Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

SUBSTANCE here is not taken to mean the quiddity or essence of a thing. For in that sense it is not a special category, but a general notion of any quiddity or essence; and substance taken in this way is opposed only to an accidental predicate, not to a predicamental accident, since this accident too has its own quiddity. Hence substance is taken here to mean a being existing in itself, that is, opposed to an accident inhering or existing in another. This property of existing in itself is understood either in an absolute consideration and in relation to itself; in this sense it is called subsistent, as needing nothing else to support it, but standing in itself; or it is understood in relation to others, insofar as it supports them in being, and in this sense it is called not only subsistent but also substant. For just as shining differs from illuminating, although the latter proceeds from the former, so being in oneself without needing support from another is a different consideration from supporting others and giving them being.

In this way St. Thomas explained the notion of this first category in Sentences I, dist. 23, q. 1, art. 1.¹ He says that “being expresses what is common to all genera, but to subsist and to underlie express what is proper to the first category, according to two features belonging to it: namely, that it be a complete being in itself, and, further, that it underlie all other things, namely accidents, which have being from substance.” Thus St. Thomas. Here he clearly explains that the constitution of substance as the first category is taken in relation to these two acts, subsisting and underlying. Subsisting is spoken of in relation to oneself and to one’s own being; underlying is spoken of in relation to the things one supports, such as accidents. The expression being in itself can be taken positively or negatively: positively, for that perfection of being which excludes dependence on another; negatively, for the very negation of dependence and communication to another. The expression in itself can also be taken in several ways, as we shall say in the third conclusion. We must therefore explain how in itself is taken in the constitution of substance, and to which property it relates first, subsisting or underlying.

I SAY, THEN, FIRST: The definition or description of substance as the first category—for strictly speaking it is not defined, since it is a highest genus not composed of genus and difference—is “a being existing in itself.”

So St. Thomas, opusc. 48, On the Categories, chapter 2.² He explains the same point in Sentences IV, dist. 12, q. 1, art. 1, question 1, ad 2,³ where he teaches that this definition is to be understood in the sense that substance is a thing to which being in itself, or existing in itself, is due, just as an accident is a being to which being in another is due. For actually being in itself or in another is not the very quiddity of substance or accident, since being or existing is not an intrinsic predicate in any created quiddity. And quantity in the Eucharist is a true accident and does not actually exist in another, but only has an aptitude to do so. Substance is defined more by reference to existing in itself, or subsisting, than by reference to underlying, because subsisting belongs to it first, as relating to itself, before underlying, which relates to supporting other things.

I SAY, SECOND: The self-subsistence of substance does not consist in negation alone, but in a positive notion.

The REASON is most evident: being in itself is nobler and more perfect than being in another. But being in another is a positive mode of being, namely, by inherence and union with another. Therefore, being in itself is not a pure negation, but something positive. For a mere negation and exclusion of something positive does not constitute something more perfect, just as the mere negation of a brute does not constitute the perfection of a human being. Finally, this negation would have to be founded on something positive; otherwise it would be pure nothing and would not constitute a positive being such as substance. But it is not founded on being in general, since then it would belong to every being; therefore, it is founded on something determinate and distinct from accident, and this is substance.

When St. Thomas says in Summa contra gentiles I, chapter 25, that the expression in itself seems to imply nothing but negation, which cannot constitute a nature or the notion of a genus, some have taken occasion to attribute to St. Thomas the view that self-subsistence in substance signifies mere negation. The holy Doctor does not affirm that; he says only that the particle in itself does not constitute a genus. How substance is constituted by the notion of being in itself, St. Thomas immediately explains in these words: “Therefore, the notion of substance must be understood in this way: substance is a thing to which it belongs not to be in a subject. The name ‘thing’ is imposed from quiddity, just as the name ‘being’ is imposed from being. Thus, the notion of substance includes that it has a quiddity to which it belongs not to be in another.” What in itself implies by the imposition of its signification is one thing; what it implies insofar as it explains the constitutive quiddity of substance is another. In the first sense, it requires nothing more than signifying negation of being in another. In the second, it expresses a positive notion of being, though with the perfection of also having a negation of being in another.

I SAY, THIRD: The expression in itself can be opposed to a being per accidens; to a being inhering in another, which is an accident; to a being existing in another as a part in a whole; and to a being existing in another without being incommunicable or ultimately terminated, as an integral human nature is in a supposit.

In the first sense, being in itself does not belong only to this category of substance, but to any being that is not a being per accidens; for quantity too is a being in itself in this sense. In the second sense, it belongs to substance, both complete and incomplete, as St. Thomas observes in opusc. 42, chapter 10,⁴ and opusc. 48, treatise 2, On Substance, chapter 2;⁵ for even a part of substance is not an accident. In the third sense, it belongs to predicamental substance, which expresses the whole quiddity and complete nature as a nature, though not as a supposit, as with humanity. In the fourth sense, it belongs to a supposit. See St. Thomas, opusc. 48 cited above,⁶ where he says that “composite substance can be understood in two ways: as nature and as supposit.… For although humanity is called a form, it is nevertheless composed of matter and form, since humanity expresses soul and body. Yet humanity, or any nature, expresses a substantial and natural form in such a way that, by its principal signification, it abstracts from everything other than the aforesaid form and matter. This is not so with a supposit, which by its principal signification expresses something having humanity.… And because that which has humanity can be a nonhuman supposit, as is clear in the humanity of Christ, which is suppositated by a divine supposit, or can have certain other things, such as accidents, from which humanity wholly abstracts, supposit and nature differ in creatures.” Thus St. Thomas. Indeed, being in itself as opposed to an accident inhering is clearly found in every substance, complete or incomplete, just as it is distinguished from every accident. But if the substance is complete, it must also exclude the notion of a part, since it is a whole and complete. Subsistence and existence, however, belong to the mode of being, and underlying belongs to the support of other things; all of this is extrinsic to the nature and quiddity itself. Therefore, it does not constitute the nature of substance in act, but gives it only an aptitude for this, just as an accident has an aptitude for inhering and existing in another.

