Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

A PREDICAMENT is nothing other than “an ordered series of superior and inferior predicates, from one highest genus predicated of every inferior, down to the individual subject to every superior.” Because this coordination is made through superior and inferior predicates, more and less universal, these predicates are called “grades,” since it is as though there were a ladder by which we ascend and descend. In the predicament of substance, for example, substance is posited as the highest genus, then body, living thing, animal, man, and Peter; below, at the end of each predicament, we shall arrange its tree.

The distinction of the predicaments was introduced to set out orders and classes of different natures, to which all things participating in some nature could be reduced. Therefore, first of all, a being of reason must be excluded from every predicament, since it has no nature or true entity, but a fictitious one; it must accordingly be rejected not into a true predicament but a fictitious one. Hence St Thomas says that only things outside the soul belong to the predicaments, De potentia, q. 7, a. 9¹.

Among real beings, some must belong to the direct line and gradation of a predicament, others to its side, as it were by reduction, since not all participate equally in the nature of being or of the genus itself. To discern which beings are wholly outside a predicament, which belong to the direct line, and which are placed reductively to its side, five conditions are listed as required for something to be in a predicament. Although others list more, all are reduced to these: first, it must be a being per se and not per accidens; second, a complete being; third, a finite being; fourth, an incomplex being; fifth, univocal.

AS TO THE FIRST, it is said that something must be a being per se, to exclude a being per accidens. The latter is excluded from a predicament because it does not express one nature but several, and so is not a thing consisting of one genus and difference but of several, since its natures are diverse. Or, if it consists of the same genus and difference, genus and difference will nevertheless be multiplied if the natures are diverse, as required in a being per accidens. A being per accidens is thus composed from these diverse natures; it is not posited per se in a predicament, but through those natures, each either in a distinct predicament if they belong to different predicaments, or in a distinct way with the natures multiplied within one predicament. In either case it is not posited per se and by one position.

From this condition I judge that concrete accidentals must be rejected from a predicament, if they are taken not merely formally but as a composite formed from both subject and accident. Taken merely formally, they signify only the accidental form; in this sense Aristotle says in the chapter on substance² that “white signifies quality alone,” and in the Metaphysics he often enumerates the predicaments that are accidents in concrete terms, such as how much and what sort. Thus, considered only in respect of its formal aspect, the concrete term for an accident can have the nature of genus and species and, consequently, a predicamental series, although some find a difficulty in its mode of signifying, because it signifies in the manner of something inhering, not in the manner of a quiddity. This is no obstacle: although it signifies as inhering in a subject, predication in quid can be made concerning the accidental form itself and predicates essential to it, as when we say “White is colored”; it is quidditative by reason of the formal aspect it conveys.

But if the subject conveyed by connotation is conceived as making one composite with the form itself, so that the quiddity or nature of the concrete composite is taken from both, then that composite cannot be posited per se in a predicament, since it is composed from natures belonging to different predicaments, such as subject and accidental form. In this respect, therefore, it is not posited per se in one predicament.

It is no objection that, as some say, concrete accidents have a definition and therefore a nature or species; or that they have an operation, as a hot thing heats, and operation is a sign of nature, the principle of operation. The answer is that concrete accidents are defined quidditatively only by reason of their formal aspect, to which the predicates included in the definition are essential. A concrete term as composed from subject and accident is defined only by a definition of the name, as when I say “White is that which has whiteness.” And if such things have an operation by reason of the form that is its principle, they have it not by reason of a third nature resulting from accident and subject.

THE SECOND CONDITION required for predicamental being is that it be a complete being. This applies to things placed in the direct line of a predicament, not to those placed reductively or at its side. We call a being complete when it is signified as a constituted whole and in the manner of a “what.” Thus even accidents have the nature of a complete being in their own genus, the genus of accident, although by comparison with substance they are incomplete beings, that is, do not subsist per se.

The reason for this condition is that in the direct line of a predicament are placed inferiors constituted from superiors, and superiors predicated of them. Inferiors are constituted from their superior and a contracting difference, and so are wholes composed of their constituents as of parts. Superiors, in turn, are identified with the inferiors of which they are predicated, and so are wholes by identity, just as the inferiors themselves are. But if things are signified by their mode of signifying not as a whole but as form and part, they are not in the direct line of those predicated as a whole.

Differences have a further reason for exclusion: although they are predicated of the species they constitute and of the inferiors of that species, other superior predicates are not predicated of the differences themselves. Genus is not predicated of differences, nor can differences be resolved into two concepts, genus and another difference, since otherwise there would be an infinite regress. Since superiors are not predicated of them, differences interrupt the direct line and series of superior and inferior grades and are therefore placed at the side.

Whether physical parts, such as matter and form, and other parts and modes are also excluded from a predicament, we said above, q. 7, a. 3, near the end. See there.

Some substances, although subsistent beings, have an imperfect nature and exist in the manner of a way or tendency toward a more perfect terminus, as an embryo relative to a fully developed animal. St Thomas places these reductively in the species of their terminus, De potentia, q. 3, a. 9, ad 1³. By their nature these species are, as it were, ways toward another thing and motions, insofar as they are in an imperfect state and still tending toward the terminus at which generation is perfected; they thus have something like the nature of a part, not by composing but by tending toward ultimate perfection.

No equally easy general rule can be given for modes. Some modes are posited in a predicament only reductively, such as substantial modes of subsistence and union. Others have predicaments per se, such as where and position, and the like. Briefly—and this belongs to metaphysics—modes differ in two ways. Some pertain to the very composition or completion of a thing or nature: substance is constituted through union and completed through subsistence; accident through inherence; quality through degrees of intension and remission, whether these are different unions or different terminations of the same quality. These modes are reduced to the predicament of the thing they compose or terminate by modifying it as parts in composition. Other modes pertain neither to a thing’s constitution nor completion, but belong to it only from some extrinsic reason or principle. Such modes can properly constitute separate predicaments, as where and position, and according to some, relation.

THE THIRD CONDITION is that predicamental being be finite. This excludes what is absolutely infinite throughout the whole genus of being, as God, but not something infinite in a determinate genus, if there were such a thing, for example infinite quantity or quality. The reason is that infinity in a determinate genus is only accidental. As to its essence it consists of act and potency, which are termini by which the essence is finite as an essence; they are the termini of the essence by which it is composed in being. It is composed only of act and potency; genus is taken from what is potency, and difference from what is act. Therefore it retains the coordination and series of superior and inferior predicates, genus and difference, which is to be placed in a genus and predicament. But infinity in substance or in the genus of being is the infinity of pure act, since it is infinite only through the absence of the termini of essence. If it is in act, it is an infinity of act, which excludes all potentiality. Once potentiality is excluded, no genus remains, since genus is what is potential to differences by which it is actualized and determined. Pure act therefore excludes every coordination of the determinable and determining, actualizable and actualizing grades that make up a predicamental gradation and series, as will be explained further in the next question.

