Part 7 (1/2)

The second point in the Thomistic doctrine is that corporeal substances are individuated by reason of their _materiality_. The formative, specific, determining principle of the corporeal substance is rendered _incommunicable_ by its union with the material, determinable principle; and it becomes individually _distinct_ or separate by the fact that this latter principle, in order to be capable of union with the given specific form, has in its very essence an exigence for certain more or less determinate dimensions in s.p.a.ce. Corporeal things have their natural size within certain limits. The individual of a given corporeal species can exist only because the material principle, receptive of this specific form, has a natural relation to the fundamental property of corporeal things, _viz._ quant.i.ty, within certain more or less determinate limits.

The form is rendered incommunicable by its reception in the matter. This concrete realization of the form in the matter is individually distinct and separate from other realizations of the same specific form, by the fact that the matter of this realization demands certain dimensions of quant.i.ty: this latter property being the root-principle of numerical multiplication of corporeal individuals within the same species.

On the other hand, incorporeal substances such as angels or pure spirits, being ”pure” forms, ”_formae subsistentes_,” wholly and essentially unallied with any determinable material principle, are _of themselves_ not only specific but individual; they are themselves essentially incommunicable, superior to all multiplication or repeated realization of themselves: they are such that each can be actualized only ”once and for all”: each is a species in itself: it is the full, exhaustive, and adequate expression of a divine type, of an exemplar in the Divine Mind: its realization is not, like that of a material form, the actuation of an indefinitely determinable material principle: it sums up and exhausts the imitable perfection of the specific type in its single individuality, whereas the perfection of the specific type of a corporeal thing cannot be adequately expressed in any single individual realization, but only by repeated realizations; nor indeed can it ever be adequately, exhaustively expressed, by any finite mult.i.tude of these.

It follows that in regard to pure spirits the individuating principle and the specific principle are not only really but also logically, conceptually identical; that the distinction between individual and individual is here properly a specific distinction; that it can be described as numerical only in an a.n.a.logical sense, if by numerical we mean material or quant.i.tative, _i.e._ the distinction between corporeal individuals of the same species (28).

But the distinction between individual human souls is not a specific or formal distinction. These, though spiritual, are not _pure_ spirits. They are spiritual substances which, of their very nature, are essentially ordained for union with matter. They all belong to the same species-the human species. But they do not const.i.tute individuals of this species unless as existing actually united with matter. Each human soul has a transcendental relation to its own body, to the ”_materia signata_” for which, and in which, it was created. For each human soul this relation is unique. Just as it is the material principle of each human being, the matter as allied to quant.i.tative dimensions, that individuates the man, so it is the unique relation of his soul to the material principle thus spatially determined, that individuates his soul. Now the soul, even when disembodied and existing after death, necessarily retains in its very const.i.tution this essential relation to its own body; and thus it is that disembodied souls, though not actually allied with matter, remain numerically distinct and individuated in virtue of their essential relation, each to its own body. We see, therefore, that human souls, though spiritual, are an entirely different order of beings, and must be conceived quite differently, from pure spirits.

We must be content with this brief exposition of the Thomistic doctrine on individuation. A discussion of the arguments for and against it would carry us too far.(148) There is no doubt that what _reveals_ the individuality of the corporeal substance to us is its material principle, in virtue of which its existence is circ.u.mscribed within certain limits of time and s.p.a.ce and affected with individual characteristics, ”_notae individuantes_”. But the Thomistic doctrine, which finds in ”_materia signata_” the formal, intrinsic, const.i.tutive principle of individuation, goes much deeper. It is intimately connected with the Aristotelian theory of knowledge and reality. According to this philosophy the formative principle or ??d??, the _forma subtantialis_, is our sole key to the intelligibility of corporeal things: these are intelligible in so far forth as they are actual, and they are actual in virtue of their ”forms”. Hence the tendency of the scholastic commentators of Aristotle to use the term ”form” as synonymous with the term ”nature,” though the whole nature of the corporeal substance embraces the material as well as the formal principle: for even though it does, we can understand nothing about this ”nature”

beyond what is intelligible in it in virtue of its ”form.” The material principle, on the other hand, is the potential, indeterminate principle, in itself unintelligible. We know that in ancient Greek philosophy it was regarded as the ??????, the surd and contingent principle in things, the element which resisted rational a.n.a.lysis and fell outside the scope of ”science,” or ”knowledge of the necessary and universal”. While it revealed the forms or natures of things to sense, it remained itself impervious to intellect, which grasped these natures and rendered them intelligible only by divesting them of matter, by abstracting them from matter. Reality is intelligible only in so far forth as it is immaterial, either in fact or by abstraction. The human intellect, being itself spiritual, is ”receptive of forms without matter”.