I SAY, FOURTH: Subsistence, supposit, hypostasis, or person expresses not an intrinsic and essential term of substance, as though it were a predicate constituting it, but an extrinsic term whose role is to render a nature ultimately incommunicable to another.

For the distinction among these names, see St. Thomas in the cited Sentences I, dist. 23.⁷ Subsistence, supposit, and hypostasis are commonly said of substance in any nature; person, however, is said only of an intellectual nature. That it does not belong to the intrinsic term is taught by the mystery of the Incarnation, in which the whole quiddity of human nature is found without its own subsistence. Therefore, subsistence is not a quidditative predicate. Yet it is a term, because it renders a nature ultimately terminated and incommunicable and thus receptive of accidents, while the nature of an accident remains unmixed with the nature of substance. This is a sign that accidents are not joined immediately to a nature, but to some thing of that nature, which is the supposit and is distinct from the nature.

What this subsistence is—whether a thing or a mode distinct from the nature—is not for the present place to explain; that belongs to metaphysics. See Cajetan, Summa theologiae III, q. 2, art. 2. But if it is distinct from the nature, how is it predicated of the nature? We reply that it is predicated of the nature concretely, as existence and other accidental predicates are: one says “an existing and subsistent man,” or “a person,” but one does not say “subsistence” or “existence,” nor is humanity called a person.

Some say here that humanity taken physically is distinct from subsistence and expresses only a nature stripped of subsistence, but that, taken metaphysically, it expresses a nature abstracted from individuating differences; conversely, the concrete “man,” taken physically, expresses a nature with a supposit, while taken metaphysically it expresses a nature while connoting differences. But this is an abuse of terms. For even humanity considered metaphysically is signified in the manner of a form, not in the manner of a whole; it signifies the abstract of the name “man,” and only that by which man is man. Therefore, it abstracts from individuating differences in such a way that it is not predicable of individuals. This can arise only because it is signified as a part, and therefore in relation to some whole. But the whole is the supposit. Therefore, even humanity taken metaphysically is signified as stripped of supposit and subsistence, although it is true that, considered physically, it is taken as singular in the way in which the Divine Word assumed it. Metaphysically, however, it can also be considered in common. But it is not clear how “man,” considered concretely and metaphysically, connotes lower differences, since it abstracts from them, as a universal abstracts from contracting differences.

I SAY, LAST: When the definition of substance says “a being existing in itself,” the word existing or being is taken for existence itself, by which a thing is outside its causes; this is not quidditative being.

THE REASON IS that the difference between substance and accident is taken from the different order and mode in which each requires to exist outside its causes: an accident requires existence with dependence through inherence, while substance requires it without such dependence. We shall speak in physics of how this existence is distinct from the nature and quiddity of each created thing.⁸ For now, it suffices to hear St. Thomas in opusc. 48, treatise 2, chapter 2, On Substance,⁹ where he says that “in creatures, the being of essence and the being of actual existence differ really, as two distinct things. This is clear as follows: what is outside the essence of something”—understand this physically, so that there is no objection concerning a difference that is outside the concept of a genus metaphysically speaking, yet does not really differ from it—“really differs from it. But the being of actual existence is outside the definition, because the definition posits only genus and difference and makes no mention of whether the defined thing exists or does not exist.” Thus St. Thomas.

YOU WILL OBJECT: Substance must be constituted by something added to being; it is not positive, therefore it is negative. The minor premise is clear: it is not something positive in reason, because what is constituted by it is a real being; nor is it something really positive, because then it would add nothing to being, since being itself is included in every being. Indeed, it would be redundant to say, “Substance is a being in itself,” that is, “a real being is a real being.” Therefore, it implies something negative.

Second: being in itself also belongs to something constituted from an accident and a subject—for example, something white—so it does not belong only to substance. Being in itself without a subject also belongs to an accident separated in the Eucharist. Therefore, that definition does not express the adequate notion of substance.

Finally, to underlie is what most properly makes substance substance. For Aristotle says¹⁰ that first substances are substances most of all because they underlie most of all. Therefore, underlying is the proper notion of substance.

THE REPLY IS to the first objection that substance is constituted by a positive mode of being in itself, which adds to being not a new and distinct reality but a new mode. As regards entity, this mode is contained in being itself, but it is expressed in a new way. For this is the general principle in the contraction of transcendental notions: they are not contracted by something added in which they themselves are not included, but contract through themselves alone, by a new mode of explication and not by a new mode of addition, as St. Thomas teaches in question 1 of On Truth, art. 1.¹¹ Hence even the two highest genera differ by their whole selves and not through something added, as we explained more fully above when treating the analogy of being. There we showed that being is abstracted not by excluding inferiors, nor is it contracted by addition, but by a more or less explicit expression of the same thing. Because of this difference in mode and expression, it is not redundant or repetitive to say “a being in itself,” since in itself explains a mode different from that expressed by real being.

To the second, one says that what is constituted from an accident and a substance is not a being in itself, but a being per accidens. Moreover, it consists of two things, one of which—whiteness—is inhering and therefore is not, in every part of itself, absolved from inhering, which is required for it to be absolutely a being in itself and not in another. As to the other part concerning an accident separated from its subject, one says that it is not in itself intrinsically, as the notion of substance requires, but by the extrinsic conservation of God, who continues the accident’s being without the support of substance. Hence that accident expresses an aptitude for inhering, which substance does not express.