THE FOURTH CONDITION is that predicamental being be incomplex. This excludes not only accidental complexes and beings per accidens, excluded by the first condition, but also essential complexes, such as definitions—for example, the complex “rational animal.” The reason is that such complexes correspond to a double concept explaining one and the same nature, which is posited per se in a predicament: the defined thing itself is the species. If the species or defined thing is posited per se in a predicament, and the complex explaining that defined thing is also posited per se in the same predicament, the same thing would be posited twice, once in itself and once by reason of its definition taken complexly. Sometimes, however, because authors may lack an incomplex word to signify a thing, they signify it with a complex expression and place it in the predicament, since the thing signified is incomplex. Nor can one say that only the definition, not the defined thing itself, which is the specific nature, is placed in the predicament. On that account the predicaments would formally be something of reason, namely, the intentions of definitions placed in a predicament, rather than the defined things themselves, which alone are something real in the definition.

THE FIFTH CONDITION is that they be univocal. Equivocal things do not signify one nature but many, and so do not express one thing capable of being placed in a predicament. Analogues are also excluded because they do not have one nature contractible like a genus through differences, or like a species constituted from a genus and contracted to individuals. Once genus, species, and difference are excluded, predicamental coordination, which consists of these, is excluded as well.

This CONTROVERSY is well known between the school of St. Thomas and that of the Subtle Doctor Scotus. For Scotus holds that being is univocal with respect to the ten categories, and this follows from his position, according to which he judges being to express one objective concept, abstracted from its inferiors and contractible to them. St. Thomas, as we shall soon see, holds the opposite.

THEREFORE, ONLY TWO matters are to be treated by us here: First, to determine whether being is analogical or univocal with respect to the ten categories. Second, if it is analogical, what kind of analogy it is. We shall speak of the second matter in the following article, and of the first here. We are not treating the analogy of being with respect to God and creatures, since that does not belong to our present inquiry and can easily be resolved from the resolution of this question.

Regarding the first matter, then, SCOTUS’S POSITION is that being is indeed univocal with respect to the ten categories, but is not a genus. By “univocal” he means a concept so one that its unity suffices for contradiction, by affirming and denying it of the same thing, as he expressly says in 1 Sentences, distinction 3, question 2, § Second, without asserting. In several other places, however, Scotus asserted that being is equivocal, or analogical, with respect to the ten categories, namely because it lacks the univocity sufficient to be a genus or one of the five predicables. For Scotus always removed the character of genus from being on account of the Philosopher’s express authority in Metaphysics 3, text 10¹ and Metaphysics 4, text 2², and often elsewhere. Nor is it necessary to distinguish further among the various kinds of univocity, as some disciples of Scotus do (as may be seen in Aretinus’s Formalities, p. 78); for now it suffices to distinguish between univocal in the sense of being a genus or one of the five predicables, and univocal without being a genus, which is all Scotus grants to being. Below we shall prove that no such distinction should be made: if being is not a genus, neither is it univocal.

Scotus’s argument rests chiefly on that principle, which many outside his school also admit: the concept of being, and of every proper proportionality analogue, is one and abstracted from its analogates with the same abstraction by which any univocal concept is abstracted from its inferiors. From this it seems forcefully to follow that being must be univocal: that abstracted concept is one and has its inferiors included potentially, not actually; therefore it is contracted by them through additions that determine and divide that superior concept. Hence nothing prevents it from being a univocal concept; for all the inequality or diversity in it arises from the contracting differences, not from the superior character, which is precisely one. The same is found in animal and other genera: all inequality arises from the differences, all unity from the superior concept.

That principle, which this position takes as its foundation, seems sufficiently proved as follows. The concept of being cannot immediately represent several things as actually included in that representation, because actually not including and actually not representing are the same, as is not being the object of that representation. But the common concept of being does not represent several things to us actually—for example, quantity, quality, and so on—but one thing distinct from them. These are not part of the essential concept of being in common; otherwise, wherever being were found, these would be found. Therefore being can be represented without them, since anything can be represented without whatever is not part of its quidditative concept, as animal is represented without its differences, which it includes potentially and confusedly. Likewise, then, if the quidditative character of being does not include these inferiors or depend on them, it includes them only potentially and confusedly. That is to be explicitly and actually one, while the many are only potential—which is proper to univocity, since it includes only potentially those things by which it is diversified.

They add other inconveniences as though they were signs by which we can detect the unity of that concept of being abstracted from its inferiors. For one can be certain of the character of being while uncertain about this or that being: from afar, for example, I may know that what I see is a being and doubt which being it is. This requires a diversity of concepts; for I cannot simultaneously be certain and uncertain, or doubtful, about the same thing. Again, in these predications, “Substance is being” and “Quality is being,” the predicate does not predicate something that is all beings, even proportionally, for that would make the predication false. Therefore it predicates only one predicate, not several objects actually included in it; otherwise several things would actually be applied to the subject, although they do not actually belong to it. For substance is not actually quantity, quality, and the other beings, which would nevertheless be applied to it if they were actually included in the concept of being. Finally, if it were so, what is signified by the name “being” would not serve as a middle term in demonstration, because it would not signify one thing, which alone serves true demonstration. Thus there would be no science of being, if it were not a middle term for demonstrating attributes; nor would it admit contradiction, since that would not be the same thing said of the same thing.

NEVERTHELESS, FOR A RESOLUTION I SAY: Common being with respect to the ten categories cannot have a univocal concept, whether it is taken to mean only the concept of complete being or as abstracting from the complete and the incomplete.

