most confused. Rather, it follows from the containment of many things without order; hence the proverb: where there is plurality without order, there is confusion, and so on.

The second conclusion is this: among the actual confused concepts of quidditative predicates there is no essential order of origin. It is proved as follows: whenever some concepts are essentially ordered by an order of origin, it is impossible for the extremes to be generated without the intermediates being generated. This is self-evident; otherwise there would be no essential order of origin among them. But as a matter of fact we have actual confused concepts of the extremes without concepts of the intermediates. Therefore there is no essential order of origin among them. Experience makes the minor clear: we experience that we conceive man and substance, and yet we are ignorant of the intermediates not only distinctly but even confusedly. For we lack their proper concepts, by which our intellect is actually directed in this matter; and we are not merely ignorant of resolving them into their definitive parts. And because this argument convinces me, I give it alone. From this the defect of the Scotists who say that there is an essential order among confused concepts is clear: they cannot solve this argument.

But an immediate objection is made against this as follows. Among the actual confused concepts of the superior and the inferior there is no essential order of origin; therefore the concept of the most specific species can be generated first just as the concept of being can—which is contrary to the first conclusion. The inference holds because a non-essential order is not necessary, or can vary.

To this I reply by denying the inference. For although there is no essential order among all confused concepts, there is nevertheless such an order between the concept of being and any other concept. This is true in two ways. First, the concept of being is a kind of most general form of the intellect itself, just as the form of corporeity is the most general form of matter itself. Hence, just as there is an essential order between the form of corporeity and the other forms, but not among the other forms among themselves, so there is an essential order between the concept of being and the others, but not among the others among themselves. For after the concept of being anything else can be conceived, whether substance, accident, species, or genus. The concept of being is also, as it were, natural to the intellect itself, just as is knowledge of the first principle: as soon as being is presented, it is known by everyone. Therefore it must be essentially prior to the others, just as universally a natural act precedes those that are wholly from outside. But the same reasoning does not apply to the other concepts among themselves. And this concludes the third point.

As for the fourth point, because Anthony Trombetta attacks something said by the holy Doctor in the First Part, question LXXXV, article 3, where he teaches the order of intellectual cognition according to the way of the Peripatetics, I therefore present and solve his attack. There are five statements against which he argues. The first is: the intellect is of universals, and first of more universal things. The second: our intellect proceeds from potency to act. The third: knowledge of things in the universal is incomplete knowledge. The fourth: knowledge in the universal is knowledge in a qualified sense and in potency. The fifth: sense, emerging from potency to act, first cognizes the more common before the less common.

Against the first he argues as follows. Saint Thomas holds that whatever is in the thing and according to the nature of the thing is singular. I add another proposition to this: namely, that which precedes the act of understanding is real. Thus: whatever is in the thing is singular. Whatever is understood by the first intellection is in the thing. Therefore whatever is understood by the first intellection is singular; therefore it cannot understand more universally. The major is Saint Thomas’s; the minor is clear from the second supposition, and is proved in four ways. First, because a being of reason is posterior to the act of the intellect’s comparison. Second, because such an object is the cause of a real being, namely, of the first act of understanding. Third, because such a first act is referred to the object by a real relation, which is only to a real term. Fourth, because such a first act depends on the object as on its measure. But a real being does not depend on a being of reason.

To this I reply that the major can have two senses. The first is that whatever is in the thing is singular—that is, whatever is in the thing is singularity—and in this sense it is false. For in Socrates there is not only singularity, but also humanity and animality. The second sense is that whatever is in the thing is singular—that is, whatever is in the thing has singularized being—and in this way it is most true among the Peripatetics. Hence, if the argument is to have three terms, the major is false in the first sense. In the second, the whole argument is conceded, since being as first cognized has real being only in singulars. But how much truth there is in what he adds will be shown below.

Against the second statement, namely, that our intellect proceeds from potency to act, he argues as follows. Saint Thomas assumes this proposition to prove the conclusion that the more universal is understood first. Either this proposition proves nothing relevant to the point, or it is simply false. For if it means that the intellect first understands something in potency rather than in act, it is true, but irrelevant. I concede that the intellect first understands the most specific species in potency rather than in act; but this does not entail that it understands genus before species. If, however, it means that the intellect proceeds from potency to act, that is, from imperfect knowledge to perfect knowledge, it is not universally true, as is clear when one proceeds from knowledge of the premises to knowledge of the conclusions, and from knowledge of the cause to knowledge of the effect. By this it is also clear that the claim that the intellect first reaches an imperfect act and then a perfect one is false. For something equally illuminated is not first imperfectly and then perfectly illuminated by the sun. Likewise, the intellect receives act before habit, and yet act is more perfect than habit. Therefore, for the proposition to be true, one must prove an essential order of incomplete act to complete act.

To this I reply that Saint Thomas understands that proposition precisely in neither of those ways, but in this way: an intellect emerging from potency toward an ultimately perfect act, passing through many intermediate acts, reaches an imperfect act before a perfect one. This proposition is found in Physics VIII, text LVIII, and Metaphysics IX, text XV, and in Book II of On the Parts of Animals: things prior in the way of generation are more imperfect. Under that major, then, let the minor be subsumed, namely: our intellect is emerging from potency toward an ultimately perfect act, say, distinct cognition of the most specific species, passing through many intermediate acts. Therefore it reaches an imperfect act before a perfect one. The minor is evident, because everyone grants that the cognitions of genera are intermediate acts. Thus the argument concludes that we distinctly cognize the more universal before the less universal, which blessed Thomas intended. But he was mistaken because he believed that Saint Thomas was speaking of actual confused cognitions, whereas, as stated above, he is speaking of the virtually confused cognition of the species and the distinct cognition of that species and of the genus. For the actual distinct cognition of the genus is there called the confused cognition of the genus and species, because in it the species and the power of the genus are cognized confusedly. As for what is added against this proposition—that the intellect proceeds from imperfect knowledge to perfect knowledge—I say that this proposition is most universally true, if it is understood in the proper sense.

For understanding this and resolving all the instances, observe first that the process of nature and of the intellect is twofold: one according to the order of generation alone, the other according to the order of generation and of efficient or final causality. The first process occurs when between the terms and the intermediates there is nothing except priority and posteriority according to generation. The second occurs when, beyond that priority, there is also in what is prior the priority of an efficient or final cause.

Second, observe that one thing is more perfect than another in two ways: absolutely, or in a qualified sense. It can happen that something is absolutely more perfect than another, that is, more perfect according to its nature, while nevertheless according to some condition it is less perfect than that other—for example, material substance is absolutely more perfect than an accident, yet in a qualified sense it is less perfect than the accident, insofar as it is actuated by it. He therefore says that both nature and the intellect, in a process of generation alone, always proceed from what is absolutely imperfect to what is absolutely perfect, because the order of generation is considered according to the genus of material cause, just as animal is generated before man, as is said in the book On Animals. In the second process, however, one proceeds from what is not absolutely but qualifiedly imperfect to what is more perfect in a qualified sense, just as substance is prior to accident in generation and, beyond this, is prior by final causality, because it is the accident’s end and sometimes its agent. Yet it is clear that substance is, in a qualified sense, less perfect than the accident, insofar as it is in potency with respect to it and participates in material causality.

To the first of the instances, then, it is said that the premises are prior to the conclusion not only by the way of generation, but also in the order of efficient causality, as is said in Physics II, text XXXI. In another wording, as Saint Thomas bears witness there and as can be gathered from the Posterior Analytics I. Therefore it suffices that their knowledge be less perfect in a qualified sense. Hence they are also placed in the genus of material cause, Physics II, in the same place, and Metaphysics V, text XXXII. I say the same in response to the second instance, concerning the process from knowledge of the cause to knowledge of the effect. The example of illuminated air is irrelevant, because illumination is not successive, whereas the concepts of genus and species succeed one another. It is also false that the act preceding a habit is absolutely more perfect than the habit. Although this is true of an act elicited by the habit itself, as you have in Nicomachean Ethics I, such an act is posterior to the habit. The essential order of the generic concept to the specific is also sufficiently known in distinct knowledge from what was said there; hence there will be no need to labor further.

Against the third statement, namely, that knowledge in the universal is incomplete knowledge, he argues as follows. Universal demonstration is superior to particular demonstration. Therefore knowledge in the universal, which is acquired through universal demonstration, is superior to particular knowledge.

To this I say that the argument errs through an equivocation on the term “universal.” For Aristotle calls that demonstration universal by which a property is known of its proper subject. This applies both to generic and to specific properties, and he means that the knowledge we acquire through a demonstration demonstrating a property of its first subject is superior to that produced by a demonstration through which that property is demonstrated of a part subject to the first subject. We, however, say that to know man in animal is to know man less perfectly than to know man in himself; and this we call knowledge in the universal. It is therefore clear to anyone of sound judgment that what we say does not conflict with Aristotle. It is one thing to say, “A is known in the universal,” and another to say, “A is demonstrated by a universal demonstration.” In the first way A is not known in itself, but in its superior; in the second way A is known in itself, in its being in its first subject.

Against the fourth statement, namely, that knowledge in the universal is knowledge in a qualified sense and in potency, because in the universal itself particulars are understood under a certain confusion, he infers: therefore knowledge in the universal is confused knowledge.

On the contrary, that proof is worthless which proceeds through an equivocation. This one is of that kind. Therefore, and so on. The minor is explained: it is one thing to speak of the actual knowledge of an object, and another to speak of the virtual knowledge of what is included in it. For although the virtual knowledge of particulars in the universal is confused, the actual knowledge of the universal itself is distinct. And because the confusion of knowledge is considered from those things that are actually confused in the object, since knowledge is specified by the object and by what is intrinsic to it, it ought not to be called confused knowledge but distinct knowledge.

To this I say that he does not understand Saint Thomas, who holds that the distinct knowledge of animal as the whole definable is the confused knowledge of animal as the whole universal, and consequently the confused knowledge of the species; therefore there is no equivocation. We grant that the knowledge by which the intellect is actually borne toward animal itself as universal, and not toward its species, is the confused knowledge of animal as it is the whole universal, and not merely the confused knowledge of its species, as Saint Thomas expressly says there. Hence animal can be known simultaneously distinctly and confusedly in different respects, as was said above. Nor is it necessary that, if these two knowledges are found together, they be identical when they are separated—for example, when animal is known distinctly both actually and virtually.

But what he adds, that such knowledge ought not to be called confused, is shown to be false by the fact that actual confusion is less than potential confusion. What is added lastly—that knowledge is specified by the object and by its intrinsic features—is irrelevant to the point. For confusion and distinction are not species of cognition; otherwise the confused and distinct cognition of the same object would not be of the same species, and thus knowledge would not be specified by the object. Hence his assumption involves a contradiction in the present case.

Against the fifth statement, namely, that sense, emerging from potency to act, cognizes the more common before the less common, he argues as follows. Sense cognizes nothing except the singular; therefore it does not cognize the more common first. If you say that sense does not cognize the more common in itself, but precognizes the more common singular, then, on the contrary, either it cognizes the more common singular in such a way that singularity is the reason for cognizing, or in such a way that common nature is the reason for cognizing. The first cannot be said, as is self-evident; nor can the second be said by Thomists, because then it would be so because that nature was the reason for moving sense.

Against this he argues as follows. That is not the reason for moving which is identical in reality and in conception with that to which the reason for moving is repugnant. But common nature is identical in reality and in conception with singularity, to which the reason for moving is repugnant. Therefore, and so on. The minor is proved because nature and singular are not really distinct—not according to the nature of the thing, in your view, nor according to reason. I prove it: a distinction of reason follows an act of the intellect, but in that prior stage there is no act of the intellect. It is confirmed because a real act does not depend on a being of reason. But sensation is a real act. Therefore it does not depend on a being of reason. Yet a sensible object possessing in itself a distinction of reason is either a being of reason or an aggregate of a real being and a being of reason. Therefore, and so on. The principal argument is confirmed as follows. Whatever things are wholly indistinct according to reality, if one terminates in some real action, the other will also terminate in the same action. But the more common and the less common nature are of this kind. Therefore, and so on, assuming due proximity to the sense.

It is confirmed a second time: the same sense first cognizes what the sensible species first represents. But the sensible species first represents the singular of the most specific species, once it has been placed at the proper distance. Therefore, and so on. The minor is proved. The sensible species first represents the object under the aspect under which it is impressed upon the sense. But it is impressed by the object under the aspect of specific nature, both because that nature is more actual and perfect, and because the sensible species is a natural likeness caused by the object, representing it adequately according to the aspect that belongs to it more essentially. Therefore it represents it more under the aspect that belongs to it more essentially and perfectly than under the aspect that belongs to it remotely and less principally.

To this it is replied that the response recited there is good and correct. To the attack I say that such a nature—for example, color—and not common nature, that is, common color, is the reason for moving. To the disproof, the minor is denied in both its parts. For according to Saint Thomas, in the First Part, question III, article 3, in material things nature and singularity are really distinct; and although the distinction of reason is actual only after sensation, fundamentally it precedes it, and this suffices. To the confirmation it is said, first, that a sensible object possessing a fundamental distinction of reason is neither a being of reason nor an aggregate of a real being and a being of reason. For a fundamental distinction of reason adds nothing to the thing. Second, it is said that sensation is not caused by a distinction of nature, but by nature itself possessing such a condition. Therefore, even if that distinction were a being of reason, it would still prove nothing. For it is not color insofar as it is distinct from its singularity that moves, but this color insofar as it is color, whose intelligible account includes neither distinction nor union. To the other confirmation it is said that the major is false with respect to actions that posit nothing real in their terms, such as immanent actions: for I can understand the wisdom of God without understanding his goodness.

Before answering the other confirmations, I premise that Saint Thomas does not say that sense always cognizes the more common before the less common; his words are these. And because sense emerges from potency to act, just as the intellect does, the same order of cognition also appears in sense, for first, according to sense, we judge the more common before the less common both according to place and according to time. From these words it follows only that sense first, according to place and time, cognizes the more common singular, and it does not follow that this is always so. Hence those arguments are not against Saint Thomas, although they do not conclude. For it is false that the sensible species first represents the singular of the most specific species, and its proof is false—namely, that the sensible species is first impressed by specific nature. Rather, the sensible species is first impressed by the per se first object of sense. But the first object of no sense is the most specific species, as is clear by running through the cases. Therefore the visible species is first impressed by the visible insofar as it is colored, and not by it insofar as it is white or black. Nor does it matter that whiteness is more actual than color, because this is not sufficient; it is required that it be the first object of the power. Nor is what he assumes true: namely, that the most specific nature belongs more essentially to the sensible than the nature of the genus does. On the contrary, for this visible thing as such, color is more essential than whiteness or blackness. This is clear from the fact that when whiteness or blackness is removed, the visible thing remains, but not conversely. And this concludes the fourth point.

As for the fifth point, the arguments made are answered in order. To the first, that final assumption is denied: namely, that the most perfect effect that agents directed toward intellection can first produce is a specific concept. For I say that the most perfect effect they can produce at that time is the concept of being; indeed, at that time they can produce no other. When it is argued against this that thus a specific concept would never be produced, the inference does not hold. To its proof it is said that no power can produce an effect more perfect than its absolutely most perfect effect. Nevertheless, any power can produce an effect more perfect than its most perfect effect in which it can operate at some prior stage, because that latter effect is not most perfect except in a qualified sense. For example, the generative power of a lion cannot produce an effect more perfect than a lion, because this is its absolutely most perfect effect. Yet it can produce an effect more perfect than the one it produces at the beginning of its action, because that effect was the most perfect one it could produce at that time. To the confirmation it is said that the minor is false. For an intellect existing in pure potency is not equally disposed to the concept of the specific as to the concept of being—not through the presence of some contrary disposition, but because of the order of the most general concept to the specific concepts. Just as prime matter, every contrary disposition being disregarded, is not equally disposed to specific forms and to the form of corporeity, but must first receive the form of corporeity because of the order of the general form to the specific forms. For this reason it is customary to say that it is privatively, not contrarily, indisposed.