But being itself allied with matter, its proper object is none other than the natures or essences of corporeal things, abstracted, however, from the matter in which they are actually ”immersed”. The only reason, therefore, why any intelligible form or essence which, as abstract and universal, is ”one” for intellect, is nevertheless actually or potentially ”manifold” in its reality, is because it is allied with a material principle. It is the latter that accounts for the numerical multiplication, in actual reality, of any intelligible form or essence. If the latter is material it can be actualized only by indefinitely repeated, numerically or materially distinct, alliances with matter. It cannot be actualized ”_tota simul_,” or ”once for all,” as it were. It is, therefore, the material principle that not merely reveals, but also const.i.tutes, the individuation of such corporeal forms or essences. Hence, too, the individual as such cannot be adequately apprehended by intellect; for all intelligible principles of reality are formal, whereas the individuating principle is material.

On the other hand, if an intelligible essence or form be purely spiritual, wholly unrelated to any indeterminate, material principle, it must be ”one” not alone conceptually or logically but also really: it can exist only as ”one”: it is of itself individual: it can be differentiated from other spiritual essences not materially but only formally, or, in other words, not numerically but by a distinction which is at once individual and specific. Two pure spirits cannot be ”two” numerically and ”one”

specifically, two for sense and one for intellect, as two men are: if they are distinct at all they must be distinct for intellect, _i.e._ they cannot be properly conceived as two members of the same species.

In this solution of the question it is not easy to see how the material principle, which, by its alliance with quant.i.ty, individuates the form, is itself individuated so as to be the source and principle of a multiplicity of numerically distinct and incommunicable realizations of this form. Perhaps the most that can be said on this point is that we must conceive quant.i.ty, which is the fundamental property of corporeal reality, as being itself essentially divisible, and the material principle as deriving from its essential relation to quant.i.ty its function of multiplying the same specific nature numerically.

Of those who reject the Thomistic doctrine some few contend that it is the _actual existence_ of any specific nature that should be conceived as individuating the latter. No doubt the universal as such cannot exist; reality in order to exist actually must be individual. Yet it cannot be actual existence that individuates it. We must conceive it as individual before conceiving it as actually existent; and we can conceive it as individual while abstracting from its existence. We can think, for instance, of purely possible individual men, or angels, as numerically or individually distinct from one another. Moreover, what individuates the nature must be essential to the latter, but actual existence is not essential to any finite nature. Hence actual existence cannot be the principle of individuation.(149) Can it be contended that _possible_ existence is what individuates reality? No; for possible existence is nothing more than intrinsic capacity to exist actually, and this is essential to all reality: it is the criterion whereby we distinguish real being from logical being; but real being, as such, is indifferent to universality or individuality; as far as the simple concept of real being is concerned the latter may be either universal or individual; the concept abstracts equally from either condition of being.

The vast majority, therefore, of those who reject the Thomistic doctrine on individuation, support the view that what individuates any nature or substance is simply the whole reality, the total ent.i.ty, of the individual. This total ent.i.ty of the individual, though really identical with the specific nature, must be conceived as something positive, superadded to the latter, for it involves a something which is logically or mentally distinct from the latter. This something is what we conceive as a _differentia individua_, after the a.n.a.logy of the _differentia specifica_ which contracts the concept of the genus to that of the species; and by Scotists it has been termed ”_haecceitas_” or ”thisness”.

Without using the Scotist terminology, most of those scholastics who reject the Thomist doctrine on this point advocate the present view. The individuality or ”thisness” of the individual substance is regarded as having no special principle in the individual, other than the whole substantial ent.i.ty of the latter. If the nature is simple it is of itself individual; if composite, the intrinsic principles from which it results-_i.e._ matter and form essentially united-suffice to individuate it.

In this view, therefore, the material principle of any individual man, for example, is numerically and individually distinct from that of any other individual, _of itself_ and independently of its relation either to the formative principle or to quant.i.ty. The formative principle, too, is individuated _of itself_, and not by the material principle which is really distinct from it, or by its relation to this material principle.

Likewise the union of both principles, which is a substantial mode of the composite substance, is individuated and rendered numerically distinct from all other unions of these two individual principles, not by either or both these, but by itself. And finally, the individual composite substance has its individuation from these two intrinsic principles thus individually united.

