Chapter III: Existence and Essence (2)

“We can know God only by analogy with contingent and finite
beings, and consequently the realities and laws of the contingent
and finite world must necessarily serve as our term of comparison.
But, among finite realities, we see an essential subordination of
the extrinsically possible to the intelligible, of this to the
intrinsically possible, and of this again to the essential type
which is presupposed by our thought. Therefore, _a pari_, we must
consider the omnipotent will of God, which is the first and
universal cause of all [contingent] existences, as under the
direction of the Divine Omniscience, and this in turn as having
for its object the Divine Essence and in it the essential types
whose intrinsic possibility is grounded on the necessary
imitability of the Divine Being.

“When, therefore, in defence of his position, Descartes argues
that ‘In God willing and knowing are one and the same; the reason
why He knows anything is because He wills it, and for this reason
only can it be true: _Ex hoc ipso quod Deus aliquid velit, ideo
cognoscit, et ideo tantum talis res est vera_’—he is only
confusing the issue. We might, indeed, retort the argument: ‘In
God willing and knowing are one and the same; the reason why He
wills anything is because He knows it, and for this reason only
can it be good: _Ex hoc ipso quod aliquid cognoscit, ideo vult, et
ideo tantum talis res est bona_,’ but both inferences are equally
unwarranted. For, though willing and knowing are certainly one and
the same _in God_, this one and the same thing is formally and for
our minds neither will nor intellect, but a reality transcending
will and intellect, a substance infinitely above any substances
known to us: ὑπερούσια, _supersubstantia_, as the Fathers of the
Church and the Doctors of the Schools call it. But of this
transcendent substance we have no intuitive knowledge. We must
therefore either abandon all attempts to find out anything about
it, or else apprehend it and designate it after the analogy of
what we know from direct experience about created life and mind.
And as in creatures will is not identical with intellect, nor
either of these with the nature of the being that possesses them;
so what we conceive in God under the concept of will, we must not
identify in thought with what we conceive in Him under the concept
of intellect, nor may we with impunity confound either in our
thought with the Nature or Essence of the Divine Being.”(109)

(_c_) Philosophers who deny the validity of all the arguments advanced by theists in proof of the existence of a transcendent Supreme Being, distinct from the world of direct human experience, endeavour to account in various ways for the intrinsic possibility of abstract essences. Agnostics either deny to these latter any reality whatsoever (16), or else declare the problem of their reality insoluble. Monists of the materialist type—who try to reduce all mind to matter and its mere mechanical energies (11)—treat the question in a still more inadequate and unsatisfactory manner; while the advocates of idealistic monism, like Hegel and his followers, refer us to the supposed Immanent Mind of the universe for an ultimate explanation of all intrinsic possibility. Certainly this must have its ultimate source in some mind; and it is not in referring us to an Eternal Mind that these philosophers err, but in their conception of the relation of this mind to the world of direct actual experience. It is not, however, with such theories we are concerned just now, but only with theories put forward by theists. And among these latter it is surprising to find some few(110) who maintain that the intrinsic possibility of abstract essences depends ultimately and exclusively on these essences themselves, irrespective of things actually experienced by the human mind, irrespective of the human mind itself, and irrespective of the Divine Mind and the Divine Nature.

As to this view, we have already seen (19) that if we abstract from all human minds, and from all actual things that can be directly experienced by such minds, we are face to face either with the alternative of absolute nothingness wherein the true and the false, the possible and the impossible, cease to have any intelligible meaning, or else with the alternative of a Supreme, Eternal, Necessary, Omniscient and Omnipotent Being, whose actual existence has been, or can be, inferred from the actual data of human experience. Now the theist, who admits the existence of such a Being, cannot fail to see that possible essences must have their primary ideal being in the Divine Intellect, and the ultimate source of their intrinsic possibility in the Divine Essence Itself. For, knowing that God can actualize intrinsically possible essences by the creative act, which is intelligent and free, he will understand that these essences have their ideal being in the Divine Intellect; that the Divine Intellect sees their intrinsic possibility by contemplating the Divine Essence as the Uncreated Prototype and Exemplar of all intrinsically possible things; and that these latter are intrinsically possible precisely because they are possible adumbrations or imitations of the Divine Nature.

