Accidental unity is the unity of a being whose constituent factors or contents are not really united in such a way as to form one essence, whether simple or composite. It is threefold: (1) collective unity, or unity of aggregation, as of a heap of stones or a crowd of men; (2) artificial unity, as of a house or a picture; and (3) natural or physical unity, as of any existing substance with its connatural accidents, e.g. a living organism with its size, shape, qualities, etc., or the human soul with its faculties.138

(c) Transcendental unity may be either individual (singular, numerical, concrete, real) or universal (specific, generic, abstract, logical). The former is that which characterizes being or reality considered as actually existing or as proximately capable of existing: the unity of an individual nature or essence: the unity whereby a being is not merely undivided in itself but incapable of repetition or multiplication of itself. It is only the individual as such that can actually exist: the abstract and universal is incapable of actually existing as such. We shall examine presently what it is that individuates reality, and what it is that renders it capable of existing actually in the form of “things” or of “persons”—the forms in which it actually presents itself in our experience.

Abstract or universal unity is the unity which characterizes a reality conceived as an abstract, universal object by the human intellect. The object of a specific or generic concept, “man” or “animal,” for example, is one in this sense, undivided in itself, but capable of indefinite multiplication or repetition in the only mode in which it can actually exist—the individual mode. The universal is Finally, we can conceive any nature or essence without considering it in either of its alternative states—either as individual or as universal. Thus conceived it is characterized by a unity which has been commonly designated as abstract, or (by Scotists) as formal unity.

28. Multitude and Number.—The one has for its correlative [pg 119] the manifold. Units, one of which is not the other, constitute multitude or plurality. If unity is the negation of actual division in being, multitude results from a second negation, that, namely, by which the undivided being or unit is marked off or divided from other units.139 We have defined unity by the negation of actual intrinsic dividedness; and we have seen it to be compatible with extrinsic dividedness, or otherness. Thus the vague notion of dividedness is anterior to that of unity. Now multitude involves dividedness; but it also involves and presupposes the intrinsic undividedness or unity of each constituent of the manifold. In the real order of things the one is prior to all dividedness; but on account of the sensuous origin of our concepts we can define the former only by exclusion of the latter. The order in which we obtain these ideas seems, therefore, to be as follows: “first being, then dividedness, next unity which excludes dividedness, and finally multitude which consists of units”.140

The relation of the one to the manifold is that of undivided being to divided being. The same reality cannot be one and manifold under the same aspect; though obviously a being may be actually one and potentially manifold or vice versa, or one under a certain aspect and manifold under another aspect.

From the transcendental plurality or multitude which we have just described we can distinguish predicamental or quantitative plurality: a distinction which is to be understood in the same way as when applied to unity. Quantitative multitude is the actually separated or divided condition of quantified being. Number is a multitude measured or counted by unity: it is a counted, and, therefore, necessarily a definite and finite multitude. Now it is mathematical unity that is, properly, the principle of number and the standard or measure of all counting; and therefore it is only to realities which fall within the category of quantity—in other words, to material being—that the concept of number is properly applicable. No doubt we can and do [pg 120] conceive transcendental unity after the analogy of the quantitative unity which is the principle of counting and measuring; and no doubt we can use the transcendental concept of “actually undivided being” as a principle of enumeration, and so “count” or “enumerate” spiritual beings; but this counting is only analogical; and many philosophers, following Aristotle and St. Thomas, hold that the concepts of numerical multiplicity and numerical distinction are not properly applicable to immaterial beings, that these latter differ individually from one another not numerically, but each by its whole nature or essence, that is, formally.141

29. The Individual and the Universal.—We have distinguished transcendental unity into individual and universal (27, c). Reality as endowed with universal unity is reality as apprehended by abstract thought to be capable of indefinite repetition or multiplication of itself in actual existence. Reality as endowed with individual unity is reality apprehended as actually existing, or as proximately capable of actually existing, and as therefore incapable of any repetition or multiplication of itself, of any division of itself into other “selves” or communication of itself to other “selves”. While, therefore, the universal has its reality only in the individuals to which it communicates itself, and which thus embody it, the individual has its reality in itself and of its own right, so to speak: when it actually exists it is “ Now it is a fundamental assumption in Aristotelian and scholastic philosophy that whatever actually exists, or whatever [pg 121] is real in the sense that as such it is proximately capable of actual existence, is and must be individual: that the universal as such is not real, i.e. as such cannot actually exist. And the manifest reason for this assumption is that whatever actually exists must be, with entire definiteness and determinateness, its own self and nothing else: it cannot be capable of division or repetition of itself, of that which it really is, into “other” realities which would still be “that individual thing”. But reality considered as universal is capable of such repetition of itself indefinitely. Therefore reality cannot actually exist as universal, but only as individual.

