Ontology, or the Theory of Being

by P. Coffey

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 [pg 241] 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 [pg 242] 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 [pg 243] 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 [pg 244] 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 [pg 245] 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.