Yet it cannot be conceived as a potentiality _in_ anything actual: except indeed in the actually existing essence which is the composite result of its union with the existential act. It is not a real, subjective potentiality antecedently to the existential act, and on which the latter is, as it were, superimposed:(126) in itself, it is, in fact, nothing real except as actualized by the latter; but, as we have already observed, the process of actualization, whether by direct creation or by the action of created causes, must be conceived as having for its total term or effect a composite reality resulting from what we can at best imperfectly describe as the union of two correlative, con-created, or co-produced principles of being, a potential and an actual, really distinct from each other: that whereby the thing _can_ exist, the potentiality of existence, the essence; and that whereby the thing _does_ exist, the actuality of essence, the existence. The description is imperfect because these principles are not con-created or co-produced separately; but, rather, the creation or production of an existing essence, the efficiency by which it is "placed outside its causes," has one single, though composite, term: the actually existing thing.
This view, thus advocating a real distinction between essence and existence, may obviously be regarded as an emphatic expression of the objective validity of intellectual knowledge. It might be regarded as an application of the more general view that the objective concepts between which the intellect distinguishes in its interpretation of reality should be regarded as representing _distinct realities_, except when the distinction is seen to arise not from the nature of the object but from the nature of the subject, from the limitations and imperfections of our own modes of thought. But in the case of any particular (disputed) distinction, the _onus probandi_ should lie rather on the side of those who contend that such distinction is logical, and not real. On the other hand, many philosophers who are no less firmly convinced of the objective validity of intellectual knowledge observe that it is possible to push this principle too far, or rather to err by excess in its application.
Instead of placing the burden of proof solely on the side of the logical distinction, they would place it rather more on the side of the real distinction-in conformity with the maxim of method, _Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem_. And they think that it is an error by excess to hold the distinction between essence and existence to be real.
This brings us to the second alternative opinion: that the distinction in question is not real, but only virtual.(127)
According to this view, the essence and the existence of any existing contingent being are one and the same reality. There is, however, in this reality a basis for the two distinct objective concepts-of essence and of existence-whereby we apprehend it. For the contingent being does not exist necessarily: we see such beings coming into existence and ceasing to exist: we can therefore think of _what they are_ without thinking of them as _actually existent_: in other words, we can think of them as possible, and of their existence as that by which they become actual. This is a sufficient reason for distinguishing mentally, in the existing being, the essence which exists and the existence by which it exists.(128) But when we think of the essence of an actually existing being as objectively possible, or as potential in its causes, we are no longer thinking of it as anything real in itself, but only of its ideal being as an object of thought in our minds, or of the ideal being it has in the Divine Mind, or of the potential being it has in created causes, or of the virtual being it has in the Divine Omnipotence, or of the ultimate basis of its possibility in the Divine Essence. But all these modes of "being" we know to be really distinct from the real, contingent essence itself which begins to exist actually in time, and may cease once more to exist in time when and if its own nature demands, and G.o.d wills, such cessation. But that the real, contingent essence itself which so exists, is something really distinct from the existence whereby it exists; that it forms with the latter a really composite being; that it is in itself a real, subjective potentiality, receptive of existence as another and actualizing reality, really distinct from it, so that the creation or production of any single actually existing contingent being would have for its term two really distinct principles of being, a potential and an actual, essence and existence, created or produced _per modum unius_, so to speak: for a.s.serting all this it is contended by supporters of the virtual distinction that we have no sufficient justifying reason.(129) Hence they conclude that a real distinction must be denied: _Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem_.
Though each of these opinions has been defended with a great deal of ability, and an exhaustive array of arguments, a mere rehearsal of these latter would not give much material a.s.sistance towards a solution of the question. We therefore abstain from repeating them here. There are only a few points in connexion with them to which attention may be directed.
