Furthermore, when we consider that the proper and primary objects of the human intellect itself are corporeal things or bodies, and that these bodies actually exist in nature only as composite substances, subject to essential or substantial change, we shall realize why it is that the concept of _materia prima_ especially, being a mediate and negative concept, is so difficult to grasp; for, as the scholastics describe it, translating Aristotle"s formula, it is in itself _neque quid, neque quantum, neque quale, neque aliquid eorum quibus ens determinatur_.(81) But it is through intellectual concepts alone, and not through imagination images, that we may hope to a.n.a.lyse the nature and processes even of the world of corporeal reality; and, as St. Thomas well observes, it was because the ancient Greek atomists did not rise above the level of thinking in imagination images that they failed to recognize the existence, or explain the nature, of substantial change in the material universe(82): an observation which applies with equal force to those scientists and philosophers of our own time who would fain reduce all physical processes to mere mechanical change.
Those, then, are the princ.i.p.al kinds of change, as a.n.a.lysed by Aristotle and the scholastics. We may note, finally, that the distinction between _immanent_ and _transitive_ activity is also applied to change-that is, to change considered as a process, not to the result of the change, to change _in fieri_, not _in facto esse_. Immanent movement or activity (_motio_, _actio immanens_) is that of which the term, the educed actuality, remains within the agent-which latter is therefore at once both _agens_ and _patiens_. Vital action is of this kind. Transitive movement or activity, on the other hand (_motio_, _actio transiens_), is that of which the term is some actuality educed in a being other than the agent. The _patiens_ is here really distinct from the _agens_; and it is in the former, not in the latter, that the change takes place: _actio fit in pa.s.so_. All change in the inorganic universe is of this sort (101).
CHAPTER III. EXISTENCE AND ESSENCE.
12. EXISTENCE.-In the preceding chapters we examined reality in itself and in its relation to change or becoming. We have now to examine it in relation to its actual existence and to its intrinsic possibility (7, _a_).
_Existing_ or _being_ (in the participial sense: esse, _existere_, t?
e??a?) is a simple, indefinable notion. A being is said to exist when it is not merely possible but actual, when it is not merely potential in its active and pa.s.sive causes but has become actual through those causes (_existere_: _ex-sisto_: _ex-stare_: to stand forth, distinct from its causes); or, if it have no causes, when it simply is (_esse_),-in which sense G.o.d, the Necessary, purely Actual Being, simply _is_. Thus, existence implies the notion of actuality, and is conceived as that by which any thing or essence _is, distinct from nothingness, in the actual order_.(83) Or, again, it is _the actuality of any thing or essence_.
About any conceivable being we may ask two distinct questions: (_a_) What is it? and (_b_) Does such a being actually exist? The answer to the former gives us the _essence_, what is presented to the mind through the concept; the answer to the latter informs us about the actual _existence_ of the being or essence in question.
To the mind of any individual man the real existence (as also the real essence) of any being whatsoever, not excepting his own, can be known only through its ideal presence in his mind, through the concept or percept whereby it becomes for him a "known object," an _objectum cognitum_. But this actual presence of known being to the knowing mind must not be confounded with the real existence of such being (4). Real being does not get its real existence in our minds or from our minds. Our cognition does not produce, but only discovers, actually existing reality. The latter, by acting on the mind, engenders therein the cognition of itself. Now all our knowledge comes through the senses; and sense cognition is excited in us by the direct action of material or phenomenal being on our sense faculties. But through sense cognition the mind is able to attain to a knowledge both of the possibility and of the actual existence of suprasensible or spiritual realities. Hence we cannot describe existence as the power which material realities have to excite in us a knowledge of themselves. Their existence is prior to this activity: _prius est esse quam agere_. Nor can we limit existence to material realities; for if there are spiritual realities these too have existence, though this existence can be discerned only by intellect, and not by sense.