To the third, one says that underlying constitutes substance as substance most of all, not with respect to its nature, which does not admit of more or less, but with respect to the exercise of supporting and the office of being under other things, which presupposes a subsistent and consequently constituted nature.

Just as this division is famous, it has also proved difficult for many, dividing authors into various schools. The whole difficulty arises from the different senses of the name “substance.” It is sometimes taken for the highest genus of the category; sometimes for the nature or quiddity of the things contained throughout this entire category, whether at higher or lower levels; sometimes for a supposit or individual exercising the role of subsisting in itself and underlying or sustaining other things. This last sense has two modes: first intention and second intention. In first intention it is the subject of real information and actualization; in second intention it is the subject of predication. All this variety has caused confusion about what is divided in this division, what sort of division it is, and what the dividing members are.

To present our solution, we must observe that what is special to this category is that it sustains other things; this is what it means to be substance. Consequently, substance must be subject to other things and stand beneath them. Insofar as it actualizes them and they are predicated of it, it is their subject. Since “first” means that there is nothing prior to it, although things that are not substances can be beneath other things and underlie them, they do not underlie them first. Rather, they presuppose something prior that sustains them, at which the regress ultimately stops. This is why it is called first or primary substance, and the first subjectible thing for others. The relation of fittingness is one thing, the relation of receiving or sustaining accidents another. The relation of fittingness is understood through the connection that can be found between a nature, insofar as it is a nature, and the proper accident of that nature. The relation of receiving and sustaining, however, is considered according to the account of a subject, and it belongs first to what is more a subject, or more beneath other things: the individual.

Some, then, take this division only according to first intention, both on the side of what is divided and on the side of what divides it. The divided thing is substance as really underlying—that is, substance insofar as it bears the real property of underlying—and it is divided into what underlies first as an individual substance and what underlies secondarily as a universal. Others, at the opposite extreme, take both the divided thing and the dividing members according to second intention: the divided thing is substance invested with the second intention of being subjectible and subject to a predicate; it is divided into the intention of a first subject, or what is ultimate among all subjectible things, and what is not ultimate in being a subject, such as a universal, which is rather a predicate. Others, finally, take the divided thing according to first intention, namely the nature of substance, and the dividing members according to second intention, namely the modes of underlying individually and universally; or they take the things themselves, which are substances, insofar as they are denominated by these second intentions of underlying universally or individually. For these and other opinions, see the commentators of Coimbra here, q. 2; the Carmelite Course, disp. 12, q. 2; Araujo, 5. Metaph., q. 2, art. 1; and Suarez, disp. 33, Metaph., sect. 2.

NEVERTHELESS, I ANSWER AND SAY FIRST: What is divided in this division is neither substance as it abstracts from complete and incomplete substance, nor substance taken for a grade—that is, what signifies the highest genus.

THE REASON IS that what is divided is what is shared by both dividing members. But the highest genus is found in only one dividing member, namely, second substance, because it is the highest genus and second substances are genera or species. Therefore, it is not something common that is divided into first and second substance. A genus is indeed divided into its species and descends all the way to individuals, but it is not divided into individual and generic substance, as first and second substance are. Likewise, incomplete substance is neither first nor second substance, because it is incomplete and a part, not a whole. A part as a part is not per se but in another—that is, in the whole—not by inhering but by composing it. Hence it is neither what underlies first, since something prior is given that underlies—the whole—nor what underlies second, since it is not the whole that is predicated of the first underlying thing and said to underlie through it. A part, then, is not denominated as underlying but as constituting, although it can be a medium through which something is received in the whole, as sight is received through the eye. The eye does not underlie; the human being does. For although the eye receives, it does not stand beneath other things; the whole underlies it as a part. Otherwise the part itself would underlie not identically, as universals do through an individual; for a part is not identified with the whole as a universal is with what falls under it.

I SAY SECOND: What is divided in this division is not appropriately taken according to second intention alone, as the intention of subjectibility.

THE REASON IS that the second intention of subject to predicate, whether essential or accidental, is something common to accident and substance. For an accident is also subject to its predicates and receives them, whether essential—as whiteness is a quality—or accidental—as whiteness is intense.

YOU WILL SAY: The account of subject is found in accidents participatively and derivatively from substance. Hence being a subject per se and primarily is found in substance. But this is nothing: although what belongs to entity and reality is found principally in substance and participatively in accident, intentions that belong to things as cognized are predicated equally of both, as being universal and particular, genus and species; the same holds for the intention of subject and predicate, and so on. Finally, substance is not only a subject of predication, but also a subject that really informs and sustains accidents. Therefore, the account of underlying should not be explained solely through the second intention of subject to predicate, but also through the real property of underlying that which really informs it.

I SAY THIRD: It can plausibly be said that what is divided here is the very property of underlying, or substance insofar as it exercises that office of underlying. But it is much more probable that what is divided is the very nature of categorical substance into its various modes, one of which is to underlie as an individual that subsists and receives things in reality, while the other is to underlie only through denomination from those first underlying and receiving things.

