Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Artis Logicae

The difficulties that pertain to place do not belong to the present treatise, but to Physics IV. Here, therefore, only TWO MATTERS MUST BE EXPLAINED: first, whether where is an intrinsic or extrinsic mode of the located thing; second, the species of where that pertain to this category.

Concerning the first point, some distinguish two kinds of where. One is intrinsic: the very presence of a thing, independent of every extrinsic surrounding, which it acquires through local motion. The other is extrinsic: the surrounding place itself, which is also acquired through local motion, but secondarily and mediately; for it can persist without the motion itself. On this see the Coimbra commentators above, chapter 9 on the Categories, question 2, article 1, and Suarez, Metaphysics, disputation 51, section 1. The principal basis is drawn from local motion occurring in a vacuum or beyond the heavens. For I assume that a body can move in a vacuum. For St. Thomas teaches of Christ's body in Summa theologiae III, q. 57, art. 4, and Quodlibet 6, art. 3¹, that it is above the entire extent of the heavenly bodies, so that it is not contained by a place. For this to happen, at least some parts of Christ's body had to move beyond the outermost surface of heaven as he ascended and moved, so that only his feet touch that surface while the rest of his body is outside place. Thus, through the motion of his head and other limbs, they were placed beyond all the places of the world. But that motion of the head and other limbs acquired some terminus, since it is an action, and one that does not depend on an extrinsic surrounding; therefore it is intrinsic. This is where, because every terminus of local motion is where. Precisely the same argument applies to the outermost body of the world, which is in a place and has a where, since it is somewhere, yet is not enclosed by anything extrinsic. Therefore, there is a where that does not come from an extrinsic surrounding.

THE SECOND DIFFICULTY depends on this. For if where is an intrinsic presence arising from nothing extrinsic, there is no reason to deny an angel this kind of intrinsic presence; thus it would belong to this category. But that would not be so if the where of this category were only what depends on something enclosing it, because an angel is not circumscriptively in a place, but contains a place as our soul contains its body.

We cannot answer these difficulties fully here, since they touch on many matters from the books of Physics and from the subject of angels. For now, it is enough to note that the presence of place includes two things: one pertains to distance or absence of distance; the other pertains to passive or active containment. For if two people are near one another, they have a relation of absence of distance to each other and are contained by the surrounding surface. If the surrounding air were removed and no other body took its place, those people would remain as undistant as before, since they would have neither come closer nor moved farther away; yet they would no longer be contained by a place. If they move, they can acquire a greater distance or nearness than they had before, even though they do not acquire enclosure and containment. This distance or nearness is formally a relation, but fundamentally it is some mode, position, or determination of one body with respect to another, by reason of which it stands toward that other in different ways and grounds a different relation of distance. This is inferred a posteriori, because there can be distance or nearness between two bodies in a vacuum. But this relation cannot be grounded in the body's substance alone; therefore it is grounded in some new determination with respect to another body, or in some mode and position. Local motion acquires this mode or determination. Hence St. Thomas says near the end of opusc. 52², “that local motion is not only in place, but around place.” In place, it acquires enclosure; but around place it cannot acquire enclosure, only a different distance or nearness. Therefore, even if place is removed, it can still move around place or around another body.

If you say: If the entire structure of the universe were removed, as before the first creation, and a stone were created and moved, what would it acquire if it acquired nothing at all intrinsic? The reply is that it seems more probable that the body would in no way move, because it would move neither in place nor around place, nor with respect to distance or nearness to another thing, since there would be nothing else around which these could be exercised positively. A negative distance or absence of distance, which is purely negative, cannot terminate a positive motion. Thus, for lack of matter and accidentally, that body would be immobile, just as if fire were placed there it would not heat, because matter would be lacking. Nor would it then have or acquire a definitive where. For although it would not be everywhere and would thus be definitive negatively, it would not be determinately in any part, because at that time there would be no part in which it could be. But if a definitive where is positive, it must occupy a determinate part together with the negation of being everywhere. This is explained by another principle: motion is found per se only between contrary termini, as is said in Metaphysics XI, lect. 13³, in St. Thomas's commentary. He adds that contrariety according to place is the greatest distance along a straight line. But then there would be no contrariety between the termini of motion, because everything would be nothing; therefore there would be no motion.