13. ESSENCE.-In any existing thing we can distinguish _what the thing is_, its _essence_, from its actual _existence_. If we abstract from the actual existence of a thing, not considering whether it actually exists or not, and fix our attention merely on _what the thing is_, we are thinking of its _real essence_. If we positively exclude the notion of actual existence from our concept of the essence, and think of the latter as not actually existing, we are considering it formally as a _possible essence_.
There is no being, even the Necessary Being, whose essence we cannot think of in the former way, _i.e._ _without including_ in our concept the notion of actual existence; but we cannot without error _positively exclude_ the notion of actual existence from our concept of the Necessary Being, or think of the latter as a _merely possible_ essence.
Taken in its widest sense, the essence of a thing (??s?a, _essentia_, t?
t? ?st?, _quod quid est_, _quidditas_) means _that by which a thing is what it is_: _id quo res est id quod est_: that which gives us the answer to the question, What is this thing? _Quid est haec res?_ t? ?st? t?de t?.(84) Now of course any individual thing is what it is just precisely by all the reality that is in it; but we have no direct or intuitive intellectual insight into this reality; we understand it only by degrees; we explore it from various points of view, abstracting and generalizing partial aspects of it as we compare it with other things and seek to cla.s.sify and define it: _ratio humana essentias rerum quasi venatur_, as the scholastics say: the human mind hunts, as it were, after the essences or natures of things. Understanding the individual datum of sense experience (what Aristotle called t?de t?, or ??s?a p??t?, and the scholastics _hoc aliquid_, or _substantia prima_), _e.g._ this individual, Socrates, first under the vaguest concept of being, then gradually under the more and more determinate concepts of substance, corporeal, living, sentient, rational, it finally forms the complex concept of his _species infima_, expressed by his lowest cla.s.s-name, "man," and explicitly set forth in the definition of his specific nature as a "rational animal". Nor does our reason fail to realize that by reaching this concept of the _specific_ essence or nature of the individual, Socrates, it has not yet grasped all the reality whereby the individual is what he is. It has reached what he has in common with all other individuals of his cla.s.s, what is essential to him _as a man_; it has distinguished this from the una.n.a.lysed something which makes him _this particular individual_ of his cla.s.s, and which makes his specific essence this _individual essence_ (_essentia_ "_atoma_," or "_individua_"); and it has also distinguished his essence from those accidental and ever varying attributes which are not essential to him as a man, and from those which are not essential to him as Socrates. It is only the unfathomed individual essence, as existing _hic et nunc_, that is _concrete_. All the mind"s generic and specific representations of it-_e.g._ of Socrates as a corporeal substance, a living being, a sentient being, a rational animal-are _abstract_, and all more or less inadequate, none of them exhausting its knowable reality. But it is only in so far as the mind is able to represent concrete individual things by such abstract concepts, that it can attain to _intellectual_ knowledge of their nature or reality. Hence it is that by the term "essence," simply and _sine addito_, we always mean the essence as grasped by abstract generic or specific concepts (??d??, _species_), and as thus capable of definition (?????, _ratio rei_). "The essence," says St.
Thomas, "is that by which the thing is const.i.tuted in its proper genus or species, and which we signify by the definition which states what the thing is".(85) Thus understood, the essence is abstract, and gives the specific or generic type to which the individual thing belongs; but we may also mean by essence, the concrete essence, the individual person or thing (_persona_, _suppositum_, _res individua_). The relations between the objects of those two concepts of essence will be examined later.
