Chapter VIII: The Categories of Being. Substance and Accident (2)

Not the least evil of Spinoza’s definition is the confusion caused by gratuitously wresting an important philosophical term like _substance_ from its traditional sense and using it with quite a different meaning; and the same is true in its measure of the other mistaken notions of substance which we have been examining. By defining substance as an _ens in se_, or _per se stans_, scholastic philosophers mean simply that substance does not depend _intrinsically_ on any _subjective_ or _material_ cause in which its actuality would be supported; they do not mean to imply that it does not depend _extrinsically_ on an efficient cause from which it has its actuality and by which it is conserved in being. They assert that all _created_ substances, no less than all accidents, have their being “_ab alio_” from God; that they exist only by the Divine creation and conservation, and act only by the Divine _concursus_ or concurrence; but while substances and accidents are both alike dependent on this extrinsic conserving and concurring influence of a Divine, Transcendent Being, substances are exempt from this other and distinct mode of dependence which characterizes accidents: intrinsic dependence on a subject in which they have their actuality.(246)

When we say that substance exists “_in_ itself,” obviously we do
not attach to the preposition “_in_” any _local_ signification, as
a part existing “in” the whole. Nor do we mean that they exist
“in” themselves in the same sense as they have their being “in”
God. In a certain true sense all creatures exist “in” God: _In
ipso enim vivimus, et movemur, et sumus_ (Acts xxii., 28), in the
sense that they are kept in being by His omnipresent conserving
power. But He does not sustain them as a subject in which they
inhere, as substance sustains the accidents which determine it,
thereby giving expression to its concrete actuality.(247) By
saying that substance exists “in itself” we mean to exclude the
notion of its existing “in another” thing, as an accident does.
And this we shall understand better by examining a little more
closely this peculiar mode of being which characterizes accidents.

65. THE NATURE OF ACCIDENT. ITS RELATION TO SUBSTANCE. ITS CAUSES.—From all that has preceded we will have gathered the general notion of _accident_ as that mode of real being which is found to have its reality, not by existing in itself, but by affecting, determining, some substance in which it inheres as in a subject. What do we mean by saying that accidents _inhere in_ substances as their _subjects_? Here we must at once lay aside as erroneous the crude conception of something as located spatially within something else, as contained in container, as _e.g._ water in a vessel; and the equally crude conception of something being in something else as a part is in the whole, as _e.g._ an arm is in the body. Such imaginations are wholly misleading.

The actually existing substance has its being or reality; it is an actual essence. Each real accident of it is likewise a reality, and has an essence, distinct from that of the substance, yet not wholly independent of the latter: it is a determination of the determinable being of the substance, affecting or modifying the latter in some way or other, and having no other _raison d’être_ than this rôle of actualizing in some specific way some receptive potentiality of the concrete substance. And since its reality is thus dependent on that of the substance which it affects, we cannot ascribe to it actual essence or being in the same sense as we ascribe this to substance, but only analogically(248) (2). Hence scholastics commonly teach that we ought to conceive an accident rather as an “entity _of an entity_,” “ens _entis_,” than as an entity simply; rather as inhering, indwelling, affecting (_in_-esse) some subject, than simply as existing itself (_esse_); as something whose essence is rather the determination, affection, modification of an essence than itself an essence proper, the term “essence” designating properly only a substance: _accidentis esse est inesse_.(249) This conception might, no doubt, if pressed too far, be inapplicable to absolute accidents, like quantity, which are something more than mere modifications of substance; but it rightly emphasizes the dependence of the reality of accident on that of substance, the non-substantial and “diminished” character of the “accident”-mode of being; it also helps to show that the “inherence” of accident in substance is a relation—of determining to determinable being—which is _sui generis_; and finally it puts us on our guard against the errors that may be, and have been, committed by conceiving accidents in the abstract and reasoning about them apart from their substances, as if they themselves were substances.