In the first place, some defenders of the real distinction urge that were the distinction not real, things would exist essentially, _i.e._ necessarily; and thus the most fundamental ground of distinction between G.o.d and creatures, between the Necessary Being and contingent beings, would be destroyed: creatures would be no longer in their very const.i.tution composite, mixtures of potentiality and actuality, but would be purely actual, absolutely simple and, in a word, identical with the Infinite Being Himself. Supporters of the virtual distinction deny that those very serious consequences follow from their view. They point out that though the existence of the creature is really identical with its essence, the essence does not exist necessarily or _a se_; the whole existing essence is _ab alio_, is caused, contingent; and the fundamental distinction between such a being and the Self-Existing Being is in this view perfectly clear. Nor is the creature, they contend, purely actual and absolutely simple; it need not have existed, and it may cease to exist; it has, therefore, a potentiality of non-existence, which is inconceivable in the case of the Necessary and purely Actual Being; it is, therefore, mutable as regards existence; besides which the essences even of the most simple created beings, namely pure spirits are composite in the sense that they have faculties and operations really distinct from their substance.
Secondly, it is alleged by some defenders of the real distinction that this latter view of the nature of existing contingent reality is a cardinal doctrine in the whole philosophical system of St.
Thomas, and of scholastics generally: so fundamental, in fact, that many important doctrines, unanimously held to be true by all scholastics, cannot be successfully vindicated apart from it.(130) To which it is replied that there are no important truths of scholastic philosophy which cannot be defended quite adequately apart altogether from the view one may hold on the present question; and that, this being the case, it is unwise to endeavour to base admittedly true doctrines, which can be better defended otherwise, upon an opinion which can at best claim only the amount of probability it can derive from the intrinsic merits of the arguments by which it is itself supported.(131)
Before pa.s.sing from this whole question we must note the existence of a third school of thought, identified mainly with the followers of Duns Scotus.(132) These authors contend that the distinction between essence and existence is not a real distinction, nor yet, on the other hand, is it merely a virtual distinction, but one which they call _formalis, actualis ex natura rei_, that between a reality and its intrinsic modes. It is better known as the "Scotistic" distinction. We shall see the nature of it when dealing _ex professo_ with the general doctrine of distinctions.
The multiplicity of these views, and the unavoidable difficulty experienced in grasping and setting forth their meaning with any tolerable degree of clearness, would suggest the reflection that in those controversies the medieval scholastics were perhaps endeavouring to think and to express what reality is, apart from thought and "independently of the consideration of the mind"-a task which, conceived in these terms, must appear fruitless; and one which, anyhow, involves in its very nature the closest scrutiny of the epistemological problem of the power of the human mind to get at least a true and valid, if not adequate and comprehensive, insight into the nature of reality.
CHAPTER IV. REALITY AS ONE AND MANIFOLD.
25. THE TRANSCENDENTAL ATTRIBUTES OR PROPERTIES OF BEING: UNITY, TRUTH, AND GOODNESS.-So far, we have a.n.a.lysed the notions of Real Being, of Becoming or Change, of Being as Possible and as Actual, of Essence and Existence. Before approaching a study of the Categories or _Suprema Genera Entis_, the highest and widest modes in which reality manifests itself, we have next to consider certain attributes or properties of being which reveal themselves as co-extensive with reality itself. Taking human experience in its widest sense, as embracing all modes that are cognitive or allied with consciousness, as including intellect, memory, imagination, sense perception, will and appet.i.te, as speculative, ethical or moral, and esthetic or artistic,-we find that the reality which makes up this complex human experience of ours is universally and necessarily characterized by certain features which we call the _transcendental attributes or properties of being_, inasmuch as they transcend all specific and generic modes of being, pervade all its categories equally, and are inseparable from any datum of experience. We shall see that they are not really distinct from the reality which they characterize, but only logically distinct from it, being aspects under which we apprehend it, negations or other logical relations which we necessarily annex to it by the mental processes whereby we seek to render it actually intelligible to our minds.
The first in order of these ontological attributes is _unity_: the concept of that whereby reality considered in itself becomes a definite object of thought. The second in order is _truth_: which is the conception of reality considered in its relation to cognitive experience, to intellect.
The third is _goodness_: the aspect under which reality is related as an object to appet.i.tive experience, to will.
