Part 13 (1/2)

Or common accidents may be such that they are sometimes present in their substances, and sometimes absent-_separable_ accidents. These are by far the most numerous cla.s.s of accidents: thinking, willing, talking, and actions generally; health or illness; virtues, vices, acquired habits; rest or motion, temperature, colour, form, location, etc.

(_b_) The next important division of accidents is that into mere _extrinsic denominations_ and intrinsic accidents; the latter being subdivided into _modal_ and _absolute_ accidents, respectively.

An _absolute_ accident is one which not merely affects its substance intrinsically, giving the latter an actual determination or mode of being, of some sort or other, but which has moreover some ent.i.ty or reality proper to itself whereby it thus affects the substance, an ent.i.ty really distinct from the essence of the substance thus determined by it. Such, for instance, are all vital activities of living things;(257) knowledge, and other acquired habits; quant.i.ty, the fundamental accident whereby corporeal substances are all capable of existing extended in s.p.a.ce; and such sensible qualities and energies of matter as heat, colour, mechanical force, electrical energy, etc. Such, too, according to many, are intellect, will, and sense faculties in man.

There are, however, other intrinsic determinations of substance, other modifications of the latter, which do not seem to involve any new or additional reality in the substance, over and above the modification itself. Such, for instance, are motion, rest, external form or figure, in bodies. These are called _modal_ accidents. They often affect not the substance itself immediately, but some absolute accident of the latter, and are hence called ”accidental modes”. Those enumerated are obviously modes of the quant.i.ty of bodies. Now the appearance or disappearance of such an accident in a substance undoubtedly involves a real change in the latter, and not merely in our thought; when a body moves, or comes to rest, or alters its form, there is a change in the reality as well as in our thought; and in this sense these accidents are real and intrinsic to their substances. Yet, though we cannot say that motion, rest, shape, etc., are really identical with the body and only mentally distinct aspects of it, at the same time neither can we say that by their appearance or disappearance the body gains or loses any reality other than an accidental determination of itself; whereas it does gain something more than this when it is heated, or electrified, or increased in quant.i.ty; just as a man who acquires knowledge, or virtue, is not only really modified, but is modified by real ent.i.ties which he has acquired, not having actually possessed them before.

Finally, there are accidents which do not affect the substance intrinsically at all, which do not determine any real change in it, but merely give it an extrinsic denomination in relation to something outside it (60). Thus, while the _quality_ of heat is an absolute accident in a body, the _action_ whereby the latter heats neighbouring bodies is no new reality in the body itself, and produces no real change in the latter, but only gives it the extrinsic denomination of _heating_ in reference to these other bodies in which the effect really takes place. Similarly the _location_ of any corporeal substance in _s.p.a.ce_ or in _time_ relatively to others in the s.p.a.ce or time series-its _external_ place (_ubi_) or time (_quando_), as they are called-or the relative position of its parts (_situs_) in the place occupied by it: these do not intrinsically determine it or confer upon it any intrinsic modification of its substance. Not, indeed, that they are mere _entia rationis_, mere logical fictions of our thought. They are realities, but not realities which affect the substances denominated from them; they are accidental modes of other substances, or of the absolute accidents of other substances.

Finally, the accident which we call a ”_real_ relation” presupposes in its subject some absolute accident such as quant.i.ty or quality, or some real and intrinsic change determining these, or affecting the substance itself; but whether relation is itself a reality over and above such foundation, is a disputed question.

From these cla.s.sifications of accidents it will be at once apparent that the general notion of accident, as a dependent mode of being, superadded to the essence of a substance and in some way determining the latter, is realized in widely different and merely a.n.a.logical ways in the different ultimate cla.s.ses of accidents.

67. REAL EXISTENCE OF ACCIDENTS. NATURE OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN ACCIDENTS AND SUBSTANCE.-It would be superfluous to prove the general proposition that accidents really exist. In establis.h.i.+ng the real existence of substances we have seen that the real existence of some accidents at least has never been seriously denied. These are often called nowadays _phenomena_; and philosophers who have denied or doubted the real existence of substances have been called ”phenomenists” simply because they have admitted the real existence only of these phenomena; though, if they were as logical as Hume they might have seen with him that such denial, so far from abolis.h.i.+ng substance, could only lead to the substantializing of accidents (63).