This “inherence” of accident in substance, this mode of being whereby it affects, determines or modifies the substance, differs from accident to accident; these, in fact, are classified into _suprema genera_ by reason of their different ways of affecting substance (60). To this we shall return later. Here we may inquire, about this general relation of accident to substance, whether it is _essential_ to an accident _actually to inhere in_ a substance, if not immediately, then at least through the medium of some other accident. We suggest this latter alternative because as we shall see presently there are some accidents, such as colour, taste, shape, which immediately affect the _extension_ of a body, and only through this the substance of the body itself. Now the ordinary course of nature never presents us with accidents except as inhering, mediately or immediately, in a substance. Nor is it probable that the natural light of our reason would ever suggest to us the possibility of an exception to this general law. But the Christian philosopher knows, from Divine Revelation, that in the Blessed Eucharist the _quantity_ or _extension_ of bread and wine, together with the taste, colour, form, etc., which affect this extension, _remain in existence_ after their connatural substance of bread and wine has disappeared by transubstantiation. In the supernatural order of His providence God preserves these accidents in existence without a subject; but in this state, though they do not _actually inhere_ in any substance, they _retain their natural aptitude and exigence_ for such inherence. The Christian philosopher, therefore, will not define accident as “the mode of being which inheres in a subject,” but as “the mode of being which _in the ordinary course of nature_ inheres in a subject,” or as “the mode of being which has _a natural exigence_ to inhere in a subject”. It is not _actual inherence_, but the _natural exigence to inhere_, that is essential to an accident as such.(250)

Furthermore, an accident needs a substance not formally _qua_ substance, or as a mode of being naturally existing in itself; it needs a substance _as a subject_ in which to inhere, which it will in some way affect, determine, qualify; but the subject in which it immediately inheres need not always be a substance: it may be some other accident, in which case both of course will naturally require some substance as their ultimate basis.

Comparing now the concept of accident with that of substance, we find that the latter is presupposed by the former; that the latter is prior _in thought_ to the former; that we conceive accident as something over and above, something superadded to substance as subject. For instance, we can define matter and form without the prior concept of body, or animality and rationality without the prior concept of man; but we cannot define colour without the prior concept of body, or the faculty of speech without the prior concept of man.(251)

Substance, therefore, is prior _in thought_ to accident; but is the substance itself also prior _temporally_ (prior _tempore_) to its accidents? It is prior in time to some of them, no doubt; the individual human being is thus prior, for instance, to the knowledge he may acquire during life. But there is no reason for saying that a substance must be prior _in time_ to _all_ its accidents;(252) so far as we can discover, no created substance comes into existence devoid of all accidents: corporeal substance devoid of internal quantity, or spiritual substance devoid of intellect and will.

If prior in thought, though not necessarily in time, to its accidents, is a substance prior to its accidents _really_, _ontologically_ (prior _natura_)? Yes; it is the real or ontological principle of its accidents; it sustains them, and they depend on it. It is a passive or material cause (using the term “material” in the wide sense, as applicable even to spiritual substances), or a receptive subject, determined in some way by them as formal principles. It is at the same time an efficient and passive cause of some of its own accidents: the soul is an efficient cause of its own immanent processes of thought and volition, and at the same time a passive principle of them, undergoing real change by their occurrence. Of others it is merely a receptive, determinable subject, of those, namely, which have an adequate and necessary foundation in its own essence, and which are called _properties_ in the strict sense: without these it cannot exist, though they do not constitute its essence, or enter into the concept of the latter; but it is not prior to them in time, nor is it the _efficient cause_ of them; it is, however, a real principle of them, an essence from the reality of which they necessarily result, and on which their own reality depends. Such, for instance, is the faculty of thought, or volition, or speech in regard to man.

The accident-mode of being is, therefore, a mode of being which determines a substance in some real way. Its _formal effect_ is to give the substance some real and definite determination: not _esse simpliciter_ but _esse tale_. With the substance it constitutes a concrete real being which is _unum per accidens_, not _unum per se_.