Since the specific essence is conceived as the most fundamental reality in the thing, and as the seat and source of all the properties and activities of the thing, it is sometimes defined or described, in accordance with this notion of it, as the primary const.i.tutive of the thing and the source of all the properties of the thing. Conceived as the foundation of all the properties of the thing it is sometimes called _substance_ (??s?a, _substantia_). Regarded as the source of the thing"s activities, and the principle of its growth or development, it is called the _nature_ of the thing (f?s??, _natura_, from f??, _nascor_).(86)
Since what makes a thing that which it is, by the same fact differentiates this thing from every other thing, the essence is rightly conceived as that which gives the thing its characteristic being, thereby marking it off from all other being. In reality, of course, each individual being is distinct by all that it is from every other. But since we get our intellectual knowledge of things by abstracting, comparing, generalizing, and cla.s.sifying partial aspects of them, we apprehend part of the imperfectly grasped abstract essence of each individual as common to other cla.s.ses (generic), and part as peculiar to that cla.s.s itself (differential); and thus we differentiate cla.s.ses of things by what is only part of their essence, by what we call the _differentia_ of each cla.s.s, _distinguishing mentally_ between it and the generic element: which two are really _one_, really identical, in every individual of the species thus defined and cla.s.sified.
But in the Aristotelian and scholastic view of the const.i.tution of any _corporeal_ thing, there is a danger of taking what is really only part of the essence of such a thing for the whole essence. According to this view all corporeal substance is essentially composite, const.i.tuted by two really distinct, substantial principles, primal matter (p??t? ???, _materia prima_) and substantial form (??d??, ??f?) united substantially, as potential and actual principles, to form one composite nature or essence. Now the kind, or species, or specific type, to which a body belongs-_e.g._, a horse, an oak, gold, water, etc.-depends upon the substantial form which actualizes the matter or potential principle. In so far as the corporeal essence is known to us at all it is known through the form, which is the principle of all the characteristic properties and activities of that particular kind of body. Hence it is quite natural that the e?d??, ??f?, or _forma substantialis_ of a body should often be referred to as the specific essence of the body, though of course the essence of the body really includes the material as well as the formal factor.
We may look at the essence of any being from two points of view. If we consider it as it is conceived actually to exist in the being, we call it the _physical essence_. If we consider it after the manner in which it is apprehended and defined by our intellects through generic and differentiating concepts, we call it the _metaphysical essence_. Thus, the essence of man conceived by the two defining concepts, "rational animal,"
is the metaphysical essence; the essence of man as known to be composed of the two really distinct substantial principles, soul and body, is the physical essence. Understood in this way both are one and the same essence considered from different points of view-as existing in the actual order, and as conceived by the mind.(87)
The physical essence of any being, understood as the const.i.tutive principle or principles from which all properties spring, is either _simple_ or _composite_ according as it is understood to consist of one such const.i.tutive principle, or to result from the substantial union of two const.i.tutive principles, a material and a formal. Thus, the essence of G.o.d, the essence of a purely spiritual being, the essence of the human soul, are physically simple; the essence of man, the essences of all corporeal beings, are physically composite.
According to our mode of conceiving, defining and cla.s.sifying essences by means of the abstract generic and differential grades of being which we apprehend in them, all essences, even physically simple essences, are conceived as logically and metaphysically composite. Moreover we speak and think of their generic and differential factors as "material" and "formal"
respectively, after the a.n.a.logy of the composition of corporeal or physically composite essences from the union of two really distinct principles, matter and form; the a.n.a.logy consisting in this, that as matter is the indeterminate principle which is determined and actuated by form, so the _generic_ concept is the indeterminate concept which is made definite and specific by that of the _differentia_.(88) But when we think of the _genus_ of any corporeal essence as "material," and the _differentia_ as "formal," we must not consider these "metaphysical parts"
as really distinct; whereas the "physical parts" of a corporeal substance (such as man) are really distinct. The genus (animal), although a metaphysical part, expresses the _whole essence_ (man) in an indeterminate way; whereas the "matter" which is a physical part, does not express the whole essence of man, nor does the soul which is also a physical part, but only both together. Not a little error has resulted from the confusion of thought whereby _genus_ and _differentia_ have been regarded as material and formal const.i.tutives in the literal sense of those expressions.