It may be doubted, perhaps, whether this attempt at explaining the real, individual ”manifoldness” of what is ”one” for intellect, _i.e._ the universal, throws any real light upon the problem. No doubt, every element or factor which is grasped by intellect in its a.n.a.lysis of reality-matter, form, substance, accident, quant.i.ty, nay, even ”individuality” itself-is apprehended as abstract and universal; and if we hold the doctrine of Moderate Realism, that the intellect in apprehending the universal attains to reality, and not merely to a logical figment of its own creation, the problem of relating intelligibly the reality which is ”one” for intellect with the same reality as manifestly ”manifold” in its concrete realizations for sense, is a genuine philosophical problem. To say that what individuates any real essence or nature, what deprives it of the ”oneness” and ”universality” which it has for intellect, what makes it ”this,”

”that,” or ”the other” incommunicable individual, must be conceived to be simply the whole essential reality of that nature itself-leaves us still in ignorance as to why such a nature, which is really ”one” for intellect, can be really ”manifold” in its actualizations for sense experience. The reason why the nature which is one and universal for abstract thought, and which is undoubtedly not a logical ent.i.ty but a reality capable of actual existence, can be actualized as a manifold of distinct individuals, must be sought, we are inclined to think, in the relation of this nature to a material principle in alliance with quant.i.ty which is the source of all purely numerical, ”s.p.a.ce and time” distinctions.

33. INDIVIDUATION OF ACCIDENTS.-The role of quant.i.ty in the Thomistic theory of individuation suggests the question: How are accidents themselves individuated? We have referred already (29, _n._) to the view that they are individuated by the individual subjects or substances in which they inhere. If we distinguish again between what _reveals_ individuality and what _const.i.tutes it_, there can be no doubt that when accidents of the same kind are found in individually distinct subjects what reveals the numerical distinction between the former is the fact that they are found inhering in the latter. So, also, distinction of individual substances is the _extrinsic_, _genetic_, or _causal_ principle of the numerical distinction between similar accidents arising in these substances. But when the same kind of accident recurs successively in the same individual substance-as, for example, when a man performs repeated acts of the same kind-what reveals the numerical or individual distinction between these latter cannot be the individual substance, for it is one and the same, but rather the _time_ distinction between the accidents themselves.

The intrinsic const.i.tutive principle which formally individuates the accidents of individually distinct substances is, according to Thomists generally, their essential relation to the individual substances in which they appear. It is not clear how this theory can be applied to the fundamental accident of corporeal substances. If the function of formally individuating the corporeal substance itself is to be ascribed in any measure to _quant.i.ty_, it would seem to follow that this latter must be regarded as individuated by itself, by its own total ent.i.ty or reality.

And this is the view held by most other scholastics in regard to the individuation of accidents generally: that these, like substances, are individuated by their own total positive reality.

When there is question of the same kind of accident recurring in the same individual subject, the ”time” distinction between such successive individual accidents of the same kind would appear not merely to _reveal_ their individuality but also to indicate a different relation of each to its subject as existing at that particular point of s.p.a.ce and time: so that the relation of the accident to its individual subject, as here and now existing in the concrete, would be the individuating principle of the accident.

Whether a number of accidents of the same _species infima_, and distinct merely numerically, could exist simultaneously in the same individual subject, is a question on which scholastic philosophers are not agreed: the negative opinion, which has the authority of St. Thomas, being the more probable. Those various questions on the individuation of accidents will be better understood from a subsequent exposition of the scholastic doctrine on accidents (Ch. viii.).

It may be well to remark that in inquiring about the individuation of substances and accidents we have been considering reality from a static standpoint, seeking how we are to conceive and interpret intellectually, or for abstract thought, the relation of the universal to the individual. If, however, we ascribe to ”time”

distinctions any function in individuating accidents of the same kind in the same individual substance, we are introducing into our a.n.a.lysis the kinetic aspect of reality, or its subjection to processes of change.

We may call attention here to a few other questions of minor import discussed by scholastics. First, have all individuals of the same species the same _substantial_ perfection, or can individuals have different grades of substantial perfection within the same species? All admit the obvious fact that individual differs from individual within the same species in the number, variety, extent and intensity of their accidental properties and qualities. But, having the human soul mainly in view, they disagree as to whether the substantial perfection of the specific nature can be actualized in different grades in different individuals. According to the more common opinion there cannot be different _substantial_ grades of the same specific nature, for the simple reason that every such grade of substantial perfection should be regarded as specific, as changing the species: hence, _e.g._ all human souls are substantially equal in perfection. This view is obviously based upon the conception of specific types or essences as being, after the a.n.a.logy of numbers, immutable when considered in the abstract. And it seems to be confirmed by the consideration that the intrinsic principle of individuation is nothing, or adds nothing, _really distinct_ from the specific essence itself.

Another question in connexion with individuation has derived at least an historical interest from the notable controversy to which it gave rise in the seventeenth century between Clarke and Leibniz. The latter, in accordance with the principles of his system of philosophy,-the _Law of Sufficient Reason_ and the _Law of Continuity_ among the _monads_ or ultimate principles of being,-contended that two individual beings so absolutely alike as to be _indiscernible_ would be _eo ipso identical_, in other words, that the reality of two such beings is impossible.