To the second, the response is clear from what has been said. For metaphysical terms as such are not posited by us as first known; they are metaphysical terms abstracted by formal abstraction. Rather, we say that the signified content of this term “being,” namely, the concrete quidditative content of the sensible, is first known.

To the third I say that in the formation of a specific concept it is not always necessary to preform, one by one, the confused concept of being; it suffices that being was known first of all, for everything is conceived virtually in it. Further, it is said that, since we do not posit an essential order among these confused concepts, it is not necessary that there be so much time between them.

To the fourth it is said that the most specific species is not easier to abstract than being, speaking of the abstraction required for the present purpose. For just as two abstractions are required and sufficient for the confused concept of the most specific species—the first through the act of the agent intellect, namely, separation from singulars; the second through the act of the possible intellect, namely, actually beholding the species and not actually beholding the genus—so two abstractions are necessary for the actual confused concept of being. The first is from particulars, and this occurs when any species is abstracted by the agent intellect. The second occurs through the possible intellect, by the fact that, in whatever quiddity is first actually presented to it, it first conceives being without actually conceiving the other things that are in it. Hence the abstraction of being is just as extensive and just as easy as the abstraction of the most specific species. Indeed, this abstraction of being is easier, because it is easier actually to conceive what is prior without what is posterior than conversely. From this it is clear that the abstraction of which the argument speaks is not necessary for confused cognition.

To the fifth I say that the minor premise is false; and its first proof is denied as to the consequence, because the sense is not moved by the singular precisely insofar as it is singular. For that mode of arguing, according to the Topics rule, does not hold unless the predicate belongs to the subject according to the subject itself, as you have from S. Thoma in III contra Gentiles, cap. CXXXIX; and this is not found in the present case: for this color does not move sight insofar as it is this color, but insofar as it is color. To the other proof it is said that the major premise assumed is not universally true, because the colored moves sight more than this black, since it moves it from farther away. For the bodily agent appears to act more powerfully the farther away it acts. Secondly, it is said that many imperfect singulars move the sense more powerfully than one more actual and perfect singular; and because all singulars are singulars of being, therefore the cogitative power of the child, in whom a new cognition must arise, is moved more by the singulars of being than by the singulars of this species. And since the intellect receives the universal from many singulars, as is said in II Post. (et in prooemio Metaph.), it first knows being rather than the species. Accordingly, in response to the argument, it is said that the major is true, other things being equal; but not where some inequality, as in the present case, is found to outweigh it: for the many more singulars of being outweigh the fewer singulars of the species, just as a thousand men who are not very strong pull more than ten strong men.

To the sixth it is said that the major is simply false. To the authority of the Philosopher it is said, first, that the Commentator's text is corrupt; for it ought to be read “confused and not composed.” Secondly, so that we may preserve the Commentator, it is said that the composite is more known than its components in this respect, but not absolutely: hence I know a man confusedly before I know his definitive parts as such; absolutely, however, I know the more universal first. From these points the truth of the minor, approved by the authority of Avicenna, becomes evident.

Next he makes the hearers attentive by disclosing the difficulty of what is to be said and proposing three questions: what is signified by the name “essence” and by the name “being,” how essence is found variously in various things, and how they are related to the logical intentions. For the difficulty of these matters is not slight, as the diversity of opinions concerning them bears witness: they are the most universal things, which are the most difficult to know, as is said in I Metaphysics.

Concerning this passage, note that just as the whatness of the thing is the thing's whatness, so the whatness of the name is the name's whatness. Now, since a name is essentially a sign of those passions that exist objectively in the soul (ex I Perihermenias), it has no other whatness than this: that it is a sign of some thing understood or thought. A sign, precisely as such, is relative to what is signified; hence to know the whatness of a name is nothing other than to know that to which the name bears a relation as sign to signified. Such knowledge can be acquired through the accidents of what is signified, through common features, through essentials, through gestures, and in any other ways. For example, when we ask a Greek what the name anthropos means, if a man is pointed out with a finger, we already grasp the name's whatness; and similarly in other cases. But when we ask for the whatness of the thing, we must assign what belongs to the thing signified in the first mode of adequate per se being. And this is the essential difference between the whatness of the name and the whatness of the thing: namely, that the whatness of the name is the relation of the name to what is signified, whereas the whatness of the thing is the essence of the thing related to or signified. From this difference follow all the other differences usually mentioned: for example, that the whatness of the name can concern non-beings and complexes, and can be explained through accidents, common features, and extrinsic features; whereas the whatness of the thing belongs to beings that are incomposite, through their proper and essential features. For the relation of a word can terminate in things that are non-beings in the nature of things, and in complexes, and can be explained through accidents and the like; but the essence of a thing is grasped only through proper essentials in incomposite beings.

But since we must receive knowledge of simples from composites and proceed from posterior things to prior things, so that instruction may be more suitably conducted by beginning with what is easier, therefore we must proceed from the signification of being to the signification of essence.

In this third part of the proemium he makes the hearers teachable by proposing the order of what is to be said in this conclusion: We must proceed from being to essence. He proves this by two arguments. First, thus: we must proceed from composites to simples; but being is as it were composite, and essence as it were simple; therefore we must proceed from being to essence. Secondly, thus: we must proceed from posterior things to prior things; but being is posterior to essence; therefore we must proceed from being to essence. The major premise of both arguments is proved because we must begin with what is easier; but composites and posterior things are easier for us than simples.

Concerning the minor premise of the first argument, note that being, as will be said below, signifies that which has being. Now that which has being includes essence within itself; whereas essence signifies that which the definition conveys, as will be said, and which does not state being or non-being, according to the first chapter of the Posterior Analytics. Being, therefore, is related to essence in such a way that it embraces both within itself, namely essence and being; essence, however, embraces only one of them, and therefore being is called composite in relation to essence.

Concerning the major premise of the second argument, know that when we say “we must proceed from posterior things,” this is understood as proceeding from posterior things according to nature, which are prior with respect to us. For the way is innate in us from what is more known to us toward what is less known by nature, as is said in I Physic. text. I. The minor premise of the second argument is proved by the fact that a composite is posterior to its components, and being (as was said) is composite in relation to essence.

Commentary

He shows what is signified by the name of being and essence.

He also gives various names that signify essence.

It should be known that, as the Philosopher says in V Metaphysicae, being in itself is said in two ways. In one way, that which is divided into the ten genera. In another way, that which signifies the truth of propositions. The difference between these is that, in the second way, anything of which an affirmative proposition can be formed may be called being, even if it posits nothing in reality. In this way privations and negations are called beings: for we say that affirmation is opposed to negation, and that blindness is in the eye. But in the first way nothing can be called a being unless it posits something in reality. Hence blindness and the like are not beings in the first way. The name essence, therefore, is not taken from being in the second sense: for some things are called beings in this way that do not have an essence, as is clear in privations; rather, essence is taken from being in the first sense. Hence the Commentator says in the same place: “Being said in the first way is that which signifies the substance of a thing.” This is where the treatise begins, divided into two parts. In the first it is explained what is signified by the name of being and essence; in the second, how essence is found differently in different things. The first part is completed in one chapter, the second in six; and thus the entire treatise comprises seven chapters. The first of these, which we have before us, contains three parts: in the first it is explained what is signified by the name of being; in the second, what is signified by the name of essence; in the third, the difference among the names of essence itself is designated. The first is explained by this division. Being in itself is said in two ways: in one way, as divided into the ten genera; in another way, as signifying the truth of propositions, as Aristotle says in V Metaph. text. XIV. I said “being in itself” to distinguish it from being per accidens, aggregated from things of different genera, such as a white man; concerning this, see V Metaph. text. XII. He indicates that being in the first way and being in the second way differ in three respects. First, being in the first way is predicated only of things existing in the ten genera, whereas being in the second way is predicated of everything that can be the subject of an affirmative proposition. Secondly, they differ because being in the first way is the composite mentioned above, which in some fashion includes essence and being within itself, whereas being in the second way is not of this kind: for something can be a being in this way (for example, a negation or a chimera) without having any essence. From this follows the third difference: the name essence is taken from being in the first way, as from a composite more known to us, but not from being in the second way.

Concerning the first difference, note first that the truth of a proposition, which is being signified in the second way, is nothing other than a composition made in the intellect's second operation and conformed to the object. For example, in “Sortes est caecus,” the word “est” does not signify the inherence of blindness in Socrates, since blindness lacks all inherence, whereas inhering belongs to real accidents; rather, it signifies a composition made by the intellect, which through it conforms itself to the object—namely, to Socrates lacking the power of sight. Hence in V Metaph., in another wording, it is said that being signifying the truth of a proposition signifies that the proposition is true. What the first signification of being is will be seen below.

Note secondly that, although Socrates is blind without any intellect considering it, and through the intellect's consideration does not become more or less blind, nevertheless blindness, without any intellect considering it, has no being in Socrates; these two things stand together. This is explained as follows. For Socrates to be blind, precisely as such, is not for Socrates to have some substantial being, as is clear, nor an accidental being, because Socrates becomes blind solely through the absence of the power of sight, which adds nothing to Socrates. Hence blindness posits no being at all in Socrates; and because, without any consideration of the intellect, the power of sight is not present in Socrates, Socrates must be blind without any intellect considering it. The doubt in this matter arises because it is not rightly understood that to be blind is not to be something, but to lack the power of sight. For example, a ship lacks a helmsman without any intellect considering it; yet the absence of the helmsman posits no substantial or accidental being in the ship. Hence for a ship to be without a helmsman outside the soul is not to be something, but not to be steered. Privations and negations, however, acquire being and become beings because the intellect, understanding privations through habits and negations through affirmations, forms in itself in some way a certain likeness of the thing lacking something. For example, when the intellect forms in itself a certain likeness of a ship lacking a helmsman, which is this mental proposition, “A ship is without a helmsman,” it is not the presence of the helmsman—which outside the soul posits nothing in the soul—that becomes a being because the intellect has made it some term of the proposition; and since this being is in the soul and has no other being, it follows that negations and privations of this kind are beings only objectively in the soul. Thus their being is nothing other than being understood; in this way alone all beings of reason have being.

Concerning the third difference, it should be noted that, since names are signs of concepts, the order of naming follows the order of conceiving. Therefore, just as we derived knowledge of essence from being in the first way, as from a composite more known to us, so the name essence has its origin from being.

And because, as was said, being in this sense is divided into the ten genera, essence must signify something common to all the natures through which diverse beings are placed in diverse genera and species, just as humanity is the essence of man; and similarly in other cases.

In this second part it is explained what is imported by the name essence, in the following conclusion: Essence signifies something common to all the natures of all beings. He intimates its explanation as follows. Just as being signifies something common to all existing things, so essence, since it is taken from being, signifies something common to all genera and species. And just as being signifies that which is in every genus and species, so essence must signify that by which something is in any genus and species; for being and essence are related as that which and that by which. But since the natures of things are those by which things are placed in genera and species, it follows that essence signifies something common to all the natures of things. Hence, just as being is predicated of man, ox, and the like, which are in genera, so essence is predicated of humanity and bovinity, by which they are placed in genera. By the name essence, therefore, the nature of a thing is understood, just as by the name being, that which has that nature is understood.

Question II

Whether “being” and “essence” signify immediately the predicaments themselves or their natures, or mediately.

Around this passage there arises a very difficult doubt: whether being and essence signify immediately the predicaments themselves or their natures, or mediately. In this doubt I shall do three things. First, the title of the question will be explained; second, Scotus’s opinion will be brought forward and refuted; third, St. Thomas’s opinion will be set forth.

For the first, know that “to signify mediately” in the present context is to signify something through some superior thing: thus animal signifies its species mediately (namely, through a sensible nature), for animal does not signify man except because man is an animated, sensible substance. “To signify immediately” is to signify something not through some superior nature or reality, but first through itself: thus animal signifies the sensitive grade or sensitive reality immediately, as is evident. The doubt, then, concerns this: whether being signifies some grade or reality abstractible from the categorial natures, common to them as an essential superior is common to its inferiors, and thus signifies the predicaments mediately; or whether it signifies the categorial natures themselves immediately. So much for the first point.

As to the second, Scotus, as can be gathered from I Sent. dist. III, qq. 2 and 3, and dist. VIII, q. 2, holds that being signifies the ten predicaments mediately. For he imagines that from any similar things one objective reality can be abstracted, common and prior to both; and thus, since substance and accident have a similarity in being, one objective concept common and prior to both substance and accident can be abstracted from them, and this is signified by the name “being.” For clearer understanding, I shall set forth at length the process of these abstractions. Since Socrates agrees with Plato in humanity and not with Brunellus, humanity, common and prior to them, can be abstracted from them; then, since man agrees with Brunellus in sensibility and not with a plant, animality, common and prior to them, can be abstracted from them; then, since animal agrees with a plant in vegetative life and not with a stone, life, common and prior to them, can be abstracted; then, since a living thing agrees with a stone in corporeity and not with intelligences, corporeity can be abstracted; then, since body agrees with intelligences in substantiality and not with accidents, substantiality can be abstracted; then, since substance agrees with accident in real entity and not with beings of reason, entity, common and prior to them, can be abstracted. Since this last abstractible reality is abstracted from that which being signifies immediately, it follows that the categorial realities or natures are included mediately under the signification of being.

Many means could be brought forward to confirm this position. But, so that we do not digress into the analogy of being and the comparison of transcendentals with the predicaments—whether they are their quidditative predicates or not—we omit them for now, because special questions concerning these matters will follow below.

Against this opinion I argue in two ways. First, by the authority of Aristotle, VIII Metaphysics, text XVI, where, in solving the question why a quiddity is one, he says that in separate substances no other cause should be sought, because in them there is nothing but form, which is immediately through itself being and one; just as being is immediately through itself substance and quantity and the other predicaments, without awaiting something else that makes it into the categorial natures. From this authority the argument is as follows: being signifies a reality prior to the predicaments; therefore it awaits something contracting it to the predicaments. The consequence is evident, but the consequent is contrary to Aristotle. Therefore, by destruction of the consequent, the antecedent is destroyed: being does not signify a reality prior to the predicaments.

Second, by the authority of the Commentator, X Metaphysics, commentary XVIII, who says that this name “being,” and “one,” signifies what it signifies in the predicament of substance, quantity, and quality in its first signification, without a medium and not through some common thing. What could be clearer? I do not argue from reason, since that would require exceeding our limits.

As to the third, I set forth St. Thomas’s opinion, to be drawn from two conclusions. The first is this: Being signifies one formal concept common in representing substance and accident, God and creature.

The second is this: Being signifies, as an objective concept, some real thing found in all genera, distinct according to reason from the proper objective concepts of all the genera, expressing no grade above the generic, specific, and individual natures.

For understanding the terms, note that concept is twofold, formal and objective. A formal concept is a certain image that the possible intellect forms in itself, representatively and objectively, of the thing understood; it is called an intention or concept by philosophers, but a word by theologians. An objective concept, however, is the thing represented by the formal concept, terminating in it the act of understanding. For example, the formal concept of a lion is that image which the possible intellect forms of the leonine quiddity when it wishes to understand it; the objective concept of the same is the leonine nature itself, represented and understood. Nor should one think, when it is said that a name signifies a concept, that it signifies only one of the two: the name “lion” signifies both concepts, though in different ways; for it is the sign of the formal concept as the medium, or by which, and it is the sign of the objective concept as the ultimate, or which. Hence it is the same to speak of the concept of being and of its signification.