At the same time it is true that we can understand these individual realities, interpret them, read the meaning of them, only by the intellectual function of judgment, i.e. by the analytic and synthetic activity whereby we abstract and universalize certain aspects of them, and use these aspects as predicates of the individuals. Now, seeing that intellectual thought, as distinct from sense experience, apprehends its objects only as abstract and potentially universal, only as static, self-identical, [pg 122] possible essences, and nevertheless predicates these of the concrete, individual, contingent, actually existing “things” of sense experience, identifying them with the latter in affirmative judgments; seeing moreover, that—since the intellectual knowledge we thus acquire about the data of sense experience is genuine and not chimerical—those “objects” of abstract thought must be likewise real, and must be really in those individual sense data (according to the theory of knowledge which finds its expression in Moderate Realism),—there arises immediately the problem, or rather the group of problems, regarding the relations between reality as revealed to intellect, i.e. as abstract and universal, and reality as revealed to sense, i.e. as concrete and individual. In other words, we have to inquire how we are to interpret intellectually the fact that reality, which as a possible essence is universal for abstract thought, is nevertheless, as actually existing, individualized for sense—and consequently for intellect reflecting on the data of sense.142

30. The “Metaphysical Grades of Being” in the Individual.—What, then is the relation between all that intellect can apprehend in the individual, viz. its lowest class essence or specific nature, and its whole nature as an individual, its What are called the metaphysical grades of being, those positive moments of perfection or reality which the mind detects in the individual, as, for instance, substantiality, materiality, organic life, animality, rationality, individuality, in the individual man—whether we describe them as “phases” or “aspects” or “formalities” of being—are undoubtedly distinct objects for abstract thought. Why does it thus distinguish between them, and express them by distinct concepts, even when it finds them [pg 123] embodied in a single individual? Because, reflecting on the manner in which reality presents itself, through sense experience, as actually existing, it finds resemblances and differences between individually distinct data. It finds in some of them grades of reality which it does not find in others, individual, specific, and generic grades; and some—transcendental—grades common to all. Now between these various grades of being as found in one and the same individual it cannot be denied that there exists a logical distinction with a foundation or ground for it in the individual reality; because the latter, being more or less similar to other individual realities, causes the mind to apprehend it by a number of distinct concepts: the individuality whereby it differs really from all other individuals of the same species; the specific, differential and generic grades of being whereby it is conceptually identified with wider and wider classes of things; and the transcendental grades whereby it is conceptually identified with all others. The similarity of really distinct individuals, which is the conceptual identity of their qualities, is the ground on which we conceptually identify their essences. Now is there any reason for thinking that these grounds of similarity, as found in the individual, are really distinct from one another in the latter? They are certainly conceptually distinct expressions—each less inadequate than the wider ones—of what is really one individual essence. But we must take them to be all really identical in and with this individual essence, unless we are prepared to hold conceptual plurality as such to be real plurality; in which case we should also hold conceptual unity as such to be real unity. But this latter view is precisely the error of extreme realism, of reifying abstract concepts and holding the “universale a parte rei”: a theory which leads logically to monism.143