This conclusion is unquestionably St. Thomas’s, and I am surprised that some authors wish to deny it while claiming to speak in St. Thomas’s sense. Thus he affirms it in 1 Sentences, distinction 22, question 1, article 3, reply to objection 2³, where he says: “The equivocal is divided in one way, the univocal in another, and the analogical in another. The equivocal is divided according to the things signified, the univocal according to differences, but the analogical according to diverse modes. Hence, since being is predicated analogically of the ten genera, it is divided into them according to diverse modes.” Nothing could be more explicit than St. Thomas here. Likewise, in the same book of the Sentences, distinction 25, question 1, article 2⁴, and in the Sentences commentary for Annibaldus at the same place⁵, he lays down as a general rule that “whatever things do not agree in one most general genus cannot have anything predicated of them univocally.” It is clear that being is above the most general genera, that is, the ten categories. Similarly, in 1 Sentences, distinction 19, question 5, article 2⁶, he proves that being and the other transcendentals are said analogically of their inferiors. In question 1 of Truth, article 1⁷, he proves that being cannot be contracted by addition (the way a univocal is contracted by differences), but by modes that explain it in diverse ways. That its concept is not altogether abstracted from the inferior categories is drawn from what he teaches in Metaphysics 8, lecture 5, § He solves the foregoing⁸, where, following the Philosopher, he says: “Since the ten categories do not stand to being by addition in the way species stand to genera by the addition of differences, but being itself is manifestly this, it is clear that being does not await something added in order to become this—that is, substance, quantity, or quality.” Here he plainly excludes from being a concept contractible by addition, and consequently assumes that it is neither univocal nor inclusive of several things only potentially, since they cannot be added to it. Therefore it is not actually separated from them, although it does not explain them. Finally, in Metaphysics 4, lecture 1⁹, he teaches plainly that being is not said univocally of substance, accident, and the other categories. See also Metaphysics 3, lecture 8¹⁰.

NOR CAN ONE SAY that when the Philosopher and St. Thomas say being is not said univocally but as “healthy” is said with respect to medicine, they are speaking not of being absolutely, but of being per se, which is the first being; for such being belongs to an accident only denominatively and by attribution, insofar as it is called a being of a being. This fails, because if being there means substance or the first being, an accident, by virtue of such attribution, ought to be called or denominated substance by an extrinsic denomination, as a plant is called healthy from the health of an animal. But the Philosopher is not speaking of such a denomination. For an accident is absolutely called a being by intrinsic denomination, but not substance, either intrinsically or extrinsically. Further, the very being which he denies to be univocal with respect to substance and accident in Metaphysics 4, text 2¹¹, he denies in Metaphysics 3, text 10¹² to be a genus in any way. But if he were speaking of the first being, which is substance, he would not deny it to be a genus at least with respect to some things, namely substances themselves, whereas he plainly says that being absolutely is not a genus.

OTHERS ANSWER that in these passages, and in Metaphysics 7, text 15¹³ and many others, where the Philosopher teaches that being is neither equivocal nor univocal but analogical, he denies not logical univocity to being but physical univocity. This fails, because physical analogy is compatible with the character of a genus: body, for example, is said by physical analogy of corruptible and incorruptible things, yet it truly and properly is a genus. Aristotle, however, attributes such analogy to being, while denying it the character of a genus, as is clear from the cited passage in Metaphysics 3; therefore he is not speaking of physical analogy. Further, physical analogy is only an inequality caused in the inferiors by the differences themselves, in which the superior character is not included. Physical univocity, by contrast, is equality even in the inferiors that contract the superior character, as is found only in atomic species, which have equality in their individuals. Therefore, if the Philosopher excludes from being only physical univocity, he denies of it only that it is an atomic species, and consequently would not deny it to be a genus—which, nevertheless, he expressly does.

To explain the reason and foundation of this assertion, observe that in the conclusion we are speaking both of complete and incomplete, or categorial, being. The difference between them is this: being as it abstracts from the complete and incomplete is included in the contracting modes or differences; but complete being includes them, because it is completed through them. For being cannot otherwise be called complete or categorial except because it is completed by the modes through which it is contracted. This is clear because being can be made complete only through some mode by which it is distinguished from the incomplete. Such a mode, then, is either equal to being itself and accompanies it, or is inferior to it. If equal, it functions as an attribute of being and is no less transcendent than being itself, like the true and the good; and so it does not make being complete, since it leaves it transcendent and consequently included in the differences. If inferior, it is a contracting mode, since it is less extensive than being as such. Therefore being is completed by the modes through which it is contracted, and thus includes them; complete being is nothing other than the ten categories themselves. Although categorial being in common with all categorial beings could be conceived, it would be common in the sense of intending to place something in a category. But if categorial being is conceived on the side of nature, only what is placed in a category—not what abstracts from the categories—can be called a categorial thing.

With this established, the ARGUMENT FOR THE CONCLUSION is formed as follows: Being is included in the contracting modes or differences, or is predicated of them; if it is complete being, it includes them. Therefore it does not express a concept simply one, but one that is unequal and diverse, since it is included in the differences themselves. This is manifest: something is said to be included in differences when it is predicated of them and belongs to them even insofar as they formally express diversity; for this diversity is something. Therefore what is included in the differences communicates diversity itself to them, and so includes it actually, because what something communicates it includes actually. Moreover, the differences themselves, or contracting modes, do not resolve into two concepts, one insofar as they express agreement in something, the other insofar as they express difference; rather, they are a simple concept of differing. Otherwise there would be an infinite regress, if in every difference there were a concept of agreement in one thing and of difference through another; we would say the same of that second difference, and so on. Therefore the concept included in and predicated of the differences is purely a cause of diversity, not a source of agreement. And since it is also called one with respect to the things that agree in being, it is partly one and partly diverse, and thus analogical.

SOME ANSWER that differential characters are not being, but modes of being. But let that be so: let a difference be a mode of being. Either that mode is something in the nature of things or it is nothing. If nothing, then it makes things differ by nothing, which is not to make them differ. If it is something apart from nothing, then it is a being, because in this most general understanding of being whatever is opposed to nothing is called a being.

Others from Scotus’s school, such as Father Merinero, On Equivocals, disputation 1, question 1 and following, distinguish two considerations of being: being what and being such. They say that being what is being contractible and potential with respect to its inferiors. They say that being such is being that actualizes and determines, or contracts—that is, the difference itself. They therefore say that being what is not included in the contracting differences, because an infinite regress would follow: if the ultimate differences included being what, they would agree in it and again differ from one another, not through that in which they agree, but through something else by which they differ. One would then inquire again about that mode of difference, and so on to infinity. The process must therefore end in something that does not include being what, even if it is being such, that is, a difference.

But this answer is neither true nor does it remove the difficulty. It is not true, because that being such, or mode of difference, either includes being what or does not. If it does not, then it is nothing, since being what, or being something, is what is opposed to nothing and recedes from nothing. Or if being such too is opposed to nothing, then being such and being what agree again in this: that they are something and not nothing, or truly and properly have being. I shall then ask of that concept common to being such and being what how it is included intrinsically in each, since both intrinsically have being outside nothing and are opposed to nothing itself. But if being such includes being what, then certainly it is intrinsically and quidditatively being—for that is what including being what means. Therefore being what is included intrinsically in intrinsic modes and ultimate differences, since these are being such. It does not remove the difficulty, because I shall ask how these modes, which are called being such, agree in being such in common and yet are distinct from one another, since they are diverse. For if they are distinguished by some added mode or difference, I shall again ask how that mode agrees and differs from the other differences through another added mode, and so on to infinity. But if it is said that those differences or modes differ wholly within the character of being such and not through something added, even though they agree in that common character, why should we not say the same about the character of being what: that these differences or modes agree in it and yet are primarily diverse from one another, since being primarily diverse does not remove agreement in transcendentals?