I prove the first conclusion, then, by the following means. All similar things, under any similarity, even analogical or imitative, can be represented by the same image according to that in which they are similar. But God and creatures, substance and accident, have at least an analogical similarity among themselves. Therefore, according to that in which they are similar, they can be represented by the same similarity. But they are similar in being. Therefore, by the same similarity they can be represented insofar as they have being. That similarity is the formal concept of being. Therefore, and so forth. The process is clear, and the propositions are conceded by everyone, once the major premise has been elucidated, which we persuade ourselves of from the notions as follows. Wherever an agent produces a likeness of itself in another, if what it produces is similar to something else according to that by which the first is similar, the third must be similar to both. This is because whatever is similar to something in that in which the latter is similar to another is similar to both; thus the species of Socrates produced in my eye by the image of Socrates in a mirror is a representative likeness both of the figure of Socrates in the mirror, from which it is immediately caused, and of the figure of Socrates in himself, from which it is mediately caused. But this is how it stands here: among things having an analogical similarity—God and creature, substance and accident—there is such a relation with respect to the formal concept. Therefore, and so forth.

This becomes clear by an example. Divine wisdom produces human wisdom, which is a certain likeness of it, though imperfect. Human wisdom produces a likeness of itself in our intellect, which is nothing other than wisdom in intentional being, just as wisdom outside the mind is wisdom in natural being. Since this likeness of wisdom in the intellect represents human wisdom according to that by which it is similar to divine wisdom, it represents it according to its proper formal account. It necessarily follows that here one likeness represents both, human and divine wisdom, since it is similar to both, although it is immediately modeled on human wisdom and mediately on divine wisdom. From this example in special terms, observe our proposal in transcendental terms, such as being. Since the being of a creature is likened to divine being, from which it is modeled, and accidental being is likened to substantial being, from which it proceeds, the likeness produced in the intellect by substantial or accidental being insofar as they are similar will be a representative image of all of them. Since a concept is required for understanding only in order to represent the thing objectively by one concept, the intellect is directed toward God and creature insofar as they are beings, and likewise toward substance and accident. It is not necessary to posit several concepts and multiply beings without necessity. That these things are said not only according to St. Thomas’s mind but also according to his express teaching is clear in I q. de potentia Dei, q. VII, a. 5, in the body, from which I took this argument; and in the same question, a. 6, where near the end of the body of the question he brings forward the example of a mirror and expressly says that our concept stands toward God and creatures as the species of a seen thing in a mirror: God stands as the thing producing its likeness in the mirror, creature as the species in the mirror, and our concept as the likeness expressed by the species in the mirror, representing both. Hence no sane mind can deny this in his way.

The second conclusion has three parts. The first is explained as follows: the objective concept of being is what is represented by its formal concept. But its formal concept represents that in which all real beings are similar, which must be in them. Therefore, the objective concept of being is something real found in all. Although the assumed proposition may be evident from what has been said, it is nevertheless explained further. Just as the formal concept of animal represents the foundation of generic similarity, and the formal concept of man represents the foundation of specific similarity, so universally every common image, in representing several things, represents the foundation of the similarity among those several things. This is evident in the example given above of the species caused in the eye by the species of Socrates in the mirror: for it represents not the similarity between the species in the mirror and Socrates, since that is a relation, but the foundation of that similarity, namely the qualities and features found in both. Thus the formal concept of being represents the foundation of the analogical similarity in being among all actually existing real beings. That this is in all of them without the work of the intellect is evident from the fact that they are similar outside the soul. Since this represented foundation is the objective concept of being, as was said, it is evident that the objective concept of being is something real found in all. This was the first part of the conclusion.

The second part of the conclusion follows from this. For if the objective concept of being is found in all, while no proper objective concept of substance or accident is found in all, it follows that they are not wholly the same, and that the concept of being is at least rationally distinct from the proper objective concepts of all. This was the second part of the conclusion.

The third part of the same is explained as follows. If the objective concept of being were some grade above the specific and generic grades, then, when the specific and generic grades are considered precisely, together with their precise properties, it would not be necessary to find in them, as so considered, the properties of being. This is false. Therefore, by destruction of the consequent, and so forth. The consequence is explained because animal signifies a grade other than man; therefore, according to a precise differential concept, the properties of animal do not belong to man, as the falsity of this reduplicative expression shows. Man, insofar as he is rational, is two-footed, with “two-footed” expressing in a circumlocution a property proper to animal. Likewise, if being signifies a grade other than substance, it follows that, when the constitutive account of substance is considered precisely, substance is not one, true, or good, and so forth—things that name properties of being. The falsity of the consequent is proved as follows. Man, insofar as he is precisely rational, is one with a unity that is a property of being. Man, insofar as he is rational, signifies a grade other than being, according to you, against whom I argue. Therefore, the property of being belongs to other grades precisely distinct from being, taken in this way, which is the opposite of the consequent. The assumed proposition is found in Scotus, II Sent. dist. III, q. 1, who maintains that a unity intermediate between numerical unity and generic unity is a property of being, and follows specific nature by reason of the ultimate difference. The same proposition may also be made clear for now as follows: man, insofar as he is rational, is formally indivisible, supposing that rational is the ultimate difference; therefore, man insofar as he is rational is formally one, for unity is nothing other than indivision. But there will be fuller discussion of this when we treat of the unity of nature. For now it is enough that in the specific grades taken precisely, and likewise in the generic grades, properties of being are found. This was to be proved, and consequently that being does not signify a grade distinct from specific and generic natures. This was the third part of the conclusion.

But since the thing signified by this name “being” is something found in all, and is not a grade distinct from the specific and generic grades, it remains to declare what it is. This is explained as follows. Every generic, specific, differential, or individual grade has within itself something that can be conceived in many ways. According as each grade is a thing having being, it is implied by the name “being” and belongs to the objective concept of being. But according as such a grade is considered absolutely, it is signified by its proper name, and its objective concept is, for example, humanity. By its own formal perfection, through which it is distinguished from the other perfections of the universe, humanity has what is required for it to be represented, known, and signified by the formal concept of humanity and by the name “humanity.”

Humanity, considered in this way, also has what is due or belongs to it: quidditative being and actual existence. Thus it is represented by the formal concept of being as a part of its objective concept, and is signified by the name “being.” Animal likewise has these two things within itself, and so with the others. Hence the objective concepts of being are generic and specific natures insofar as they have being; for in this way they ground the analogical similarity of which we speak. Therefore being and its properties are preserved in every grade taken precisely: each grade, so considered, has within itself that by which it exists, is undivided, and is conformable to the intellect and appetite, and so forth. Those who posit being as abstractible from specific and generic grades cannot preserve this. That these things accord with the doctrine of St. Thomas I appoint as judge anyone who carefully examines his teaching. Below, when we treat of the analogy of being, we shall demonstrate this; for now let what has been said suffice, especially since both the first and second parts of the conclusion follow from the preceding conclusion, which is plainly St. Thomas’s.

The third part, moreover, is asserted unanimously by all Thomists. Thus it is clear how the concept of being is abstractible from all beings, insofar as they are similar—not in the Scotist manner—and it is clear how what St. Thomas says here is true, namely, that essence signifies something common to all the natures of all genera and species. For he does not intend that essence signifies some nature common to all natures, but that it signifies all natures insofar as they are similar in this, that they are beings. For each nature, insofar as it exists (by which things are things), has the account of essence, just as each thing has the account of being insofar as it has being, or is.

And because that through which a thing is constituted in its proper genus or species is what we signify by a definition indicating what the thing is, it follows that philosophers change the name “essence” into the name “quiddity.” This is what the Philosopher in VII Metaphysics frequently calls what it was to be, that is, this through which something has being as a what. It is also called form, insofar as form signifies the perfection or certainty of each thing, as Avicenna says in II Metaphysics of his work. It is also called nature by another name, taking nature according to the first of the four modes which Boethius assigns in On the Two Natures, namely, insofar as nature is said to be that which can in any way be grasped by the intellect. For an intelligible thing is so only through its definition and essence. Thus the Philosopher also says in V Metaphysics that every substance is nature. The name “nature,” taken in this way, seems to signify the essence of a thing according as it has an order or ordering toward the thing’s proper operation, since no thing is deprived of its proper operation. The name “quiddity,” however, is taken from the fact that it is signified through a definition; but essence is said according as through it, and in it, a thing has being.

In this third part of the chapter, as he is about to explain how the names of essence differ from one another, he enumerates five names for it: namely, essence, quiddity, what it was to be, form, and nature. Their rationale and difference are handed down clearly and plainly in the text, so that there is no need to add anything.

Nevertheless, note concerning what is brought forward from Boethius that Boethius says in On the Two Natures and One Person of Christ that nature is taken in four ways: first, every intelligible thing; second, every substance; third, the intrinsic principle of motion; fourth, specific essence or difference. If you do not have Boethius, see these modes, if you please, in St. Thomas, II Sent. dist. XXXVII, q. 1, a. 1. St. Thomas takes nature here in the first mode, since in this way it is common to substantial and accidental essences, generic and specific, and so forth.

Commentary

He shows that essence is properly said of substances, but of accidents only in a qualified sense. The essences of simple substances are nobler than the essences of composite substances. The essence of a composite substance is neither matter nor form, nor the relation between them, nor finally anything added to the composite, but the composite itself.

But since being is said absolutely and first of substances, and later and in a qualified sense of accidents, it follows that essence is properly and truly in substances, but is in accidents in a certain way and in a qualified sense, and so forth.

Having completed the first of the proposed matters, he carries out in this second part of the treatise how essence is found in different things in different ways, which was proposed second. First he declares how essence is found in substances in three chapters; second, in separate substances in two chapters; third, in accidents in a single chapter. Concerning composite substances, three things are declared in those three chapters: in the first, what the essence of composite substances is; in the second, how the essences of composite substances differ from one another; in the third, how they are related to logical intentions. Beginning to carry out in this chapter how essence is found differently in different things, he first declares this in general, comparing all the essences of the universe with one another in two comparisons. Second, he explains what the essence of composite substances is through three negative conclusions and a fourth affirmative one. Third, he raises and solves a certain doubt concerning the affirmative conclusion. First he makes the first comparison between the essences of substances and accidents with this conclusion: Substance truly and properly has essence; accident has it in a qualified sense. He proves it as follows: each thing has essence in the same way as it is a being; but substance is a being without qualification, whereas accident is a being in a qualified sense; therefore substance has essence without qualification, whereas accident has it in a qualified sense. The major is evident from what was said in the preceding chapter. Although the minor is found at the beginning of VII Metaphysics, it is nevertheless proved in the text as follows: that is a being without qualification of which being is predicated absolutely and first, and that is a being in a qualified sense of which being is said later and in a qualified sense. But being is said absolutely and first of substance, and later and in a qualified sense of accident. Therefore substance is a being without qualification, whereas accident is a being in a qualified sense.

Question III

Whether being is said primarily of substance and secondarily of accident, or univocally of both.

This question asks whether being is said primarily of substance and secondarily of accident, or univocally of both. Five matters are treated: first, the title; second, Scotus’s opinion; third, arguments against it; fourth, St Thomas’s opinion; fifth, replies to the opposing arguments.

Regarding the first, something may be predicated primarily and secondarily in two ways: according to the being of the predicate, or according to its proper account. A predicate is analogical according to being when it has being more perfectly in one thing than another; thus every genus is predicated primarily and secondarily of its species. The Commentator says that this does not destroy the unity of the genus. That is not the question here: it is self-evident that being is more perfect in substance than in accidents, and is predicated primarily and secondarily in this sense.

A predicate is analogical according to its proper account when it is predicated of one without reference to another, but of another only with reference to the first. Thus healthy is predicated of an animal without reference to diet, medicine, or urine, but of these only with reference to the animal. An animal is healthy without qualification; urine is healthy because it signifies health in an animal, diet because it preserves health, and medicine because it causes it. The present doubt is whether being is predicated absolutely of substance but only relatively of accidents—equivalently, whether substance, insofar as it is being, does not include accident, while accident, insofar as it is being, includes substance. Everyone grants that accident as accident includes substance; the dispute with Scotus concerns accident as being.

Regarding the second, Scotus maintains: Being is univocal to substance and accident, God and creature. He proves it thus. Every intellect certain about one concept and doubtful about diverse ones has a concept about which it is certain distinct from the concept about which it is doubtful. Anyone can be certain that God or a proper passion is being while doubting whether it is finite or infinite, substance or accident. Therefore the concept of being is distinct from these concepts, and is included in neither by itself but in both; hence it is univocal. The major is evident from the terms; experience supplies the minor.

Second: if being is not univocal, God cannot naturally be known by us through any simple concept; but this is false. No concept can be produced in our intellect unless it is contained essentially or virtually in an object shining in the phantasm. A concept non-univocal to God and to that object is contained in it neither essentially nor virtually; therefore every simple concept we have of God is univocal with the creature, and consequently with the concept of being.

Third: every metaphysical inquiry about God proceeds by considering the formal account of something, removing the imperfection it has in creatures, retaining that formal account, and attributing supreme perfection to it in God. Therefore every inquiry about God presupposes that the intellect has the same univocal concept acquired from creatures.

Fourth: if being is not univocal to substance and accident, substance cannot naturally be known by us; but this is false. Since substance does not immediately move our intellect to an act concerning itself, but only sensible accident does, we could have no quidditative concept of substance unless one could be abstracted from the concept of accident; but no such concept can be abstracted unless being is univocal to accident and substance.

The assumption that substance does not immediately move our intellect is proved thus. Whatever moves the intellect by its presence can be naturally known by the intellect through its absence when the intellect is moved; sight, for example, knows darkness when light is absent because sight is then not moved by light. Therefore, if substance immediately moved the intellect to an act concerning it, its absence could be naturally known; and one could know that consecrated bread lacks the substance of bread, which is plainly false.

Fifth, authorities are cited. Aristotle, proving that the cause of being and truth is maximally being and true, assumes that whatever is maximally itself is said of others insofar as it inheres in them univocally. Thus being is univocally said of the cause of being, God, and of other things. Avicenna likewise says that substance and quantity have no common intention except being, of which some are quasi-species and others quasi-proper accidents. He also gives the argument from certainty and doubt. Algazel reports that some held being to predicate no concept other than its inferiors, saying that the being of accident is nothing other than the being of substance. Many other arguments are omitted, since they prove only the otherness of the concept of being, not its univocity.

Regarding the third, first: no univocal thing has, in the account of its univocal nature, more than another univocal thing. Substance and accident are per se univocals under being. Therefore accident has nothing more than substance in the account of its univocal nature, being.

The reasoning is sound, but its conclusion false; therefore one premise is false. It is not the major, which follows from the antepredicaments, but the minor, which is the opposing party’s conclusion. Its falsity is shown in the seventh book of the Metaphysics, where substance is said to enter the account of accident insofar as it is being; the Commentator says that sitting and standing are not beings without substance. Yet accident does not enter the account of substance insofar as it is being. Antonio Trombeta himself concedes that substance enters the definition of accident insofar as it is being. Thus Scotus may apparently answer the argument by glossing Aristotle, though the gloss destroys the text; Trombeta cannot answer it without contradicting his own concession.

Second: being is a univocal quid-predicate of many specifically diverse things, included quidditatively in no difference; therefore it is a genus. The consequence follows from the definition of genus. The first two parts are Scotus’s own; the third is proved thus. If being were included in a non-ultimate difference, adding that difference to the genus would be nugatory. This is false, since being would be posited twice, once as genus and once as difference.

Scotus’s response that “rational animal,” like “white animal,” is not nugatory does not address the point. One thing is to speak of being in its common account, under which the things above are univocal, and another to speak of being as particularized. Being taken formally in the account of whiteness cannot denote the first part of the account of animal. Since it is taken univocally in the same way, saying “rational animal” remains nugatory—indeed, by the same reasoning, so does “white animal.”