Now when we predicate of any reality under our consideration that it is "one," or "good," or "true"-in the ontological sense to be explained,-that which we predicate is not a mere _ens rationis_, but something real, something which is really identical with the subject, and which is distinguished from the latter in our judgment only by a logical distinction. The attribution of any of these properties to the subject does not, however, add anything real to the latter: it adds merely some logical aspect involved in, or supposed by, the attribution. At the same time, this logical aspect gives us real information by making explicit some real feature of being not explicitly revealed in the concept of being itself, although involved in, and following as a property from, the latter.
There do not seem to be any other transcendental properties of being besides the three enumerated. The terms "reality," "thing," "something,"
are synonymous expressions of the concept of being itself, rather than of properties of being. "Existence" is not a transcendental attribute of being, for it is not co-extensive with reality or real being. And although reality _must_ be "_either_ possible _or_ actual," "_either_ necessary _or_ contingent," "_either_ infinite _or_ finite," etc., this necessity of verifying in itself one or other member of any such alternatives is not a property of being, but rather something essentially rooted in the very concept of reality itself. Some would regard as a distinct transcendental attribute of being the conception of the latter as an object of esthetic contemplation, as manifesting order and harmony, as _beautiful_. This conception of being will be found, however, to flow from the more fundamental aspects of reality considered as _true_ and as _good_, rather than directly from the concept of being itself.
26. TRANSCENDENTAL UNITY.-When we think of anything as one we think of it as undivided in itself. The unity or oneness of being is the undividedness of being: _Unum est id quod est indivisum in se: Universaliter quaecunque non habent divisionem, inquantum non habent, sic unum dic.u.n.tur_.(133) When, therefore, we conceive being as undivided into const.i.tutive parts, and unmultiplied into repet.i.tions of itself, we conceive it as _a_ being, as _one_. For the concept of being, formally as one, it does not seem necessary that we conceive being as _divided or distinct from all other being_. This second negation, of ident.i.ty with other being, rather follows the conception of being as one: being is distinct from other being because it is already itself one: it is a prior negation that formally const.i.tutes its unity, namely, _the negation of internal division or multiplication of itself_: G.o.d was truly _one_ from all eternity, before there was any _other_ being, any created being, distinct from Him. The division or distinction of an object of thought from whatever is not itself is what const.i.tutes the notion of _otherness_.(134)
It is manifest that being and unity are really identical, that when we think of being we think of what is really undivided in itself, that once we introduce dividedness into the object of our concept we are no longer thinking of being but of _beings_, _i.e._ of a mult.i.tude or plurality each member of which is a _being_ and _one_. For being, as an object of thought, is either simple or composite. If simple, it is not only undivided but indivisible. If composite, we cannot think of it as _a_ being, capable of existing, so long as we think its parts as separate or divided: only when we think of them as actually united and undivided have we the concept of _a_ being: and _eo ipso_ we have the concept of being as one, as a unity.(135)
Hence the scholastic formulae: _Ens et unum convertuntur_, and _Omne ens est unum_. The truth embodied in these is so self-evident that the expression of it may seem superfluous; but they are not mere tautologies, and in the interests of clear and consistent thinking our attention may be profitably directed to them. The same remark applies to much in the present and subsequent chapters on the transcendental attributes of being.
27. KINDS OF UNITY.-(_a_) The unity we have been describing has been called _transcendental_, to distinguish it from _predicamental_ unity-the unity which is proper to a special category of being, namely, _quant.i.ty_, and which, accordingly, is also called _quant.i.tative_ or _mathematical_ unity. While the former is common to all being, with which it is really identical, and to which it adds nothing real, the latter belongs and is applicable, properly speaking, only to the mode of being which is corporeal, which exists only as affected by quant.i.ty, as occupying s.p.a.ce, as capable of measurement; and therefore, also, this latter unity adds something real to the being which it affects, namely, the attribute of quant.i.ty, of which unity is the measure and the generating principle.(136) For quant.i.ty, as we shall see, is a mode of being really distinct from the corporeal substance which it affects. The quant.i.ty has its own transcendental unity; so has the substance which it quantifies; so has the composite whole, the quantified body, but this latter transcendental unity, like the composite being with which it is identical, is not a _unum per se_ but only a _unum per accidens_ (_cf._ _b_, _infra_).