31. Individuality.—The distinction, therefore, between these grades of being in the individual, is a virtual distinction, i.e. a logical distinction with a ground for it in the reality. This is the sort of distinction which exists between the specific nature of the individual, i.e. what is contained in the definition of the lowest class to which it belongs, and its individuality, i.e. what constitutes its nature or essence as an individual. No doubt the concrete existing individual contains, besides its individual nature or essence, a variety of accidental characteristics which serve as [pg 124] marks or signs whereby its individuality is revealed to us. These are called “individualizing characteristics,” “ It is manifest that the accidents which are separable from the individual substance, e.g. name, shape, size, appearance, location, etc., cannot constitute its individuality. There are, however, other characteristics which are inseparable from the individual substance, or which are properties of the latter, e.g. the fact that an individual man was born of certain parents. Perhaps it is such characteristics that give its individuality to the individual substance?144 To think so would be to misunderstand the question under discussion. We are not now inquiring into the extrinsic causes whereby actually existing reality is individuated, into the efficient principles of its individuation, but into the formal and intrinsic principle of the latter. There must obviously be something intrinsic to the individual reality itself whereby it is individuated. And it is about this intrinsic something we are inquiring. The individual man is this individual, human nature is thus individuated in him, by something that is essential to human [pg 125] nature as found in him. This something has been called—after the analogy of the 32. The “Principle of Individuation”.—How, then, are we to conceive this something which individuates reality? It may be well to point out that for the erroneous doctrine of extreme realism, which issues in monism, the problem of individuation, as here understood, does not arise. For the monist all plurality in being is merely apparent, not real: there can be no question of a real distinction between individual and individual.145 Similarly, the nominalist and the conceptualist evade the problem. For these the individual alone is not merely formally real: it alone is fundamentally real: the universal is not even fundamentally real, has no foundation in reality, and thus all scientific knowledge of reality as revealed in sense experience is rendered [pg 126] impossible. But for the moderate realist, while the individual alone is formally real, the universal is fundamentally real, and hence the problem arises. It may be forcibly stated in the form of a paradox: That whereby Socrates and Plato are really distinct from each other as individuals is really identical with the human nature which is really in both. But what individuates human nature in Socrates, or in Plato, is logically distinct from the human nature that is really in Socrates, and really in Plato. We have only to inquire, therefore, whether the intrinsic principle of individuation is to be conceived merely as a negation, as something negative added by the mind to the concept of the specific nature, whereby the latter is apprehended as incapable of multiplication into “others” each of which would be formally that same nature, or, in other words, as incommunicable; or is the intrinsic ground of this incommunicability to be conceived as something positive, not indeed as something really distinct from, and superadded to, the specific nature, but as a positive aspect of the latter, an aspect, moreover, not involved in the concept of the specific nature considered in the abstract.

Of the many views that have been put forward on this question two or three call for some attention. In the opinion of Thomists generally, the principle which individuates material things, thus multiplying numerically the same specific nature, is to be conceived as a positive mode affecting the latter and revealing it in a new aspect, whereas the specific nature of the spiritual individual is itself formally an individual. The principle of the latter's individuation is already involved in the very concept of its specific nature, and therefore is not to be conceived as a distinct positive aspect of the latter but simply as the absence of plurality and communicability in the latter. In material things, moreover, the positive mode or aspect whereby the specific nature is found numerically multiplied, and incommunicable as it exists in each, consists in the fact that such a specific nature involves in its very constitution a material principle which is actually allied with certain quantitative dimensions. Hence the principle which individuates material substances is not to be conceived—after the manner in which Scotists conceive it—as an ultimate In regard to material substances this doctrine embraces two separate contentions: (a) that the principle which individuates such a substance must be conceived as something positive, not really distinct from, but yet not contained in, the specific nature considered in the abstract; (b) that this positive aspect is to be found not in the formal but in the material principle of the composite corporeal substance.

To the former contention it might be objected that what individuates the specific nature cannot be conceived as anything positive, superadded to this nature: it cannot be anything accidental to the latter, for if it were, the individual would be only an accidental unity, a “ The second point in the Thomistic doctrine is that corporeal substances are individuated by reason of their materiality. The formative, specific, determining principle of the corporeal substance is rendered incommunicable by its union with the material, determinable principle; and it becomes individually distinct or separate by the fact that this latter principle, in order to be capable of union with the given specific form, has in its very essence an exigence for certain more or less determinate dimensions in space. Corporeal things have their natural size within certain limits. The individual of a given corporeal species can exist only because the material principle, receptive of this specific form, has a natural relation to the fundamental property of corporeal things, viz. quantity, within certain more or less determinate limits. The form is rendered incommunicable by its reception in the matter. This concrete realization of the form in the matter is individually distinct and separate from other realizations of the same specific form, by the fact that the matter of this realization [pg 129] demands certain dimensions of quantity: this latter property being the root-principle of numerical multiplication of corporeal individuals within the same species.