If someone says that being is not included quidditatively in rational and white, but in rationality and whiteness, this still yields our principal point: being is not quidditatively included in any difference. Rationality is not a difference but the principle of a difference, according to Avicenna; a difference is predicated of a species, rationality is not.

Third: being is univocal to substance and accident; therefore being explicitly enters the account of substance, and hence explicitly enters the definition of man. This is inconvenient and contrary to Aristotle and the common way; therefore being is not univocal. Every univocal superior explicitly enters the essential account of its inferior, as animal enters the account of man. Since substance enters man’s definition, and its account includes being, being ought explicitly to enter man’s definition. Scotus confirms this by holding being to be the first distinctly known, because it enters the quidditative concept of everything as the first quidditative predicate.

Regarding the fourth, note the difference between the univocal, pure equivocal, and analogical. Univocals have a common name and an absolutely same account; pure equivocals have a common name and an absolutely different account; analogates have a common name and an account partly same and partly different. Animal and medicine are analogates under healthy: both are called healthy, but an animal has health whereas medicine causes health.

There are two kinds of analogates: according to a determinate relation of one to another, and according to proportionality. Substance and accident are analogates of the first kind under being; God and creature are of the second, since the distance between them is infinite. In the first kind, the posterior is defined through the prior, as accident insofar as it is being is defined through substance. In the second it is not: creature as being is not defined through God. The first kind has a common name and an account same and different in a qualified sense because the posterior regards the prior; the second has this qualified sameness through identity of proportion.

Substantial form and matter and accidental form and matter are analogates under form and matter. Substantial form is to substance as accidental form is to accident; matter of substance is to substance as matter of accident is to accident. In both cases the proportion is identical while the natures differ. The Commentator expresses this in the twelfth book of the Metaphysics, and Aristotle more clearly in the first book of the Ethics.

With these preliminaries, I posit two conclusions. First: Being is said analogically of substance and accident in both modes of analogy. Second: Being is said of God and creature only in the second mode. The first follows especially from the first argument against Scotus, and from Aristotle and the Commentator, who say that being is not one but related to one. The principles of the categories are alike only proportionally; what has no identity except proportion lacks univocal unity. This authority must be noted against Scotists who grant both analogical being and univocal identity, whereas Aristotle grants only proportional identity.

The second conclusion is now proved by St Thomas’s authority in the questions on truth. In examining how created knowledge is analogous to divine knowledge, he expressly says it is analogous in the second mode, not the first. Thus being is said of God and creature proportionally: as God is related to his being, so creature is related to its being. The formal concept of being is one, representing unequally the being of substance and accident, God and creature; the objective concept has only the unity of determinate proportion or of proportionality. Such unity suffices for a scientific object, so being need not be univocal in order to have properties and ground contradiction.

Regarding the fifth, replies are made in order.

To the first: if the argument proves anything, it proves otherness of concept, not univocity, as Scotus himself says. We readily concede this, as does Avicenna, who denies that being is a quidditative predicate but grants that it expresses another concept.

To the second, the consequence is denied. Virtual containment may mean either that a cause contains its effect by its power, or that an effect contains the power of its cause by participating in it. On the latter meaning the minor is false: every effect virtually contains God, and what contains in this way need not be prior but is necessarily posterior. If the word is pressed, the major is false, since there are three modes of containment: essential, virtual, and participative.

To the third, even granting the antecedent, the consequence is denied; analogy of the formal account suffices.

To the fourth, the consequence is denied. It falsely assumes that substance does not move the intellect through its proper species. The quantity and accidents in the Eucharist act and are acted upon as substance would be if present: just as they receive substance’s mode of being without a subject, they receive its acting and being acted upon. Thus many sensed hosts generate in the intellect the intelligible species and quidditative cognition of bread’s substance, and nourish as bread would; worms and ashes arise from consecrated hosts no less than from unconsecrated ones.

To the fifth, the middle term, when compared with one extreme as its opposite, takes on the other. Thus, although being is not univocal to substance and accident, it is not pure equivocal either, but analogical. Avicenna and Algazel therefore do not contradict this position: they establish otherness of concept, not univocity. ¹

Some substances are simple and others composite, and in both there is essence. In simple substances essence and being are identical; in composite substances essence and being differ, since being is received in matter and form.

Here substances are compared with one another in this conclusion: simple substances are more perfect than composite ones. This is not because they have a different kind of essence, but because their essence is subsistent and gathers all their perfection together indivisibly.

For this reason, since the essences of simple substances are more hidden from us, we must begin with composite essences, proceeding from what is easier to know. In composite substances form and matter are known, as soul and body in man. Neither alone can be called essence: matter is not the principle of cognition, nor does it determine a thing to species or genus; this is done only by what makes it actual.

Therefore beware Scotus’s opinion that simplicity is a perfection simply. Simplicity neither signifies perfection simply nor imperfection simply; it is a negation of composition. Immaterial substances are more perfect through subsistent simplicity, while our inquiry properly begins with composite substances because their essences are more accessible.

Perfect simplicity, according to Anselm’s Monologion XV, is what is better in each thing than its incompatible opposite. It requires two conditions: it must express perfection, and that perfection must be better in the individual being than anything incompatible with it. Relation and negation are excluded for failure of the first condition; reasoning, laughter, and barking are excluded for failure of the second, since they are better in an individual nature, not in being as such. “Not itself” must be understood as incompatible, not contradictory; otherwise every positive thing would be a perfection simply. Simplicity fails the first condition because it is a negative predicate.

Against Scotus one may argue that no perfection simply is preserved in relation as relation, whereas simplicity is preserved in relation as relation: the relation to God is utterly simple, and every ultimate difference of relation, according to Scotus, is simple. Therefore simplicity is not a perfection simply.

Moreover, what is divided into quantified and non-quantified is not a perfection simply, since that would imply that something non-quantified is a perfection simply. Simplicity is divided into relative and absolute simplicity; relative simplicity is non-quantified.

If one says that formally taken relation is not simple, but that simplicity is predicated of it denominatively, the argument remains. Relative simplicity is either a property or intrinsic mode of relation; neither can be more perfect in being than its subject. Therefore relative simplicity is not quantified and cannot be a perfection simply.

The same can be argued if simplicity is called a mode, though that seems less consonant with the truth. Immaterial substances are therefore more perfect not merely by simplicity, but by subsistent simplicity, which unites in itself, indivisibly, all the perfection they possess.

Since their essences are more hidden from us, we must begin with the essences of composites, so that instruction may proceed from what is easier. In composite substances form and matter are known, as soul and body in man. Neither alone is essence. Matter alone plainly is not essence: a thing is knowable through its essence and is placed in species or genus through it, while matter is not a principle of knowledge and determines nothing to species or genus except through what makes it actual. The second part of the chapter declares what essence is in composite substances and first establishes negatively that matter alone is not the essence of a composite substance. It proves this in two ways. First, the essence of a composite substance is its principle of knowing; matter alone is not its principle of knowing, since act, not potency, is the principle of knowledge.

Second, essence is that by which a thing is placed in genus and species; matter alone cannot do this, because what places a thing in species must be actual, whereas matter alone lacks actuality.

Essence cannot be form alone either. Essence is what the definition signifies, and the definitions of natural substances signify not only form but matter; otherwise natural and mathematical definitions would not differ. Matter is not added to the essence as something outside it, for that mode belongs to accidents, which do not possess a perfect essence. Hence the definition of a natural substance includes matter and form. ²

Here the second negative conclusion is established: the essence of a composite substance is not form alone. What is signified by the definition is the essence; form alone is not signified by the natural definition, since natural definitions signify form and sensible matter, whereas mathematical definitions signify form alone, that is, form without sensible matter.

One might answer that “signified by a definition” has two meanings: as a part of the defined thing, or as the subject bearing it. On this account a natural definition signifies form alone as the defined thing, while matter is signified as what bears the quiddity.

The text answers that what belongs to accidents because of the imperfection of their essence does not belong to specific substances. Receiving something outside its essence in a definition belongs to accidents because of that imperfection; therefore it does not belong to specific substances. The major follows from the terms, and the minor from the seventh book of the Metaphysics.

Although a part-form, such as the soul, can also be defined through something outside its essence, this is truly proper to accidents. Definition belongs to things in the direct line of a category possessing a complete species; since definition is composed of genus and difference, only accidents among beings with complete species are definable through an addition. The soul is defined through something outside its essence insofar as it shares the nature of an accident by being in another.

Nor can essence signify a relation between matter and form, or something added to them. Such a thing would necessarily be an extrinsic accident and would not be the principle through which the thing is known. These are all properties of essence. Through form, the act of matter, matter becomes an actual being and a this-something. What supervenes does not give matter being simply, but being such, as accidents make a thing actually white; therefore acquiring such a form is not generation simply, but generation in a qualified sense.

The third negative conclusion is: the essence of a composite substance is not a relation between matter and form, nor anything added to the composite of matter and form. Every such relation or addition is an extrinsic accident, while no essence of a composite substance is an extrinsic accident. Whatever comes to a being already simply and makes it formally such is an accident of an extrinsic nature; a relation between matter and form and every addition to the composite do precisely this.

The minor is explained by the fact that substantial form coming to matter gives being simply and makes this-something, whereas generation terminating in substantial form is generation simply, and generation terminating in accidental form is generation in a qualified sense. When Socrates’s matter acquires substantial form, Socrates is said simply to come to be; when, already formed, it acquires magnitude, Socrates is not said simply to come to be, but to become large.

The second argument is that no addition, whether the intervening relation or anything consequent upon the composite, is the proper a priori principle of complete knowledge of the composite substance. But the essence of a composite substance is the proper a priori principle of its complete knowledge. Therefore essence is not such an addition. It remains that the name essence in composite substances signifies what is composed of matter and form. This agrees with Boethius, who says that ousia signifies the composite; with Avicenna, who says that the quiddity of composite substances is the composition of form and matter; and with the Commentator, who calls the nature of generated species a middle, namely a composite of matter and form. Reason agrees: the being of a composite substance belongs neither to form alone nor matter alone, but to the composite itself. Essence is that according to which a thing is said to be; hence it must be both, although form alone is in its way the cause of this being. As sweetness is caused by heat digesting moisture, yet a body is called sweet from the taste embracing both, not from heat alone, so a composite is called being from what embraces both principles. The fourth affirmative conclusion is: essence in composite substances signifies the composite of matter and form. This follows from Boethius, Avicenna, and the Commentator, and from the argument that what denominates a composite substance as being through a complete principle is the composite. A thing constituted from several principles is not such through one principle alone, but through what embraces them all. A composite substance is constituted from matter and form; therefore it is a being through the composite embracing both. The example of flavors makes the point clear, while the claim that form alone causes being will be explained below.

Question IV

Whether matter is part of the natural quiddity.

Concerning the foregoing, it is questioned whether matter is part of natural quiddity. In this question I shall do three things: first, set forth the opinion of the Commentator; second, set forth the opinion of St. Thomas; third, answer the opposing arguments. As to the first, the Commentator, in Metaphysics VI, commentaries XXI and XXXIV, holds that matter is not part of natural quiddity, but falls into the definition of the natural thing as that which bears the quiddity. In commentary XXXIV he adduces the following argument for this: the essence of a thing is a substance declaring the thing quiddatively; matter is not a substance declaring the quiddity of the thing; therefore matter does not belong to the essence of the thing. The minor is gathered from Physics I, text LXIX, where it is said that matter in itself is unknown, and consequently is not declarative of something else. From commentary XXI, moreover, the following argument can be elicited: if the quiddity of man were the composite man made of matter and form, then the quiddity of man would have a quiddity; and thus there would be a quiddity of a quiddity, which is false. The consequence holds, because whatever things are the same, whatever one has, the other also has: if, therefore, the quiddity of man and the composite man are the same, since the composite man has a quiddity, it follows that the quiddity of man has a quiddity. Aristotle seems to teach this same position in Metaphysics VII, text XXXIV, expressly saying that matter is not part of quiddity, and in Physics II, text XXXIII, placing the parts of a definition in the genus of formal cause. Hence also in Metaphysics X, text XXV, he says that male and female do not vary in species, because they are material differences. It may also be persuaded from the consequences of matter; for matter is the cause of corruption, of the distinction of supposit from nature, of sensibles, and of the like, whose opposites belong to quiddities: for the essences of things are ungenerated, incorruptible, insensible, and so forth. This concludes the first point.

CONCLUSION

Matter is part of the quiddity of a natural substance.

As to the second, St. Thomas, in Metaphysics VII at the cited text XXXIII, in the First Part, question LXXV, article 4, and here, holds that matter is part of the quiddity of a natural substance. He proves this conclusion with three arguments, two of which are placed in the text; the third is this: whatever belongs to the essence of all the individuals contained under a species, when universally conceived, belongs to the essence of the species. This is true because otherwise the specific essence would not be predicated essentially of the whole essence of the individual. But matter belongs to the essence of all natural individuals; therefore matter, universally taken, belongs to the essence of the species, and thus does not enter the species as that which bears it, but as an essential part. The opponents say concerning the first argument made in the text that it is proper to accidents to be defined by an addition of another genus; this does not belong to substances, but substances are defined by an addition of their own genus, for matter belongs to the genus in which the borne quiddity is. On the contrary: then there is no difference between the definition of the form of a part and the definition of the form of the whole, except perhaps according to the mode of signifying, since both are defined by an addition of their own genus; and thus the definition of soul and of the living thing will be the same. Then, just as no genus of the category of substance is placed in the definition of soul, so none will be placed in the definition of the living thing, and similarly with the others—which is manifestly false. St. Thomas’s position is further confirmed in three ways. First: in every object taken quiddatively to which some adequate property belongs, the cause of that property must be found intrinsically. But a body subject to contrariety, taken quiddatively, is a subject to which corruptibility belongs as an adequate property. Therefore, in a body subject to contrariety and taken quiddatively, the cause of corruptibility must be found intrinsically; and such a cause is none other than matter; therefore, and so forth. The major is self-evident, because a property flows from the intrinsic principles of the quiddity; otherwise it would not belong to it according to what it is. The minor is made clear by the fact that corruptibility is first concluded of a body subject to contrariety. That matter is the cause of corruptibility is especially clear according to the Commentator. Second: that which is part of human nature is part of human quiddity, because nature and quiddity are the same; but matter is part of human nature; therefore, and so forth. The minor is proved by the fact that matter is nature, Physics II, text XXI. And if it is not a part, then there must be in Socrates two non-partial natures, because they are not parts of any nature—which is impossible. Third, it is shown that this was Aristotle’s mind in Metaphysics I and VIII, texts XV and XVI, where he assigns the cause why the definition of composites is one: because from act and potency one thing naturally comes to be. Simple quiddities, he says, immediately possess unity through themselves, since they are forms alone. From this it follows that if the essence of a composite substance were form alone, Aristotle would not need to assign the reason why it is one: form is one through itself. But because it is composite, he therefore said that it has unity because one part is act and the other potency. Likewise, in Metaphysics IX, at the final text, he says that error occurs in the quiddities of composites, but not in those of simple things, because of the multitude of parts from which those quiddities are composed. Hence error can arise from their composition, whereas it has no place in simple things, since they lack parts. From this it is evident that he holds the essence of a composite to be composite and not simple, and that the quiddity of a material substance differs from a separate quiddity because the latter is essentially simple, while the former is essentially composite. This concludes the second point. As to the third, the opposing arguments must be answered. Concerning the first, the minor is denied: although matter in itself—that is, taken in isolation—is unknown, when joined to and underlying such a specific or generic form it is declarative of something else. Concerning the second, the consequence is denied. In proof of it, it is said that the major can be understood in two ways. In one way: whatever things are really the same, whatever is really joined to one is also really joined to the other; this is conceded, but it is not against us. In another way: whatever things are really the same, whatever is predicated of one is predicated of the other; in this way it is false. For something belongs to one insofar as it is conceptually distinct from the other, which does not belong to the other, as in the present case: to have a quiddity belongs to man insofar as he is conceptually distinct from his quiddity. For he is distinguished from it as the possessor from what is possessed. Since, therefore, the major must be distinguished in this way in the present case, the argument does not proceed. Concerning what is added from Aristotle, it is said that Metaphysics VII does not remove matter from quiddity, but removes particular matter and those parts which are accidental to the understanding of the species—hands and feet, for example—from the account of man: these flesh and these bones. That the parts of a definition are placed in the genus of formal cause is not contrary to what we say. For we must remember that every higher genus stands as formal with respect to the lower, as Aristotle establishes there. Male and female, although they do not differ in species in the genus of animal, as white and black do, nevertheless differ in species in the genus of sex; the differences of this genus are accidental to the genus of animal and arise from the side of matter, and therefore in that genus they do not cause specific diversity. Concerning the final confirmation from the properties of matter, it is said that those properties follow matter as it exists particularly, and do not follow matter abstracted from singulars, which is part of the specific quiddity. Therefore they need not be present in the quiddity, nor must matter be removed from quiddity because their opposites are present in the quiddity. But because the principle of individuation is matter, it may seem to follow that the essence which embraces matter and form together is merely particular and not universal; from this it would follow that universals have no definition, if essence is what is signified by a definition. In the third part of this chapter he objects against the fourth conclusion as follows: that which intrinsically comprehends matter in itself is particular; the essence of a composite substance intrinsically comprehends matter in itself; therefore the essence of substance is particular; therefore there is no universal essence of a composite substance—which is false. Further, it follows that natural universals are not definable, because among natural things only essences are definable, since a definition signifies the essence of a thing; but the essences of natural things, as has been established, are particular. The major is proved thus: that which has the principle of individuation intrinsically in itself in actuality is particular; that which intrinsically has matter has the principle of individuation in itself, because matter is the principle of individuation; therefore, and so forth. Accordingly, it must be known that matter is not the principle of individuation when taken in just any way, but only designated matter. I call designated matter that which is considered under determinate dimensions. This matter is not posited in the definition of man insofar as he is man, but would be posited in the definition of Socrates, if Socrates had a definition. In the definition of man, however, non-designated matter is posited: for this bone and this flesh are not posited in the definition of man, but bone and flesh absolutely, which are the non-designated matter of man.

