Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

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.