Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

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.