On the other hand, incorporeal substances such as angels or pure spirits, being “pure” forms, “ It follows that in regard to pure spirits the individuating principle and the specific principle are not only really but also logically, conceptually identical; that the distinction between individual and individual is here properly a specific distinction; that it can be described as numerical only in an analogical sense, if by numerical we mean material or quantitative, i.e. the distinction between corporeal individuals of the same species (28).

But the distinction between individual human souls is not a specific or formal distinction. These, though spiritual, are not pure spirits. They are spiritual substances which, of their very nature, are essentially ordained for union with matter. They all belong to the same species—the human species. But they do not constitute individuals of this species unless as existing actually united with matter. Each human soul has a transcendental relation to its own body, to the “ We must be content with this brief exposition of the Thomistic doctrine on individuation. A discussion of the arguments for and against it would carry us too far.148 There is no doubt that what reveals the individuality of the corporeal substance to us is its material principle, in virtue of which its existence is circumscribed within certain limits of time and space and affected with individual characteristics, “ On the other hand, if an intelligible essence or form be purely spiritual, wholly unrelated to any indeterminate, material principle, it must be “one” not alone conceptually or logically but also really: it can exist only as “one”: it is of itself individual: it can be differentiated from other spiritual essences not materially but only formally, or, in other words, not numerically but by a distinction which is at once individual and specific. Two pure spirits cannot be “two” numerically and “one” specifically, two for sense and one for intellect, as two men are: if they are distinct at all they must be distinct for intellect, i.e. they cannot be properly conceived as two members of the same species.

In this solution of the question it is not easy to see how the material principle, which, by its alliance with quantity, individuates the form, is itself individuated so as to be the source and principle of a multiplicity of numerically distinct and incommunicable realizations of this form. Perhaps the most that can be said on this point is that we must conceive quantity, which is the fundamental property of corporeal reality, as being itself essentially divisible, and the material principle as deriving from its essential relation to quantity its function of multiplying the same specific nature numerically.

Of those who reject the Thomistic doctrine some few contend that it is the actual existence of any specific nature that should be conceived as individuating the latter. No doubt the universal as such cannot exist; reality in order to exist actually must be individual. Yet it cannot be actual existence that individuates it. We must conceive it as individual before conceiving it as actually existent; and we can conceive it as individual while abstracting from its existence. We can think, for instance, of purely possible individual men, or angels, as numerically or individually distinct from one another. Moreover, what individuates the nature must be essential to the latter, but actual existence is not essential to any finite nature. Hence actual existence cannot be the principle of individuation.149 Can it be contended that possible existence is what individuates reality? No; for possible existence is nothing more than intrinsic capacity to exist actually, and this is essential to all reality: it is the criterion whereby we distinguish real being [pg 132] from logical being; but real being, as such, is indifferent to universality or individuality; as far as the simple concept of real being is concerned the latter may be either universal or individual; the concept abstracts equally from either condition of being.

The vast majority, therefore, of those who reject the Thomistic doctrine on individuation, support the view that what individuates any nature or substance is simply the whole reality, the total entity, of the individual. This total entity of the individual, though really identical with the specific nature, must be conceived as something positive, superadded to the latter, for it involves a something which is logically or mentally distinct from the latter. This something is what we conceive as a In this view, therefore, the material principle of any individual man, for example, is numerically and individually distinct from that of any other individual, of itself and independently of its relation either to the formative principle or to quantity. The formative principle, too, is individuated of itself, and not by the material principle which is really distinct from it, or by its relation to this material principle. Likewise the union of both principles, which is a substantial mode of the composite substance, is individuated and rendered numerically distinct from all other unions of these two individual principles, not by either or both these, but by itself. And finally, the individual composite substance has its individuation from these two intrinsic principles thus individually united.