But while undoubtedly there are realities which ”exist in themselves,”

such as individual men, animals and plants, there is no reason for attributing this same mode of existence to ent.i.ties such as the thoughts, volitions, emotions, virtues or vices, of the individual man; or the instinct, hunger, or illness of the dog; or the colour, perfume, or form of the rose. The concrete individual man, or dog, or rose, reveals itself to our minds as a substantial ent.i.ty, affected with these various accidental ent.i.ties which are really distinct from the substantial ent.i.ty itself and from one another. Nay, in most of the instances just cited, they are physically separable from the substantial ent.i.ty in which they inhere; not of course in the sense that they could actually exist without it, but in the sense that it can and does continue to exist actually without them (38); for it continues to exist while they come and go, appear and disappear.(258) Of course the _concrete individual_ man, or dog, or rose, does not continue to _exist actually unchanged_, and _totally_ identical with itself throughout the change of accidents (64), for the accidents are part of the concrete individual reality; nay, even the substance itself of the concrete individual does not remain totally unaffected by the change of the accidents; because if they _really_ affect it, as they do, their change cannot leave it totally unaffected; substance is not at all a changeless, concrete core, surrounded by an ever-changing rind or vesture of accidents; or a dark, hidden, immutable and inscrutable background of a panorama of phenomena (64). But though it is beyond all doubt really affected by the change of its accidents, it is also beyond all doubt independent of them in regard to the essential mode of its being, in as much as it exists and continues to exist in itself throughout all fluctuation of its accidents; while these on the other hand have only that essentially dependent mode of being whereby they are actual only by affecting and determining some subject in which they inhere and which supports their actuality.

The existence, therefore, of some accidents, which are not only really distinct but even physically separable from their substances, cannot reasonably be called into question. To deny the existence of such accidents, or, what comes to the same thing, their real distinction from substance, is to take up some one of these three equally untenable positions: that all the changes which take place within and around us are substantial changes; or, that there is no such thing as real change, all change being a mental illusion; or, that contradictory states can be affirmed of the same reality.(259)

But the nature of the real distinction between accidents and substance is not in all cases so easy to determine. Nor can we discuss the question here in reference to each _summum genus_ of accident separately. Deferring to the chapter on _Relation_ the question of the distinction of this particular accident from substance and the other categories, we may confine our attention here to the distinction between substance and the three cla.s.ses of accidents we have called _extrinsic denominations_, _modal_ accidents, and _absolute_ accidents respectively. ”There are accidents,” writes Kleutgen,(260) ”which place nothing and change nothing in the subject itself, but are ascribed to it by reason of some extrinsic thing; others, again, produce indeed in the subject itself some new mode of being, but without their existing in it as a new reality, distinct from its reality; others, finally, are themselves a new reality, and have thus a being which is proper to themselves, though this being is of course dependent on the substance. These latter alone can be _really_ distinct from the substance, in the full sense in which a real distinction is that between thing and thing. Now Cartesian philosophers have denied that there are any such accidents as those of the latter cla.s.s; rejecting the division of accidents into absolute and modal, they teach that all accidents are mere _modifications_ or determinations of substance, that they consist solely of various locations and combinations of the ultimate parts of a substance, or relations of the latter to other substances.”

Now all _extrinsic denominations_ of a substance do seem on a.n.a.lysis ultimately to resolve themselves partly into relations of the latter to other substances, and partly into modal or absolute accidents of other substances. Hence we may confine our attention here to the distinction between these two cla.s.ses of accident and their connatural substances.

And, approaching this question, it will be well for us to bear two things in mind. In the first place, our definitions both of substance and of accident are abstract and generic or universal.

But the abstract and universal does not exist _as such_. The concrete, individual, actually existing substance is never _merely_ ”a being that naturally exists in itself,” nor is the accident of such a substance _merely_ a verification of its definition as ”a being that naturally inheres in something else”.

In every case what really and actually exists is _the individual_, a being concreted of substance and accidents, a being which is ever and always a _real unity_, composite no doubt, but really one; and this no matter what sort of distinction we hold to obtain between the substance and its accidents. This is important; its significance will be better appreciated according as we examine the distinctions in question. Secondly, as scholastics understand a real distinction, this can obtain not merely between different ”persons” or ”things” which are separate from one another in time or s.p.a.ce, but also between different const.i.tutive principles of any one single concrete, composite, individual being (38). We have seen that they are not agreed as to whether the essence and the existence of any actual creature are really distinct or not (24).

And it may help us to clear up our notion of ”accident” if we advert here to their discussion of the question whether or not an accident ought to be regarded as having an existence of its own, an existence proper to itself.