We derive our notion of quant.i.tative or mathematical unity, which is the principle of counting and the standard of measuring, from dividing mentally the continuous quant.i.ty or magnitude which is one of the immediate data of sense experience. Now the distinction between this unit and transcendental unity supposes not merely that quant.i.ty is really distinct from the corporeal substance, but also that the human mind is capable of conceiving as real certain modes of being other than the corporeal, modes to which quant.i.tative concepts and processes, such as counting and measuring, are not _properly_ applicable, as they are to corporeal reality, but only in an _a.n.a.logical_ or _transferred_ sense (2).
The notion of transcendental unity, therefore, bears the same relation to that of quant.i.tative unity, as the notion of being in general bears to that of quantified or corporeal being.
(_b_) Transcendental unity may be either _essential_ (or _substantial_, "unum _per se_," "unum _simpliciter_"), or _accidental_ ("unum _per accidens_," "unum _secundum quid_"). The former characterizes a being which has nothing in it beyond what is essential to it as such, _e.g._ the unity of any substance: and this unity is twofold-(1) _unity of simplicity_ and (2) _unity of composition_-according as the substance is essentially simple (such as the human soul or a pure spirit) or essentially composite (such as man, or any corporeal substance: since every such substance is composed essentially of a formative and an indeterminate principle).(137)
Accidental unity is the unity of a being whose const.i.tuent factors or contents are not really united in such a way as to form one essence, whether simple or composite. It is threefold: (1) _collective_ unity, or unity _of aggregation_, as of a _heap_ of stones or a _crowd_ of men; (2) _artificial_ unity, as of a house or a picture; and (3) _natural_ or _physical_ unity, as of any existing substance with its connatural accidents, _e.g._ a living organism with its size, shape, qualities, etc., or the human soul with its faculties.(138)
(_c_) Transcendental unity may be either individual (singular, numerical, concrete, real) or universal (specific, generic, abstract, logical). The former is that which characterizes being or reality considered as actually existing or as proximately capable of existing: the unity of an _individual_ nature or essence: the unity whereby a being is not merely undivided in itself but incapable of repet.i.tion or multiplication of itself. It is only the individual as such that can actually exist: the abstract and universal is incapable of actually existing as such. We shall examine presently what it is that _individuates_ reality, and what it is that renders it capable of existing actually in the form of "things" or of "persons"-the forms in which it actually presents itself in our experience.
Abstract or universal unity is the unity which characterizes a reality conceived as an abstract, universal object by the human intellect. The object of a specific or generic concept, "man" or "animal," for example, is one in this sense, undivided in itself, but capable of indefinite multiplication or repet.i.tion in the only mode in which it can actually exist-the individual mode. The universal is _unum aptum inesse pluribus_.
Finally, we can conceive any nature or essence without considering it in either of its alternative states-either as individual or as universal.
Thus conceived it is characterized by a unity which has been commonly designated as _abstract_, or (by Scotists) as _formal_ unity.
28. MULt.i.tUDE AND NUMBER.-The _one_ has for its correlative the _manifold_. Units, one of which is not the other, const.i.tute mult.i.tude or plurality. If unity is the negation of actual division in being, mult.i.tude results from a second negation, that, namely, by which the undivided being or unit is marked off or divided from other units.(139) We have defined unity by the negation of actual _intrinsic_ dividedness; and we have seen it to be compatible with _extrinsic_ dividedness, or otherness. Thus the vague notion of dividedness is anterior to that of unity. Now mult.i.tude involves dividedness; but it also involves and presupposes the intrinsic undividedness or _unity_ of each const.i.tuent of the manifold. In the real order of things the _one_ is prior to all _dividedness_; but on account of the sensuous origin of our concepts we can define the former only by exclusion of the latter. The order in which we obtain these ideas seems, therefore, to be as follows: "first _being_, then _dividedness_, next _unity_ which excludes dividedness, and finally _mult.i.tude_ which consists of units".(140)
The relation of the _one_ to the _manifold_ is that of undivided being to divided being. The same reality cannot be one and manifold under the same aspect; though obviously a being may be actually one and potentially manifold or _vice versa_, or one under a certain aspect and manifold under another aspect.