This conclusion, AS TO THE FIRST PART, can be taken from St. Thomas, Opusc. 48, treatise on the Categories, ch. 3.¹ There he says that “underlying is said in two ways: of underlying accidents, and of underlying universals, as the less universal is beneath the more universal.” He adds that “it is proper to first substance to underlie accidents. From this it follows that accidents inhere principally and primarily in first substance.” Thus St. Thomas takes the whole division according to the property of underlying and sustaining accidents. This does not mean that this property of sustaining is divided into different properties. For the property of underlying is not one in universals and another in individuals; it is one and the same, just as the nature is one and not different. Rather, this property underlies per se and primarily—that is, not through another—and underlies secondarily insofar as a higher nature is identified with the individual, and what belongs to the individual touches the universal denominatively, while what belongs to the universal in signate act is exercised through the individual. It is not necessary, then, to take as what is divided anything other than the property of underlying itself: in individuals it underlies first, that is, with exercise; in universals it underlies secondarily and denominatively through individuals.

If you say: In this way, some accidents will also be said to underlie secondarily, namely, through first substance, since they too sustain other accidents, as quantity sustains color and a power sustains a habit or an act. I answer that these accidents do receive other things as a medium of reception, but not as the reason for sustaining them. Since the accidents themselves inhere, they cannot give other accidents a sustaining being. They can, however, mediate between the reception of one accident and another, which is like disposing and enabling the subject to receive that other accident. Universal substances, by contrast, are identified with individuals. Hence they receive accidents as individuals do, namely, under the denomination of that which sustains, while leaving the exercise of sustaining to individuals.

THE SECOND PART of the conclusion is taken from St. Thomas, q. 9, On the Power of God, art. 2, ad 6.² There he says: “When substance is divided into first and second, it is not a division of genus into species, since nothing is contained under second substance that is not in first; rather, it is a division of genus according to diverse modes of being. For second substance signifies the nature of a genus taken absolutely in itself, while first substance signifies it as individually subsisting. Hence it is more a division of an analogate than of a genus.” Thus St. Thomas. His disciples commonly note that he did not mean that it is an analogical division, but rather that it is more a division of an analogate than of a genus—although it is neither, but a division of a subject or nature into modes of being, which resembles the division of an analogate, made through modes rather than differences, as a genus is divided. Finally, in 1. p., q. 19, art. 1, ad 2, St. Thomas says that in the definition of a person, when it is said to be an individual substance, the term substance does not signify a determinate substance, but “what is divided commonly into first and second, and by the addition of ‘individual’ is made to stand for first substance.” According to St. Thomas, then, what is divided into first and second substance is what is signified by the name “substance” in the definition of person. But when one says “individual substance,” it is not the same as an individual property of underlying; it is the substantial thing itself. Therefore, this is what is divided in this division. Since first substance is not merely a determinate property of underlying, but a determinate thing that has the property of underlying per se and primarily, it is more fitting to say that this division is not of a property into properties, but of the thing itself that has properties into the very modes of those properties.

It is clear, then, that first and second substance do not signify different natures, since they stand to each other as singular and universal in the same category. The bearer of this denomination—underlying first or underlying second—is therefore one and the same, because it is the same nature. These modes or properties cannot be distinct realities, since no property belonging to second, universal substance fails to belong to the singular; the very account of real underlying found in the singular also belongs to the universal nature. But the exercise of underlying, or of really sustaining accidents, belongs to first substance and denominatively to second substance. Underlying as the second intention of being subject to higher predicates belongs to first substance in such a way that it does not belong at all to second substance, even denominatively. For genera and species are not subject to all the predicates to which first substance is subject, nor even by denomination taken from it.

It remains to clarify the sort of division this is. If what is divided is taken to be the nature of substance, affected by these two modes, then it is a division of a thing into its modes, or of a subject into its accidents, as we saw from St. Thomas in the question On the Power of God.³ It is no objection that the holy Doctor said that the division is more a division of an analogate than of a genus. He did not say absolutely that the division is analogical, but only that, compared with the division of a genus into different species and natures, this division more closely resembles the division of an analogate, because it is made through different modes. One mode—underlying first—is found really in first substances; the other—underlying second—is found only denominatively and by reason, as when nature is divided into universal and singular. If, however, what is divided is taken to be the account of the property or mode of underlying itself, then the division is analogical, insofar as one mode, namely, underlying first, is found really, while the other is found only denominatively and by reason, namely, underlying second.

ARGUMENTS ARE SOLVED.

First, it is argued: This division should be presented according to the account of subsisting rather than according to the property of underlying. But the account of subsisting belongs equally to first and second substance. Therefore, the division is neither analogical nor into analogical modes.

The major is proved: this division should be presented through what the dividing members share. But they share subsisting more than underlying, since they simply do not share the latter. Therefore, the division should be presented through subsisting. The minor is proved as follows: subsisting, or being per se, belongs to the nature of substance even in common, and descends from it to individuals, as St. Thomas teaches in 1. Sentences, to Hannibald, dist. 23, q. 1, art. 4.⁴ Therefore, the account of subsisting is no less intrinsic to second substance than to first.

I ANSWER that the term subsisting is taken equivocally. It can signify a thing that calls for subsistence, which is being per se; or it can signify the very mode of subsisting, which belongs to a nature that calls for it. Likewise, underlying can be taken either for a nature that calls for the account of underlying, or underlies radically, or for the very mode and property of underlying. If they are taken in the first way, this pertains to the nature, and St. Thomas takes them in this way in 4. dist. 12, cited above,⁵ where he defines substance as “being per se,” that is, a thing to which being per se is due. In this way it is found prior in genera and species than in individuals, as St. Thomas says in the cited dist. 23.⁶ In the second way, subsisting and underlying as an exercise belong first to individuals. Although both belong radically to the nature, their exercise belongs first to first substances, from which they are most properly said to underlie. This division, however, is not made according to nature, since the same nature is in first and second substance, nor according to subsisting itself, which is taken only in relation to itself, but according to underlying, which expresses an order to other things by sustaining them and standing beneath them. Thus there are two ways of receiving a denomination from what one underlies: either because it is received immediately and in exercise, or because one is denominated only through identification with such a receiver, as a universal nature is identified with an individual.