(_d_) But are we to conceive that essences are intrinsically possible precisely because the Divine Intellect, by understanding them, makes them intrinsically possible? Or should we rather conceive their intrinsic possibility as antecedent to this act by which the Divine Intellect understands them, and as dependent only on the Divine Essence Itself, so that essences would be intrinsically possible simply because the Divine Essence is what it is, and because they are possible imitations or expressions of it? Here scholastics are not agreed.

Some(111) hold that the intrinsic possibility of essences is _formally_ constituted by the act whereby the Divine Intellect, contemplating the Divine Essence, understands the latter to be indefinitely imitable _ad extra_; so that as the actuality of things results from the _Fiat_ of the Divine Will, and as their extrinsic possibility is grounded in the Divine Omnipotence, so their intrinsic possibility is grounded in the Divine Intellect. The latter, by understanding the Divine Essence, would not merely give an ideal being to the intrinsic possibility of essences, but would make those essences _formally_ possible, they being only _virtually_ possible in the Divine Essence considered antecedently to this act of the Divine Intellect. Or, rather, as some Scotists explain the matter,(112) this ideal being which possible essences have from the Divine Intellect is not as extrinsic to them as the ideal being they have from the human intellect, but is rather the very first being they can be said _formally_ to have, and is somehow intrinsic to them after the analogy of the being which mere logical entities, _entia rationis_, derive from the human mind: which being is intrinsic to these entities and is in fact the only being they have or can have.

Others(113) hold that while, no doubt, possible essences have ideal being in the Divine Intellect from the fact that they are objects of the Divine Knowledge, yet we must not conceive these essences as deriving their intrinsic possibility from the Divine Intellect. For intellect as such presupposes its object. Just, therefore, as possible essences are not intrinsically possible because they are understood by, and have ideal being in, the human mind, so neither are they intrinsically possible because they are understood by, and have ideal being in, the Divine Mind. In order to be understood actually, in order to have ideal being, in order to be objects of thought, they must be intelligible; and in order to be intelligible they must be intrinsically possible. Therefore they are formally constituted as intrinsically possible essences, not by the fact that they are understood by the Divine Intellect, but by the fact that antecedently to this act (in our way of conceiving the matter: for there is _really_ no priority of acts or attributes in God) they are already possible imitations of the Divine Essence Itself.

This view seems preferable as being more in accordance with the analogy of what takes place in the human mind. The speculative intellect in man does not constitute, but presupposes its object. Now, while _actual_ things are the objects of God’s _practical science_—the “_scientia visionis_,” which reaches what is freely decreed by the Divine Will,—_possible_ things are the objects of God’s _speculative_ science—the “_scientia simplicis intelligentiae_,” which is not, like the former, productive of its object, but rather contemplative of objects presented to it by and in the Divine Essence.

Why, then, ultimately will the notions “square” and “circle” not coalesce so as to form one object of thought for the human mind, while the notions “equilateral” and “triangle” will so coalesce? Because the Essence of God, the Necessary Being, the First Reality, and the Source of all contingent reality, affords no basis for the former as a possible expression or imitation of Itself; in other words, because Being is not expressible by nothingness, and a “square circle” is nothingness: while the Divine Essence does afford a basis for the latter; because Necessary Being is in some intelligible way imitated, expressed, manifested, by whatever has any being to distinguish it from nothingness, and an “equilateral triangle” has such being and is not nothingness.