From the transcendental plurality or mult.i.tude which we have just described we can distinguish _predicamental_ or _quant.i.tative_ plurality: a distinction which is to be understood in the same way as when applied to unity. Quant.i.tative mult.i.tude is the actually separated or divided condition of quantified being. _Number_ is a mult.i.tude measured or counted by unity: it is a _counted_, and, therefore, necessarily a _definite_ and _finite_ mult.i.tude. Now it is _mathematical_ unity that is, properly, the principle of number and the standard or measure of all counting; and therefore it is only to realities which fall within the category of quant.i.ty-in other words, to material being-that the concept of number is properly applicable. No doubt we can and do conceive transcendental unity after the a.n.a.logy of the quant.i.tative unity which is the principle of counting and measuring; and no doubt we can use the transcendental concept of "actually undivided being" as a principle of enumeration, and so "count" or "enumerate" spiritual beings; but this counting is only a.n.a.logical; and many philosophers, following Aristotle and St. Thomas, hold that the concepts of _numerical_ multiplicity and _numerical_ distinction are not properly applicable to immaterial beings, that these latter differ individually from one another _not numerically_, but each by its whole nature or essence, that is, _formally_.(141)
29. THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE UNIVERSAL.-We have distinguished transcendental unity into individual and universal (27, _c_). Reality as endowed with universal unity is reality as apprehended by abstract thought to be capable of indefinite repet.i.tion or multiplication of itself in actual existence. Reality as endowed with individual unity is reality apprehended as actually existing, or as proximately capable of actually existing, and as therefore incapable of any repet.i.tion or multiplication of itself, of any division of itself into other "selves" or communication of itself to other "selves". While, therefore, the universal has its reality only in the individuals to which it communicates itself, and which thus embody it, the individual has its reality in itself and of its own right, so to speak: when it actually exists it is "_sui juris_," and as such incommunicable, "_incommunicabilis_". The actually existing individual is called in Latin a "_suppositum_"-a term which we shall render by the English "thing" or "individual thing". It was called by Aristotle the ??s?a p??t?, _substantia prima_, "first substance," or "first essence," to distinguish it from the substance or essence conceived by abstract thought as universal; the latter being designated as ??s?a d??te?a, _substantia secunda_, "second substance" or "second essence".
Now it is a fundamental a.s.sumption in Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy that whatever actually exists, or whatever is real in the sense that as such it is proximately capable of actual existence, is and must be individual: that the universal as such is not real, _i.e._ as such cannot actually exist. And the manifest reason for this a.s.sumption is that whatever actually exists must be, with entire definiteness and determinateness, its own self and nothing else: it cannot be capable of division or repet.i.tion of itself, of that which it really is, into "other"
realities which would still be "that individual thing". But reality considered as universal _is_ capable of such repet.i.tion of itself indefinitely. Therefore reality cannot actually exist as universal, but only as individual.
This is merely plain common sense; nor does the idealistic monism which appears to attribute reality to the universal as such, and which interprets reality exclusively according to the forms in which it presents itself to abstract thought, really run counter to this consideration; for what it really holds is not that universals as such are real, but that they are phases of the all-one reality which is itself _one individual being_.
But many modern philosophers hold that individuality, no less than universality, is a form of thought. No doubt "individuality" _in the abstract_ is, no less than universality, an object abstracted from the data of experience by the mind"s a.n.a.lysis of the latter.
But this is not what those philosophers mean. They mean that the individual as such is not a real datum of experience. From the Kantian view that individuality is a purely mental form with which the mind invests the datum, they draw the subjectivist conclusion that the world, thus interpreted as consisting of "individuals,"
is a phenomenal or mental product for the objective validity of which there can be to man"s speculative reason no sufficient guarantee.