Second, it is argued: In this division, what is divided coincides with one of the dividing members, or one dividing member with the other. For what is divided is substance taken in common; therefore, it is second substance, which is universal substance. Likewise, first substance can be taken in common, since it belongs to all individual substances not only to be substances but also to be first substances. Therefore, because first substance, even as first, is predicated of all, first substance will be second substance; and because second substance is predicated of first, as genus and species are predicated of an individual, one dividing member belongs to the other. Finally, what is found most principally in substance is its quiddity and nature. Therefore it is wrong to say that first substance is substance most of all because the property of underlying belongs to it most of all; nature is more principal than property. So something should be denominated a substance more principally from its nature than from its property. But nature belongs first to genera and species and descends from them to individuals. Therefore second substances will be substances most of all.

I ANSWER that what is divided first in this division is nature in itself, not insofar as it is individual or universal, but as a nature that has the property of underlying. Thus it need not be a universal, but something capable of either mode. Or, if what is divided is not nature into modes but the property of underlying itself, then what is divided is something higher and common, but not second substance, because it is not universal as a nature is universal, like genus and species, but as a property or mode of underlying—just as one speaks of the individual in common.

This makes the answer to the second point clear: although first substance can be taken in common for all first substances, it is not then taken as second substance, because it is not common as genus and species are, which alone pertains to second substances, but as an indeterminate individual, such as “some man.” Nor is it true, as some say, that first substance cannot be taken in common, as “some man,” but only for a determinate supposit. It is clear that Aristotle⁷ gave “some man” as an example of first substance; thus first substance signifies a singular and determinate supposit as that by which a supposit is singularized. This form or mode can nevertheless be conceived in common as a certain thing, as with the name “person”; otherwise it could not be defined. That second substance is predicated of first substance proves only that the nature of first and second substance is the same, and therefore the division is not according to different natures but according to the office and function of underlying. In this way second substance is not said of first, just as universality is not said of singularity.

To the third point, the answer is that nature and quiddity are principal in substance radically, because they are the root of the property or mode of underlying, which is found principally in second substance. The office of underlying, however, insofar as it is exercised, is exercised principally and most of all in first substance; and insofar as underlying is a second intention of being subjectible to higher predicates, it belongs only to first substance. The property of really underlying belongs radically to the nature, but not as something to be exercised in every state, only in individuation. It was necessary to distinguish substances according to property and not according to quiddity in this way because we know them more through properties than through their intrinsic quiddities.

YOU WILL SAY: Then accidents, too, will be divided into first and second, since an accident inheres really in an individual, while an accident in a universal inheres only through an individual. The same can be said of any property: its exercise belongs to the individual, but its denomination also belongs to the universal.

It is answered that an accident cannot be divided simply into first and second as substance is, because insofar as an accident inheres, even individually, it presupposes something prior by which it is sustained. Therefore, being first in inhering is not being first absolutely and in being, but first in informing; for what inheres informs. Thus it presupposes something prior by which this informing is sustained. Substance, by contrast, is a sustaining subject, and so one must arrive at something first in it, with nothing prior in sustaining; thus it is first simply in being. Likewise, properties do have their exercise first in an individual rather than in a universal, but this does not give them a special mode of being and sustaining as first and second, as it does in substance.

THERE IS A TWOFOLD DIFFICULTY in this article. First, is what is here defined that which functions as a primary substance as that which, or as that by which?

THE ANSWER TO THIS IS: What is formally defined here is that by which a substance is primary, namely the mode by which it subsists and underlies, or by which it is subject to its predicates.

For what is defined is the formal constitutive feature and property of primary substance. Its proper constitutive feature is a mode or property, just as the formal constitutive feature of a person is personality. For what constitutes primary substance insofar as it is primary is not the quiddity itself or the account of its nature, but a mode of nature, as was said in the preceding article. Therefore that is what is formally defined in this definition. Since, however, it is defined in the concrete, it must be judged as other concrete defined things are, in which the defined thing that and the defined thing by which are distinguished. What is a primary substance as the that is not the formal defined thing; only the mode by which it is constituted is, because the account of primary substance belongs formally and essentially to that mode alone.

The second difficulty is what this form or mode that is defined here might be. Some think primary substance is here defined by two negations. One concerns the first intention, namely not being in a subject; the second concerns the second intention, namely not being predicated of a subject. The first is clear because not being in a subject pertains to the mode of being, subsisting. This mode is something real, although we describe it by a negation: the negation is not the defined reality, but the defining—or rather, describing—account, since a negation does not define a positive reality. They prove the second point as follows: that negation explains the opposite of the form it negates; but the opposite of that form is something of reason, namely the intention by which secondary substance is constituted; therefore, so it is here. Nothing real can be opposed to this intention, but only something of reason, namely the second intention of singularity, since opposites must belong to the same genus.

This is confirmed because the defined thing by which of secondary substance is a second intention. For Aristotle says¹ that secondary substances are the genera and species under which primary substances fall. Therefore the defined thing by which of primary substance will also be something of reason, so that both are defined according to the same proportion. So Father Merinero, question 3 here.

NEVERTHELESS, THE ANSWER IS: The formality of primary substance defined here is a first intention, namely the mode of really subsisting and underlying; consequently, a second intention of being subject to predication is also defined. For from the fact that it is really informed by accidents and constituted through higher levels, it follows that it is also subject to predication.