Here he answers the objection by destroying the major together with its proof, saying that matter is taken in two ways: designated and non-designated. Designated matter is the principle of individuation; non-designated matter is posited as part of the specific essence. Designated matter would be posited in the definition of Socrates, if he were defined; non-designated matter is posited in the definition of universals. Hence it is clear that universals are defined and nevertheless include matter, but non-designated matter, which is the principle of particularity.

Question V

Whether matter is the principle of individuation.

Concerning this part, it is asked whether matter is the principle of individuation. In this question there are six matters to be handled. First, the title will be explained; second, Scotus’s opinion will be set forth; third, it will be refuted; fourth, the opinion of St. Thomas will be set forth; fifth, arguments will be made against it; sixth, the arguments on the contrary will be answered. As to the first, note that when the principle of individuation is discussed, since “individual” signifies two things, namely, what is undivided in itself and what is distinct from others, nothing else is being asked except by what specific nature is first made incommunicable, so that it is repugnant to it to be communicated to many, as it is communicated to inferiors by superiors, and by what this individual is first really distinguished from others of the same species. Therefore two things concurrent in individuation are asked: namely, by what specific nature is first made incommunicable, and by what it is first really distinguished from others of the same species. And observe carefully the individual parts of the title which we have explained, since I find some people err in this matter. For here we are dealing with incommunicability opposed to real communication, and not with incommunicability opposed to communication of form; no one doubts that the latter belongs first to matter. Likewise, here we are dealing with the real distinction of individuals under the same species, which exists only among real beings, and not with the distinction by which living Socrates and dead Plato are distinguished. Always observing that now we speak only of the individuation of material substances. So much for the first.

SCOTUS’S PROPOSITION.

Not matter, nor form, nor the composite, but an individual property, haecceity, is the principle of individuation.

As to the second, Scotus, in II Sentences, distinction III, question vi, holds that specific nature is individuated through something positive contracting it through itself and making one with it: so that this positive thing is neither matter, nor form, nor the composite, but is the mode of all things or the ultimate reality of matter, form, and composite, really identical with them; and thus he gives this conclusion concerning the principle of individuation: The principle of individuation is not matter, nor form, nor quantity, but an individual property, namely, haecceity. I now omit the proofs of this conclusion concerning the first three parts, to be brought forward later insofar as they pertain to the point at issue. For the fourth he argues as follows: unity follows being, proportionally speaking; for in the same way a thing is being and one; therefore ultimate unity simply, namely numerical or individual unity, follows individual being. But it is clear that this individual being is none of the things which are actually in the species, nor any accident, since all accidents are posterior; therefore it is an individual property, constitutive of individuals. And he argues as follows: that to which numerical unity first follows is the principle of individuation: that property or haecceity is what numerical unity first follows; therefore haecceity is the principle of individuation. The major is clear, because unity proportionally follows being. The minor is proved because numerical unity does not follow quiddity, as is evident, nor any accident, since it precedes the whole genus of accidents. Secondly, as follows: every difference of things differing is reduced to things first diverse, otherwise there would be no terminus among things differing; but individuals properly differ; therefore their difference is reduced to things first diverse. These are neither their natures, nor privations, nor any accidents; therefore they are haecceities. The proof of this last assumption concerning the third part is as follows: if the difference of individuals is reduced to an accident, it is reduced chiefly to quantity; but this is not so. This is clear as follows: let it be asked by what this quantity and that quantity differ; not through themselves, for thus they would be specifically distinct; therefore through something else, for example, places. But this cannot be, because either they are distinguished by place, which is a special category, and this is not so, because place is posterior to quantity, or by place, which is a difference of quantity, and this is not so, because it must be asked by what those places are distinguished: either through themselves, and this cannot be said, since they are not these places through themselves, or through something else, and so on to infinity. And therefore, since place, which is a difference of quantity, is integrated from the continuity and permanence of parts, it is the same to say that this quantity differs from that on account of another place, and that this quantity differs from that quantity through itself. Thirdly, as follows: that which through its whole self first constitutes some singular in its singular being and in the unity consequent upon such being, through its whole self first repugns division contrary to that unity, and consequently is the principle of individuation; but only an individual property or haecceity is of this kind; therefore, and so forth. The major is clear from the terms, and the minor is proved in the same way as above. So much for the second. As to the third, an argument is made against Scotus’s opinion in four ways. First, as follows: every singular act presupposes a singular potency which it actualizes; but haecceity is a singular act; therefore it presupposes a singular potency which it actualizes; but that potency is the nature or is in the nature of the individual; therefore the nature of the individual is singular before the arrival of haecceity, and thus haecceity is not the principle of individuation. All the propositions assumed are Scotus’s in this matter, including the major, which nevertheless is proved from the teaching of Aristotle, Physics II, text XXxvul, where he teaches the comparisons of causes; hence, just as a particular form presupposes particular matter, so act presupposes potency. If it is said that this is true where act and potency are really distinct, because according to Scotus, when two things are really united, they retain by nature the same order which they would have if they were really distinct: since therefore a singular act, if it were really distinct, would by its nature presuppose a singular potency, it is necessary that it should now require the same thing, since the order remains the same. Secondly, as follows: those things which are principles of individuation are through themselves first diverse; the haecceities of Socrates and Plato are not of this kind; therefore. The major is Scotus’s; the minor is proved as follows: that which agrees more with one than with another is not first diverse from the one with which it agrees more; but Plato’s haecceity agrees more with Socrates’ haecceity than with the haecceity of whiteness; therefore the haecceities of Plato and Socrates are not first diverse. The major of the prosyllogism is clear from the terms: for what is first diverse from another does not agree with it. The minor is proved in two ways: first, because the haecceities of Socrates and Plato agree in species, while the haecceities of Socrates and whiteness differ in genus; second, because those things agree more which are more alike, and those are more alike which are more comparable; but the haecceities of Socrates and Plato are more comparable than the haecceities of Socrates and whiteness, just as universally things of the same category are more comparable than things of different categories. Third, as follows: that which agrees with and repugns to another individual of the same species necessarily presupposes their distinction: an individual property, for example, Socrateity, agrees with Socrates and repugns to Plato, an individual of the same species; therefore an individual property presupposes the distinction of Socrates from Plato, and thus an individual property is not that by which Socrates is first distinguished from Plato. The conclusion is false according to Scotus; the reasoning is sound; therefore one of the premises is false; but both are his; therefore he is altogether proved false. The major is found in Scotus in every question II; the minor, however, is his conclusion which we are now attacking. Fourth, I show that this position contradicts the Peripatetics, Aristotle, and the Commentator. For in Metaphysics XII, text XLI, this consequence is made: the first heaven, that is, the first principle, is one in species and many in number; therefore it has matter; which consequence would be null if an individual property were posited as distinguishing individuals of the same species. But that Scotus’s gloss, understanding “matter” as an individual property, destroys the text, is clear from the Commentator there saying: everything which is one in species and many in number has matter; but it has already been declared that the principle of heaven has no matter; from these words it is clear that he is speaking of that matter which he declared not to be in the first principle. It also clearly appears that in text XXX he expressly declared the mover of heaven not to have matter either for place or for being, and made no mention of an individual property. The fiction of that gloss also appears from Metaphysics III, text I, where it is said that every multitude is either of things differing according to form or according to quantity, which same thing you have in the Commentator on Physics I, text VI. Nor is the gloss of Antonius Trombeta to be admitted, that it is understood concomitantly. For “according to” must be held in the same way and uniformly in the first member and in the second; in the first it denotes causality; therefore also in the other. It can also be detected that this new invention concerning haecceities is a pure fiction from On the Heavens I, texts XC and XCII, where Aristotle and the Commentator assign the unity and plurality of individuals in the same species, in material things, to matter alone. So much for the third.

CONCLUSION Designated matter is through itself the intrinsic principle of individuation, but not something aggregated from matter and quantity.

As to the fourth point, St. Thomas’s opinion, stated by him here and in many other places, is that designated matter is the principle of individuation. Concerning this conclusion, it should be noted that Thomists differ among themselves and agree. They all agree in this, that two things must concur in individuation: matter and quantity. They differ, however, because some hold that the aggregate of matter and quantity is the intrinsic principle of individuation: matter giving incommunicability, or indistinction in itself; quantity giving distinction from other things; and they call such an aggregate designated matter. Others, however, think much better, saying that the intrinsic principle of individuation, both as regards incommunicability and as regards distinction from others, is designated matter, not quantified matter, or an aggregate of matter and quantity. Since this, in my judgment, is the true doctrine of St. Thomas, as will be shown, we therefore wish to explain and defend it: first explaining what designated matter signifies; second excluding the first Thomist explanation; third proving the intended conclusion. Designated matter is nothing other than matter capable of this quantity, but not of that one; for this matter is an intrinsic part of Socrates, belonging to his definition if he were defined. For one must imagine that a particular agent—for example, this seed—continually appropriates matter for introducing a form in such a way that, just as human seed appropriates matter for a human soul, so this seed appropriates it for this soul. Hence, when at the first instant of Socrates’ generation—which is Socrates’ first being, the first non-being of the preceding form, and, in the first order of nature, of the accidents—a particular composite comes to be, and then, in natural order, all the accidents follow in that prior according to nature in which the particular composite terminates generation through itself and first, the matter that is its intrinsic part, namely Socrates’ matter, is so appropriated to Socrates by the particular agent that it is capable of no quantity other than the one Socrates determines for himself. For the magnitude and growth of everything constituted by nature are determined, as is said in On the Soul II, from Commentary XLI; and such matter is called designated matter. Designated matter therefore adds nothing to matter except the capacity for this quantity, but not for that one. The capacity of matter with respect to this quantity is nothing other than the receptive potency for this quantity, but not for that one; the receptive potency, however, says nothing really distinct in the direct signification, but adds to matter something real distinct only according to reason. Just as proper matter adds nothing really distinct from matter itself, yet says something real in matter which matter according to itself does not explain—for designated matter is definable only through this quantity, if it were defined—so proper potency is defined only through its proper act, as is said in Physics III, text X. Matter according to itself does not require this quantity in its definition. Hence the proper matter of an individual, designated matter, and matter under determinate dimensions signify the same thing. Therefore St. Thomas did not say “matter with determinate dimensions,” but “under determinate dimensions”; and elsewhere he says that just as matter, in relation to general forms—for example, the total and partial form—distinguishes heavenly bodies generically from lower bodies, so matter, in relation to this or that quantity, distinguishes things in material realities numerically. Designated matter therefore does not signify an aggregate of matter and quantity, but signifies matter directly and quantity obliquely; just as the potency of matter signifies matter directly and, obliquely, the act to which it is ordered, since it is definable only through that act. Thus it is clear what designated matter signifies. That the other Thomists do not explain it suitably is shown as follows: the principle that distinguishes an individual from its species and from another individual of the same species is the same; but matter not quantified, rather matter designated in the manner explained above, is the intrinsically distinguishing principle of an individual from its species; therefore it is not quantified matter, but designated matter, that is the intrinsic distinguishing principle of an individual from another individual of the same species. They concede the minor, and it is expressly St. Thomas’s in the treatise called On the Principle of Individuation—which, according to the truth and its ancient title, is called On Cognitive Powers, as it is held in the Supreme Pontiff’s library, where alone I have seen that treatise complete; for the one commonly possessed is truncated. The major, however, seems capable of being denied by the insolent only in words. For we universally see this to be true: whenever something common is divided into several subjective parts, the lower things differ from one another and from the superior through the same thing; thus man differs from animal and from lion through the same thing, namely his proper difference. Hence Porphyry gives three acts to difference: dividing the superior, constituting the inferior, and distinguishing the constituted thing from the superior and from its other coordinate members. This conclusion is therefore proved in the manner explained above, namely: designated matter is the intrinsic principle of individuation. That is the intrinsic principle of individuation to which it first belongs not to be communicated to many in the way a universal is communicated to a particular; but designated matter is that to which it first belongs not to be communicated as a universal to a particular; therefore, and so on. The major is conceded by all; the minor is proved.