14. CHARACTERISTICS OF ABSTRACT ESSENCES.-When we consider the essences of things not as actually existing, but as intrinsically possible-the abstract, metaphysical essences, therefore-we find that when as objects of our thought they are a.n.a.lysed into their simplest const.i.tuents and compared or related with themselves and with one another they present themselves to our minds in these relations as endowed with certain more or less remarkable characteristics.
(_a_) In the first place, being abstract, they present themselves to the mind as being what they are independently of actual existence at any particular time or place. Their intelligibility is something apart from any relation to any actual time or place. Being intrinsically possible, they might exist at any time or place; but as possible, they are out of time and out of place-_detemporalized_ and _delocalized_, if we may be permitted to use such expressions.(89)
(_b_) Furthermore, since the intellect forms its notions of them, through the aid of the senses and the imagination, from actual realizations of themselves or their const.i.tuent factors, and since it understands them to be intrinsically possible, or free from intrinsic incompatibility of their const.i.tuent factors, it conceives them to be capable of indefinitely repeated actualizations throughout time and s.p.a.ce-unless it sees some special reason to the contrary, as it does in the case of the Necessary Being, and (according to some philosophers) in the case of purely immaterial beings or pure spirits. That is to say it _universalizes_ them, and sees them to be capable of existing at any and every conceivable time and place. This relation of theirs to s.p.a.ce is not likely to be confounded with the _immensity_ or _ubiquity_ of G.o.d. But their corresponding relation to time is sometimes described as _eternity_; and if it is so described it must be carefully distinguished from the _positive_ eternity of G.o.d, the Immutable Being. To distinguish it from the latter it is usually described as _negative_ eternity,-this indifference of the possible essence to actual existence at any particular point of time.
But apart from this relation which we conceive it as having to existence in the order of actual reality, can we, or do we, or must we conceive it as in itself an intrinsic possibility _from all eternity_, in the sense that it _never began_ to be intrinsically possible, and will never cease to be so? Must we attribute to it a _positive_ eternity, not of course of actuality or existence, but of _ideal_ being, as an object of thought to an Eternally Existing Mind? What is this supposed eternal possibility of the possible essence? Is it nothing actual: the possible as such is nothing actual. But is it anything real? Has it only ideal being-_esse ideale_ or _intentionale_? And has it this only in and from the human mind, or independently of the human mind? And also independently of the _actual_ essences from which the human mind gets the data for its thought,-so that we must ascribe to it an _eternal_ ideal being? To these questions we shall return presently.
(_c_) Thirdly, essences considered apart from their actual existence, and compared with their own const.i.tutive factors or with one another, reveal to the mind relations which the mind sees to be _necessary_, and which it formulates for itself in _necessary_ judgments,-judgments _in materia necessaria_. By virtue of the principle of ident.i.ty an abstract essence is _necessarily_ what it is, what the mind conceives it to be, what the mind conceives as its definition. Man, as an object of thought, is _necessarily_ a rational animal, whether he actually exists or not. And if he is thought of as existing, he cannot at the same time be thought of as non-existing,-by the principle of contradiction. An existing man is necessarily an existing man,-by the principle of ident.i.ty. These logical principles are rooted in the nature of reality, whether actual or possible, considered as an _object of thought_. There is thus a necessary relation between any complex object of thought and each of the const.i.tuent factors into which the mind can a.n.a.lyse it. And, similarly, there is a necessary negative relation-a relation of exclusion-between any object of thought and anything which the mind sees to be incompatible with that object as a whole, or with any of its const.i.tuent factors.
Again, the mind sees necessary relations between abstract essences compared with one another. Five and seven are _necessarily_ twelve.
Whatever begins to exist actually _must_ have a cause. Contingent being, if such exists, is _necessarily_ dependent for its existence on some other actually existing being. If potential being is actualized it _must_ be actualized by actual being. The three interior angles of a triangle are _necessarily_ equal to two right angles. And so on.