The accident has no _formal cause_: it is itself a “form” and its causality is that of a formal cause, which consists in its communicating itself to a subject, and, by its union therewith, constituting some new reality—in this case a concrete being endowed with “accidental” unity.

Accidents have of course, a _material cause_; not, however, in the sense of a _materia ex qua_, a material from which they are constituted, inasmuch as they are simple “forms”; but in the sense of a _subject_ in which they are received and in which they inhere; and this “material cause” is, proximately or remotely, _substance_.

Substance also is the _final cause_, the _raison d’être_, of the reality of the accidental mode of being. Accidents exist for the perfecting of substances: _accidentia sunt propter substantiam_. As we have seen already, and as will appear more clearly later on, the fundamental reason for the reality of an accidental mode of being, really distinct from the created or finite substance (for the Infinite Substance has no accidents), is that the created substance is imperfect, limited in its actual perfection, does not exist _tota simul_, but develops, through a process of change in time, from its first or _essential_ perfection, through _intermediate_ perfections, till it reaches the _final_ perfection (46) of its being.

Have all accidents _efficient causes_? Those which are called common accidents as distinct from _proper_ accidents or _properties_ (66) have undoubtedly efficient causes: the various agencies which produce real but accidental changes in the individual substances of the universe. _Proper_ accidents, however, inasmuch as they of necessity exist simultaneously with the substances to which they belong, and flow from these substances by a necessity of the very essence of these latter, cannot be said to have any efficient causes other than those which contribute by their efficiency to the _substantial changes_ by which these substances are brought into actual existence; nor can they be said to be _caused efficiently_ by these substances themselves, but only to “flow” or “result” necessarily from the latter, inasmuch as they come into existence simultaneously with, but dependently on, these substances. Hence, while substances are universally regarded as _real principles_ of their properties—as, for instance, the soul in regard to intellect and will, or corporeal substance in regard to quantity—they are not really efficient causes of their properties, _i.e._ they do not _produce_ these properties by _action_. For these properties are antecedent to all _action_ of the substance; nor can a created substance _act_ by its _essence_, but only through active powers, or faculties, or forces, which meditate between the essence of a created substance and its actions, and which are the proximate principles of these actions, while the substance or nature is their remote principle. Hence the “properties” which necessarily result from a substance or nature, have as their efficient causes the agencies productive of the substance itself.(253)

66. MAIN DIVISIONS OF ACCIDENTS.—These considerations will help us to understand the significance of a few important divisions of accidents: into proper and common, inseparable and separable. We shall then be in a position to examine the nature of the distinction between accidents and substance, and to establish the existence of accidents really distinct from substance.

(_a_) The attributes which we affirm of substance, other than the notes constitutive of its essence, are divided into _proper_ accidents, or _properties_ in the strict sense (ἴδιον, _proprium_), and _common_ accidents, or accidents in the more ordinary sense (συμβεβηκός, _ac-cidens_). A property is an accident which belongs exclusively to a certain class or kind of substance, and is found _always_ in _all_ members of that class, inasmuch as it has an adequate foundation in the nature of that substance and a necessary connexion therewith. Such, for instance, are the faculties of intellect and will in all spiritual beings; the faculties of speaking, laughing, weeping in man; the temporal and spatial mode of being which characterizes all created substances.(254) When regarded from the logical point of view, as attributes predicable of their substances considered as logical subjects, they are distinguished on the one hand from what constitutes the essence of this subject (as _genus_, _differentia_, _species_), but also on the other hand from those attributes which cannot be seen to have any absolutely necessary connexion with this subject. The latter attributes alone are called _logical accidents_, the test being the absence of a necessary connexion in thought with the logical subject.(255) But the former class, which are distinguished from “logical” accidents and called _logical properties_ (“_propria_”) are none the less _real accidents_ when considered from the ontological standpoint; for they do not constitute the essence of the substance; they are outside the concept of the latter, and super-added—though necessarily—to it. Whether, however, all or any of these “properties,” which philosophers thus classify as real or ontological accidents, “proper” accidents, of certain substances, are _really_ distinct from the concrete, individual substances to which they belong, or are only aspects of the latter, “substantial modes,” only _virtually_ distinct in each case from the individual substance itself,—is another and more difficult question (69). Such a property is certainly not really separable from its substance; we cannot conceive either to exist really without the other; though we can by abstraction think, and reason, and speak, about either apart from the other.(256) Real inseparability is, however, regarded by scholastic philosophers as quite compatible with what they understand by a real distinction (38).