Commentary

But note that the minor contains two things, namely that designated matter is opposed to being communicated to many, and that this opposition belongs to it first. The first of these is evident from itself: it is impossible for matter capable only of this quantity to be multiplied. The second is proved as follows: that belongs first to designated matter which belongs to it when anything else is abstracted, and which, when it is abstracted, belongs to no other thing (from the First Book of the Posterior Analytics); but not being communicated to many as a universal to a particular, with anything else existing in sensible substance abstracted, belongs to designated matter, and, when it is abstracted, belongs to no other thing; therefore not being communicated to many belongs first to designated matter among all things found in sensible substance. The minor is proved with respect to both its parts. As to the first: what designated matter, taken precisely, claims for itself, so that under its opposite it is not intelligible, belongs to it with anything else abstracted; this is clear from the terms. But incommunicability belongs to designated matter precisely as so taken, so that under its opposite designated matter is not intelligible; for the proper matter of a communicable individual cannot be understood; therefore incommunicability belongs to designated matter with anything else abstracted. The second part of the minor is clear by example: for when Socrates’ designated matter, or proper matter—which is the same thing—is abstracted, it is certain that neither his form remains here nor will remain here, nor does matter itself; for if he does not have proper matter, through what does he leave the order of common things? Second, the same conclusion is proved thus: what can be done through fewer things, and equally well, is done in vain through more; but individuation of a composite substance is sufficiently preserved through designated matter without any other things; therefore everything else is added in vain. The minor will become clear from what follows, where, once the arguments of the adversaries have been solved, our stable and firm position will remain. It is also confirmed because, since in a composite substance there are only matter, form, and the composite formed from them, and whatever accidents happen to the individual have no other intrinsic cause than one of these, it is not necessary to wander outside this in investigating the cause of individuation. Third, the same conclusion is proved by the authorities of Aristotle and the Commentator cited above, which need not be repeated. It is plainly evident in them that every distinction arises either from forms or from quantity. Designated matter is therefore the intrinsic principle of individuation, through which Socrates is intrinsically—though particularly—this individual. I say “particularly,” because I do not think designated matter is the individual property itself, or the individual difference, but rather the essential principle of the individual difference. For I think that the proportion of designated matter to the individual property or difference is like the proportion of the human soul to the constitutive difference of man. For just as the intellective soul is not the difference itself, namely rational, but that from which it is taken, so designated matter is not the individual difference itself, but that from which it is taken and which causes it intrinsically. And just as man is man both through rational as a total formal principle and through the intellective soul as an intrinsic partial formal principle, from which rational borrows and is caused, so Socrates is this individual through the individual difference as a certain total denomination—which is nothing other than an individual grade, just as specific difference is a specific grade—and through designated matter as the prior intrinsic cause from which the individual difference borrows. Thus the difference between us and the Scotists is that they multiply individual differences without essential dependence on designated matter, whereas we would no more know how to contract animal to man and ox without the forms of the parts from which the contracting differences of animal are caused than we know how to contract a species—for example, man—to an individual without designated matter, which is the cause of individual differences, and consequently the first intrinsic principle of individuation. I am moved to say this because I hold that Socrates, taken substantially, in the direct line—that is, in the predicamental line—under the species is one numerically, not with a unity belonging to the category of quantity, but with substantial unity. This unity must precede it, since it is a passion of being arising from the individual grade which the individual difference itself signifies. Let no one judge whether this is the mind of the holy Doctor before reading him himself, both in the Compendium of Theology, chapter CLV, where he wishes Socrates to be the same in number after his resurrection with his numbered quantity, and in the treatise mentioned above. As to the fifth point, Scotus argues against the conclusion and the things said in it above. First, thus: it is impossible for something naturally dependent on what is posterior to be naturally identical with what is prior, because then it would be prior and not prior; but substance is naturally prior to quantity; therefore nothing caused by quantity, or in any way presupposing the nature of quantity, can be identical with substance; therefore this designation caused by quantity is not the same as substance. The proof of the major is this: wherever there is true and real identity, even if it is not formal, it is impossible for this to be and that not to be, because the same thing would really be and not be; but what is naturally prior can be without what is naturally posterior; therefore, much more, it can be without what is left behind or caused by what is naturally posterior. Moreover, what is a necessary condition of a cause in causing cannot have its being from the caused, because then the cause, insofar as it is sufficient for causing, would be caused by its caused effect, and that effect would be the cause of itself. But the singularity or designation of substance is a necessary condition in substance for causing quantity, because a singular effect requires a singular cause; therefore it is impossible for this designation or singularity to be from quantity. Moreover, I ask what it is for quantity to cause or leave such a mode or designation in substance. If this means nothing except that it preceded quantity, then designation is in no way through quantity, because designation of substance would then naturally precede quantity itself. But if it means something else, I ask how it is caused by quantity, and in what kind of cause. Moreover, why does quantity rather than quality leave such a mode in substance? No reason appears, because just as quality informs a surface in itself, leaving nothing in it, so quantity informs substance in itself and not through another form left behind. Moreover, the quantity that concurs in individuation is either terminated or indeterminate. It is not terminated, because terminated quantity follows form in matter and consequently the singularity of substance: just as substance is its cause insofar as it is terminated, so this substance is its cause insofar as it is terminated here. This is confirmed because, since terminated quantity is varied by rarefaction alone, the same individual would be the same with many singularities, which is impossible. If it is indeterminate, the contrary follows: it remains the same in what is generated and what is corrupted. Moreover, if quantity concurs in individuation as what first distinguishes, it must itself first be numerically distinct from another. But then your proposition is not true, namely that every formal difference is specific: for this quantity and that quantity, since they are forms, would differ specifically. If you exempt quantity from that foundational proportion of the ruinous structure, how will it be proved that formal difference is specific? Whatever reason is brought forward concerning form will apply to quantity, since quantity is a form. Moreover, the whole breadth of the category of substance is prior to the other categories; therefore, since the substance-individual is enclosed within this breadth, it must be intrinsically complete without dependence on quantity, which is posterior. This is confirmed because nothing is placed in a genus through something outside that genus. Scotus and others make many other arguments; but because they conclude that matter alone, or quantity alone, or the aggregate of matter and quantity is not the principle of individuation, I have omitted them, for they are not against us. I have also omitted arguments indirectly against our position, out of a concern for brevity. So much for the fifth point. As to the sixth, one must answer the arguments just made, and then others brought forward for the contrary opinion. To the first of these it is said that the major is false. For clarity, it should be noted that the proportion of designated matter to this quantity is the proportion of potency to its proper act. Thus, just as the potency of matter is really identical with matter itself and nevertheless depends on form, so the potency or capacity of matter with respect to this quantity, which is called its designation, depends on quantity and is nevertheless identical with matter. And because potency is prior and posterior, naturally prior to act in the genus of material cause and posterior in the order of formal cause, the designation of matter is prior to quantity in the order of material cause but posterior in the order of formal cause. Thus the major is false in either way, whether it is understood of priority and posteriority according to the genus of material cause or according to the order of formal cause. For something dependent on form is really identical with matter, and something dependent on matter is really identical with form, as is clear. To the first proof, where it is said that then it would be prior and not prior, I say that there is no contradiction in different genera of causes. To the other proof, where it is said, “wherever there is true and real identity,” and so on, the second proposition assumed is denied: not everything prior can be without what is posterior, as will be shown elsewhere. To the second, the major is denied when the caused is the cause of its cause in another genus of cause, as happens here. Designated matter is the cause of quantity in the genus of material cause; quantity is the cause of designated matter in the genus of formal cause, as act is the cause of potency. The falsity of the major is clear in the example given above: the potency of matter is a necessary condition of matter for causing form, and nevertheless depends on form in the genus of formal cause. To the proof it is said that material cause, according to its causality, depends on its effect, namely form, but not insofar as it is its effect; rather, it depends on it insofar as it is the cause of matter. For causes are causes of one another, as is said in Physics II, text XXX. It is therefore not impossible for a cause, in causing, to depend on what is caused—not as caused, but as it is a cause according to another genus. To the third it is said that for quantity to cause such a designation in matter is nothing other than for matter, under this agent, to have been made capable of this quantity to such a degree that it is not capable of that one. Thus quantity concurs in the designation of matter as the act on account of which such capacity comes to be. But the agent causes it as efficient cause, and such designation or capacity precedes quantity itself in the genus of material cause; it cannot therefore be inferred from this that it is not made through quantity, because it is made through quantity in the genus of formal cause, which, like the end, is numbered among causes posterior in being. To the fourth it is said that not only quantity designates matter in this way, but also proper qualities. For Socrates’ matter is capable of these qualities in such a way that it is not capable of others. But because quantity alone is immediately received in substance, and material distinction arises radically from quantity alone, for the present purpose we speak of designated matter, matter under determinate dimensions, and not under determinate qualities.

To the fifth it is said that the quantity which concurs in individuation as the original, not intrinsic, principle of individuation is terminated quantity. Nor is it an objection that it follows form, because form too follows the potency of matter, by which it is nevertheless caused. We concede that this substance is the material cause of this quantity; conversely, in the genus of formal cause, this quantity is the cause of this designation of matter in the manner explained above. To Anthony Trombeta’s confirmation it is said that terminated quantity which concurs in individuation does not stand at an indivisible point, but has breadth. For just as every natural species determines for itself a maximum and minimum quantity within a certain breadth, so every individual determines for itself this quantity within such limits, and not at an indivisible point. Hence rarefaction can occur without variation of it insofar as it is individuative. Terminated quantity is not taken here pointwise, but with a certain breadth. To the sixth it is said that the first consequence is conceded, but that what follows from it is the falsity of that foundational proposition of the very firm structure is denied. For the objector committed the greatest error by failing to distinguish between formal difference and difference of forms. Every formal difference is specific, but not every difference of forms, as St. Thomas says in Against the Gentiles II, chapter LXXXI; otherwise the form of this fire and the form of that fire would differ specifically, since they are forms and differ. Thus a mathematical line divided into parts has two individuals: each part of the line is a line, and those individuals are forms and differ, but not by formal difference. Formal difference is called that which is through quiddative principles; for this always arises from form insofar as it is form, and there is no such difference between this line and that line, since the quiddity of both is the same. Indeed, the objector’s error is very childish: they are forms and they differ; therefore they differ formally; he is a monk and he is white; therefore he is a white monk. To the last, the consequence is denied. Although what is in the category of substance is simply prior to anything in any other category, nevertheless some condition—without which an individual as such is not in a category—can be posterior in the genus of formal cause and belong to another category, because formal cause is posterior in being. To the confirmation it is said that every category is completed by things of its own genus, if we speak of what is placed in categories and of the reason for placing them in them, but not if we speak of the condition of the thing placed in a category. Socrates is nothing but substance, and the reason placing him in the category is substance; but the condition of individuation, without which there is no reason for placing him in the category, may nevertheless require some accident, such as quantity. To the first of the arguments brought forward for the contrary conclusion it is said that the minor is false: numerical unity first follows designated matter. To the second it is said that the difference of individuals is reduced to quantities. Quantities, however, differ by their proper positions, which are differences of quantity. Position is not constituted only by those two things, namely the permanence and continuity of the parts, but by these two together with a third, namely the order of the parts in the whole, as Alberic teaches in the Categories, in the chapter on quantity. For by this it differs from position, the special category which signifies the order of parts in place. Hence positions in the present case are distinguished by their orders of parts in the whole, which belong to their account; and orders by themselves. For distinction enters into the definition of order. Thus it is clear that there is not equal doubt concerning the things to which we reduce the matter and concerning quantities, and that quantities need not for this reason be formally distinct. Such order of parts in the whole, as something material, is in quantity itself, and is found in no other form. To Anthony Trombeta’s third argument it is said that the minor is false: designated matter, as has been proved, is that to which it first belongs to be divided as a universal into particulars; for it is contrary in reason to haecceity. It is explained in what way the essences of genus, species, and individuals are distinguished both absolutely and as conceived under the names of first imposition; in what way genus, species, difference, and definition differ among themselves; and finally how the essences of species are compared with individuals. It is therefore clear that the essence of man and of Socrates differ only according to the designated and the non-designated. Hence the Commentator says on Metaphysics VIII that Socrates is nothing other than animality and rationality, which are his quiddity. The essence of genus and the essence of species likewise differ according to the designated and the non-designated, although the mode of designation is different in each case: for the designation of an individual with respect to a species is through matter determined by dimensions, whereas the designation of a species with respect to a genus is through the constitutive difference, which follows from the thing’s form,

After it has been determined in general what the essence of composite substances is, in this third chapter, intending to treat the difference among composite essences, since composite essences are three—generic, specific, and individual—he does five things. First he speaks of their difference absolutely; second, intending to determine their difference as they underlie first intentions and their names, he shows how generic essence differs from specific essence; third, he explains how genus, species, difference, and definition differ among themselves; fourth, he excludes a certain doubt; fifth, he assigns the difference between specific and individual essence. For clarity concerning what will be said, it should first be noted that we can speak of essences in three ways: first, of them absolutely, without relation to first or second intentions; second, of them as they underlie names of first intention; third, as they underlie names of second intention. For example, it is possible to speak of human nature according to itself, that is, according to what belongs to it by reason of itself; it is possible to speak of it as standing under this name, “humanity,” and this name, “man,” and similar names; and third, it is possible to speak of it as standing under this name, “species.” St. Thomas therefore, in the first part of this chapter, speaks of the essences of things in the first way; throughout the remainder he speaks of them taken in the second way; in the following chapter he will speak of them taken in the third way.

And this, if you do not wish to be deceived in this chapter, must be noted most diligently: therefore, in assigning the difference between generic, specific, and individual essence considered in themselves, he establishes this conclusion: The aforesaid essences differ only according to the designated and the non-designated. This is explained as follows. The essences of animal, man, and Socrates properly differ only in this: in the account of animal there falls an animated sensitive substance without its determination by rational; in the account of man there is posited an animated, sensitive, rational substance, and thus designation by the difference is added to it; while the account of Socrates posits an animated, sensitive, rational substance in these particular flesh and bones, and thus the designation of matter is added to it, which was not posited in the account of man. Hence, speaking absolutely and according to their proper accounts, these essences appear to differ only according to the designated and the non-designated, that is, according to the explicit inclusion of some designation or determination, and not its implicit inclusion; although such designation is not uniform in specific nature and individual nature. For the designation that specific nature adds above generic nature is formal, essentially diversifying the genus, as taken from form precisely insofar as it is form; but the determination that individual nature adds above specific nature is material, producing diversity in the species not formally but only materially, as taken from the material conditions of the thing.

From this you have that man and humanity, and animal and animality in themselves—that is, the natures signified—do not differ in any way; the account of the nature signified by man and by humanity is altogether the same, so that they differ by no designation. But, as will be said later, they differ insofar as they are subject to names of first intention. Since the distinction according to the designated and non-designated is not a real distinction, therefore the Commentator says in VII Metaphysics, commentary 10, that Socrates taken substantially is nothing other than animality and rationality, which are his quiddity; for “Socrateity,” which names the nature of Socrates, is really the same as animality and rationality.

This determination or designation, which is in the species with respect to the genus, is not through something existing in the essence of the species that is in no way in the essence of the genus; rather, whatever is in the species is also in the genus, although not determined. For if animal were not the whole that man is, but a part of him, it would not be predicated of him, since no integral part is predicated of its whole.

In this second part of the chapter it is determined how generic essence differs from specific essence, insofar as both stand beneath names of first intention: namely, how the essence of man and the essence of animal differ beneath the names man and animal. He intends that the essence signified by the generic name, such as animal, and the essence signified by the specific name, such as man, do not differ because the essence signified by the specific name includes some determination wholly outside the thing signified by the generic name, but because the essence imported by the name of the species actually includes the specific designation produced by its constitutive difference, just as man actually includes rational, since it is placed in his definition. But the essence signified by the generic name confusedly and indeterminately imports that designation; thus animal potentially includes rational, as Porphyry says. Hence animal, and universally every essence imported by a generic name as such, includes the whole that the species includes, although not in the same way.

Therefore, to explain the proposed difference, he establishes this conclusion: The genus states the whole being of the species. He proves it thus: every predicate states the whole being of that of which it is predicated; the genus is predicated of the species itself; therefore generic nature, such as animal, states the whole being of the species. He proves the major premise by saying that no part is predicated of its whole. It must be observed that this statement is true of direct predication in the nominative, whether essential or denominative, and of a part insofar as it is a part, not of a part insofar as it is signified after the manner of a whole. For a part can be signified in either way: matter is signified as a part of a thing by the word “matter,” but as a whole by the word “material.” With these conditions so modified, the proposition “no part is predicated of its whole” suffers no exception. When I say, “Man is white,” “white” gathers into itself implicitly the whole that is in man; likewise, when I say, “Man is material,” “material” implicitly comprehends the whole that man is. Thus, when it is said, “Man is animal,” “animal” implicitly contains the whole that man is, in the way to be explained below. Thus it is proved that the essence imported by the generic name includes the specific designation, for outside the whole there is nothing.