THE REASON IS that the formal constitutive feature of primary substance must be explained through what makes it ultimately underlie, or be the substrate for everything else. This is not the intention of subjectability, but the mode of support. For the intention of being subject to predicates is an intention of primary substance only insofar as it is founded on that very account of supporting other things. Therefore this account or mode of underlying is what most fundamentally underlies and lies beneath everything else, since it also grounds subjectability itself; therefore, so it is. As for the first negation, namely not being in another, it is clear from the proof of the opposing view that it pertains to the first intention. As for the second, this is clear once the opposing view's foundation is overturned. Although the form negated is a second intention and a being of reason, its negation is truly found in a first intention and a real being: a real being negates a being of reason. Indeed, the first intention is best explained by negating the second. Thus it is false that nothing real is opposed to a second intention or form of reason. It is opposed to it not by formal contrariety, since they do not belong to the same genus, but by an included negation. For a first intention negates a second intention, namely predication of something of a subject belonging to it. Nor was it necessary to make primary substance proportionate to secondary substance by defining each through a similar intention; rather, each is defined through an opposed one, since primary substance supports and grounds secondary substance and stands in the opposite relation to it. This answers the foundations of the opposing view.

BUT YOU WILL STILL OBJECT: Each of these negations belongs to a nature considered in itself, which is neither in a subject nor predicated of a subject, since it includes only quidditative predicates; yet it is not a primary substance. Therefore the definition is not good. Again, it is false that primary substance is not predicated. An individual is predicated of only one, as is said in the chapter on species, and a vague individual, such as “some human being,” is predicated of many.² As an example of primary substance, moreover, the Philosopher gave a vague individual, such as “some human being.”³ Finally, a negation explains or defines nothing. Therefore this definition, given through two negations, is defective.

To the first point, the answer is that these negations can be taken in two ways. First, as purely and precisely negative; in that way they also belong to a nature considered in itself. Indeed, these negations can belong even to a being of reason and to nothingness, insofar as they simply negate being and predication. In a second way, they can be taken as founded on some positive mode of being and serving to circumscribe it. In this way they do not belong to a nature considered in itself, but to a nature as having that mode of subsisting and underlying.

To the second point, it is said that primary substance is predicated of itself, not of some subject—that is, of something inferior to it. The definition does not say that it is not predicated, but that it is not predicated of a subject. “Some human being,” or primary substance taken in common, is predicated of many as a that and denominatively, not as a by which. That is, it functions as a mode by which something is constituted that cannot be predicated of many; nevertheless, this mode is taken in the signified act as a kind of common reality together with the intention of being predicated of many, just as the intention of genus is denominatively a species. Still, neither a vague individual nor primary substance taken in common is directly and per se universal, because it is not one in many—not through a lack of many, but through a lack of unity: it is not merely a nature and one thing, but a nature together with a mode of individuation.

To the third point, it is said that this definition through two negations is given not definitively but descriptively and circumlocutorily; it does not properly declare the account of primary substance.

We treat those things that are placed in the direct line of this category by participating in the account of the highest genus and contracting it.

AND WE SAY BRIEFLY that two conditions are required for a substance to be placed in the direct line and to be a categorial substance. First, it must be a finite substance; second, it must be a complete substance, that is, one to which the property of subsisting and underlying belongs per se. It belongs per se to what is signified as a whole. A part does not possess it per se, but through another and dependently on another, that is, on the whole. From the inclusion or exclusion of these conditions we shall understand which substances are placed in the account of this category and which are excluded from it.

Both conditions are gathered from a single principle: a categorial substance must not merely be a subsistent being; it must also be composite, so that it subsists through some composition. THE REASON IS that an infinite substance, if placed in a category, cannot be placed there as the highest genus, but only as something contained under such a genus. For if it were the highest genus, all categorial substances participating in that genus would be infinite. It must therefore be a species and consequently consist of genus and difference, for this is what is called a species. But genus expresses something potential, which is related to differences as something contractible and determinable by them. Therefore God would consist of one account expressing potentiality and another expressing actuality, and thus would not be pure act, since he would have something potential, namely the account of genus. Hence the actuality expressed by the specific difference would not be pure act either, since it would be joined to a potential actuality, namely the genus. That such a genus would express potentiality is clear, besides what was said in the question on genus¹, because genus cannot be pure act: if it were, it would not be determinable and contractible by differences, which actualize and qualify the genus they contract. Pure act, however, is in ultimate actuality. Moreover, since that genus would be common to God and creatures, and pure act is not found in creatures, it is consequently not pure act in itself. A composition of act and potency is therefore required for something to be a categorial substance; this is incompatible with an infinite substance, that is, pure act.

FROM THE SAME PRINCIPLE THEY EXCLUDE incomplete beings, for example, difference—not because they express pure act, but because they exclude composition from genus and difference. For if they were composed, that difference in turn would be composed of genus and difference, since the same reasoning applies; that difference in turn would be composed of another, and so there would be an infinite regress, requiring infinitely many compositions to compose one quiddity. Again, if the same genus that is genus with respect to a species were also genus with respect to a difference, genus would be placed twice in the definition, once on account of the species and again on account of the difference. Nor could it be univocal, since it would belong to the concept of differences and express the account of diversity, as we proved above in the discussion of analogues.² Therefore it is incompatible with differences being directly in a genus; they are instead reduced to it and placed, as it were, alongside it.