To this theory we oppose that of Aristotle and the scholastics, not merely that the individual alone is actually existent, but that as actually existent and as individual it is actually given to us and apprehended by us in internal and external sense experience; and that although in the inorganic world, and to some extent in the lower forms of life, we may not be able to determine for certain what portions of this experience are distinct individuals, still in the world of living things generally, and especially of the animal kingdom, there can be no difficulty in determining this, for the simple reason that here reality is given to us in sense experience as consisting of distinct individuals.
At the same time it is true that we can understand these individual realities, interpret them, read the meaning of them, only by the intellectual function of judgment, _i.e._ by the a.n.a.lytic and synthetic activity whereby we abstract and universalize certain aspects of them, and use these aspects as predicates of the individuals. Now, seeing that intellectual thought, as distinct from sense experience, apprehends its objects only as abstract and potentially universal, only as static, self-identical, possible essences, and nevertheless predicates these of the concrete, individual, contingent, actually existing "things" of sense experience, identifying them with the latter in affirmative judgments; seeing moreover, that-since the intellectual knowledge we thus acquire about the data of sense experience is genuine and not chimerical-those "objects" of abstract thought must be likewise real, and must be really in those individual sense data (according to the theory of knowledge which finds its expression in Moderate Realism),-there arises immediately the problem, or rather the group of problems, regarding the relations between reality as revealed to intellect, _i.e._ as abstract and universal, and reality as revealed to sense, _i.e._ as concrete and individual. In other words, we have to inquire how we are to interpret intellectually the fact that reality, which as a possible essence is _universal_ for abstract thought, is nevertheless, as actually existing, _individualized_ for sense-and consequently for intellect reflecting on the data of sense.(142)
30. THE "METAPHYSICAL GRADES OF BEING" IN THE INDIVIDUAL.-What, then is the relation between all that intellect can apprehend in the individual, _viz._ its lowest cla.s.s essence or specific nature, and its whole nature as an individual, its _essentia atoma_ or individual nature? We can best approach this problem by considering first these various abstract thought-objects which intellect can apprehend in the individual.
What are called the metaphysical grades of being, those positive moments of perfection or reality which the mind detects in the individual, as, for instance, substantiality, materiality, organic life, animality, rationality, individuality, in the individual man-whether we describe them as "phases" or "aspects" or "formalities" of being-are undoubtedly distinct objects for abstract thought. Why does it thus distinguish between them, and express them by distinct concepts, even when it finds them embodied in a single individual? Because, reflecting on the manner in which reality presents itself, through sense experience, as actually existing, it finds resemblances and differences between individually distinct data. It finds in some of them grades of reality which it does not find in others, individual, specific, and generic grades; and some-transcendental-grades common to all. Now between these various grades of being as found in one and the same individual it cannot be denied that there exists a logical distinction with a foundation or ground for it in the individual reality; because the latter, _being more or less similar_ to other individual realities, causes the mind to apprehend it by a number of distinct concepts: the individuality whereby it differs really from all other individuals of the same species; the specific, differential and generic grades of being whereby it is conceptually identified with wider and wider cla.s.ses of things; and the transcendental grades whereby it is conceptually identified with all others. The _similarity_ of really distinct individuals, which is the _conceptual ident.i.ty_ of their _qualities_, is the ground on which we conceptually identify their _essences_. Now is there any reason for thinking that these grounds of similarity, as found in the individual, are _really distinct_ from one another in the latter? They are certainly conceptually distinct expressions-each less inadequate than the wider ones-of what is really one individual essence. But we must take them to be all really identical in and with this individual essence, unless we are prepared to hold conceptual plurality as such to be real plurality; in which case we should also hold conceptual unity as such to be real unity. But this latter view is precisely the error of extreme realism, of reifying abstract concepts and holding the "_universale a parte rei_": a theory which leads logically to monism.(143)
31. INDIVIDUALITY.-The distinction, therefore, between these grades of being in the individual, is a virtual distinction, _i.e._ a logical distinction with a ground for it in the reality. This is the sort of distinction which exists between the specific nature of the individual, _i.e._ what is contained in the definition of the lowest cla.s.s to which it belongs, and its _individuality_, _i.e._ what const.i.tutes its _nature or essence as an individual_. No doubt the concrete existing individual contains, besides its individual nature or essence, a variety of accidental characteristics which serve as marks or signs whereby its individuality _is revealed to us_. These are called "individualizing characteristics," "_notae individuantes_," the familiar scholastic list of them being "_forma_, _figura_, _locus_, _tempus_, _stirps_, _patria_, _nomen_," with manifest reference to the individual "man". But though these characteristics enable us to mark off the individual in s.p.a.ce and time from other individuals of the same cla.s.s, thus _revealing_ individuality to us in the concrete, it cannot be held that they const.i.tute the individuality of the nature or substance in each case. If the human substance, essence, or nature, as found in Socrates, were held to differ from the human substance, essence, or nature, as found in Plato, only by the fact that in each it is affected by a different set of accidents, _i.e._ of modes accidental to the substance as found in each, then it would follow that this substance is not merely _conceptually_ identical in both, but that it is _really_ identical in both; which is the error of extreme realism. As a matter of fact it is the converse that is true: the sets of accidents are distinct because they affect individual substances already really and individually distinct.