But is the abstract essence itself-apart from all mental a.n.a.lysis of it, apart from all comparison of it with its const.i.tuent factors or with other essences-in any sense _necessary_? There is no question of its actual existence, but only of itself as an object of thought. Now our thought does not seem to demand _necessarily_, or have a _necessary_ connexion with, any particular object of which we do _de facto_ think. What we do think of is determined by our experience of _actual_ things. And the things which we conceive to be possible, by the exercise of our reason upon the data of our senses, memory and imagination, are determined as to their nature and number by our experience of actual things, even although they themselves can and do pa.s.s beyond the domain of actually experienced things. The only necessary object of thought is reality in general: for the exercise of the function of thought necessarily demands an object, and this object must be reality of some sort. Thought, as we saw, begins with actual reality. Working upon this, thought apprehends in it the foundations of those necessary relations and judgments already referred to. Considering, moreover, the actual data of experience, our thought can infer from these the actual existence of one Being Who must exist by a necessity of His Essence.
But, furthermore, must all the possible essences which the mind does or can actually think of, be conceived as _necessarily possible_ in the same sense in which it is suggested that they must be conceived as eternally possible? To this question, too, we shall return presently.
(_d_) Finally, possible essences appear to the mind as _immutable_, and consequently _indivisible_. This means simply that the relations which we establish between them and their const.i.tutive factors are not only necessary but immutable: that if any const.i.tutive factor of an essence is conceived as removed from it, or any new factor as added, we have no longer the original essence but some other essence. If "animal" is a being essentially embodying the two objective concepts of "organism" and "sentient," then on removing either we have no longer the essence "animal". So, too, by adding to these some other element compatible with them, _e.g._ "rational," we have no longer the essence "animal," but the essence "man". Hence possible essences have been likened to numbers, inasmuch as if we add anything to, or subtract anything from, any given number, we have now no longer the original number but another.(90) This, too, is only an expression of the laws of ident.i.ty and contradiction.
We might ask, however, whether, apart from a.n.a.lysis and comparison of an abstract object of thought with its const.i.tutive notes or factors, such a possible essence is in itself _immutably_ possible. This is similar to the question whether we can or must conceive such a possible essence as eternally and necessarily possible.
15. GROUNDS OF THOSE CHARACTERISTICS.-In considering the grounds or reasons of the various characteristics just enumerated it may be well to reflect that when we speak of the _intrinsic possibility_ of a possible essence we conceive the latter as something complex, which we mentally resolve into its const.i.tutive notes or factors or principles, to see if these are compatible. If they are we p.r.o.nounce the essence intrinsically possible, if not we p.r.o.nounce it intrinsically impossible. For our minds, absence of internal incompatibility in the content of our concept of any object is the test of its intrinsic possibility. Whatever fulfils this test we consider capable of existing. But what about the possibility of the notes, or factors, or principles themselves, whereby we define those essences, and by the union of which we conceive those essences to be const.i.tuted? How do we know that those abstract principles or factors-no one of which can actually exist alone, since all are abstract-can in certain combinations form _possible_ objects of thought? We can know this only because we have either experienced such objects as actual, or because we infer their possibility from objects actually experienced. And similarly our knowledge of what is impossible is based upon our experience of the actual. Since, moreover, our experience of the actual is finite and fallible, we may err in our judgments as to what essences are, and what are not, intrinsically possible.(91)
If now we ask ourselves what intelligible reason can we a.s.sign for the characteristics just indicated as belonging to possible essences, we must fix our attention first of all on the fundamental fact that the human intellect always apprehends its object _in an abstract condition_. It contemplates the essence apart from the existence in which the essence is subject to circ.u.mstances of time and place and change; it grasps the essence in a static condition as simply identical with itself and distinct from all else; it sees the essence as indifferent to existence at any place or time; reflecting then on the actualization of this essence in the existing order of things, it apprehends the essence as capable of indefinite actualizations (except in cases where it sees some reason to the contrary), _i.e._ it _universalizes_ the essence; comparing it with its const.i.tuent notes or elements, and with those of other essences, it sees and affirms certain relations (of ident.i.ty or diversity, compatibility or incompatibility, between those notes or elements) as holding good _necessarily_ and _immutably_, and independently of the actual embodiment of those notes or elements in any object existing at any particular place or time. All these features of the relations between the const.i.tuents of abstract, possible essences, seem so far to be adequately accounted for by the fact that the intellect apprehends those essences _in the abstract_: the data in which it apprehends them being given to it through sense experience. What may be inferred from the fact that the human intellect has this power of abstract thought, is another question(92). But granting that it does apprehend essences in this manner, we seem to have in this fact a sufficient explanation of the features just referred to.
