Ontology, or the Theory of Being

by P. Coffey

Not all modern scholastics, however, are willing thus to identify nature with substance. We have no intuitive insight into what any real essence or substance is; our knowledge of it is discursive, derived by inference from the phenomena, the operations, the conduct of things, in accordance with the principle, Operari sequitur esse. Moreover, the actually existing, concrete individual—a man, for instance—has a great variety of activities, spiritual, sentient, vegetative, and inorganic; he has, moreover, in the constitution of his body a variety of distinct organs and members; he assimilates into his body a variety of inorganic substances; the tissues of his body appear to be different in kind; the vital functions which subserve nutrition, growth and reproduction are at least analogous to mechanical, physical and chemical changes, if indeed they are not really and simply such; it may be, therefore, that the ultimate material constituents of his body remain substantially unaltered in their passage into, and through, and out of the cycle of his vegetative life; that they retain their elemental substantial forms while they assume a new nature by becoming parts of the one organic whole, whose higher directive principle dominates and co-ordinates all their various [pg 259] energies.[283] If this be so there is in the same individual a multiplicity of really and actually distinct substances; each of these, moreover, has its own existence proportionate to its essence, since the existence of a created reality is not really distinct from its essence; nor is there any reason for saying that any of these substances is incomplete; what we have a right to say is that no one of them separately is a complete nature, that each being an incomplete nature unites with all the others to form one complete nature: inasmuch as no one of them separately is an adequate intrinsic principle of all the functions which it can discharge, and is naturally destined to discharge, by its natural union with the others, whereas there results from their union a new fundamental principle of a co-ordinated and harmonized system of operations—in a word, a new nature.

This line of thought implies among other things (a) the view that whereas there is no ground for admitting the existence of incomplete substances, there is ground for distinguishing between complete and incomplete natures; (b) the view that from the union or conjunction of an actual multiplicity of substances, each remaining unaltered and persisting in its existence actually distinct from the others, there can arise one single complete nature—a nature which will be one being simply and really, unum ens per se et simpliciter, and not merely an aggregate of beings or an accidental unity, unum per accidens,—and there does arise such a nature whenever the component substances not merely co-operate to discharge certain functions which none of them could discharge separately (which indeed is true of an accidental union, as of two horses drawing a load which neither could draw by itself), but when they unite in a more permanent and intimate way according to what we call “natural laws” or “laws of nature,” so as to form a new fundamental principle of such functions.[284] These views undoubtedly owe their origin to the belief that certain facts brought to light by the physical and biological sciences in modern times afford strong evidence that the elementary material constituents of bodies, whether inorganic or living, remain substantially unaltered while combining to form the multitudinous natural kinds or natures of those living or non-living material things. It was to reconcile this supposed plurality of actually distinct and diverse substances in the individual with the indubitable real unity of the latter, that these philosophers distinguished between substance and nature. But it is not clear that the facts alleged afford any such evidence. Of course if the philosopher approaches the consideration of it with what we may call the atomic preconception of material substances as permanent, unchangeable entities, this view will preclude all recognition of substantial change in the universe; it will therefore force him to conclude that each individual, composite agent has a unity which must be less than substantial, and which, because he feels it to be more than a mere accidental or artificial unity, he will describe as natural, as a union to form one nature. But if he approach the evidence in question with the view that substantial change is possible, this view, involving the recognition of incomplete substances as real, will remove all necessity for distinguishing between [pg 260] substance and nature, and will enable him to conclude that however various and manifold be the activities of the individual, their co-ordination and unification, as proceeding from the individual, point to a substantial unity in the latter as their fundamental principle, a unity resulting from the union of incomplete substances.

This latter is undoubtedly the view of St. Thomas, of practically all the medieval scholastics, and of most scholastics in modern times. Nor do we see any sufficient reason for receding from it, or admitting the modern distinction between substance and nature. And if it be objected that the view which admits the reality of incomplete substances and substantial change is as much a preconception as what we have called the atomic view of substance, our answer is, once more, that since we have no intellectual intuition into the real constitution of the substances which constitute the universe, since we can argue to this only by observing and reasoning from their activities on the principle Operari requitur esse, the evidence alone must decide which view of these substances is the correct one. Does the evidence afforded us by a scientific analysis of all the functions, inorganic, vegetative, sentient and rational, of an individual man, forbid us to conclude that he is one complete substance, resulting from the union of two incomplete substantial principles, a spiritual soul and a material principle? and at the same time compel us to infer that he is one complete nature resulting from the union of a plurality of principles supposed to be complete as substances and incomplete as natures? We believe that it does not; nor can we see that any really useful purpose is served by thus setting up a real distinction between substance and nature. From the evidence to hand it is neither more nor less difficult to infer unity of substance than unity of nature in the individual. The inference in question is an inference from facts in the phenomenal order, in the domain of the senses, to what must be actually there in the noumenal order, in the domain of nature or substance, a domain which cannot be reached by the senses but only by intellect. Nor will any imagination images which picture for us the physical fusion or coalescence of material things in the domain of the senses help us in the least to conceive in any positive way the mode in which incomplete natures or substances unite to form a complete nature or substance. For these latter facts belong to the domain which the senses cannot reach at all, and which intellect can reach only inferentially and not by direct insight.