Those who think that the distinction between essence and existence in created things is a real distinction, hold that accidents as such have no existence of their own, that they are actualized by the existence of the substance, or rather of the concrete, composite individual; that since the latter is a real unity-not a mere artificial aggregation of ent.i.ties, but a being naturally one-it can have only one existence: _Impossibile est quod unius rei non sit unum esse_;(261) that by this one existence the concrete, composite essence of the substance, as affected and determined by its accidents, is actualized. They contend that if each of the principles, whether substantial or accidental, of a concrete individual being had its own existence, their union, no matter how intimate, could not form a natural unitary being, an individual, but only an aggregate of such beings. It is neither the matter, nor the form, nor the corporeal substance apart from its accidents, that exists: it is the substance completely determined by all its accidents and modes that is the proper subject of existence.(262) It alone is actualized, and that by _one_ existence, which is the ”ultimate actuality” of the concrete, composite, individual essence: _esse est ultimus actus_.

Hence it is too, they urge, that an accident should be conceived not properly as ”a being,” but only as that whereby a being is such or such: Accidens non est ens, sed _ens entis_. But it cannot be so conceived if we attribute to it an existence of its own; for then it would be ”a being” in the full and proper sense of the word.

This is the view of St. Thomas, and of Thomists generally. The arguments in support of it are serious, but not convincing. And the same may be said of the reasons adduced for the opposite view: that existence not being really distinct from essence, accidents in so far as they can be said to have an essence of their own have likewise an existence of their own.

Supporters of this view not only admit but maintain that the ent.i.ty of a real, existing accident is a ”diminished” ent.i.ty, inasmuch as it is dependent in a sense in which a really existing substance is not dependent. They simply deny the Thomist a.s.sertion that substantial and accidental principles cannot combine to form a real and natural unit, an individual being, if each be accorded an existence appropriate and proportionate to its partial essence; nor indeed can Thomists _prove_ this a.s.sertion. Moreover, if existence be not _really_ distinct from essence, there is no more inconvenience in the claim that partial existences can combine to form one complete existence, _unum esse_, than in the Thomist claim that partial essences, such as substantial and accidental const.i.tutive principles, can combine to form one complete essence, one individual subject of existence. Then, furthermore, it is urged that the substance exists prior _in time_ to some of its accidents; that it is prior _in nature_ to its properties, which are understood to _proceed_ or _flow_ from it; and that therefore its existence cannot be theirs, any more than its essence can be theirs. Finally, it is pointed out that since existence is the actuality of essence, the existence which actualizes a substance cannot be identical with that which actualizes an accident. At all events, whether the one existence of the concrete individual substance as determined by its accidents be as it were a simple and indivisible existential act, which actualizes the composite individual subject, as Thomists hold, or whether it be a composite existential act, really identical with the composite individual subject, as in the other view,(263) this concrete existence of the individual is constantly varying with the variation of the accidents of the individual. This is equally true on either view.

Inquiring into the distinction between substance and its intrinsic accidents, whether modal or absolute, we have first to remark that all accidents cannot possibly be reduced to relations; for if relation itself is something _extrinsic_ to the things related, it must at least presuppose a real and _intrinsic_ foundation or basis for itself in the things related. Local motion, for instance, is a change in the spatial relations of a body to other bodies. But it cannot be _merely_ this. For if spatial relations are not mere subjective or mental fabrications, if they are in any intelligible sense _real_, then a change in them must involve a change of _something intrinsic_ to the bodies concerned. Now Descartes, in denying the existence of _absolute_ accidents, in reducing all accidents to _modes_ of substances, understood by modes not any _intrinsic_ determinations of substance, but only extrinsic determinations of the latter. All accidents of _material_ substance were for him mere locations, arrangements, dispositions of its extended parts: extension being its essence. Similarly, all accidents of spiritual substance were for him mere modalities and mutual relations of its ”thought” or ”consciousness”: this latter being for him the essence of spirit. We have here not only the error of identifying or confounding accidents such as thought and extension with their connatural substances, spirit and matter, but also the error of supposing that extrinsic relations and modes of a substance, and changes in these, can be real, without there being in the substances themselves any intrinsic, real, changeable accidents, which would account for the extrinsic relations and their changes. If there are no intrinsic accidents, really affecting and determining substances, and yet really distinct from the latter, then we must admit either that all change is an illusion or else that all change is substantial; and this is the dilemma that really confronts the Cartesian philosophy.