We have, however, already suggested other questions about the reality of those possible essences. Is their possibility, so far as known to us, explained by our experience of actual things? Or must we think them as eternally, necessarily and immutably possible? From the manner in which we must apprehend them, can we infer anything about the reality of an Eternal, Immutable, Necessary Intelligence, in whose Thought and Essence alone those essences, as apprehended by our minds, can find their ultimate ground and explanation? These are the questions we must now endeavour to examine.
16. POSSIBLE ESSENCES AS SUCH ARE SOMETHING DISTINCT FROM MERE LOGICAL BEING, AND FROM NOTHINGNESS.-There have been philosophers who have held that the actual alone is real, and only while it is actual; that a purely (intrinsically) possible essence as such is nothing real; that the actual alone is possible; that the purely possible as such is impossible. This view is based on the erroneous a.s.sumption that whatever is or becomes actual is so, or becomes so, by some sort of unintelligible fatalistic necessity. Apart from the fact that it is incompatible with certain truths of theism, such as the Divine Omnipotence and Freedom in creating, it also involves the denial of all real becoming or change, and the a.s.sertion that all actuality is eternal; for if anything becomes actual, it was previously either possible or impossible; if impossible, it could never become actual; if possible, then as possible it was something different from the impossible, or from absolute nothingness. Moreover, the intrinsically possible is capable of becoming actual, and may be actualized if there exists some actual being with power to actualize it; but absolute nothingness-or, in other words, the intrinsically impossible-cannot be actualized, even by Omnipotence; therefore the possible essence as such is something positive or real, as distinct from nothingness. Finally, intrinsically possible essences can be clearly distinguished from one another by the mind; but their negation which is pure non-ent.i.ty or nothingness cannot be so distinguished. It is therefore clear that possible essences are in some true sense something positive or real. From which it follows that nothingness, in the strict sense, is not the mere absence or negation of actuality, but also the absence or negation of that positive or real something which is intrinsic possibility; in other words that nothingness in the strict sense means intrinsic impossibility.
Even those who hold the opinion just rejected-that the purely possible essence as such has no reality in any conceivable sense-would presumably admit that it is an object of human thought at all events; they would accord to it the being it has from the human mind which thinks it. It would therefore be an _ens rationis_ according to this view, having only the ideal being which consists in its being const.i.tuted and contemplated by the human mind. That it has the ideal being, the _esse ideale_ or _esse intentionale_, which consists in its being contemplated by the human mind as an object of thought, no one will deny. But a little reflection will show, firstly, that this ideal being is something more than the ideal being of an _ens rationis_, of a mere logical ent.i.ty; and, secondly, that a possible essence must have some other ideal being than that which it has in the individual human mind.
The possible essence is not a mere logical ent.i.ty; for the latter cannot be conceived as capable of existing apart from the human mind, in the world of actual existences (3), whereas the former can be, and is in fact, conceived as capable of such existence. Its ideal being in the human mind is, therefore, something other than that of a mere logical ent.i.ty.