Therefore one must say that being is intrinsically imbibed in these modes, because they truly are something real and outside nothing. There is no infinite regress, because they differ and agree in the same character—or rather, not in the same character, since analogues do not have unity simply, but are partly the same and partly diverse. Although insofar as they explain agreement they do not explain diversity, they nevertheless implicate and include it actually but confusedly, as we said in the preceding question, article 5.

Finally, our assertion is explained from another foundation: If being is univocal, it follows that it is a genus with respect to the ten categories, which the Philosopher expressly denies in Metaphysics 3, text 10¹⁴, and St. Thomas there in lecture 8¹⁵. This is clear because being is included in the differences, which is wholly opposed to the character of a genus, as often said; otherwise, too, there would not be ten supreme genera if being were a genus with respect to them. The consequence is proved because nothing is lacking to univocal being for it to be a genus. For it is predicated quidditatively—it is included quidditatively and intrinsically in every nature. Likewise, its concept is one, not included in the contracting differences according to this opinion, contractible by addition, and inclusive of its inferiors only potentially. Therefore nothing is lacking for it to be a genus.

THE DISCIPLES OF SCOTUS ANSWER that it is not a genus because it is contracted not by differences but by intrinsic modes. There is a distinction between these two ways of contracting: a difference comes in as though extrinsically, and without it the common character can be perfectly conceived, as animal without rational; but without an intrinsic mode a thing cannot be perfectly conceived. An intrinsic mode also does not alter the essence it modifies, just as modes of intensification and remission do not alter quality; a difference, however, alters the thing to which it comes and constitutes it in another reality. Hence, for a genus to be contracted by differences, the concept of the genus must be taken from a reality that is in essential potency to the reality from which the difference is taken; all of this is found in being.

But this solution, perhaps unwillingly, concedes what we intend: the concept of being cannot be perfectly separated from the modes that contract it and cause diversity. It follows that this concept does not have unity simply, and thus Scotus’s foundation collapses. For if we cannot conceive a reality without its intrinsic mode, nor perfectly separate it from the mode, as these authors say, then that concept is not abstracted from the modes that cause diversity; thus it includes them actually, not potentially, although it does not explain them. For if it included them potentially, it could be perfectly understood without them, just as animal is perfectly understood without rational, although it includes it potentially. Or, if it is perfectly abstracted from them, the differences are not intrinsic modes, and therefore being will be a genus.

And the implication of this solution is confirmed: on the one hand, it posits that being has an objective concept so one and abstracted from its inferiors that it remains in potency to them, since it does not include them actually; on the other hand, it says that being is not a genus because the reality from which that concept of being is taken is not in essential potency with respect to the reality from which the intrinsic mode is taken. If, then, it is not in potency to such a reality, it actually includes it, and therefore also the modes derived from it. Or it includes them in no way, neither actually nor potentially, but stands apart from them; then it would not be contractible or actualizable through them, nor would it stand to them even potentially, although they contract being quidditatively. Therefore the only possibility left is that it includes them actually but does not explain them. This is our position, but it destroys univocity of the same genus.

Others, then, such as Master Cabero here, treatise 4, disputation 3, doubt 7, admit that being is a genus and say that the Philosopher denied this of complete being in common. They thus concede that the ten categories are not genera primarily diverse, at least those that signify forms of denomination and intrinsic reality. They say only that they are supreme respectively, since, for example, no quantity higher than quantity and no substance higher than substance is found. But this is nothing and destroys the whole order of the ten categories. For if a supreme genus is taken only relatively, not absolutely, animal too will be called a supreme genus, since nothing higher is found in the character of animal; and so all subaltern genera will be supreme in this way and there will be almost infinitely many categories, or only one category will be constituted, namely complete being. Both possibilities are excluded from the Peripatetic school.

From these points the foundations advanced for Scotus’s position remain refuted. For it is manifestly deduced that the concept of being cannot be perfectly abstracted from its inferiors and be so one that it includes plurality potentially, not actually, whether complete being is meant or being is taken as abstracting from the complete and incomplete. Apart from the points raised in the preceding question, article 5, this is effectively proved from the transcendence of being, from which St. Thomas proved in Metaphysics 3, lecture 8¹⁶ that being is not a genus: namely, because on account of its transcendence it is included intrinsically in the differences, as has been explained.

But if you say: At least complete being is not transcendent, just as, although substance common to complete and incomplete substance in its category is transcendent, nevertheless it is not completed through its inferior differences but through the common character of substance insofar as it is made categorial. The answer is that above we showed clearly enough that complete being can be called complete only through the inferior modes that contract it. Substance, however, in order to be made complete, needs no inferior difference, but only a common mode, which is required by the mode of existing in itself. For in this way it is ordered to subsisting and becomes a certain whole in the genus of substance, which is to be separated from incomplete substance. But being has no common mode of being by which it is made complete; for if it is common to being, it is transcendent like being itself and is thus imbibed in all things, including incomplete ones.

AS FOR THE PROOFS MADE AT THE BEGINNING: To the first, it is answered that in the concept of being several things are not represented actually and explicitly, expressing their diversity; they are, however, represented confusedly and under the proportion of having being, which is to conceive those several things implicitly. But implicit is not the same as potential. The implicit in potency signifies something determinate in itself but determinable to several things by addition, as animal with respect to rational and irrational. The implicit in confused actuality, however, signifies all things without determination of any one, but as they are comprehended in one confusion, as when from afar we see a crowd confusedly. And “not representing actually” is “not including actually”—I distinguish: Not representing explicitly in actuality is not including explicitly in actuality, I grant; not representing explicitly in actuality is not including even confusedly in actuality, I deny.

To the second proof—that these inferiors are not of the quiddity of being in common, and so it can be perfectly represented without them—it is answered that those several things, as explicit with respect to their mode of diversity, are not of the character of being in common; those same things, as implicit in the proportional unity of having being, are part of the concept of being in common. Indeed, being in common is nothing other than whatever has being, taken under confusion and without any determination, except solely under the very proportion of having being. In this it differs from the concept of animal and other univocals, which not only include but explain a determinate degree to which addition can be made through the inferior contracting differences; for a character, or some explicit degree, can be contracted only through the addition of a further degree. But an analogical concept explains no determinate degree explicitly; rather, it confuses the analogates transcendentally under a proportional character. Thus the contraction and distinction of concepts occurs not through addition but through explanation of the confusion, as was explained in the preceding question, article 5.