Whether matter, form, and integral parts as such are directly contained under the genus of substance, we said in the question³ on genus, article 3. It suffices now to add that insofar as parts do not underlie, neither do they subsist directly, but dependently on the whole. Therefore they are not per se and directly substance, since what is directly substance is what directly calls for subsisting and underlying, which belongs only to the whole, whether taken singularly or in common. Thus universal substance per se calls for subsisting, but exercises this as it exists in an individual. Parts, however, call for subsisting and underlying not per se, but through and in the whole, as I now presuppose from the Metaphysics. Likewise, since the parts of substance are per se and intrinsically ordered to composing the whole, which is directly placed in the category, if the parts themselves were also directly placed in the category, the same thing would be placed in the category and in the definition twice, once on its own account and again on account of its parts. We said the same concerning difference; the Philosopher does not allow this absurdity in Metaphysics 3, text 10⁴, nor does St. Thomas there⁵ or in Contra Gentiles 1, chapter 25.

BUT YOU WILL OBJECT: Some composition by reason, and consequently something by way of potency and act according to our consideration, is not incompatible with God, as certain authors hold. For our intellect distinguishes the divine perfections, even though they are one most simple reality. Therefore our mode of conceiving can conceive these perfections and attributes by way of act and potency.

Hence this is confirmed: if division according to our mode of conceiving is not incompatible with pure act, composition will not be incompatible with it either, since the same reasoning applies to opposites.

But this objection presupposes something impossible: that a distinction in God can be conceived by excluding and separating one thing from another. This cannot stand, because, since God is pure act, the very conception of something in him as potential and as added to something else destroys the concept of pure act. Therefore what occurs here is not abstraction but destruction of one attribute by another. For when an attribute in God is conceived, it is conceived either as divine being, as created, or as abstracting from both. If as created or as abstracting, it is not conceived as pertaining to God or as something of God, and so is destroyed. If as uncreated, then it is conceived as pure and infinite act, and therefore as excluding all potentiality, even as a subject of such a concept. Thus this distinction in divine things does not occur by excluding one perfection from another, but through an implicit or explicit concept. Our imperfect mode of conceiving explains one perfection in God without explaining another. This explaining of one and not explaining of another is a distinction of reason, which can occur in God; but it is not a concept of one perfection as formally excluding another and standing in potency to it, since every concept of potentiality is incompatible with the account of pure act. Hence such division is not opposed to composition, but to a perfect explanation of the same most simple reality. Composition of reason, founded on the potentiality of one extreme and the addition of another to it, therefore does not belong to God; rather, there is a greater or lesser explanation of the same thing, as was said of the transcendentals in the preceding question.⁶

SOME DOUBT ABOUT THE LORD CHRIST as to whether he is placed in a category by reason of his human nature, or insofar as he is man. It must be asserted without qualification that he is, because, as the faith teaches, he is univocally man, subsisting from a rational soul and human flesh. Therefore he is placed under the species of man, since he is placed univocally under man and consequently under living animal, and so forth. This is to be placed under a genus and species, and thus in the levels of a category.

NOR IS IT AN OBJECTION that only created being is in a category, whereas Christ is not absolutely a creature, as St. Thomas teaches in 3. p. q. 16. art. 8.; therefore he is not absolutely placed in a category. The answer is that the accounts differ, because the name “creature” is indifferent as to whether it designates a nature or a supposit, on account of its transcendence. Being in a category, however, belongs only by reason of a nature, which in Christ is created insofar as he is man, just as walking and dying belong to him by reason of his nature.

From these points it is clear that every created substance is contained in this genus, even if incorruptible and spiritual. For it is finite and composite, at least of some potency and act, since it is not pure act. Therefore some determinable and contractible account, and some determining and contracting account, can be conceived; consequently, it must pertain to some genus and category, and there is no other than this one. Since these are complete and integral substances, not merely incomplete beings, as is clear in the case of angels, they consequently belong directly and not reductively.

When the Philosopher says in Metaphysics 10, final chapter⁷, lecture 12⁸ according to St. Thomas, that “the corruptible and incorruptible differ in genus,” he is speaking of physical genus, which is matter. The meaning is that they do not agree in matter: on the more probable opinion, the heavens have matter specifically different from that of sublunary things, and angels have none.

ARISTOTLE ATTRIBUTES SIX PROPERTIES to substance¹, which we reported above in the chapter on Substance.² There is no need to dispute rigorously whether these are passions. For not all are something positive: some are negations, such as not being in a subject; others are intentions, such as being predicated univocally. Others do not belong only to substances, such as not admitting more and less, which also belongs to quantity. The same can readily be judged of the rest.

WE MUST CONSIDER ONLY THE FINAL PROPERTY, namely whether substance's remaining the same while being receptive of contraries is a property in the fourth mode. To determine this, we must examine two conditions required for a property: first, whether it belongs to every substance; second, whether it belongs to substance alone and always, that is, by virtue of a necessary connection.

That it does not belong to every substance seems open to objection. For it does not belong to universal substances, but only to primary substances, since universals do not really receive accidents or underlie them. But if it were a property in the fourth mode, it ought to belong first to the universal, as every other proper attribute does, since it has an intrinsic connection with the essence, flows from it, and belongs to singulars by reason of the common nature. One might also doubt that it belongs to the heavens and angels, which are incorruptible substances, since they do not receive contraries, any more than they receive things that corrupt them. Therefore it does not belong to every substance.

That it does not belong to substance alone seems to be proved by several examples. Quantity receives contraries, such as heat and cold; in the Eucharistic mystery it receives them immediately and per se, without another thing supporting it. Quality too receives contraries, as the intellective power receives opposite habits and acts; and qualities capable of intensity receive remission and intension, which are contrary motions. Speech too, remaining the same, receives truth and falsity. Therefore this property does not belong to substance alone.

