The Principles Of Real Being. V. Intrinsic Principles Of Complex Beings.
The primitive beings of which we have treated in a preceding article imply nothing in their constitution but what is strictly necessary in order to exist in nature; and therefore they are physically simple—that is, not made up of other physical beings, though they are metaphysically compounded, because their intrinsic principles are so many metaphysical components. Those beings, on the contrary, the entity of which is not strictly one, besides the three principles common to all primitive beings, involve in their constitution other components, either physical or metaphysical. Such complex beings are either substantial or accidental compounds. We propose to investigate in the present article the general constitution of substantial compounds, then of accidental compounds; and lastly we shall inquire into the principles of the attributes and properties of complex, as well as primitive, beings.
Principles of substantial compounds.
By substantial compound we mean a compound of which the components are distinct substances uniting in one essence or nature. Such a compound is a physical one, inasmuch as it is made up of physical components; for substances are complete beings, and each of them has its own distinct and individual existence in the physical order of things.
This definition of substantial compound is very different from that which the scholastics drew from their theory of substantial generations. But since chemistry has shown, and philosophical reasoning based on facts confirms, that what in such a theory is called the “generated substance” is only a compound of substances, it must be evident that our substantial compound, as above defined, does not, in fact, differ from theirs, but is the same thing viewed under a different light. Perhaps, if the schoolmen had thought that bodies were possibly but the result of the composition of many permanent substances, they would not have called them substantial, but only natural, compounds; yet, since the epithet “substantial” has been originally adopted, and is still commonly applied to compounds which we know actually to contain many distinct substances, we cannot keep the word “substantial” without giving it such a meaning as will answer to the real nature of the things it qualifies. Nevertheless, should the reader prefer to apply the epithet “substantial” to that compound only which consists of matter and substantial form interpreted in accordance with the Peripatetic system, then the compounds of which we treat might be called natural, or essential, compounds, or compound natures. So long, however, as such compounds are called “substances,” we think we have the right to apply to them the epithet “substantial.”
The immediate principles of substantial compound are three, as in the primitive being: to wit, act, term, and complement; but they are of a different nature, as we are going to explain. Two cases are to be examined. For the physical parts, which unite to make one compound nature, sometimes rank all alike as material constituents of the compound, as in water, iron, silver, and other natural bodies; but at other times one of the constituent substances stands forth in the character of a form, as the human soul in the body, all the parts of the body remaining under it, and making up the complete material constituent of the compound nature.
In the first case, the physical components taken together constitute the adequate potential term or the compound nature; because, as they are all alike material constituents, they are all alike potential respecting their composition; and thus they are all equally liable to be tied together by physical action. The specific composition will be the act of the compound essence; for it is such a composition that formally binds together those physical components into one specific compound. Finally, the actual bond of the components, brought about by their composition, will be the actuality of the compound nature—that is, its formal complement.
That these three constituents differ very materially from those of a primitive being is evident: for, in a primitive being, the term is a pure potency that receives its first actuation; whilst in the compound nature it consists of a number of actual beings which are no longer potential respecting their first actuation, but only with regard to [pg 175] their composition, which gives them a second and relative actuation in the compound. Again, the act, in the primitive being, is a product of creation, calculated to give the first existence to its term; whilst in the compound nature it is the product of actions interchanged between the components, and gives them, not to exist, but to be united so as to form a new specific essence. Lastly, the complement, in a primitive being, is the existence of a thing absolutely one, whilst in the compound nature it is the existence of a thing whose oneness is altogether relative.
In all compounds of this kind—viz., whose form is their composition—the components are, of course, physical beings, as we have stated; but their composition is only a metaphysical entity. Indeed, we are wont to call it “physical composition”; but we do not mean that it is a physical being; we only mean that it is the composition “of physical beings.” We know that formal composition is that by which the components are formally bound with one another; and we know also that the components are thus bound in consequence of their mutual actions, and that such actions cannot be conceived to be complete in nature, except inasmuch as they are received in their proper subjects—viz., in the components themselves. And therefore the composition which is styled “physical” is, of its own nature, only an incomplete and metaphysical entity; and, in a like manner, the actuality of the physical compound is not a physical being, as it cannot be found outside of that of which it is the result.