It is manifest that the accidents which are _separable_ from the individual substance, _e.g._ name, shape, size, appearance, location, etc., cannot const.i.tute its individuality. There are, however, other characteristics which are _inseparable_ from the individual substance, or which are _properties_ of the latter, _e.g._ the fact that an individual man was born of certain parents. Perhaps it is such characteristics that give its individuality to the individual substance?(144) To think so would be to misunderstand the question under discussion. We are not now inquiring into the _extrinsic_ causes whereby actually existing reality is individuated, into the _efficient_ principles of its individuation, but into the _formal_ and _intrinsic_ principle of the latter. There must obviously be something intrinsic to the individual reality itself whereby it is individuated. And it is about this intrinsic something we are inquiring. The individual man is this individual, human nature is thus individuated in him, by something that is essential to human nature as found in him. This something has been called-after the a.n.a.logy of the _differentia specifica_ which differentiates species within a genus-the _differentia individua_ of the individual. It has also been called by some the _differentia numerica_, and by Scotists the _haecceitas_. However we are to conceive this something, it is certain at all events that, considered as it is really found in the individual, it cannot be anything _really distinct_ from the specific nature of the latter. No doubt, the _differentia specifica_, considered in the abstract, it is not essential and intrinsic to the _natura generica_ considered in the abstract: it is extrinsic and accidental to the abstract content of the latter notion; but this is because we are conceiving these grades of being in the abstract.
The same is true of the _differentia individua_ as compared with the _natura specifica_ in the abstract. But we are now considering these grades of reality as they are actually in the concrete individual being: and as they are found here, we have seen that a real distinction between them is inadmissible.
32. THE "PRINCIPLE OF INDIVIDUATION".-How, then, are we to conceive this something which individuates reality? It may be well to point out that for the erroneous doctrine of extreme realism, which issues in monism, the problem of individuation, as here understood, does not arise. For the monist all plurality in being is merely apparent, not real: there can be no question of a real distinction between individual and individual.(145) Similarly, the nominalist and the conceptualist evade the problem. For these the individual alone is not merely formally real: it alone is fundamentally real: the universal is not even fundamentally real, has no foundation in reality, and thus all scientific knowledge of reality as revealed in sense experience is rendered impossible. But for the moderate realist, while the individual alone is formally real, the universal is fundamentally real, and hence the problem arises. It may be forcibly stated in the form of a paradox: That whereby Socrates and Plato are really distinct from each other as individuals is really identical with the human nature which is really in both. But what individuates human nature in Socrates, or in Plato, is logically distinct from the human nature that is really in Socrates, and really in Plato. We have only to inquire, therefore, whether the intrinsic principle of individuation is to be conceived merely as a negation, as something negative added by the mind to the concept of the specific nature, whereby the latter is apprehended as incapable of multiplication into "others" each of which would be formally that same nature, or, in other words, as incommunicable; or is the intrinsic ground of this incommunicability to be conceived as something positive, not indeed as something really distinct from, and superadded to, the specific nature, but as a positive aspect of the latter, an aspect, moreover, not involved in the concept of the specific nature considered in the abstract.