33. Individuation of Accidents.—The rÔle of quantity in the Thomistic theory of individuation suggests the question: How are accidents themselves individuated? We have referred already (29, n.) to the view that they are individuated by the individual subjects or substances in which they inhere. If we distinguish again between what reveals individuality and what constitutes it, there can be no doubt that when accidents of the same kind are found in individually distinct subjects what reveals the numerical distinction between the former is the fact that they are found inhering in the latter. So, also, distinction of individual substances is the extrinsic, genetic, or causal principle of the numerical distinction between similar accidents arising in these substances. But when the same kind of accident recurs successively in the same individual substance—as, for example, when a man performs repeated acts of the same kind—what reveals the numerical or individual distinction between these latter cannot be the individual substance, for it is one and the same, but rather the time distinction between the accidents themselves.

The intrinsic constitutive principle which formally individuates the accidents of individually distinct substances is, according to Thomists generally, their essential relation to the individual substances in which they appear. It is not clear how this theory can be applied to the fundamental accident of corporeal substances. If the function of formally individuating the corporeal substance itself is to be ascribed in any measure to quantity, it would seem [pg 134] to follow that this latter must be regarded as individuated by itself, by its own total entity or reality. And this is the view held by most other scholastics in regard to the individuation of accidents generally: that these, like substances, are individuated by their own total positive reality.

When there is question of the same kind of accident recurring in the same individual subject, the “time” distinction between such successive individual accidents of the same kind would appear not merely to reveal their individuality but also to indicate a different relation of each to its subject as existing at that particular point of space and time: so that the relation of the accident to its individual subject, as here and now existing in the concrete, would be the individuating principle of the accident.

Whether a number of accidents of the same It may be well to remark that in inquiring about the individuation of substances and accidents we have been considering reality from a static standpoint, seeking how we are to conceive and interpret intellectually, or for abstract thought, the relation of the universal to the individual. If, however, we ascribe to “time” distinctions any function in individuating accidents of the same kind in the same individual substance, we are introducing into our analysis the kinetic aspect of reality, or its subjection to processes of change.

We may call attention here to a few other questions of minor import discussed by scholastics. First, have all individuals of the same species the same substantial perfection, or can individuals have different grades of substantial perfection within the same species? All admit the obvious fact that individual differs from individual within the same species in the number, variety, extent and intensity of their accidental properties and qualities. But, having the human soul mainly in view, they disagree as to whether the substantial perfection of the specific nature can be actualized in different grades in different individuals. According to the more common opinion there cannot be different substantial grades of the same specific nature, for the simple reason that every such grade of substantial perfection should be regarded as specific, as changing the species: hence, e.g. all human souls are substantially equal in perfection. This view is obviously based upon the conception of specific types or essences as being, after the analogy of [pg 135] numbers, immutable when considered in the abstract. And it seems to be confirmed by the consideration that the intrinsic principle of individuation is nothing, or adds nothing, really distinct from the specific essence itself.

Another question in connexion with individuation has derived at least an historical interest from the notable controversy to which it gave rise in the seventeenth century between Clarke and Leibniz. The latter, in accordance with the principles of his system of philosophy,—the Law of Sufficient Reason and the Law of Continuity among the monads or ultimate principles of being,—contended that two individual beings so absolutely alike as to be indiscernible would be eo ipso identical, in other words, that the reality of two such beings is impossible.

Of course if we try to conceive two individuals so absolutely alike both in essence and accidents, both in the abstract and in the concrete, as to be indiscernible either by our senses or by our intellect, or by any intellect—even the Divine Intellect—we are simply conceiving the same thing twice over. But is there anything impossible or contradictory in thinking that God could create two perfectly similar beings, distinct from each other only individually, so similar, however, that neither human sense nor human intellect could apprehend them as two, but only as one? The impossibility is not apparent. Were they two material individuals they should, of course, occupy the same space in order to have similar spatial relations, but impenetrability is not essential to corporeal substances. And even in the view that each is individuated by its “ The argument of Leibniz, that there would be no sufficient reason for the creation of two such indiscernible beings, and that it would therefore be repugnant to the Divine Wisdom, is extrinsic to the question of their intrinsic possibility: if they be intrinsically possible they cannot be repugnant to any attribute of the Divinity, either to the Divine Omnipotence or to the Divine Wisdom.