It is hardly necessary to add that when we conceive the Divine Essence, contemplated by the Divine Intellect, as containing in itself the exemplars or prototypes of all possible things, we are not to understand the Divine Essence as the _formal_ exemplar of each, or, _a fortiori_, as a vast collection of such formally distinct exemplars; but only as _virtually_ and _equivalently_ the exemplar of each and all. We are not to conceive that possible essences are seen by the Divine Intellect imaged in the Divine Essence _as in a mirror_, but rather _as in their supreme source and principle_: so that they are faint and far off reflections of It, and, when actualized, become for us the only means we have, in this present state, for reaching any knowledge of the Deity: _videmus nunc per speculum_.(114)

21. DISTINCTION BETWEEN ESSENCE AND EXISTENCE IN ACTUALLY EXISTING CONTINGENT OR CREATED BEINGS.—Passing now from the consideration of possible essences as such, to the consideration of actually existing essences, we have to examine a question which has given rise to a great deal of controversy, partly on account of its inherent difficulty, and partly because of a multitude of ambiguities arising from confusion of thought: What is the nature of the distinction between essence and existence in the actually existing things of our experience?

We have seen already that the _concepts_ of essence and existence are distinct from each other (12, 13); in other words, that in all cases there is at least a _logical_ distinction between the essence and the existence of any being. We must, however, distinguish between created or contingent beings and the Uncreated, Necessary, Self-Existent Being. The latter exists _essentially_, eternally, by His own Essence, so that in Him essence and existence are _really identical_. His essence is _formally_ His Existence; and, therefore, in thinking of His Essence we cannot positively exclude the notion of existence or think of Him as non-existent. The distinction between essence and existence, which we find in our thoughts, is, therefore, when applied to God, a _purely logical_ distinction, due solely to our finite human mode of thinking, and having no ground or basis or reason in the reality which is the object of our thought. On this there is complete unanimity among scholastic philosophers.

But while we conceive that God actually exists by that whereby He is God, by His Essence Itself, we do not conceive that any created or contingent being exists by that whereby it is what it is, by its essence. We do not, for example, regard the essence of Socrates, whether specific or individual (that whereby he is a _man_, or that whereby he is _this_ man, Socrates), as that whereby he actually exists. In other words, the essence of the existing Socrates, being a contingent essence, does not necessarily demand or imply that it actually exist. Our concept of such an essence does not include the note of actual existence. Therefore if we find such an essence actually existing we consider this actually existing essence as caused or produced, and conserved in existence, by some other being, _viz._ by the Necessary Being: so that if it were not so created and conserved it would be a pure possibility and nothing actual.(115) The same difference between the Necessary Being and contingent beings will be seen from considering their existence. The abstract concept of existence is rendered definite and determinate by the essence which it actualizes. Now every finite essence is of some particular kind; and its existence is rendered determinate by the fact that it is the existence of a definite kind of essence. The existence of a contingent being we conceive as the actuality of its essence; and its essence as a definite potentiality of existence. Thus if we conceive existence as a perfection it is restricted by the finite nature of the potentiality which it actualizes. But the existence of the Necessary Being is the plenitude of actuality, an existence not restricted by being the existence of any essence that is determinate because finite, but of an essence that is determinate by being above all genera and species, by being infinite, by being Itself pure actuality, in no sense potential but perfectly and formally identical with actual existence. While, therefore, the essence of the Necessary Being is a necessarily existing essence, that of a contingent being is not necessarily existent, but is conceived as a potentiality which has been _de facto_ actualized or made existent by the Necessary Being, and which may again cease to be actually existent.(116) On this too there is unanimity among scholastic philosophers.

We distinguish mentally or logically between the essence of an actually existing contingent being and its existence; considering the former as the potential principle, in relation to the latter as the actualizing principle, of the contingent existing reality. But is the distinction between such an essence and its existence something more than a logical distinction? Is it a real distinction? This is the question in dispute. And in order to avoid misunderstanding, we must be clear on these two points: firstly, of what essence and existence is there question? and secondly, what exactly are we to understand by a real distinction in this matter?