How this occurs can be seen if one considers body insofar as it is posited as a part of animal and insofar as it is posited as a genus. It cannot be said to be a genus in the same way in which it is an integral part. Therefore this name body can be taken in many ways. Body insofar as it is in the category of substance is said from having such a nature that three dimensions can be designated in it; but the three designated dimensions themselves are body, which is in the category of quantity. In things it happens that what has one perfection reaches a further perfection, as is clear in man, who has a sensitive nature and, beyond it, an intellectual nature. Likewise, above this perfection—which is having such a form that three dimensions can be designated in it—another perfection, such as life, can be added. Thus body can designate a thing having such a form that the designability of three dimensions follows from it, with the precision that no further perfection follows from that form, so that if anything else is added it is outside the signification of body so taken. In this way body will be the material and integral part of animal, because soul will then be outside what is signified by body and will come to it, so that animal is constituted from these two, soul and body, as from parts. Body can also be taken to signify a thing having such a form that three dimensions can be designated in it, whatever that form may be, whether a further perfection can proceed from it or not. In this way body is the genus of animal, because in animal there is nothing to be taken that is not implicitly contained in body. For soul is not other than that form through which three dimensions could be designated in that thing. Thus, when I said that body is what has such a form that three dimensions can be designated in it, I understood whatever that form might be, whether it were soul, stoniness, or any other form; and so the form of animal is implicitly contained in body, or in the form of body, insofar as body is its genus.

Since it has been declared that genus is related to species not as its part but as its whole, he plainly intends here to show how the thing signified by a generic name can be taken in both ways, as part and as whole: first in body, as the more evident case, and then in animal. Since the same thing, taken in the same way, cannot be both a part of a thing and its genus, you must know that the name body is taken in two ways. It is equivocal for body, which is a thing in the category of substance, and body, which is a thing in the category of quantity. Body insofar as it signifies a thing in the category of substance imports the nature from which three dimensions are apt to flow; but body insofar as it signifies a thing in the category of quantity imports the three dimensions themselves.

Again, body signifying a thing in the category of substance, which is now under discussion, is taken in two ways. In one way it signifies that nature from which three dimensions are apt to flow, with precision from every further substantial perfection. In another way it signifies that very nature without precision from a further substantial perfection. He assigns the cause of this and similar distinctions in the text: a thing having some substantial perfection does not exclude from itself another further substantial perfection, just as man, from having sensitive perfection, does not exclude intellectual perfection. Likewise, body, from having bodily perfection, does not exclude vital perfection, and so on. Since the prior substantial perfection excludes neither the second nor the third, while it is also clear that it does not actually include them, the prior perfection can be conceived and signified both with precision or exclusion of the others and with their confused inclusion. Because it does not formally include the others, it can be conceived and signified precisely; because it does not exclude union with the others, it can be conceived and signified with their confused and potential inclusion. Hence the nature signified by body, since it does not formally include vital, sensitive, or intellectual perfection, can be conceived and signified with precision from all these; and since it does not exclude its essential union with them, it can be conceived and signified without their precision, as confusedly and indeterminately including them all. The text gathers a threefold difference between these. First, body in the first way states bodily nature alone, from which three dimensions are apt to flow, with no further perfection; body in the second way states any form whatever from which corporeity arises, from which three dimensions are apt to flow together with any other perfection. Second, body in the first way is a part of the species, since its formal signified is beyond and outside its signified, just as rational soul is outside corporeity; in man there are two things, bodily perfection, which when taken precisely plainly does not include intellectuality in any way, and intellectual perfection, which is the other part. But body in the second way is the whole with respect to the species, because the perfection or form formally imported by the species is included in the signified of body so taken: it signifies any form from which bodily perfection arises, and thus intellectual soul is included in “any.” Third, body in the first way is not in the direct line of the categories, just as no part is; but body in the second way is directly in the category of substance, like every other genus.

Animal also has this relation to man. If animal named only a thing having a certain perfection, so that it could sense and move through a principle existing in it, with precision from another perfection, then any further perfection that came to it would relate to animal as a part, and not as implicitly contained in the account of animal; animal would not be a genus. It is a genus insofar as it signifies a thing from whose form sensation and motion can proceed, whatever that form may be, whether it is a merely sensitive soul or a sensitive and rational soul together.

He also explains this through the genus animal. Animal can be taken to signify the form from which sensation and motion arise precisely, by which animal is distinguished from what is not animal, as is said in I On the Soul, text 19. It can also be taken to state any form whatever from which sensation and motion arise, not precisely; and in this way it is a genus. In the first way it is a part of the species, so that man is composed of animal and an intellectual principle as essential parts, taking animal in the first way, for then intellectual nature is outside its signified. But animal in the second way is the whole with respect to man, implicitly including the specific perfections. When I say “animal” in this way, I say “having a sensitive nature” indeterminately, leaving open through which form it has sensitive nature; thus all specific forms are implicitly included. Sensitive nature is had only through the form of man, lion, ox, and so on. From this the difference between generic and specific essence is clear, insofar as they are subject to generic and specific names of first intention: they differ as that which includes implicitly and that which includes explicitly.

Thus genus signifies indeterminately the whole that is in the species; it does not signify matter alone. Difference likewise signifies the whole that is in the species, not form alone; definition and species also signify the whole, but in different ways. Genus signifies the whole as a kind of denomination determining what is material in the thing without determination of its proper form; hence genus is taken from matter, although it is not matter. Thus body is said from having such a perfection that three dimensions can be designated in it, and this perfection is material in relation to a further perfection. Difference, conversely, is a determination taken from a determinate form, beyond the fact that determinate matter is first understood in it; thus “animated” means that which has a soul, without determining what it is, whether body or something else. Hence Avicenna says that genus is not in difference as a part of its essence, but only as a being outside its quiddity or essence, just as the subject is included in the understanding of properties. Therefore genus, speaking per se, is not predicated of difference, as Aristotle says in II On the Soul and IV Topics, except perhaps as a subject is predicated of a property. But definition or species comprehends both: determinate matter, designated by the name of the genus, and determinate form, designated by the name of the difference.

In this third part of the chapter he compares genus, species, difference, and definition with one another in agreement and difference. He says that all agree in this, that each signifies the whole that is in the species. This follows immediately from what was said: if genus signifies the whole because it is truly and properly predicated of the species and gathers into itself everything to which it extends, then, by the same reasoning, difference, since it is truly and properly predicated of the species and gathers into itself everything to which it extends as a predicable, will signify the whole. But he posits a twofold difference among them. First they differ with respect to their formal signifieds: the formal signified of genus is a material perfection; that of difference is a formal perfection; that of species is an aggregate from both perfections without distinguishing them; and that of definition is likewise an aggregate from both, but dividing them into their individual parts. For example, the formal signified of animal is sensitive nature, which is related as material to intellectual perfection, formally imported by rational, and consequently intellectual perfection is related as formal. The formal signified of man and of rational animal is an aggregate of sensitive and intellectual nature; but rational animal explains each separately, whereas man does not.

For understanding this, note that the formal signified of a name here is a perfection or form determinate and first explained by that name. The material signified is what falls under the signification of the name not first. Thus, considering everything imported both formally and materially by genus, species, difference, and definition, he says that they signify the same and agree; but considering their formal signifieds, we say that they differ and do not signify the same. Do not wander by seeking a difference between the formal signified of species and of definition, for there is none; they differ only in the manner of expressing the same formal signified. Species explains the whole actually but indistinctly; definition divides it into individual parts, as Aristotle says in I Physics, text 5. The generic name, animal, therefore formally and determinately explains the material perfection of man, namely the sensitive perfection; hence genus is taken from matter, VIII Metaphysics, text 9. The name of the difference, rational, formally and determinately explains the formal perfection of the thing; hence it is said there to be taken from form. Just as the perfection imported by difference does not fall into the formal signified of genus, because it is included in it indeterminately, so genus does not fall into the formal concept of difference for the same reason: generic perfection falls into the name of difference indeterminately.

Just as animal, from signifying “having a sensitive nature,” signifies two things—sensitive nature formally and first, and that which has it indeterminately, since it does not explain whether that thing is man or ox—so rational, from signifying “having rationality,” signifies rationality formally and first, and that which has it secondarily and indeterminately, since it does not determine what that bearer is, whether man or animal. Therefore Avicenna says that genus is not in difference as a part of its essence, that is, as a part of its formal signified, but is outside its formal signified, as a subject is outside the formal signified of its property. White signifies a pure quality, as is said in the Categories. Although genus is not included in the understanding of difference in this way, namely as what is formally signified by it, it is nevertheless included in its understanding in another way, as a subject is included in the understanding of a property. For something falls into the account of another in two ways. In one way as a part of its quiddity; in another as its subject, in the way a subject enters the definition of a property, as you have in VII Metaphysics, text 19. Therefore Aristotle says in III Metaphysics, text 10, and IV Topics, chapter 3, that genus is not per se predicated of difference, except perhaps as a subject is predicated of a property.

The reason for the first statement is that genus is predicated of difference in none of the modes of per se predication: not in the fourth, because difference does not explain the cause of genus; nor in the second, because difference is not placed in the definition of genus; nor properly in the first, because first-mode predicates in the direct line, which are properly predicated, are those that fall intrinsically into the account, not those that are present in it by addition. Man, for example, is not properly predicated of risible in the first mode; this is clear because “Risible is man” is accidental, as is said in I Posterior Analytics, chapter 18. The reason for the second statement is that if genus is in the understanding of difference as a subject is in the understanding of a property, it follows that genus is predicated of difference as a subject is predicated of a property. His “perhaps” is not the expression of doubt, but of non-determination: he customarily places matters not decided in a doubtful verbal form.

Observe that although genus falls determinately into the understanding of difference, the name of the difference does not explain that genus determinately. Rational does not explain animal together with rationality, but “having rationality,” just as man falls into the definition of risible; yet the name risible does not explain man determinately, for it signifies “having risibility.”

From this the reason is clear why genus, species, and difference are proportioned to matter, form, and composite in nature, although they are not the same as those realities. Genus is not matter, but is taken from matter while signifying the whole; difference is not form, but is taken from form while signifying the whole. Hence we say that man is a rational animal, not that he is from animal and rational, just as we say that he is from body and soul. For man is said to be from body and soul as a third thing constituted from two things, which is neither of them: man is neither soul nor body. But if man is in some way said to be from animal and rational, this is not as a third thing from two things, but as a third understanding from two understandings. The understanding of animal expresses the nature of the thing without determination of a special form, because it is material in relation to the ultimate perfection. The understanding of the difference rational consists in determination of a special form. From these two understandings is constituted the understanding of species or definition. Therefore, just as a thing constituted from certain things does not receive the predication of the things from which it is constituted, so neither does an understanding receive the predication of the understandings from which it is constituted: we do not say that the definition is genus or difference.

As a corollary he concludes the second difference between genus, species, and difference: genus is proportioned to matter, which is a part of the composite, but does not signify matter itself; difference is proportioned to form, but does not signify form itself; species is proportioned to the composite from matter and form, but as such does not signify the composite from matter and form, but something comprehending genus and difference. In assigning this difference, two clauses are posited for each member: in the first, the first clause is that genus is proportioned to matter, and the second that genus does not signify matter; likewise in the second and third members. The first clause follows from what was said above. If generic perfection, formally imported by genus, is material in relation to differential perfection, formally imported by difference, then genus must be related to difference in the rational composite, namely the species, as matter is related to form in a natural composite, such as Socrates. As matter is potential and is perfected and specified by form, so generic perfection is potential, capable of perfection, and capable of specification through difference. The second clause also follows from what was said: because genus, difference, and species signify the whole, it follows immediately that genus does not signify matter, since matter is not the whole; that difference does not signify form, since form is not the whole; and that species as such does not state the composite from matter and form, since its parts as such are not matter and form but genus and difference.

Nevertheless, St. Thomas proves it in this way: matter and form are parts of their whole as two things of a third thing; genus and difference are not parts of their whole, namely the species, as two things of a third thing; therefore genus and difference are not the matter and form of the species. The major is evident in itself: man is another thing from his matter and another from his form. It does not matter now whether he is really or rationally distinct from those two conjoined; it is enough that he is a third thing really distinct from either part. The minor is explained thus: if genus and difference composed the species as two things compose a third, man would be composed of animal and rational; this is false. Therefore, by destruction of the consequent, genus and difference do not compose the species as two things compose a third; which was to be proved. The inference is evident in itself; the falsity of the consequent is proved because no part is predicated of its whole, as was said above and is found in IV Topics, chapter 11. But animal is predicated of man, and likewise rational: we say that man is animal and that he is rational.

It must be observed that St. Thomas, explaining the major by an example in the text, says that man is from soul and body as a third thing from two things. Concerning these words there is doubt how this can be true while maintaining his doctrine, which posits one substantial form in the composite: for things that are really the same do not constitute something as two things constituting a third; but bodily perfection and soul are really the same if one form is posited. How, then, will they constitute man as two things constituting a third?

Because of its great difficulty, this doubt is solved in different ways. Some say that body and soul are not really parts of a human being, but only according to reason: for although the soul is truly a part, body in reality is the whole; for it signifies the composite of matter and form, which is the soul. Therefore the composite is not composed of soul and body as of two parts in reality, but according to reason; yet it is well composed of them as of two things, in the way in which whole and part are two things, so that the third thing is distinct according to reason from one, namely body, and in reality from the other, namely soul.

Others say—and this amounts to the same—that a human being is composed of soul and body as of a formal cause and that of which it is the formal cause. For according to Avicenna, the formal cause and that of which it is the formal cause are different things; just as the luminous is composed of light and the luminous. Hence these too say that a human being is composed of two things, namely whole and part, but not of two parts in reality.

Others say that this expression is to be understood by synecdoche: “A human being is composed of soul and body” by reason of its part, namely matter. For the present, however, it seems to me that one should say that a human being is composed of soul and body, not merely as of two things forming a third thing, but as of two parts which are really the whole, taking body not as it is a genus but as it signifies a part, and taking soul precisely as it is defined in II On the Soul. Body taken in this way signifies a composite precisely of matter and corporeal perfection; soul, precisely of vital perfection. The intended conclusion is proved as follows: body really differs from soul, and not as whole from part; therefore as part from part. The middle proposition is proved because a whole at least confusedly includes its part, whereas body taken in this way excludes soul. Hence in the definition of soul body is posited as the subject bearing soul, as St Thomas says there. The first proposition is self-evident and conceded by all. The consequence draws its force from a sufficient division: if body and soul really differ, body must differ from soul either as whole from part or as part from part. Therefore a human being is composed of body and soul as of parts really distinct: which was intended.

And notice that body, as a part, when it imports corporeity precisely outside itself, is the identity of corporeal perfection with soul, or with vital perfection. For it happens, through an extrinsic accident of body taken precisely, that its perfection is identical with soul; in itself it cuts off soul, and therefore, speaking strictly, it has been correctly said that a human being is really composed of soul and body. Accordingly, in response to the objection brought forward, say that although corporeal perfection, or the form of corporeity, is really the same as soul, body nevertheless is really other than soul, and corporeal perfection, strictly speaking, is not really the same as soul itself; indeed, when taken precisely, it excludes soul. Therefore body and soul, taken precisely, may strictly be conceded to be really parts of the human being. The words of the text favor this response, where the exclusion of soul from the signification of body is assigned as the reason for the statement. What we have said about body and soul with respect to animal, you may say about animal and intellectual soul with respect to human being, and about body and the form of a stone with respect to a stone, and so in other cases, always taking the terms precisely for parts. Although it is not customary to say that inanimate things are composed of body and specific form, as animate things are of soul and body, this is because of the hidden difference between corporeity and the form of animate things; and also because the form of animate things raises the composite to the point that it moves itself, so that in it one had to distinguish a moving part and a moved part, namely soul and body. This is not found in the forms of inanimate things.