FROM WHAT HAS BEEN SAID IT IS INFERRED that no presence can be given that is wholly an intrinsic absolute mode, independent of anything extrinsic, whether a surrounding, a distant thing, or a near one. This is clear because such a mode is only toward itself, since it is not toward anything other than itself. For something to be present to itself, existence suffices, by which it is in the nature of things. Presence toward itself cannot add any other effect beyond existence; existence, however, is had through production, not through motion.

IT FOLLOWS, SECONDLY, that where, considered completely and adequately, does not signify only a mode of distance or nearness, but also enclosure and containment in place. This is drawn from St. Thomas, opusc. 48, chapter 1, On Where⁴, and Metaphysics XI, lect. 12⁵, where he says: “Where signifies nothing other than being in a place, and to be moved according to place is nothing other than to be moved according to where.” Hence the outermost sphere is said not to be in a place as a whole, because it lacks an exterior container, as he says in Physics IV, lect. 7⁶, and opusc. 52⁷.

The reason for this can be gathered in some measure from the fact that in the connatural order no distance or nearness is sought for its own sake, but so that a thing may be contained in something where it can be preserved, avoid a contrary, or acquire something suitable; all this is what local motion intends. We see that nature gives local motion to heavy things so that they seek a place of preservation, and to animals so that they acquire what suits their appetite or flee what is harmful. Therefore, in local motion the acquisition of distance or presence is ordered to containment in a place, just as violent motion is ordered to the opposite. Since, then, everything acquired by local motion is where, and is not merely distance, it is clear that where primarily and completely signifies containment and enclosure in place, while presupposing distance or absence of distance, which is principally ordered to enclosure. Thus the category where is defined through enclosure by the Author of the Six Principles⁸: “The passive enclosure of the located thing, arising from the active enclosure of place.” And just as someone cannot be called clothed except by a garment, neither can something be said to be located except by a surrounding place. If local motion occurs in a vacuum, it will be imperfect and will acquire a where only in a qualified sense: not where without qualification, but a mode of distance or presence required for where. Or, if there is no body to which it is present or distant, it will acquire nothing.

IT FOLLOWS, THIRDLY what should be said about a spiritual definitive where, a sacramental where, and the presence of a substance stripped of quantity. According to St. Thomas, opusc. 48, chapter 1, On Where⁹, a definitive where is that which is not everywhere but has a determinate part of its presence, as if it were bounded by a fixed limit. In this general sense, a definitive where also applies to bodies, namely, the presence of a definite and determinate part; but it is applied to spiritual things because we lack a proper name for spiritual presence. A definitive where does not, however, apply to Christ's body in the Sacrament, as some wrongly think. For although Christ's body is not everywhere, it is not thereby delimited to a definite part. It is not the case that it is in these species of bread in such a way that it could not be in others, although in a qualified sense it can be called delimited, because it can be only in the species of bread and not elsewhere. Hence it is not called a definitive where, but a sacramental one. Finally, a substance stripped of quantity lacks a where, because it lacks positive presence in a place: it neither contains place nor is contained by place, except radically and virtually. We said more about this in question 16¹⁰.

THERE IS, HOWEVER, A DIFFICULTY whether the angelic where, which is the active containment of place, and the sacramental where, which is the presence of a body in an indivisible mode, agree with circumscriptive where in the category of where.

Certainly, St. Thomas excludes the where of angels from this category in opusc. 48, chapter 1¹¹, and in Summa theologiae I, q. 52, arts. 1 and 2, teaches that an angel is in a place equivocally with a body. This is right. For where is not mere presence as such, since this is formally a relation and belongs to another category; and the basis of presence does not always constitute a where, since presence is manifold, just as union is manifold. There is objective presence, as an object is present to an angel simply by existing, even if it is distant. There is also informative presence, as the soul is in the body; this does not ground a where insofar as it informs. A garment is also present to the body it clothes, and in this respect it does not ground a where but the category of having, which is another category. An angel, however, grounds local presence only insofar as it acts and operates; for this reason it is not contained by a place but contains a place. Thus, just as the soul is present to the body by informing it, so an angel is said to be applied to a place by acting and by the application of its power. Therefore, just as the informing and application of the soul to the body do not ground a presence that is a where and belongs to this category, neither does an angel's applied power ground a presence that is a where, but rather a presence of action. Nor is an angel properly distant, since it is not quantitative or measurable by spatial magnitude, so that some measure of distance from it to a body could be taken. Therefore its presence in no way belongs to the category of where. We leave these matters to theologians, for they do not belong here.