68. MODAL ACCIDENTS AND THE MODAL DISTINCTION.-The real distinction which we claim to exist between a substance and its intrinsic accidents is not the same in all cases: in regard to some accidents, which we have called intrinsic modes of the substance, it is a _minor_ or _modal_ real distinction; in regard to others which we have called absolute accidents, it is a _major_ real distinction (38). Let us first consider the former.

The term _mode_ has a variety of meanings, some very wide, some restricted. When one concept determines or limits another in any way we may call it a mode of the latter. If there is no real distinction between the determining and the determined thought-object, the mode is called a _metaphysical_ mode: as rationality is of animality in man. Again, created things are all ”modes” of being; and the various aspects of a creature may be called ”modes” of the latter: as ”finiteness” is a mode of every created being. We do not use the term in those wide senses in the present context. Here we understand by a mode some positive reality which so affects another and distinct reality as to determine the latter proximately to some definite way of existing or acting, to which the latter is itself indifferent; without, however, adding to the latter any new and proper ent.i.ty other than the said determination.(264) Such modes are called _physical_ modes. And some philosophers maintain that there are not only _accidental_ modes, thus really distinct from the substance, but that there are even some _substantial_ modes really distinct from the essence of the substance which they affect: for instance, that the really distinct const.i.tutive principles of any individual corporeal substance, matter and form, are actually united only in virtue of a substantial mode whereby each is ordained for union with the other; or that _subsistence_, whereby the individual substance is made a subsistent and incommunicable ”person” or ”thing,” is a substantial mode of the individual nature.(265) With these latter we are not concerned here, but only with accidental modes, such as external shape or figure, local motion, position, action,(266) etc. Now when a substance is affected by such accidents as these it is impossible on the one hand to maintain that they add any new positive ent.i.ty of their own to it; they do not seem to have any reality over and above the determination or modification in which their very presence in the substance consists. And on the other hand it cannot be denied that they express some real predicate which can be affirmed of the substance in virtue of their presence in it, and that independently of our thought; in other words it cannot be maintained that they are mere figments or forms of thought, mere _entia rationis_. If a piece of wax has a certain definite shape, this shape is inseparable from the wax: it is nothing except in the wax, for it cannot exist apart from the wax; but in the wax it is something in some real sense distinct from the wax, inasmuch as the wax would persist even if it disappeared. No doubt it is essential to the wax, as extended in s.p.a.ce, to have some shape or other; but it is indifferent to any particular shape, and hence something distinct from it is required to remove this indifference. This something is the particular shape it actually possesses. The shape, therefore, is an accidental mode of the extension of the wax, a mode which is really distinct, by a minor real distinction, from this extension which is its immediate subject.(267) Hence we conclude that there are accidental modes, or modal accidents, really distinct from the subjects in which they inhere.

69. DISTINCTION BETWEEN SUBSTANCE AND ITS ”PROPER” ACCIDENTS. UNITY OF THE CONCRETE BEING.-Turning next to the distinction between absolute accidents and substance, we have seen already that separable absolute accidents such as acquired habits of mind and certain sensible qualities and energies of bodies are really distinct from their subjects. Absolute accidents which are _naturally inseparable_ from their subjects-such as external quant.i.ty or spatial extension or volume is in regard to the corporeal substance-are also really distinct from their subjects; though we cannot know by reason alone whether or how far such accidents are _absolutely separable_ from these subjects: from Christian Revelation we know that extension at least is separable from the substance of a body, and with extension all the other corporeal accidents which inhere immediately in extension.(268)

But a special difficulty arises in regard to the nature of the distinction between a substance and its _proper_ accidents,(269) _i.e._ those which have such an adequate and necessary ground in the essence of the substance that the latter cannot exist without them: accidents which are simultaneous with the substance and proceed necessarily from it, such as the internal quant.i.ty of a corporeal substance, or the intellectual and appet.i.tive powers or faculties of a spiritual substance. The medieval scholastic philosophers were by no means unanimous as to the nature of this distinction. Their discussion of the question centres mainly around the distinction between the spiritual human soul and its spiritual faculties, intellect and will, and between these faculties themselves. It is instructive-as throwing additional light on what they understood by a real distinction-to find that while Thomists generally have held that the distinction here in question is a real distinction, many other scholastics have held that it is only a virtual distinction, while Scotists have generally taught that it is a formal distinction (35-39).