Notice secondly that, to clarify the minor proposition, St Thomas says that a human being is not from animal and rational as from two things forming a third thing, but as a third concept from two concepts. Here it should be known that genus, species, and difference can be taken in three ways. First, for the thing signified by a generic, specific, or differential name of first intention. Secondly, for the formal concept of such names. Thirdly, for the thing signified by their names of second intention. For example, animal, human being, and rational may first be taken for the things signified by these names; secondly, for their formal concepts; thirdly, for the relations of genus, species, and difference. In the first way neither species nor definition is composed of genus and difference, since the thing signified by species and definition is really the same as the thing signified by genus and difference: the same thing is not composed of itself. In the third way likewise neither species nor definition is composed of genus and difference, since the relation of species is added to the relation of genus, as Porphyry says. But no correlate is composed of its correlate, and generally it is not apparent how a relation could be composed of other relations. Hence, just as the relation signified by the name proposition is not composed of the relation of predicate to subject, but is a relation attributed by the intellect to the complex formed from predicate and subject, so the relation of definition is a relation attributed to such a concept formed in the first operation of the intellect, distinctly explaining genus and difference.

In the second way, however, both species and definition are composed of genus and difference: for the formal concept of species is integrated from the formal concept of genus and the formal concept of difference as from two parts. For example, the formal concept of human being is something aggregated from the formal concept of animal and the formal concept of rational. This follows from what was said above: since we showed that genus, difference, and species differ in formal signification, it is clear that the formal concept of animal is the concept of sensitive perfection, the formal concept of rational is the concept of intellectual perfection, and the formal concept of human being is the concept embracing both perfections, formed from them as a third concept by their union. Thus human being is from animal and rational as a third concept from two concepts: that is, as a third concept from two concepts, and not as a thing from two things. And because no part as a part is predicated directly of its whole, the intellect or formal concept of animal is not predicated directly of the intellect, that is, the formal concept of human being. The following is false: “The formal concept of human being is the formal concept of animal,” because the formal concept of human being aggregates the whole composed of intellectual and sensitive perfection, whereas the formal concept of animal states only a part, namely sensitive perfection. Although, as was said above, according to the material and formal concept or signification taken together it states the whole, human being, taken according to its formal intellect or concept, is therefore not animal or rational, but from animal and rational. And as was said of human being, which is a species, so say of animal rational, which is a definition: animal rational according to its formal concept is neither animal nor rational, but from animal and rational. For the formal concept of animal rational differs from the formal concept of animal and from that of rational as whole from parts.

What was said—that the formal concept of species and definition is composed of the formal concepts of genus and difference—can be understood in two ways: in one way of a mental concept, in another of an objective concept formally taken. If in the first way, it can still be understood in two ways: either of a mental concept according to subjective being, or according to what it is; or of it according to representative being. The mental concept of species according to what it is is not composed of the mental concepts of genus and difference according to what they are, since all are simple qualities and cannot be distinguished into several composing parts. For one must not imagine that, when the intellect forms the concept of the definition of human being, namely animal rational, it forms several concepts, but only one, which is a certain simple quality distinctly representing each thing. So too in external reality the defined thing has the reality of genus and difference without real composition. Hence in this first way our statement is not true. But the mental concept of species, formally taken according to representative being, is composed of the mental concepts of genus and difference formally taken according to representative being, like an image representing a whole from images of its parts. For human being in the mind represents an aggregate of sensitive and intellectual perfection; whereas animal in the mind formally represents only sensitive perfection, and rational only intellectual perfection. Thus our statement is verified in this way. The objective concept of species, formally taken, since it is nothing other than formal signification, is composed according to reason of the objective concepts of genus and difference formally taken; just as the formal signification of species is composed according to reason of the formal significations of genus and difference, as was shown above.

Thus human being, taken as the object of its own mental concept, namely the specific concept, is neither animal nor rational, but from animal and rational, taking animal and rational also insofar as they are objects of their mental concepts. This is shown by the falsity of the proposition: “The specific formal object is the generic or differential formal object.” For human being, taken in this way, says an aggregate of sensitive and intellectual perfection; animal, taken in this way, says only one part of the aggregate, namely sensitive nature; and rational, taken in this way, only the other part, namely intellectual perfection. But it is manifest that an aggregate is not one of the things aggregated. In this way, therefore, our statement is true and is most pertinent.

Thus animal, as to the thing imported, is neither part nor whole with respect to human being and animal rational; but as to the material and formal signification taken together, it is the whole, while as to formal signification it is a part, both objectively and representatively taken. Hence when I say, “Human being is animal,” if the thing itself alone is considered, neither the notion of part nor of whole is preserved. But if the thing signified in this way, namely implicitly including its inferiors, is considered, it has the notion of whole. If the thing signified in this way is considered according to what it explicitly includes as such, it receives the notion of part. For this reason animal is placed in the definition of human being as a thing: a thing is predicated of a thing as a whole because it is predicated directly, and as a part because a difference is added which explains something else, and so on.

What we said above about species, say about definition, always preserving what is said in I Physics, text V, namely that definition divides into individual things, whereas species does not. Do not be misled when reading our statements in this matter and above: above, by formal concept we understood a mental concept distinguished from an objective one; in this matter, however, by intellect or formal concept we intend both the mental concept and the objective concept formally taken.

Although genus signifies the whole essence of species, it does not follow that there is one essence of the diverse species of which it is the same genus, because the unity of genus proceeds from indetermination or indifference itself. It is not that what is signified by genus is one nature numerically in diverse species, with another thing supervening upon it as a difference determining it, as form determines matter, which is one numerically. Rather, genus signifies a certain form, but not determinately this or that form; difference expresses it determinately, and the form expressed by difference is none other than that which was signified indeterminately by genus. Therefore the Commentator says in II Metaphysics that prime matter is called one through the removal of all forms, but genus is called one through the commonness of the signified form. Hence it is clear that, when the difference is added and the indetermination which was the cause of the unity of genus is removed, species diverse in essence remain.

In the fourth part of this chapter he intends to exclude the following objection: whatever has one genus has one essence; diverse species have one genus; therefore diverse species have one essence. This is false, because species differ essentially. The major is proved from the fact that, according to what was said above, genus states the whole essence of species. And although this objection could easily be solved by saying that species have the same essence generically but not specifically, nevertheless, because the argument seeks a deeper difficulty, it was necessary to respond from a higher principle. For this objection was introduced to conclude that diverse species have the same essence absolutely, and not merely generically, as is clear from the assumed middle term: those whose whole essence is one have the same essence absolutely; the whole essence of diverse species of the same genus is one; therefore diverse species of the same genus have the same essence absolutely. The minor is clear from the fact that genus states the whole essence of species and is one in them.

To exclude this objection, he explains how genus is one and intimates the following distinction. Something signifies one in two ways: in one way through the position of one determinate thing signified; in another through the indifference or indetermination of several things imported. Genus does not signify one in the first way, but in the second. That signifies one in the first way whose signification, taken in itself, is one certain and determinate nature, as human being signifies humanity, which is a certain and determinate nature, namely human nature. But what signifies one in the second way has as its signification not one determinate nature, but several natures indeterminately. Thus animal, signifying sensitive perfection or nature, does not signify any certain and determinate nature or form: for no form in the universe is the sensitive soul, but each is bovine, leonine, human, and so on. Hence it is said in VII Physics, text XXXI, that many things lie hidden beside genus; in X Metaphysics, text XXIV, that the nature of genus is diverse in species; and in I On the Soul, that the account of animal is different in each animal. Genus is therefore one in the second way. Thus, according to the distinction given, the form of the argument says that those whose whole essence is one in the first way have the same essence absolutely, but not those whose whole essence is one in the second way, as in the present case. For genus unites the whole essence of species only with the unity of indetermination.

It should also be noted that the text introduced a difference between the unity of genus and the unity of prime matter for greater clarity regarding the foregoing; the Commentator also gives this difference in XII Metaphysics, commentary XIV. Here note that one can speak of matter in two ways. In one way, as a certain universal whole referring to this or that matter as subjective parts; in this way it is not now under discussion, for the judgment concerning its unity is the same as the judgment concerning the unity of any universal. In another way, one can speak of it taken alone in itself, neither as universal nor particular, nor as it exists in this species or that; the Commentator and St Thomas speak of it there and here in this way. The unity of matter taken in this way and the unity of genus therefore differ in that the unity of matter is numerical unity founded upon a determinate thing, while generic unity is not numerical unity but unity of indetermination, founded upon diverse natures indeterminately. When you hear that the unity of prime matter is numerical unity, understand this negatively, not positively.

For something is called one numerically in two ways, namely positively and negatively. That is numerically one positively which is one through the position of a numerical property or difference, as Socrates; in this way prime matter in itself is not numerically one, because it includes no individual property. That is numerically one negatively which, since it is not a universal, is not numerically many. This is what includes no distinguishing feature in itself whereby it could have plurality and number. In this way prime matter in itself is numerically one, and this numerical unity is founded upon a determinate entity, namely matter, which includes no distinguishing feature, since it has been stripped of every actuality whose function is to distinguish. Therefore the Commentator says that matter is one through the removal of all forms, because it has its unity negatively, from the fact that it does not have distinctive forms. Genus, however, is not numerically one, either positively or negatively, properly speaking. For numerical unity, both positive and negative, is founded upon a certain and determinate thing, which is not found in genus: genus states several natures and things from which it can be numbered.

That genus is one with the unity of indetermination is also clear from the fact that the several natures imported by genus are united in its signification only because it signifies them indeterminately. Animal unites horse, ox, lion, and so on in itself because it does not explain determinately which of them possesses sensitive perfection. Hence the Commentator says there that genus is one through the commonness of the signified form, that is, because it signifies forms commonly and not determinately. Thus it is clear how the authority introduced serves St Thomas’s purpose. If matter and genus differ in this, that the unity of matter is founded on the negation of forms upon a determinate entity, while genus is one only because it signifies several things commonly, it follows that genus is one only through indetermination. This was the intended conclusion.

And because, as was said, the nature of species is indeterminate with respect to the individual, just as the nature of genus is indeterminate with respect to species, it follows that, just as what is genus, insofar as it is predicated of species, implicitly, though indistinctly, includes everything that is determinate in the species, so what is species, insofar as it is predicated of an individual, must signify everything essential in the individual, though indistinctly. In this way the essence of species is signified by the name human being; hence human being is predicated of Socrates. But if the nature of species is signified with the precision of designated matter, which is the principle of individuation, it will have the mode of a part; and in this way the name humanity signifies it. For humanity signifies that whereby a human being is human. Designated matter, however, is not that whereby a human being is human, and so it is in no way contained among those things from which a human being has that it is human. Since humanity in its understanding includes only those things from which a human being has that it is human, it is clear that determinate or designated matter is excluded or cut off from its signification. And because a part is not predicated of the whole, humanity is predicated neither of human being nor of Socrates. Hence Avicenna says that the quiddity of a composite is not the composite itself whose quiddity it is, although the quiddity itself is also composite. Thus humanity, although composite, is not a human being; rather, it must be received in something which is designated matter. But because, as was said, the designation of species is through forms, while the designation of the individual with respect to species is through matter, a name signifying that from which the nature of genus is taken, with the precision of the determinate form perfecting the species, signifies the material part of the whole, as body is the material part of a human being. A name signifying that from which the nature of species is taken, with the precision of designated matter, signifies the formal part; therefore humanity is signified as a certain form. It is called the form of the whole, not as though it were added to the essential parts of matter and form, as the form of a house is added to its integral parts, but rather as a form which is the whole, embracing form and matter, though with the precision of those features through which matter is naturally designated. Thus it is clear that the essence of a human being is signified by the name human being and by the name humanity, but in different ways, as was said. The name human being signifies it as a whole, insofar as it does not cut off the designation of matter but implicitly and indistinctly contains it, just as genus contains difference and therefore the name human being is predicated of individuals. But the name humanity signifies it as a part, and contains in its signification only what belongs to a human being insofar as it is human, cutting off every designation of matter; hence it would not be predicated of human individuals. For this reason the name essence is sometimes found predicated of a thing: Socrates is said to be a certain essence; and sometimes it is denied, as when we say that the essence of Socrates is not Socrates.

In this fifth and final part of the chapter he compares specific essence with the individual according to totality, partiality, predicability, and formality.

For clarity regarding these points, it should be noted that, just as it was said above of generic essence that it can be signified in the mode of a whole and in the mode of a part, so now it is said that specific essence can be taken as signified by a name of first intention in the mode of a whole and in the mode of a part. In the mode of a whole, for example, human essence is signified by the term human being; in the mode of a part, that same essence is signified by the term humanity. The same essence, signified in the other way, differs from itself in this respect: what is signified in the mode of a whole implicitly includes individuals, whereas what is signified in the mode of a part excludes them from its signification. This is explained by an example. Since human being signifies one possessing human nature, it implicitly includes under “one possessing” all human individuals: for possessing human nature is any human individual. But since humanity signifies that whereby a human being is human, it excludes everything other than humanity from “that whereby”; nothing other than humanity is that whereby a human being is human. Therefore, since individuating principles are other than humanity, as was said above, it follows that humanity excludes individuating principles from its signification and consequently excludes individuals, which cannot be understood without individuation, just as species cannot be understood without difference. And since a part as a part is not predicated of its whole, while every predicate taken directly has the character of a whole, essence signified in the first way, that is, in the mode of a whole, is predicated directly of individuals, whereas essence signified in the mode of a part is not at all. Hence “Socrates is a human being” is true, while, properly speaking, “Socrates is humanity” is false. Thus the proportion of specific essence to the individual is already clear in three respects: totality, partiality, and predicability.

As to formality, the text explains the difference introduced between generic essence signified in the mode of a part with respect to species and specific essence signified in the mode of a part with respect to the individual. They differ in that the former is the material part of the species, while the latter is the formal part of the individual. The reason is that the former, namely generic essence, is compared with the other part of the species as matter to form and as the perfectible to its perfection, since the designation or determination of genus to species is made through difference, which is taken from the specific form that perfects and completes generic perfection. The latter, namely specific essence, is compared with the other part of the individual as form to matter and perfection to the perfectible, since the designation or determination of species to individuals is made through designated matter, which is evidently more imperfect than the specific form from which specific essence is taken. Therefore animality is the material part of a human being, while humanity is the formal part of Socrates; and it is said to be the form of the whole, not as though it were added, and so on.

To make these words clear, it should be noted that the form of the whole and the form of a part, as was seen in the second chapter, differ really—not as one form differs from another, for example whiteness from sweetness, but as whole and part. Hence it is said here that the form of the whole is not as though superadded to the parts, that is, it is not a form added to matter and form, as the form of a house is a form added to wood, stones, cement, and the other parts; rather, it is a form that is the whole, that is, the very composite resulting from the parts. When it is signified in the mode of a formal part, it is called the form of the whole, because it completely certifies, distinguishes, and determines the whole: for these are the conditions of a form. The summary of the remaining discussion is self-evident.

↑ Top of work

Question I

Chapter I

Commentary

Question II

Chapter II

Commentary

Question III

Question IV

Question V

Chapter III

Commentary

Chapter IV

Commentary

Question VI

Question VII

Question VIII

Chapter V

Commentary

Question IX

Question X

Question XI

Question XII

Chapter VI

Commentary

Question XIII

Question XIV

Question XV

Chapter VII

Commentary

Question XVI

Question XVII

Question XVIII