Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

THIS DIFFICULTY PRESUPPOSES that nature, while actually being predicated of many, still remains universal, at least metaphysically. For if it loses universality through predication, there is no place for the question by which we inquire what it is, in the universal itself, to be predicated and to be in many.

Some have indeed doubted this, thinking that precisely when a universal is actually predicated of many, the relation of universal is removed from the nature. They attribute this view to Scotus, question 9 on Porphyry, and to the Coimbra commentators, question 6 on the Universal, no. 4. First, nature is not predicated as indifferent and undetermined, but as applied to the individual of which it is predicated and as one with it; otherwise it would not truly be predicated. Therefore it does not remain universal, since when indifference is removed, all universality collapses. Again, nature has universality only under simple supposition. For when one says “Man is a species” or “Man is universal,” the term “man” supposits simply, in such a way that it does not descend to supposits under the formality of species and universal. But when it is actually predicated of individuals, it does not have simple but personal supposition, for it is verified of persons and individuals. Therefore in actual predication it does not have universality.

Nevertheless, as I said, the opposite must be presupposed. For it is proper to universal nature to be predicable of many. Therefore predication of many is not incompatible with the universal; when the universal is predicated, then, the predication does not remove its universality. Nor can one say that universality is destroyed through predication, even though it is predicable, just as a quantity of ten spans is divisible into ten spans, and yet, if actually divided, it is no longer divisible into them. I say that this cannot be said, because it is one thing for a quantity actually divided, as a completed fact, no longer to be divisible into those parts; it is another for the very act of dividing to remove divisibility. The latter is false. Division falls upon divisibility and is not incompatible with it, although once the division is completed it destroys that divisibility. Likewise, actual corruption is not incompatible with what is corruptible, but belongs to it; once corruption is completed, however, the thing is no longer corruptible but corrupted. In the same way, predication of many belongs to what is predicable; but when predication is completed and the nature contracted to individuals, it is no longer divisible or predicable of many, but multiplied in them. Thus in the predication “Peter is a man,” the term “man” remains universal, because it does not supposit with singular supposition but with common supposition; otherwise the sense would be “Peter is this man,” and thus nothing common to Peter and Paul in nature would ever be predicated of Peter. As a second intention, universality need not be considered in actual predication, and in this respect it does not remain in act.

The opposing foundations are answered as follows. To the first, when nature is predicated, it is intrinsically universal and indifferent, but extrinsically applied to a determinate individual. When I say “Peter is a man,” the term “man” does not lose universality, since for it to lose universality the common concept would have to change into a singular one. Therefore, so long as that common concept is not corrupted, it is not made singular intrinsically, even though it is extrinsically applied to a singular subject in forming the proposition “Peter is a man.”

To the second, a term retains universality even under personal supposition, because metaphysical universality remains as long as the intrinsic representation of universal nature is not removed. Although there is application and predication of the represented nature—not with respect to a second intention—the supposition is not simple. Simple supposition occurs only when a second intention is predicated of the thing itself, an intention that cannot be communicated or belong to the inferiors themselves, as was said in the Summulae, chapter on Supposition, book 2, chapter 10.¹

With these points presupposed, WE INQUIRE what it means for a nature to be in many. Is it the very relation of universality to many, an aptitude to exist in them, or contraction to those inferiors?

Some think that a nature's being in many is nothing other than being included in them, and that this inclusion requires abstraction from the differences themselves. For something to be included in something else, it must be conceived as distinct from it, at least by reason; nothing is included in itself. Yet it is identified with the whole itself, which is the inferior; it abstracts only from the inferior's differences, not from the inferior itself. Thus this inclusion is a relation to the inferiors in which the nature is included. So Martinez, disputation 1 on Porphyry, question 2.

NEVERTHELESS, IT MUST BE SAID that a nature's being in many consists neither in the very relation of universal to many nor in the inclusion that the reported opinion requires for such a relation. If “being in many” is taken potentially, it pertains to the very aptitude by which a nature is made capable of being in many through identification and multiplication in them. If it is taken actually, then actually being in many is not a relation of universal to inferiors, but identification and contraction to them, not positive abstraction, as that opinion maintains.

THE REASON FOR THE CONCLUSION is drawn from what was said in the preceding question. The potency to be in many precedes actual being, or actually belonging to many, just as potency precedes its act; but this potency to be in many is nothing other than the universal's aptitude to be in many, as has often been said. Nor is something said to be actually in many through the very relation of universality, because this relation is the respect of the aptitude, insofar as the common nature positively regards inferiors by way of potency, in which it can be. Therefore this relation does not reduce that potency or aptitude to the act of existing, and consequently is not the act of such an aptitude, but the very respect by which that aptitude regards the things in which it can be. Being in many, however, is the reduction of such an aptitude or potency to act. When this reduction occurs, that aptitude is dissolved, because abstraction is dissolved through contraction; the respect of the aptitude, however, remains with the aptitude and abstraction and does not dissolve them.

It remains, then, that being in many must be explained in the same way as the potency itself to be in many. For just as a universal is said to be capable or apt to be in many because it is not incompatible with being identified with many, in which it is multiplied, so it will be said to be actually in many when this potency or aptitude is reduced to act. Hence if the aptitude was to be in many through essential or accidental identification or multiplication, the very identification multiplied in many is actually being in them. And if we call this identification “inclusion,” inclusion occurs in such a way that it does not formally consist in abstraction, even positive abstraction, but in contraction and conjunction. For how could the formal account of inclusion be abstraction from the things in which it is included?

If you ask how this contraction, inclusion, or being in many differs from being predicated of many, the answer is that being in many is explained through identification with many, which can also occur through a simple representation by which a nature is understood to be identified with and to be in an inferior to which it belongs. Predication, however, occurs through the application of one thing to another in the second operation of the intellect, which composes and predicates, as will be said in the next article. Thus predication is a property of universality: from the fact that a universal is in many through identification, it follows that it can truly be predicated of them.

THE FOUNDATION OF THE OPPOSING VIEW has often been answered: inclusion of a superior in an inferior is indeed required for the constitution of the inferior itself, whose nature and quiddity includes the superior predicates. However, this inclusion does not occur through positive abstraction, but through contraction. For contraction is not something's being related to itself, but its being related to something else, or through something else, at least distinct by reason. Inferiors, however, do include the superior itself in reality, but they are not inferiors insofar as they include it; rather, they are inferiors insofar as they are subjects and lesser things.