If you object: The concept of being, or of an analogue, can be formed not only by representing no analogate determinately, but only indeterminately that in which the analogy occurs; it can also represent one analogate determinately—for example, substance—and the others indeterminately and confusedly, insofar as they resemble it in being. Therefore such a concept will not be wholly confused. The answer is that Cajetan admits both modes in his Opusculum on the Concept of Being. Nevertheless, when it determinately expresses one analogate and the other analogates confusedly, insofar as they are proportionally like it, that concept is univocal with respect to what it determinately expresses, because it represents one thing, but virtually analogical insofar as it extends to a likeness of confusion with the other analogates. Thus that likeness signifies no determinate nature, but indeterminacy and confusion in being, according to which the proportion among the analogates is established.

But some still press the point concerning complete being itself, insofar as it can be taken as common to two individuals, for example Peter and Paul; for it is not predicated unequally of them and consequently is not predicated analogically. The answer is that we already said above, in the preceding question, article 3, that it is not impossible for some analogue, if taken restrictively with respect to certain inferiors, not to exercise analogy there, because those inferiors are not diverse simply—just as “healthy” said of two animals is not analogical. Thus being restricted to two individuals does not exercise analogy, although it exercises transcendence, because singulars of the same species are so one that they do not have diversity simply, but only material diversity, which is extrinsic to the nature in which they wholly agree. Hence inclusion in such differences does not dissolve the unity of the concept simply, although by virtue of its transcendent concept it is analogical, because the character of transcendence requires that it not be restricted to those two individuals and consequently that it have diversity simply. Therefore nothing follows from this argument for the univocity of transcendentals in themselves.

AS FOR THE ARGUMENTS BROUGHT FORWARD LAST, the answer is: To the first, it is not impossible for the same concept or cognition, with respect to diverse things, to be doubtful and certain, obscure and clear. St. Thomas seems to admit this in the act of faith, in Summa theologiae II-II, question 1, article 4, replies 2 and 3, when he attributes to faith evident contact with the objects of belief under the aspect of credibility, but obscure contact under the aspect of the thing believed. Sight can be certain that something it sees from afar is an animal, yet doubt or be uncertain whether it is a horse or an ox, and so forth. This is especially true of negative doubt, that is, of not being certain. For an act that reaches several things under some aspect does not reach them all with equal clarity; one may be fully certain about one, but not another. Perhaps for positively doubting about one and having evident certainty about another, one act will not suffice even with respect to diverse things. But that is irrelevant to the force of the argument, which proceeds only from negative doubt. For if one begins to doubt positively, the confused concept of being is dissolved and one passes to articulating the concepts of the inferiors by doubting about them.

To the second objection we said in the preceding question, article 5, that in these predications, “Substance is being” and “Man is being,” the predicate “being” does not attribute the particular analogates to the subject insofar as they are many and considered in themselves, but insofar as they stand under that confusion and proportional unity of having being. That alone is predicated there, and it gives this sense: “Man is a possessor of being,” which is proportionally like quantity, quality, substance, and so forth, but is not substance, quantity, or quality explicitly and determinately.

To the last, it is answered that being can indeed be a middle term in a demonstration, since it has demonstrable attributes and does not signify diverse things insofar as they are diverse, as an equivocal does, but under a proportional unity and a certain confusion. This suffices for there to be science of it and, consequently, demonstration, and for it to have proper attributes, also transcendent and analogical ones, connected with that proportional character. This is expressly the Philosopher’s position in Posterior Analytics 2, chapter 11¹⁷, as Cajetan notes there, placing something proportional as the middle term of a demonstration. Similarly, contradiction can be made about that concept of being on account of the proportional unity it has, insofar as it stands under that confusion.

As for those who further object that being has a concept simply one because that concept is gathered together in having proper attributes common to substance and accident, this proves absolutely nothing, since it remained to be proved that those attributes are common univocally. But since they are common only analogically and transcendentally, like the true and the good, and so on, it is no wonder that the analogical unity of the subject suffices for them, and not unity simply.

Some think that the analogy of being is neither one of proportion nor of proportionality, but a third kind, which they call transcendental; see Master Cabero, treatise 4, disputation 3, doubt 3. Others think that with respect to substance and accident, “being” is only a common word, and that it is an analogy of proportion, as “healthy” is said of medicine and urine; so Father Vazquez, volume 2, part 1, disputation 121, chapter 2. But they speak generally about every analogue, which they think is common only in word; we are not treating against them here, but did so in the preceding question. Finally, others understand there to be an analogy of proper proportionality, and this is the truer view.

THEREFORE THERE IS ONE CONCLUSION: The analogy of being with respect to the ten categories is not adequately explained by saying that it is transcendental; rather, it must be said to be formally an analogy of proper proportionality, although virtually it includes an analogy of attribution or proportion.

THE FIRST PART is established because transcendence is not a species of analogy, but the subject of analogy; and what is transcendental is called an analogue denominatively, just as an animal is called a genus denominatively. The reason is clear: a transcendental is something real, found in all things. Analogy, however, like univocation and equivocation, is formally a second intention, just as genus is formally a second intention; for it pertains to the mode of predicability and universality and arises through abstraction by the intellect. Therefore to say that transcendence is a species of analogy is like saying that animal is a species of the universal or predicable. One must therefore assign the formal account of analogy that is found in being and the transcendentals as their subject.