22. STATE OF THE QUESTION.—In the first place, there is no question here of the relation of a _possible_ essence as such to existence. The possible essence of a contingent being, as such, has no reality outside the Divine Essence, Intellect, Will, and Omnipotence. Before the world was created the possible essences of all the beings that constitute it were certainly really distinct from the actual existence of these beings which do constitute the created universe. On this point there can be no difference of opinion. To contend that it is on the eternal reality of the possible essence that actual existence supervenes, when a contingent being begins to exist, would be equivalent to contending that it is the Divine Essence that becomes actual in the phenomena of our experience: which is the error of Pantheism.

Again, before a contingent thing comes into actual existence it may be virtually and potentially in the active powers and passive potentialities of other actually existing contingent things: as the oak, for instance, is in the passive potentiality of the acorn and in the active powers of the natural agencies whereby it is evolved from the acorn; or the statue in the block of marble and in the mind and artistic power of the sculptor. But neither is there any question here of the relation of such potential being or essence as a thing has in its causes to the actual existence of this thing when actually produced. Whatever being or essence it has in its active and passive causes is certainly really distinct from the existence which the thing has when it has been actually produced. Nor is there any doubt or dispute about this point. At the same time much controversy is due to misunderstandings arising from a confusion of thought which fails to distinguish between the essence as purely possible, the essence as virtually or potentially in its causes, and the essence as actually existing. It is about the distinction between the latter and its existence that the whole question is raised. And it must be borne in mind that this essence, whether it is really distinct from its existence or not, is itself a positive reality from the moment it is created or produced. The question is whether the creative or productive act—whereby this essence is placed “outside its causes,” and is now no longer merely possible, or merely virtual or potential in its causes, but something real _in itself_—has for its term _one reality_, or _two realities_, _viz._ the essence as real subjective potentiality of existence, and the existential act or perfection whereby it is constituted actually existent.(117)

The question is exclusively concerned with the essence which began to exist when the contingent being came into actual existence, and which ceases to exist when, or if, this being again passes out of actual existence; and the question is whether this essence which actually exists is really distinct from the existence whereby it actually exists. Finally, the question concerns the essence and existence of any and every actual contingent reality, whether such reality be a substance or an accident. Of course it is primarily concerned with the essence and existence of substances; but it also applies to the essence and existence of accidents in so far as these latter will be found to be really distinct from the substances in which they inhere, and to have reality proper to themselves.

23. THE THEORY OF DISTINCTIONS IN ITS APPLICATION TO THE QUESTION.—In the next place, what are we to understand by a _real_ distinction in this matter? Ambiguity and obscurity of thought in regard to the theory of _distinctions_, and in regard to the application of the theory to the present question, has been probably the most fertile source of much tedious and fruitless controversy in this connexion.

Anticipating what will be considered more fully at a later stage (30), we must note here the two main classes of distinction which, by reflecting on our thought-processes, we discover between the objects of our thought. The _real_ distinction is that which exists in things independently of the consideration of our minds; that which is discovered, but not made, by the mind; that which is given to us in and with the data of our experience. For example, the act of thinking is a reality other than, and therefore _really_ distinct from, the mind that thinks; for the mind persists after the act of thinking has passed away.

Opposed to this is the mental or logical distinction, which is the distinction made by the mind itself between two different concepts of one and the same reality; which is not in the reality independently of our thought, but is introduced into it by our thought, regarding the same reality under different aspects or from different points of view. The mind never makes such a distinction without some ground or reason for doing so.

Sometimes, however, this reason will be found exclusively in the mind itself—in the limitations of its modes of thought—and not in the reality which is the matter or object of the thought. The distinction is then said to be _purely_ logical or mental. Such distinctions are _entia rationis_, logical entities. An example would be the distinction between the concept “man” and the concept “rational animal,” or, in general, between any definable object of thought and its definition; the distinction, therefore, between the essence and the existence of the Necessary Being is a purely logical distinction, for in a definition it is the essence of the thing we define, and existence is of the essence or definition of the Necessary Being.