Of the many views that have been put forward on this question two or three call for some attention. In the opinion of Thomists generally, the principle which individuates _material_ things, thus multiplying numerically the same specific nature, is to be conceived as a positive mode affecting the latter and revealing it in a new aspect, whereas the specific nature of the _spiritual_ individual is itself formally an individual. The principle of the latter"s individuation is already involved in the very concept of its specific nature, and therefore is not to be conceived as a distinct positive aspect of the latter but simply as the absence of plurality and communicability in the latter. In material things, moreover, the positive mode or aspect whereby the specific nature is found numerically multiplied, and incommunicable as it exists in each, consists in the fact that such a specific nature involves in its very const.i.tution a _material_ principle which is actually allied with certain _quant.i.tative dimensions_. Hence the principle which individuates material substances is not to be conceived-after the manner in which Scotists conceive it-as an ultimate _differentia_ affecting the _formal_ factor of the nature, determining the specific nature just as the _differentia specifica_ determines the generic nature, but as a _material_ differentiating principle. What individuates the material individual, what marks it off as one in itself, distinct or divided from other individuals of the same specific nature, and incommunicable in that condition, is the material factor of that individual"s nature-not, indeed, the material factor, _materia prima_, considered in the abstract, but the material factor as proximately capable of actual existence by being allied to certain more or less definite spatial or quant.i.tative dimensions: "matter affected with quant.i.ty": "_materia quant.i.tate signata_".(146)
In regard to material substances this doctrine embraces two separate contentions: (_a_) that the principle which individuates such a substance must be conceived as something positive, not really distinct from, but yet not contained in, the specific nature considered in the abstract; (_b_) that this positive aspect is to be found not in the formal but in the material principle of the composite corporeal substance.
To the former contention it might be objected that what individuates the specific nature cannot be conceived as anything _positive_, superadded to this nature: it cannot be anything _accidental_ to the latter, for if it were, the individual would be only an accidental unity, a "_unum per accidens_" and would be const.i.tuted by an accident, which we have seen to be inadmissible; nor, on the other hand, can it be anything _essential_ to the specific nature, for if it were, then individuals should be capable of adequate essential definition, and furthermore the definition of the specific nature would not really give the whole essence or _quidditas_ of the individuals-two consequences which are commonly rejected by all scholastics. To this, however, it is replied that the principle of individuation is something essential to the specific nature in the sense that it _is_ something intrinsic to, and really identical with, the whole real substance or ent.i.ty of this nature, though not involved in the abstract concept by the a.n.a.lysis of which we reach the definition or _quidditas_ of this nature. What individuates Socrates is certainly essential to Socrates, and is therefore really identical with his human nature; it is intrinsic to the human nature in him, a mode or aspect of his human substance; yet it does not enter into the definition of his nature-"_animal rationale_"-for such definition abstracts from individuality. When, therefore, we say that definition of the specific nature gives the whole _essence_ of an individual, we mean that it gives explicitly the abstract (specific) essence, not the individuality which is really identical with this, nor, therefore, the whole substantial reality of the individual. We give different answers to the questions, "What is Socrates?" and "Who is Socrates?" The answer to the former question-a "man," or a "rational animal"-gives the "essence," but not explicitly the whole substantial reality of the individual, this remaining incapable of adequate conceptual a.n.a.lysis. The latter question we answer by giving the notes that _reveal_ individuality. These, of course, are "accidental" in the strict sense. But even the principles which const.i.tute the individuality of separate individuals of the same species, and which differentiate these individuals numerically from one another, we do not describe as _essential_ differences, whereas we do describe specific and generic differences as _essential_. The reason of this is that the latter are abstract, universal, conceptual, amenable to intellectual a.n.a.lysis, scientifically important, while the former are just the reverse; the universal differences alone are principles about which we can have scientific knowledge, for "all science is of the abstract and universal";(147) and this is what we have in mind when we describe them as "essential" or "formal," and individual differences as "ent.i.tative" or "material".