The minor of this argument may be proved by the consideration of a few simple examples. A child already born is neither larger nor smaller than its brother that will be born two years hence.[421] But after the birth of the latter child the former can acquire those relations successively without any real change in itself, and merely by the growth of the younger child. Again, one white ball A is similar in colour to another white ball B. Paint the latter black, and eo ipso the former loses its relation of resemblance without any real change in itself.
And this appears to be the view of St. Thomas. If, he writes, another man becomes equal in size to me by growing while I remain unchanged in size, then although eo ipso I become equal in size to him, thus acquiring a new relation, nevertheless I gain or acquire nothing new: “nihil advenit mihi de novo, per hoc quod incipio esse alteri aequalis per ejus mutationem”. Relation, he says, is an extramental reality by reason of its foundation or cause, whereby one reality is referred to another.[422] Relation itself, considered formally as distinct from its foundation, is not a reality; it is real only inasmuch as its foundation is real.[423] Again, relation is something inherent, but not formally as a relation, and hence it can disappear without any real change [pg 354] in its subject.[424] A real relation may be destroyed in one or other of two ways: either by the destruction or change of the foundation in the subject, or by the destruction of the term, entailing the cessation of the reference, without any change in the subject.[425] Hence, too, the reason alleged by St. Thomas why relation, unlike the other categories of real being, can be itself divided into logical entity and real entity, ens rationis and ens reale: because formally it is an ens rationis, and only fundamentally, or in virtue of its foundation, is it an ens reale.[426] And hence, finally, the reason why St. Thomas, following Aristotle, describes relation as having a “lesser reality,” an “esse debilius,”[427] than the other or absolute categories of real being: not as if it were a sort of diminutive entity, intermediate between nothingness and the absolute modes of reality, but because being dependent for its formal actuality not merely on a foundation in its subject, but also on a term to which the latter is referred, it can perish not merely by the destruction of its subject like other accidents, but also by the destruction of its term while subject and foundation remain unchanged.
If, then, the real relation, considered formally or “secundum esse ad” is not a reality, the relation under this aspect is a logical, not a real, accident.
To constitute a mutual real relation there is needed a foundation in both of the extremes. As long as the term of the relation does not actually exist, not only does the relation not exist formally and actually, but it is not even adequately potential: the foundation in the subject alone is not an adequate foundation.
To this view, which denies any distinct reality to the predicamental relation considered formally, it has been objected [pg 355] that the predicamental relation is thus confounded with the transcendental relation. But this is not so; for the transcendental relation is always essential to its subject, whatever this subject may be, while the predicamental relation, considered formally, is a logical accident separable from its subject, and considered fundamentally it is some absolute accident really distinct from the substance of the related extremes. For instance, the action which mediates between cause and effect is itself transcendentally related to both; while it is at the same time the adequate foundation whereby cause and effect are predicamentally related to each other.[428]
If what we have called the formal element of a relation be nothing really distinct from the extremes and foundation, it follows that some real relations between creatures are really identical with their substances;[429] and to this it has been objected that no relation in creatures can be, quoad rem, substantial: “Nulla relatio,” says St. Thomas,[430] “est substantia secundum rem in creaturis”. To this it may be replied that even in these cases the relation itself, considered adequately, is not wholly identical with the substance of either extreme. It superadds a separable logical accident to these.[431]
Finally it is objected that the view which denies a distinct reality to the formal element of a real relation, to its “esse ad,” equivalently denies all reality to relations, and is therefore in substance identical with the idealist doctrine already rejected ([90]). But this is a misconception. According to idealists, relations grounded on quality, quantity, causality, etc., are exclusively in the intellect, in our mental activity and its mental products, in our concepts alone, and are in no true sense characteristic of reality. This is very different from saying that our concepts of such relations are grounded in the realities compared, and that these realities are really endowed with everything that constitutes such relations, the comparative act of the intellect being required merely [pg 356] to apprehend these characteristics and so to give the relation its formal completeness.[432] There is all the difference that exists between a theory which so exaggerates the constitutive function of thought as to reduce all intellectual knowledge to a knowledge of mere subjective mental appearances, and a theory which, while recognizing this function and its products, will not allow that these cast any cloud or veil between the intellect and a genuine insight into objective reality. These mental processes are guided by reality; the entia rationis which are their products are grounded in reality; moreover we can quite well distinguish between these mental modes and products of our intellectual activity and the real contents revealed to the mind in these modes and processes. So long, therefore, as we avoid the mistake of ascribing to the objective reality itself any of these mental modes (as, for instance, extreme realists do when they assert the extramental reality of the formal universal), our recognition of them can in no way jeopardize the objective validity of intellectual knowledge. Perhaps an excessive timidity in this direction is in some degree accountable for the “abuse of realism” which ascribes to the formal element of a relation a distinct extramental,[433] objective reality.