THE SECOND PART is plainly established because being and the transcendentals are found intrinsically in all things, not through an extrinsic denomination; otherwise they would not be transcendentals. Hence St. Thomas often teaches that accidents truly and properly have their own being and essence, distinct from substance, as is clear in 4. dist. 12. q. 1. art. 1. quaestiunc. 3. ad 5.¹ and in 4. Contra Gent. cap. 14. ad 9. rationem, where he says that “accidents are certain forms superadded to substance and caused by the principles of substance; hence their being must be superadded to the being of substance and depend on it.” He likewise teaches that the quiddity of an accident is a reality that calls for being through inherence, in the cited place from 4. Sentent. quaestiunc. 1. ad 2.² and 3. p. q. 77. art. 2. and Quodlib. 9. art. 5. ad 2.³ All this cannot stand unless an accident is intrinsically and quidditatively a being. When St. Thomas says in 1. 2. q. 55. art. 4. ad 1. that accidents and nonsubsistent forms do not have being, the meaning is clear: he means that they do not have being per se and as that which is, as supposits do—not that they lack being as forms. Finally, St. Thomas plainly teaches in 1. dist. 19. q. 5. art. 2. ad 1.⁴ that analogy according to being and intention, which is the analogy of proportionality, belongs to being and the transcendentals. Such things, he says, must have “being in each of the things of which they are said.” The same may be gathered from q. 7. de Potentia art. 7.⁵

The reason is clear: analogy of proportionality differs from analogy of attribution in this respect: attribution is said by denomination from one form, which is intrinsic in one primary thing and denominative in the others; proportionality, by contrast, is predicated on forms existing intrinsically in each analogue, which do not agree in one thing simply, but proportionally. An accident, however, is intrinsically a being, because it truly exists outside nothing and truly inheres, producing real effects such as being quantified, colored, hot, and so on. Therefore being is said of it by an analogy of proper proportionality.

THE THIRD PART, HOWEVER, is proved as follows. As we said in the preceding question, the Philosopher and St. Thomas often compare the analogy of being to that of “healthy” as said of an animal and medicine, which is an analogy of attribution, as in 4. Metaph. lect. 1.⁶ and 11. Metaph. lect. 3.⁷ and q. 2. de Veritate art. 11.⁸—not because this is the only analogy involved. For in 1. Ethic. lect. 7.⁹ he plainly assigns an analogy of proportionality to the good, and the same reasoning applies to being. Rather, the reason is that an accident depends so much on substance and is a being of a being that, even if—impossibly—it did not have being intrinsically in itself, it could still be called a being through extrinsic denomination from the being of substance, because it is ordered to and serves that substance. Thus an accident virtually has an analogy of attribution to substance. But because it has being intrinsically, it is not formally called a being by attribution; it has instead what would allow it to be called a being in that way if it were not intrinsically a being. Or, as St. Thomas says in the cited passage from 4. Metaph., being is said as “healthy” is said with respect to substance and accident, not by attribution to an efficient or final cause, but to a material cause, insofar as an accident inheres in a substance or subject. From this, then, it is more properly inferred that it must also have being intrinsically, namely by inherence, not by attribution to an extrinsic cause or effect.

YOU WILL OBJECT: The proportion of an accident to being, or of a substance to its own being, is a proportion of reason, not a real one; therefore it does not suffice to constitute a real analogy grounded in intrinsic agreement.

The antecedent is proved: proportion is a relation, and that relation is of reason because it is not between real extremes; for nothing is distinguished from its own being. Therefore it is a relation of reason. Again, this proportionality between an accident and substance is not signified by the name “being,” and it does not suffice to constitute an analogy merely by being exercised, even if it is not signified. For proportionality can also be exercised between two species contained under one genus: just as this species is related to its genus, so is the other; yet this does not remove univocation. Therefore neither does it do so in the case of being.

THE ANSWER IS that, first, in the opinion of St. Thomas, who distinguishes existence really from essence, the objection has no force, because there are extremes there in which a real relation can be exercised. But even apart from that opinion, we say that analogy is formally a second intention; as a second intention, therefore, it is not a real relation but one of reason, like the intention of genus or species. Its foundation, however, is a proportion—not insofar as this is formally a relation, but insofar as it is an agreement and proportional likeness among many things, whether real beings or beings of reason—just as the intention of genus is founded on an agreement of generic likeness, whether among real beings or beings of reason.

To the second part of the argument, the answer is that this proportionality need not be signified as though in the signified act; it must instead be exercised in the analogues, just as neither is the unity of equality signified in univocals. As for proportionality being exercised among species of the same genus, we already said in the preceding question¹⁰ that this proportion falls upon an absolute and perfect agreement. Thus the unity of species under a genus is not taken from proportionality alone; rather, a greater unity is presupposed. But among analogues, the whole unity or agreement is taken from proportionality, and no greater unity is presupposed. This is the difference between proportionality as found in analogues and as found in univocals.

There are AUTHORS who hold the affirmative side, especially if “accident” is taken as a complete predicamental accident, not abstracting from complete and incomplete, and as a real accident that denominates intrinsically; for there is no univocal concept between what denominates extrinsically and what denominates intrinsically. Thus, speaking of a complete accident in this way, many authors, even outside the Scotist school, think it is univocal with respect to those predicaments that are forms denominating intrinsically.

The basis is that such an accident is not included in the differences, but behaves like a complete substance, which is truly a genus because it is not included in the differences, although substance is not a genus when it abstracts from complete and incomplete. Why, then, would a complete accident not likewise be univocal? Especially since one accident, such as quantity, participates in the nature of accident no less than another, such as quality; their entire diversity comes from their proper differences, in which the complete accident is not included. Finally, it is not easy to assign an analogy to complete accident. It is not transcendental, since it is not imbibed in the differences; it is not an analogy of attribution or metaphor, since all accidents are accidents intrinsically and not denominatively; and it is not proper proportionality, because in the opinion of these authors this does not suffice to make something analogue, since it is also found among univocals.

Against this is the general rule of St Thomas, Sentences I, d. 25, q. 1, a. 2¹: “Of things that do not agree in one most general genus, nothing can be said univocally.” But the nine genera of accidents are most general genera, being different predicaments. Therefore nothing can be said univocally of them, and consequently neither can “accident.”

I SAY, THEN, FIRST: Accident, insofar as it abstracts from complete and incomplete, is not univocal but analogue.

The authors commonly agree on this, because the same reason applies as to being common, complete and incomplete, indeed also to substance: in this way it is imbibed even in the differences and transcends all things and modes. For accidental differences too are accidents, though incomplete, since they are some being but not substantial being, and so are accidental. It follows that this nature is not altogether one but also diverse, since it is included in the differences and does not abstract from them perfectly. For a nature once included in the differences does not abstract from them, because there are no other differences of those differences from which it could abstract while leaving them behind. If it abstracts from differences, then, it abstracts from the wholes, and the common and one nature remains with respect to the inferiors, not with respect to the differences from which it abstracts. Therefore, to be common to those differences, it does not abstract from them; it includes them actually and is not simply one in nature.

I SAY, SECOND: Complete accident too is analogue with respect to the nine genera, even if all consist in a form that denominates intrinsically.

The REASON is taken from what we said in article 2 about complete being. Although the concept of complete is not included in the differences themselves, for it to be complete it must include those differences, because only through them can it be made complete. Accident can be made complete only through some mode distinguishing it from the incomplete. This mode is either inherence itself, as subsistence completes substance; or the accident’s being concrete; or its being predicamental as such; or, finally, the differences themselves contracting accident to this or that predicament.