The ideal being which it has in the human mind as an object of thought is undoubtedly derived from the mind"s knowledge of actual things. We think of the essences of actually experienced realities apart from their actual existence. Thus abstracted, we a.n.a.lyse them, compare them, reason from them. By these processes we can not merely attain to a knowledge of the actual existence of other realities above and beyond and outside of our own direct and immediate intuitional experience, but we can also form concepts of mult.i.tudes of realities or essences as intrinsically possible, thus giving these latter an ideal existence in our own minds. Here, then, the question arises: Is this the only ideal being that can be ascribed to such essences? In other words, are essences intrinsically possible because _we think_ them as intrinsically possible? Or is it not rather the case that we think them to be intrinsically possible because they are intrinsically possible? Does our thought const.i.tute, or does it not rather merely discover, their intrinsic possibility? Does the latter result from, or is it not rather presupposed by, our thought-activity? The second alternative suggested in each of these questions is the true one. As our thought is not the source of their actuality, neither is it the source of their intrinsic possibility. Solipsism is the _reductio ad absurdum_ of the philosophy which would reduce all _actuality_ experienced by the individual mind to phases, or phenomena, or self-manifestations, of the individual mind itself as the one and only actuality. And no less absurd is the philosophy which would accord to all _intrinsically possible_ realities no being other than the ideal being which they have as the thought-objects of the individual human mind. The study of the _actual_ world of direct experience leads the impartial and sincere inquirer to the conclusion that it is in some true sense a manifestation of mind or intelligence: not, however, of his own mind, which is itself only a very tiny item in the totality of the actual world, but of one Supreme Intelligence. And in this same Intelligence the world of possible essences too will be found to have its original and fundamental ideal being.
17. POSSIBLE ESSENCES HAVE, BESIDES IDEAL BEING, NO OTHER SORT OF BEING OR REALITY PROPER AND INTRINSIC TO THEMSELVES.-Before inquiring further into the manner in which we attain to a knowledge of this Intelligence, and of the ideal being of possible essences in this Intelligence, we may ask whether, above and beyond such ideal being, possible essences have not perhaps from all eternity some being or reality proper and intrinsic to themselves; not indeed the actual being which they possess when actualized in time, but yet some kind of _intrinsic_ reality as distinct from the _extrinsic_ ideal being, or _esse intentionale_, which consists merely in this that they are objects of thought present as such to a Supreme Intelligence or Mind.
Some few medieval scholastics(93) contended that possible essences have from all eternity not indeed the existence they may receive by creation or production in time, but an intrinsic essential being which, by creation or production, may be transferred to the order of actual existences, and which, when actual existence ceases (if they ever receive it), still continues immutable and incorruptible: what these writers called the _esse essentiae_, as distinct from the _esse existentiae_, conceiving it to be intermediate between the latter on the one hand and mere ideal or logical being on the other, and hence calling it _esse diminutum_ or _secundum quid_. Examining the question from the standpoint of theism, these authors seem to have thought that since G.o.d understands these essences as possible from all eternity, and since this knowledge must have as its term or object something real and positive, these essences must have some real and proper intrinsic being from all eternity: otherwise they would be simply nothingness, and nothingness cannot be the term of the Divine Intelligence. But the obvious reply is that though possible essences as such are _nothing actual_ they must be distinguished as realities, capable of actually existing, from _absolute nothingness_; and that as thus distinguished from absolute nothingness they are really and positively intelligible to the Divine Mind, as indeed they are even to the human mind. To be intelligible they need not have actual being. They must, no doubt, be capable of having actual being, in order to be understood as realities: it is precisely in this understood capability that their reality consists, for the real includes not only what actually exists but whatever is capable of actual existence. Whatever is opposed to absolute nothingness is real; and this manifestly includes not only the actual but whatever is intrinsically possible.