Sometimes, again, the reason for making a mental distinction will be found in the reality itself. What is one and the same reality presents different aspects to the mind and evokes different concepts of itself in the mind: though really one, it is virtually manifold; and the distinction between the concepts of these various aspects is commonly known as a _virtual_ distinction. For example, when we think of any individual man as a “rational animal,” though our concept of “animal nature” is distinct from that of “rational nature,” we do not regard these in him as two realities co-existing or combining to form his human nature, but only as two distinct aspects under which we view the one reality which is his human nature. And we view it under these two aspects because we have actual experience of instances in which animal nature is really distinct and separated from rationality, _e.g._, in the brute beast. Or, again, since we can recognize three grades of life in man—vegetative, sentient, and rational—we conceive the one principle of life, his soul, as virtually three principles; and so we distinguish mentally or virtually between three souls in man, although in reality there is only one. Or, once more, when we think of the Wisdom, the Will, and the Omnipotence of God, we know that although these concepts represent different aspects of the Deity, these aspects are not distinct realities in Him; but that because of His infinite perfection and infinite simplicity they are all objectively one and the same self-identical reality.

A virtual distinction is said to be _imperfect_ (thus approaching nearer to the nature of a purely logical distinction) when each of the concepts whereby we apprehend the same reality only prescinds _explicitly_ from what is expressed by the other, although one of them is found on analysis to include _implicitly_ what is expressed by the other. Such is the distinction between the _being_ and the _life_ of any living thing; or the distinction between the spirituality and the immortality of the human soul; or the distinction between _Infinite_ Wisdom and _Infinite_ Power: the distinction between the divine attributes in general. A virtual distinction is said to be _perfect_ (thus approaching nearer to the nature of a real distinction) when neither of the concepts includes either explicitly or implicitly what is expressed by the other. Such, for instance, is the distinction between the principle of intellectual life and the principle of animal or sentient life in man; for not only can these exist separately (the former without the latter, _e.g._ in pure spirits, the latter without the former, _e.g._ in brute beasts), but also it will be found that by no analysis does either concept in any way involve the other.(118)

Our only object in setting down the various examples just given is to illustrate the general scholastic teaching on the doctrine of distinction. In themselves they are not beyond dispute, for the general doctrine of distinction is not easy of application in detail; but they will be sufficient for our present purpose. Probably the greatest difficulty in applying the general doctrine will be found to lie in discriminating between virtual distinctions—especially perfect virtual distinctions—and real distinctions.(119) And this difficulty will be appreciated still more when we learn that a real distinction does not necessarily involve _separability_ of the objects so distinguished. In other words there may be, in a composite existing individual being, constitutive factors or principles, or integral parts, each of which is a positive real entity, really distinct from the others, and yet incapable of existing separately or in isolation from the others. “Separability,” says Mercier,(120) “is one of the signs of a real distinction; but it is neither essential to, nor a necessary property of the latter. Two separable things are of course really distinct from each other; but two entities may be really distinct from each other without being separable or capable of existing apart from each other. Thus we believe that the intellect and the will in man are really distinct from each other, and both alike from the substance of the human soul; yet they cannot exist isolated from the soul.” Therefore, even though the objects which we apprehend as distinct, by means of distinct concepts, be understood to be such that they cannot actually exist in isolation from each other, but only as united in a composite individual being, still if it can be shown that each of them has its own proper reality independently of our thought, so that the distinction between them is not the result of our thought, or introduced by our thought into the individual thing or being which we are considering, then the distinction must be regarded as real. If, on the other hand, it can be shown that the different aspects which we apprehend in any _datum_ by means of distinct concepts have not, apart from the consideration of the mind, apart from the analytic activity of our own thought, each its own proper reality, but are only distinct mental views of what is objectively one and the same reality, then the distinction must be regarded as logical, not real,—and this even although there may be in the richness and fulness of that one reality comparatively to the limited capacity of our minds, as well as in the very constitution and modes of thought of our minds themselves, a reason or basis for, and an explanation of, the _multiplicity of concepts_ whereby we attain to an understanding of some _one reality_.