A _common_ accident is one which has no such absolutely necessary connexion with its substance as a “property” has; one which, therefore, can be conceived as absent from the substance without thereby entailing the destruction of the latter’s essence, or of anything bound up by a necessity of thought with this essence. And such common accidents are of two kinds.

They may be such that in the ordinary course of nature, and so far as its forces and laws are concerned, they are never found to be absent from their connatural substances—_inseparable_ accidents. Thus the colour of the Ethiopian is an inseparable accident of his human nature as an Ethiopian; he is naturally black; but if born of Ethiopian parents he would still be an Ethiopian even if he happened to grow up white instead of black. We could not, however, conceive an Ethiopian, or any other human being, existing without the faculties (not the use) of intellect and will, or the faculty (not the organs, or the actual exercise of the faculty) of human speech.

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 class 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 entity or reality proper to itself whereby it thus affects the substance, an entity 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; quantity, the fundamental accident whereby corporeal substances are all capable of existing extended in space; 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 quantity 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 quantity; just as a man who acquires knowledge, or virtue, is not only really modified, but is modified by real entities 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 _space_ or in _time_ relatively to others in the space 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 quantity 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 classifications 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 analogical ways in the different ultimate classes 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 establishing 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 abolishing 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 entities 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 entity, affected with these various accidental entities which are really distinct from the substantial entity itself and from one another. Nay, in most of the instances just cited, they are physically separable from the substantial entity 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 classes 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 class; 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 analysis 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 classes 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 space, but also between different constitutive 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 entities, 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
entity of a real, existing accident is a “diminished” entity,
inasmuch as it is dependent in a sense in which a really existing
substance is not dependent. They simply deny the Thomist assertion
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 assertion. 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
constitutive 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 entity 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 constitutive 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 entity 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 space, 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 quantity 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 quantity of a corporeal substance, or the intellectual and appetitive 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).

Kleutgen(270) interprets the formal distinction advocated by Scotus in the present context as really equivalent to the virtual distinction. St. Bonaventure, after referring to the latter distinction, and to the real distinction propounded by St. Thomas, adopts himself an intermediate view: that the faculties of the soul are indeed really distinct from one another, but nevertheless are not really distinct, as accidental entities, from the substance of the soul itself. We see how this can be by considering that the material and formal principles which constitute a corporeal substance, though really distinct from each other, are not really distinct from the substance itself. They are not accidents of the latter but _constitute_ its essence, and so are to be referred _reductivé_ to the category of substance. So, by analogy, the faculties of the soul, though really distinct from each other, do not belong to any accidental category really distinct from the substance of the soul, but belong _reductivé_ to the latter category, not indeed as constituting, but as flowing immediately and necessarily from, the substance of the soul itself.(271) And, like St. Thomas, he finds the ultimate source and explanation of this multiplicity of faculties and forces _in the finiteness_ of the created substance as such.(272) But St. Thomas went farther than St. Bonaventure, for he taught—as indeed Thomists generally teach, and many who are not Thomists—that the faculties of the human soul are really distinct from one another, not merely as proximate principles of really distinct vital acts, but as accidental entities or essences; and that as such they are really distinct from the essence or substance itself of the human soul. The arguments in favour of this view will be given in their proper place in connexion with the category of _Quality_. If they are not demonstrative in their force, they are certainly such that the view for which they make is very highly probable; but we are concerned here to show, in this concluding section, that the recognition of a real distinction in general between substance and its accidents does not in any way compromise the real unity of the concrete individual being. It has been widely accused of doing so by philosophers who try to discredit this view without fully understanding it. This characteristically modern attitude is illustrated by the persistent attempts that have been made in recent times to throw ridicule on what they describe as the “faculty psychology”.(273)