Likewise, the sacramental presence of Christ's body is of a different character from where, because it cannot be acquired immediately and per se through local motion, but only through the species to which it is bound. It moves accidentally through motion wholly based in the species, just as in a human being the motion of the body is not based per se in the soul, but in the whole by reason of the body, and in the soul accidentally. Hence, if the species are removed, Christ's body has no more of a where than a substance stripped of quantity. Therefore that presence is of a different character. This is discussed in the treatment of the Eucharist.

If you ask whether every accident has its own where, distinct from that of substance, the reply is that just as all things are quantified by the same quantity, so they are located by the same where. For they are contained under the same space and place, and thus, just as they are extended with respect to place by the same quantity, so they are commensurated to the place as a whole by the same where. Nor is there an objection that, after the consecration of the bread, quantity remains in place and substance does not. The reply is that just as quantity remains commensurate to place by the same extension as before, although it no longer affects substance as before but is sustained by God per se, so the dimensional where remains: it inhered in substance through the mediation of quantity, but now affects only quantity and also the other accidents that are in the quantity.

AS TO THE REASONS FOR DOUBT RAISED AT THE BEGINNING, what is acquired through motion in a vacuum and how the outermost body is in a place are clear from what has been said.

Concerning the category of position, we should note its definition from the Author of the Six Principles¹², cited by St. Thomas in opusc. 48, chapter 1, On Position¹³, and Summa theologiae I–II, q. 49, art. 1, ad 3: it is the position or arrangement of parts in a place, as sitting, standing, lying down, and so on. For through position, parts are formally arranged in relation to place, just as they are arranged in the whole through quantity.

HOWEVER, AS TO HOW IT IS DISTINGUISHED FROM WHERE, authors differ. Some distinguish them only by reason, perhaps because position is the arrangement of parts in a place, which seems to add nothing to being in a place except existence in a place arranged in a certain way; substantially, this is the where itself.

The opposite view, however, is proved more effectively: First, by a general argument, because different categories cannot be distinguished only by reason; otherwise there would not be first-order diversity in the order and quiddities of things. Second, specifically, because position can remain unchanged while where changes, as when someone sitting or standing is carried without any change in the posture of sitting, while moving through different places. Likewise, while the whole place remains unchanged, position can vary according to the parts, as someone can sit, stand, or lie down in the same place. St. Thomas derives the distinctness of this category from the category of where on this basis, in opusc. 48, chapter 1, On Position¹⁴. See also Physics IV, lect. 7¹⁵, where he shows that there is no motion per se to position, because its species are indivisible; for when anything is added or taken away, the species changes, as also happens with figures. Thus the species of position are related much as figures are, since position is like the body's external figure. But because it is taken through a relation to place, which is something extrinsic, the denomination of this category is not purely intrinsic, as figure is.

ARRANGEMENT OF THE CATEGORY OF WHERE.

Some divide the highest genus, which is where, into three species: circumscriptive, definitive, and supernatural or sacramental.

We know only one species of sacramental where, namely, the presence of Christ's body in the Sacrament.

A definitive where is the presence of created spirits in a place, which can vary according to their different ways of acting in a place. But we have already said that an angelic where does not belong to this category; it is the presence of power, not the presence of something located.

If, however, some division applies to it, it may be into active where, by which something is in a place through acting, and passive where, by which something is in a place through being bound to it.

It is probable that circumscriptive where is the lowest species, because being in Rome or Complutum does not vary the formal character of place, but only material distance. Hence local motions are not distinguished in species by varying any place whatsoever. If someone posits a subordinate species, they must posit as many species of place as there are distances.

IN THE CATEGORY OF POSITION Albert sets down two subordinate species under the highest genus: namely, being placed upright or bent. Under bent position are included infinitely many species, such as sitting, lying down, kneeling, and so on. Rough and smooth are also posited, insofar as they signify an equality of parts.