24. SOLUTIONS OF THE QUESTION.—Postponing further consideration of the serious problems on the validity of knowledge and its relation to reality, to which those reflections inevitably give rise, let us now return to the main question: the nature of the distinction between the essence and the existence of any actually existing contingent being. We need not be surprised to find that the greatest minds have been unable to reach the same solution of this question. For it is but a phase of the more general metaphysical problem—at once both ontological and epistemological—of the nature of reality and the relation of the human mind thereto. Nor will any serious modern philosopher who is at all mindful of the wealth of current controversial literature on this very problem, or of the endless variety of conflicting opinions among contemporary thinkers in regard to it, be disposed to ridicule the medieval controversies on the doctrine of distinction as applied to essence and existence. No doubt there has been a good deal of mere verbal, and perhaps trifling, argumentation on the matter: it lends itself to the dialectical skill of the controversialist who “takes sides,” as well as to the serious thought of the open-minded investigator. It is not, however, through drawing different conclusions from the same premisses that conflicting solutions of the question have been reached, but rather through fundamentally different attitudes in regard to the premisses themselves which different philosophers profess to find in the common data of their experience. When we have once grasped what philosophers mean by a logical or a real distinction as applied to the relation between essence and existence we shall not get any very material assistance towards the choice of a solution by considering at length the arguments adduced on either side.(121)

Those who believe there is a real distinction(122) between the essence and the existence of all actually existing contingent beings mean by this that the real essence which comes into actual existence by creation, or by the action of created causes, is a reality distinct from the existence whereby it actually exists. The actually existing essence is the total term of the creative or productive act; but what we apprehend in it under the concept of _essence_ is really distinct from what we apprehend in it under the concept of _existence_: the existence being a real principle which _actualizes_ the essence, and this latter being itself another real principle which is in itself a positive, subjective _potentiality_ of existence.(123) Neither, of course, can actually exist without the other: no actual existence except that of a real essence; no existing essence except by reason of the existence which makes it actual. But these two real principles of existing contingent being, inseparable as they are and correlative, are nevertheless distinct realities—distinct in the objective order and independently of our thought,—and form by their union a really _composite_ product: the existing thing.

We might attempt to illustrate this by the analogy of a body and
its shape or colour. The body itself is really distinct from its
actual shape and colour: it may lose them, and yet remain the same
body; and it may acquire other shapes and colours. At any time the
body has actually some particular shape and colour; but that by
which it is formally so shaped and coloured is something really
different from the body itself. Furthermore, before the body
_actually_ possessed this particular shape and colour, these were
in it _potentially_: that is to say, there were then in the body
the real, passive, subjective potentialities of this particular
shape and colour. So too _that by which_ a real (contingent)
essence actually exists (_i.e._ the existential _act_, existence)
is really distinct from _that which_ actually exists (_i.e._ the
essence, the _potentiality_ of that existential act). The analogy
is, however, at best only a halting one. For while it is
comparatively easy to understand how the passive, subjective
_potentiality_ of a shape or colour can be _something real_ in the
_already actually existing_ body, it is not so easy to understand
how the _potentiality of existence_, _i.e._ the real essence, can
be anything that is itself real and really distinct from the
existence.(124) The oak is _really_ in the acorn, for the passive,
subjective potentiality of the oak is in the actual acorn; but is
this potentiality anything really distinct from the acorn? or
should we not rather say that the _actual_ acorn _is potentially_
the oak, or _is_ the potentiality of the oak? At all events even
if it is really distinct from the actual acorn, it is in the
actual acorn. But is it possible to conceive a _real, subjective
potentiality_ which _does not reside in anything actual_?(125) Now
if the real essence is really distinct from its existence it must
be conceived as a _real, subjective potentiality_ of existence.
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 God 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 asserting 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 assistance 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 God and creatures, between the
Necessary Being and contingent beings, would be destroyed:
creatures would be no longer in their very constitution 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 passing 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.