34. Identity.—Considering the order in which we acquire our ideas we are easily convinced that the notion of finite being is antecedent to that of infinite being. Moreover, it is from reflection on finite beings that we arrive at the most abstract notion of being in general. We make the object of this latter notion definite only by dividing it off mentally from nothingness, conceived If the object formally represented by each of the concepts is one and the same—as, e.g. when we compare “A” with “A,” or “man” with “rational animal,” or, in general, any object with its definition—the identity is both real and logical (or conceptual, formal). If the concepts differ in their formal objects while [pg 137] representing one and the same reality—as when we compare “St. Peter” with “head of the apostles,” or “man” with “rational”—the identity is real, but not logical or formal. Finally, if we represent two or more realities, “John, James, Thomas,” by the same formal concept, “man,” the identity is merely logical or formal, not real. Of these three kinds of identity the first is sometimes called adequate, the second and third inadequate.

Logical identity may be specific or generic, according as we identify really distinct individuals under one specific concept, or really distinct species or classes under one generic concept. Again, it may be essential or accidental, according as the abstract and universal class-concept under which really distinct members are classified represents a common part of the essence of these members or only a common property or accident. Thus John, James and Thomas are essentially identical in their human nature; they are accidentally identical in being all three fair-haired and six feet in height. Logical identity under the concept of quality is based on the real relation of similarity; logical identity under the concept of quantity is based on the real relation of equality. When we say that essential (logical) identity (e.g. the identity of John, James and Thomas under the concept of “man”) is based on the fact that the really distinct individuals have really similar natures, we merely mean that our knowledge of natures or essences is derived from our knowledge of qualities, taking “qualities” in the wide sense of “accidents” generally: that the properties and activities of things are our only key to the nature of these things: Reverting now to real identity: whatever we can predicate affirmatively about a being considered as one, and as subject of a [pg 138] judgment, we regard as really identical with that being. We cannot predicate a real part of its real whole, or vice versa. But our concepts, when compared together in judgment, bear logical relations of extension and intension to each other, that is, relations of logical part to logical whole. Thus, the logical identity of subject and predicate in the affirmative judgment may be only inadequate.152 But the real identity underlying the affirmative judgment is an adequate real identity. When we say, for example, that “Socrates is wise,” we mean that the object of our concept of “wisdom” is in this case really and adequately identical with the object of our concept of “Socrates”: in other words that we are conceiving one and the same real being under two distinct concepts, each of which represents, more or less adequately, the whole real being, and one of them in this case less adequately than the other.

We have to bear in mind that while considering being as one or manifold, identical or distinct, we are thinking of it in its static mode, as an object of abstract thought, not in its dynamic and kinetic mode as actually existing in space and time, and subject to change. It is the identity of being with itself when considered in this static, unchanging condition, that is embodied in the logical Principle of Identity. In order, therefore, that this principle may find its application to being or reality as subject to actual change—and this is the state in which We have seen that, since change is not continuous annihilation and creation, the changing being must in some real and true sense persist throughout the process of change. It is from [pg 139] experience of change we derive our notion of time-duration; and the concept of permanence or stability throughout change gives us the notion of a real sameness or abiding self-identity which is compatible with real change. But a being which persists in existence is identical with itself throughout its duration only in so far forth as it has not changed. Only the Necessary Being, whose duration is absolutely exempt from all change, is absolutely or metaphysically identical with Himself: His duration is eternity—which is one perpetual, unchanging now. A being which persists unchanged in its essence or nature, which is exempt from substantial change, but which is subject to accidental change, to a succession of accidental qualities such as vital actions—such a being is said to retain its physical identity with itself throughout those changes. Such, for instance, is the identity of the human soul with itself, or of any individual living thing during its life, or even of an inorganic material substance as long as it escapes substantial change. Finally, the persisting identity of a collection of beings, united by some moral bond so as to form a moral unit, is spoken of as moral identity as long as the bond remains, even though the constituent members may be constantly disappearing to be replaced by others: as in a nation, a religious society, a legal corporation, etc.

35. Distinction.—Distinction is the correlative of identity; it is the absence or negation of the latter. We express the relation called distinction by the negative judgment, “this is not that”; it is the relation of a being to whatever is not itself, the relation of one to other.