Hence we consider the view which regards real unity of nature as compatible with real and actual plurality of complete substances in the individual, as improbable. At the same time we do not believe that this view is a necessary corollary from the real identification of essence with existence in created things. We have seen that even if accidents have their own existence in so far as they have their own essence—as they have if essence and existence be really identical—nevertheless the concrete substance as determined by its accidents can have a really unitary existence, unum esse corresponding to and identical with its composite constitution ([67]). Similarly, if the existence of each incomplete substance is identical with its incomplete essence, this is no obstacle to the complete substance—which results from the union of two such incomplete substantial principles—having one complete unitary existence identical with its composite essence. Hence it is useless to argue against the view that [pg 261] a plurality of actually distinct and complete substances can unite to form a complete nature which will be really one being, on the ground that each complete substance has already its own existence and that things which have and preserve their own existence cannot form one being. Such an argument is inconclusive; for although one being has of course only one existence, it has not been proved that this one existence cannot result from the union of many incomplete existences: especially if these existences be identical with the incomplete essences which are admittedly capable of uniting to form one complete essence.

It may, however, be reasonably urged against the opinion under criticism that, since the complete substances are supposed to remain complete and unchanged in their state of combination, it is difficult to see how this combination can be a real union and not merely an extrinsic juxtaposition,—one which remains in reality a merely accidental conjunction, even though we may dignify it with the title of a “natural union”.

And finally it may be pointed out that in this view the operations of the individual have not really one ultimate intrinsic principle at all, since behind the supposed unity of nature there is a more fundamental plurality of actually distinct substances.

72. Subsistence and Personality.—We have already examined the relation between the individual and the universal, between first and second substances, in connexion with the doctrine of Individuation ([31-3]). And we then saw that whatever it be that individuates the universal nature, it is at all events not to be regarded as anything extrinsic and superadded to this nature in the individual, as anything really distinct from this nature: that, for instance, what makes Plato's human nature to be Plato's is not anything really distinct from the human nature that is in Plato. We have now to fix our attention on the nature as individualized. We have to consider the complete individual nature or substance itself in actually existing individual “things” or “persons”.

We must remember that scholastics are not agreed as to whether there is a real distinction or only a virtual distinction between the actual existence and the complete individual essence or substance or nature of created individual beings ([21-4]). Furthermore we have seen that philosophers who study the metaphysics of the inorganic world and of the lower forms of life are unable to say with certainty what is the individual in these domains: whether it is the chemical molecule or the chemical atom or the electron; whether it is the single living cell or the living mass consisting of a plurality of such cells ([31]). But we have also seen that as we ascend the scale of living things all [pg 262] difficulty in designating the genuine individual disappears: that a man, a horse, an oak tree, are undoubtedly individual beings.

Bearing these things in mind we have now to inquire into what has been called the subsistence or personality of the complete individual substance or nature: that perfection which enables us formally to designate the latter a “subsisting thing”[285] or a “person”. By personality we mean the subsistence of a complete individual rational nature. We shall therefore inquire into the meaning of the generic term subsistentia (or suppositalitas), subsistence, in the abstract. But let us look at it first in the concrete.

A complete individual nature or substance, when it exists in the actual order, really distinct and separate in its own complete entity from every other existing being, exercising its powers and discharging its functions of its own right and according to the laws of its own being, is said to subsist, or to have the perfection of subsistence. In this state it not only exists in itself as every substance does; it is not only incommunicable to any other being as every individual is, in contradistinction with second or universal substances which are, as such, indefinitely communicable to individuals; but it is also a complete whole, incommunicable as a mere integral or essential part to some other whole, unlike the incomplete substantial constituents, or integral parts, members or organs of, say, an individual organic body; and finally it is incommunicable in the sense that it is not capable of being assumed into the subsisting unity of some other superior “suppositum” or “person”. All those characteristics we find in the individual “subsisting thing” or “person”. It “exists in itself” and is not communicable to another substance as an accident, because it is itself a substance. It is not communicable to individuals as a universal, because it is itself an individual. It is not communicable as an integral or essential part to a whole, because it is itself a complete substance and nature.[286] Finally it is not communicable to, and cannot be assumed into, the unity of [pg 263] a higher personality so as to subsist by virtue of the latter's subsistence, because it has a perfection incompatible with such assumption, viz. its own proper subsistence, whereby it is already an actually subsisting thing or person in its own right, or sui juris, so to speak.