The first does not make accident complete. Inherence is not ordered to constitute a whole complete in itself, as subsistence is; inherence belongs properly to a form informing a subject. Since both the common and particular or differential nature of an accident belong to the nature of a form, inherence applies to both. Therefore, merely by conceiving accident as inhering, it is not drawn out or separated from inclusion in the differences, since the differences themselves also inhere. Accident is made complete in its nature and quiddity by its differences, not by inherence as such. Indeed, inherence as a principle of completion and making a whole stands opposite to subsistence: subsistence makes something incommunicable, a condition of a whole, while inherence makes it communicable, a condition of a form and not of a whole.

The second is not relevant here either, because an accident is made concrete by being in a subject, whereas it is placed in a predicament also as abstracted from a subject and considered in itself. Being concrete in a subject therefore does not make an accident complete as required by the nature of predicamental accident; rather, an accident is placed in a predicament in its formal nature, not as concrete.

The third is also insufficient. An accident’s being predicamental as such means either that it is made predicamental by the second intention of being ordered in a predicament, or by some first intention that makes it capable of that second intention. The first does not complete a real accident, since a second intention is something of reason; nor can it apply unless the first intention is presupposed, making the thing capable of being placed in a predicament and of receiving the second intention. The second cannot be identified as anything other than the very modes by which each predicament is constituted and predicamental accident made such. There is no real mode common to the nine predicaments by which accident as such is made really complete and separable from the differences.

THEREFORE WE MUST SAY that complete accident is not one superior concept over the nine predicaments; rather, it is made complete as accident immediately through the very modes that constitute the predicaments. If it is actually complete, it actually includes those modes and therefore does not have the unity required for univocity; instead it takes on the diversity of the differences and modes themselves. For this reason St Thomas says in Metaphysics V, lect. 9² that what being is first divided into are the predicaments, since they are distinguished according to diverse modes of predicating. Thus the division into ten predicaments is immediate and primary to being; complete accident is not mediated by some completion distinct from the ten predicaments. And in Metaphysics VIII, final lecture³, he says that being does not await something added in order to become substance, quantity, or quality; it is immediately substance, quantity, and so on. Likewise, accident does not await something superadded but is immediately quantity, quality, and so on, and is completed immediately by these modes.

Furthermore, this argument is not avoided: if complete accident is univocal with respect to the nine genera, then it is a genus of them, and consequently they are not nine highest genera but subordinate ones; for everything univocal is adequately divided into genus, species, and the other five predicables. Hence St Thomas says, Summa contra Gentiles I, ch. 32: “Everything predicated univocally of many is either a genus, species, difference, property, or accident.” Accident in general is not an atomic species, much less a difference or property relative to its inferiors; therefore, if it is univocal, it will be a genus.

Some deny the inference and say that accident is not a genus because it is divided unequally in itself. But this destroys genus while affirming analogy: it is analogue precisely because it is divided unequally in itself. If the inequality comes only from the differences themselves, that too is found in a genus, whose differences are unequal.

Others say accident is not a genus because it does not signify a quiddity but the being of an accident, which is to be in a substance; or, if it signifies a quiddity, it signifies no distinct grade, but what is included in each thing. But this destroys univocity, because it is included in each and expresses no determinate grade. For thus complete accident would not be complete if it were included in everything. If it is not included in the differences, why would it not express a generic concept? It is univocal and predicated quidditatively. Quality is accident quidditatively, just as it is not substance quidditatively; precisely by being outside the differences it expresses a grade. If it does not express a grade, that is because it is included in the differences, which removes univocity.

Others say it is not a genus because it is transcendental, or because it signifies a concept composed from two analogues, or at least a concept analogue relative to the others. But if any of this destroys genus, it also destroys univocity.

Others say it is not a genus because the nature of genus is not taken from a distinct reality from that of difference. But we refuted this above, article 2, in treating being.

Others, finally, admit that accident is a genus. To the consequence that the nine predicaments would not be highest genera, they answer that they are highest relatively, not absolutely. But this was rejected above. In that way all subordinate genera could be called highest relatively: for example, living thing has nothing superior to it insofar as it is living, just as quality has nothing superior insofar as it is quality. But if quality absolutely has a genus above it, it is not absolutely highest; relatively, even lower genera may be highest, that is, within their own nature.

THE ARGUMENTS OPPOSED AT THE BEGINNING ARE ANSWERED as follows. To the first, there is a broad difference between complete substance and accident. For substance has something of one nature and predicament by which it is completed, namely, being an integral or total substance, a “what.” But in accident, since it is a form, nothing can be assigned to complete it except those predicamental modes by which it is measured to substance; and such a mode constitutes a determinate predicament if determinate. If it is taken confusedly and indeterminately as predicamental accident as such, then if “predicamental” signifies a second intention, it is not a real completion of accident but presupposes one. If it signifies the complete nature of accident, it signifies all the predicamental modes confusedly, since accident is completed by no other reality than those modes; thus it includes the differences and is analogue. As to the claim that quantity is an accident to the same degree as quality, although they participate equally in the nature of accident with respect to inherence, they do not do so with respect to the nature of disposing and measuring themselves to substance; in this respect they are diverse from the outset and unequal. The mode of inherence does not constitute quiddity but is a mode of it pertaining to its mode of existence as communicable, just as subsistence makes substance incommunicable. Equality in inherence therefore does not make accident equal absolutely in quiddity.

To the second basis, the same reasoning applies to accident insofar as it abstracts from complete and incomplete, which everyone admits is analogue. We therefore say it is an analogue of proper proportionality, since it exists in all the analogates through an intrinsic form. As to the fact that a comparison of proportionality can also be found among univocals, we have often answered that it is found there not as the sole source from which their unity is taken, but as presupposing unity and supervening upon it. When proportionality is found as the source from which the unity itself is taken, so that there is no unity other than proportionality, it constitutes analogy and is not found among univocals.

This very celebrated and ancient division into ten categories has been accepted on the authority of so many centuries that it would be impious to doubt it. Its rationale, however, is not easily given. St. Thomas explains its adequacy in 5. Metaph. lect. 9.¹ and 3. Phys. lect. 5.² as follows.

Whatever can be predicated of a subject or of a primary substance can be predicated in only three ways: first, as pertaining to its essence; second, as not pertaining to its essence but inhering in the subject; or third, as a predicate drawn from something extrinsic, from which it takes its denomination. If in the first way, it constitutes the category of SUBSTANCE. If in the second, the inhering predicate is either absolute or relative and ordered to another term. If it is an absolute and inhering form, it either follows upon matter or upon form as form, whether the form be spiritual or corporeal. If it follows upon matter, it is QUANTITY, because quantity extends the material parts. If it follows upon form, it is QUALITY, which has the function of qualifying and determining the mode of form. If it is a relative form, it is RELATION.