Finally, receiving contraries is nothing other than underlying contraries, because receiving without underlying can also belong to accidents. But underlying constitutes the account of primary substance, as was said above.³ Therefore it is not a property of primary substance.

NEVERTHELESS, THE COMMON OPINION MUST BE HELD. This property belonging to substance in the fourth mode, namely being receptive of contraries, is explained as follows: it is receptive not as a means of receiving—which can also belong to accidents, as we shall say shortly—but as the primary principle of support, so that the things received have being from substance itself, not from some prior thing.

Second: For this to be a real property, reception must not be understood as the intention of subjectability, according to which substance regards predicates that belong to it by way of predication. Rather, it must be restricted to the reception of accidents by way of a real support and subject, which is exercised only in primary substance, although it also belongs to secondary substances.

Third, I add that reception of contraries is properly understood with respect to common accidents. For although substance receives proper accidents, these are not contraries: all proper attributes belong to the same subject without any contrariety, since one proper attribute does not expel another. Those things that have contrariety and are received in a subject are therefore common accidents, which are received while the substance remains the same, or is not destroyed. Thus being per se and primarily the support of things that are contrary to one another, while substance itself is not destroyed by such reception, is a property of substance in the fourth mode. It is more restricted than underlying in its full extent, which also extends to higher predicates and to proper attributes that have no contrariety.

TO THE FIRST OBJECTION, the answer is that universal substances too receive contraries identically and mediately, but immediately and in exercise through the benefit of the primary substance with which they are identified. No accident receives in this way, even through the benefit of primary substance, because accidents are not identified with it and do not have the account of support, even identically; although they are a means or disposition for grounding or receiving other accidents.

When it is objected that a property belongs to an essence universally before it belongs to an individual, the answer is that it belongs to the universal with respect to its connection with the property and its aptitude for receiving, not with respect to its exercise, which belongs only in the state of singularity. The very aptitude to have accidents supported in exercise in the state of singularity belongs to universal substance and is connected with it. When accidents are actually supported by individuals, it is also predicatively said of secondary substances that they underlie, but secondarily or mediately. The property of substance, however, is to underlie absolutely and simply.

As for the second part of the argument, concerning the heavens and angels, the answer is that the heavens too receive contraries—not things that corrupt them, but contrary local motions and contrary places. Angels too receive contrary acts, different judgments, and spiritual affections, although not physical contraries, that is, contraries serving the generation and corruption of substance.

TO THE SECOND OBJECTION, the answer is that one accident receives another as a means or disposition by which another is received, not as that which supports or as the principle of support. The role of a means in receiving an accident does not consist in one accident being the means of giving being to another, but in its being the means of coordinating accidents in the same subject, since not all belong to a subject equally in the first instance: one belongs through another and presupposes another, as an act of understanding does through a power, and color through quantity. St. Thomas expressed this in 1. 2. q. 7. art. 1. ad 3., saying: “Two accidents are sometimes related to a subject without order, as white and musical; sometimes with an order, for example, when a subject receives one accident through another, as a body receives color through a surface; and in this way one accident is said to be in another.” And in the question on Virtues, article 3⁴, he says: “Nothing prevents several forms from being in the same subject according to a certain order, namely, so that one is formal with respect to another, as color is formal with respect to surface.” See also 1. p. q. 77. art. 7. ad 2. and 1. 2. q. 56. art. 1. ad 3.

As for what is said about quantity in the Eucharist, the answer is that it does not belong to quantity per se and intrinsically to support accidents, as it does to substance; it belongs to it through another, namely, because it is supported immediately by an efficient cause, God, without a material, subjective cause, which is substance. Thus the qualities that were previously united to quantity itself, supported in being by substance, remain united to it in the same way once substance is removed, supported in that same being by the first efficient cause. Their union therefore does not change, but only the denomination of support.

To the other part of the argument concerning qualities and speech, the answer is as follows. As for qualities, they receive opposite modes of intensity and remission not as a subject supporting them, but as a means of receiving, since these are modes of those qualities; therefore they can be received only through the qualities. Speech, however, receives truth and falsity not through a change in itself as a receiving subject, but through a change in its object while its signification remains unchanged, because truth and falsity consist not in signification but in conformity and nonconformity with the being of the thing. Substance, however, receives contraries through an intrinsic change in the subject, not an extrinsic change in the object. If truth or falsity is thought by some to posit some perfection or mode intrinsically in cognition itself, the answer is as to the preceding argument: speech receives contraries not as a that which subject supporting them, which pertains to substance, but as a means of receiving, as quality receives intensity.

TO THE FINAL POINT, the answer is that this property of receiving contraries differs from the intrinsic quiddity of substance, because quiddity is not formally the very principle of underlying, but is its root; it consists in an account that calls for such a property. Again, the property of receiving contraries does not express the account of underlying in its full extent, because underlying is said not only with respect to contraries, but also with respect to proper attributes and higher predicates, all of which primary substance underlies. This property, however, is said only with respect to contraries, which substance also receives.

ORDER OF THE CATEGORY OF SUBSTANCE.

The highest genus is substance. It is divided into spiritual and corporeal substance. Spiritual substance is divided into the various species of angels. Body is divided into corruptible and incorruptible. The incorruptible is divided into the various species of heavens and planets. The corruptible is divided into living and non-living. Non-living substance is divided into elemental and mixed, each of which has various species. Living substance is divided into animate or sensible and inanimate, as a plant. Plants are divided into the various species of trees and herbs. Animal is divided into rational and irrational. Irrational animal is divided into the various species of beasts. Rational animal is divided into individuals, such as Peter and Paul.