The source of this groundless charge lies partly in the mistaken conception of accident and substance as concrete entities superadded the one to the other; partly in the mistaken notion that the union of substance and accidents cannot result in a real unity, that there cannot be more or less perfect grades of real unity (27); and partly in the false assumption that real distinction always implies mutual separability of concrete entities. Of these errors we need only refer to that concerning unity.

Modern philosophers not uncommonly conceive the union of substance and accidents as being necessarily a mere _mechanical_ union or aggregation, and oppose it to “organic” unity which they regard as a real unity involving the richness of an energetic, “living” multiplicity. This involves a misrepresentation of the traditional scholastic view. The union of substance and accident is not a mechanical union. Nothing could be farther from the minds of the scholastic interpreters of Aristotle than the conception of the ultimate principles of the universe of our experience as inert entities moved according to purely mechanical laws; or of the individual concrete being as a mere machine, or a mere aggregate of mechanical elements. They recognized even in the individual inorganic substance an internal, unifying, active and directive principle of all the energies and activities of the thing—its substantial form. And if this is all those philosophers mean by the metaphorical transference of the terms “organic unity,” “internal living principle of development,” etc., to the mineral world, they are so far in accord with the traditional scholastic philosophy;(274) while if they mean that all substances are principles of “vital” energy, or that all reality is one organic unity, in the literal sense of these terms, they are committing themselves either to the palpably false theory of pan-psychism, or to the gratuitous reassertion of a very old and very crude form of monism.

By “organic” unity we understand the unity of any living organism, a unity which is much more perfect than that of the parts of a machine, or than any natural juxtaposition of material parts in an inorganic whole; for the organs, though distinct in number and in nature from one another, are united by an internal principle to form one living individual, so that if any organ were separated from the living organism it would cease to be an organ.(275) But organic unity is not by any means the most perfect kind of unity conceivable.(276) The living organism exists and develops and attains to the perfection of its being only through a multiplicity of integral parts extended in space. The spiritual substance is subject to no such dispersion of its being. From its union with the faculties whereby it attains to its natural development, there results a real unity of a higher order than that of any organism.

And nevertheless, even though the unity of the concrete spiritual substance and its faculties be so far higher than a mechanical or even an organic unity, it is not perfect. Even though the faculties of the soul be determinations of its substance, even though they flow from it as actualities demanded by its essence for the normal and natural development of its being, still it is a complete subsisting essence of its kind without them; it possesses its _essential_ perfection without them, so that however intimate be their union with it they can never form one essence with it; it needs them only for the fuller development of its being by acquiring further _intermediate_ perfections and thus attaining to its _final_ perfection (46).

And here we touch on the most fundamental ground of the distinction, in all created things, between their substance and their accidental perfections. Unlike the Necessary, Absolute Being, whose infinite perfection is the eternal actuality of His essence, no creature possesses the actuality of its being _tota simul_, but only by a progressive development whereby it gradually acquires really new intermediate and final perfections, really distinct from, though naturally due to, its essence. Hence, even though some of its accidents—properties such as the powers and faculties we have been discussing—be not really distinct from the essence wherewith they are necessarily connected, this is not true of its acquired habits and dispositions, or of the activities which proceed from these latter as their proximate principles. At the same time the concrete being is, at every moment of its existence and development, a real unity, but a unity which, involving in itself as it does a real multiplicity of distinct principles, must ever fall infinitely short of the perfect type of real unity—that realized only in the Self-Existent, Necessary Being.