If, however, predication occurs in the third way, by taking a denomination from something extrinsic on which it depends, it pertains to the six final categories. They are gathered as follows. What depends for its denomination on something extrinsic does so either because that extrinsic thing is a cause or measure, or because it is simply and extrinsically applied, without measurement or causality. If in this last way, it is the category of HABIT, by which someone is said to be clothed. If the denomination comes from something extrinsic that is a cause, it cannot be material or formal, since these intrinsically constitute or denominate through an intrinsic union. Their causalities therefore do not constitute a special category, because they are ordered more to perfecting and completing matter and form themselves, which are perfected in themselves through informing and receiving, than to perfecting and changing other things, as efficient causality does. Modes do not constitute a special category when they merely express some completion of a thing; in that case, they are reduced to the thing whose modes they are. They do so only when they express some special commensuration with substance, not merely a completion or condition of the thing's being. The final cause has only metaphorical causality, and wherever it is real, it coincides with efficient causality. It remains, then, that an efficient cause is an extrinsic source of denomination. In that case it either denominates a subject that is changed, and is PASSION, or the cause from which an effect flows, and is ACTION. If denomination comes from an extrinsic measure, the measure is either place or time. If place, it either measures according to the absolute account of being in a place by way of different distances, and so is WHERE, or by reason of the order of parts in a place, and so is POSITION. If time is the measure, it constitutes the category of WHEN. There are no further extrinsic measures.

In this account of how the number of categories is gathered, SOME FIND A SCRUPLE, especially in two respects.

First, quantity is said to follow matter, and quality form. If this is understood of inherence, according to St. Thomas both inhere in the composite, as is to be explained in the books on Generation.³ If it is understood of emanation, quantity does not emanate from matter alone, but from the composite, which is a body; for a body is what has three dimensions. This does not express matter alone, but matter informed by corporeal form.

Second, St. Thomas seems to constitute the six final categories through extrinsic denomination, which we shall show below to be false when treating them; and it cannot be doubted especially that passion is an intrinsic change. Nor can one say that they are intrinsic modes that nevertheless depend on something extrinsic to which they are related; for on that basis relation too would be called an accident of extrinsic denomination, since it depends on an extrinsic term.

NEVERTHELESS, none of this undermines the sufficiency of the foregoing account of St. Thomas.

For quantity's following upon matter and quality's following upon form is a common saying of the philosophers. It is not founded on emanation from or inherence in matter alone, but on this: quantity is the primary disposition of matter, because its division and indivision are considered according to quantity, as St. Thomas says in 4. dist. 12. q. 1. art. 1. quaestiunc. 3.⁴ and q. 9. de Potentia art. 7.⁵ Hence quantity is found only in material things. It is therefore said to belong to something by reason of matter, because it disposes and orders the material parts; and also because it is proportionate to matter itself, since quantity is not active but is the means by which other accidents are received. In this way it is proportionate to matter, which is the first recipient. Quality, however, is found in both material and spiritual things; it is also a quality that disposes one to act and serves as an active instrument, and therefore is founded on what belongs to activity and actuality, which pertains to form.

To the second point, the answer is that St. Thomas does not constitute the six final categories through extrinsic denomination of the sort “being known,” “being seen,” and so on, which says nothing inhering in the denominated object; rather, only the denominating form inheres extrinsically in something else—for example, vision in the eye, love in the appetite—and that form of love or vision is placed in a category. The denomination by which an object denominates something as seen or loved, since it does not inhere in the object, does not express in it any reality added to vision or love that would constitute a distinct category. Therefore, the extrinsic denominations that St. Thomas places in a category are not purely extrinsic: they posit something intrinsic in the denominated thing, such as “where” in what is located and passion in what is acted upon, though dependently on something extrinsic that not only terminates it but also denominates it or concurs in its denomination. Hence these are sometimes said to be denominated by something extrinsic not formally, but originatively: the denomination of that intrinsic mode originates from, and depends on, something extrinsic.

As for the objection concerning relation and other things that depend on extrinsic terms, the answer is that the cases differ. Relation does not depend on its term as on something that denominates or originates the denomination of the relation, but as on what terminates it. Powers, habits, and acts (and the same holds for relation) do not denominate by means of a term; rather, they direct and order toward it, while the forms themselves denominate intrinsically per se by referring to their terms. The six final categories do not order a subject toward a term, for in that case they would be relation. Rather, they belong to a subject through subordination to and derivation from something extrinsic, on which they depend for denomination. Thus, to make something located, a place depends on what locates it; to make someone clothed, a garment surrounding him is required; to make something a “when,” time is required; to make something acted upon, an agent is required; and to make something an agent, an effect is required. Yet these do not leave behind merely an extrinsic denomination; they leave a real mode by which the subject is changed intrinsically and denominated dependently on something extrinsic, in the way explained.

But you will ask what sort of distinction suffices among the categorial natures themselves to constitute distinct categories. The answer is that some hold one extreme: a real distinction is required, as between two things. Others hold the opposite extreme: a distinction of reason with a foundation in reality suffices, as Father Suarez holds in disputation 39 of the Metaphysics, section 2, no. 22.

THE FIRST OPINION is plainly refuted by the example of certain categories that are only modes, such as action, passion, where, and position, indeed even relation, as we shall say in their respective places below. These are not distinguished per se or by reason of themselves from other categories as one thing from another. On that view there would consequently be fewer than ten categories.

THE SECOND OPINION, first of all, opens the way to positing more than ten categories if a mere distinction of reason suffices. For there would be no reason why final or exemplary causality, for example, could not constitute a distinct category, even if it coincides with action, which is efficient causality, if a distinction by reason suffices. Next, the distinction of categories is a distinction of real beings; therefore, where no real distinction is given, but only one of reason, there is no reason to posit a different category. Third, in fact all categories are either things or real modes, such as relation, action and passion, where and position, which are distinguished from one another as different modes and modally from their subject, as we shall say in question 19. Although place and garment are the same as a surface, they are not distinct categories insofar as they are surfaces; rather, the mode “where,” which results from place, and the mode of being clothed, which results from a garment's being adjacent, constitute different categories. Action and passion are distinguished from one another as modes, although they are identified entitatively in reality with motion or with their subject.

Therefore THE THIRD OPINION is truer: at least a modal real distinction is required, which has been proved by the foregoing.