Realities or essences which have not actual being have only ideal being; and ideal being means simply presence in some mind as an object of thought. Scholastic philosophers generally(94) hold that possible essences as such have no other being than this; that before and until such essences actually exist they have of themselves and in themselves no being except the ideal being which they have as objects of the Divine Intelligence and the virtual being they have in the Divine Omnipotence which may at any time give them actual existence. One convincing reason for this view is the consideration that if possible essences as such had from all eternity any proper and intrinsic being in themselves, G.o.d could neither create nor annihilate. For in that hypothesis essences, on becoming actual, would not be produced _ex nihilo_, inasmuch as before becoming actual they would in themselves and from all eternity have had their own proper real being; and after ceasing to be actual they would still retain this. But creation is the production of _the whole reality_ of actual being from nothingness; and is therefore impossible if the actual being is merely produced from an essence already real, _i.e._ having an eternal positive reality of its own. The same is true of annihilation. The theory of eternally existing uncreated _matter_ is no less incompatible with the doctrine of creation than this theory of eternally real and uncreated forms or essences.
Again, what could this supposed positive and proper reality of the possible essence be? If it is anything distinct from the mere ideal being of such an essence, as it is a.s.sumed to be, it must after all be _actual_ being of some sort, which would apparently have to be actualized again in order to have actual existence! Finally, this supposed eternal reality, proper to possible essences, cannot be anything uncreated. For whatever is uncreated is G.o.d; and since it is these supposed proper realities of possible essences that are made actual, and const.i.tute the existing created universe, the latter would be in this view an actualization of the Divine Essence itself,-which is pantheism pure and simple. And neither can this supposed eternal reality, proper to possible essences, be anything created. For such creation would be eternal and necessary; whereas G.o.d"s creative activity is admitted by all scholastics to be essentially free; and although they are not agreed as to whether "creation from all eternity" ("_creatio ab aeterno_") is possible, they are agreed that it is not a fact.
Possible essences as such are therefore nothing actual. Furthermore, as such they have in themselves no positive being. But they are not therefore unreal. They are positively intelligible as capable of actual existence, and therefore as distinct from logical ent.i.ties or _entia rationis_ which are not capable of such existence. They are present as objects of thought to mind; and to some mind other than the individual human mind. About this ideal being which they have in this Mind we have now in the next place to inquire.
18. INFERENCES FROM OUR KNOWLEDGE OF POSSIBLE ESSENCES.-We have stated that an impartial study of the _actual_ world will lead to the conclusion that it is dependent on a Supreme Intelligence; and we have suggested that in this Supreme Intelligence also possible essences as such have their primary ideal being (16, 17). When the existence of G.o.d has been established-as it may be established by various lines of argument-from _actual_ things, we can clearly see, as will be pointed out presently, that in the Divine Essence all possible essences have the ultimate source of their possibility. But many scholastic philosophers contend that the nature and properties of possible essences, as apprehended by the human mind, furnish a distinct and conclusive argument for the existence of a Supreme Uncreated Intelligence.(95) Others deny the validity of such a line of reasoning, contending that it is based on misapprehension and misinterpretation of those characteristics.
All admit that it is not human thought that makes essences possible: they are intelligible to the human mind because they are possible, not _vice versa_.(96) For the human mind the immediate source and ground of their intrinsic possibility and characteristics is the fact that they are given to it in _actual_ experience while it has the power of considering them _apart from their actual existence_.
But (1) are they not independent of experienced actuality, no less than of the human mind, so that we are forced to infer from them the reality of a Supreme Eternal Mind in which they have eternal ideal being?
(2) Is not any possible essence (_e.g._ "water," or "a triangle") so necessarily what it is that even if it never did and never will exist, nay even were there no human or other finite mind to conceive it, it would still be what it is (_e.g._ "a chemical compound of oxygen and hydrogen," or "a plane rectilinear three-sided figure")-so that there must be some Necessarily Existing Intelligence in and from which it has this necessary truth as a possible essence?(97) These essences, as known to us, are so far from being grounded in, or explained by, the things of our actual experience, that we rather regard the latter as grounded in the former. Do we not consider possible essences as the prototypes and exemplars to which actual things must conform in order to be actual, in order to exist at all?(98)