Distinction may be either adequate or inadequate, according as we distinguish one total object of thought from another total object, or only from a part of itself. For example, the distinction between John and James is an adequate real distinction, while that between John and his body is an inadequate real distinction; the distinction between John's rationality and his animality is an adequate logical distinction, while the distinction between either of these and his humanity is an inadequate logical distinction.

We have already (23) briefly explained and illustrated the most important classification of distinctions: that into real and logical; the sub-division of the latter into purely logical and virtual; and of the latter again into perfect (complete, adequate) and imperfect (incomplete, inadequate). But the theory there [pg 140] briefly outlined calls for some further analysis and amplification.

36. Logical Distinctions and their Grounds.—The purely logical distinction must not be confounded with a mere verbal distinction, e.g. that between an “edifice” and a “building,” or between “truthfulness” and “veracity”. A logical distinction is a distinction in the concepts: these must represent one and the same reality but in different ways: the one may be more explicit, more fully analysed than the other, as a definition is in comparison with the thought-object defined; or the one may represent the object less adequately than the other, as when we compare (in intension) the concepts “man” and “animal”; or the one may be predicated of the other in an affirmative judgment; or the one may represent the object as concrete and individual, the other the same object as abstract and universal.153

Comparing, in the next place, the purely logical with the virtual distinction, we see that the grounds for making these distinctions are different. Every distinction made by the mind must have an intelligible ground or reason of some sort—a The virtual distinction, on the other hand, although it also, as an object of thought, is only an But what is this real foundation of the virtual distinction? What is the If a being which is not only one but simple, manifests, in the superior grade of being to which it belongs, a perfection which is equivalent to many lesser perfections found really distinct and separate elsewhere, in separate beings of an inferior order, this is [pg 142] considered a sufficient real ground for considering the former being, though really one and simple, as virtually manifold.154 The human soul, as being virtually threefold—rational, sentient and vegetative—is a case in point: but only on the assumption that the soul of the individual man can be proved to be one and simple. This, of course, all scholastics regard as capable of proof: even those of them who hold that the powers or faculties whereby it immediately manifests these three grades of perfection are accidental realities, really distinct from one another and from the substance of the soul itself.

Again, the being which is the object of our thought may be so rich in reality or perfection that our finite minds cannot adequately grasp it by any one mental intuition, but must proceed discursively, by analysis and abstraction, taking in partial aspects of it successively through inadequate concepts; while realizing that these aspects, these objects of our distinct concepts, are only partial aspects of one and the same real being. This, in fact, is our common experience. But the theory assumes that we are able to determine when these objects of our concepts are only mental aspects of one reality, and when they are several separate realities; nay, even, that we can determine whether or not they are really distinct entities united together to form one composite individual being, or only mentally distinct views of one simple individual being. For example, it is assumed that while the distinction between the sentient and the rational grades of being in a human individual can be shown to be only a virtual distinction, that between the body and the soul of the same individual can be shown to be a real distinction; or, again, that while the distinction between essence, intellect, and will in God, can be shown to be only a virtual distinction, that between essence, intellect, and will in man, can be shown to be a real distinction.

37. The Virtual Distinction and the Real Distinction.—Now scholastics differ considerably in classifying this, that, or the other distinction, as logical or as real; but this does [pg 143] not prove that it is impossible ever to determine with certitude whether any particular distinction is logical or real. What we are looking for just now is a general test for discriminating, if such can be found. And this brings us to a consideration of the test suggested in the very definitions themselves. At first sight it would appear to be an impracticable, if not even an unintelligible test: “The distinction is real if it exists in the reality—i.e. if the reality is two (or more) beings, not one being—antecedently to, or independently of, the consideration of the mind; otherwise the distinction is logical”. But—it might be objected—how can we possibly know whether or not any object of perception or thought is one or more than one antecedently to, or independently of, the consideration of the mind? It is certainly impossible for us to know what, or what kind, reality is, or whether it is one or manifold, apart from and prior to, the exercise of our own cognitive activity. This, therefore, cannot be what the test means: to interpret it in such a sense would be absurd. But when we have perceived reality in our actual sense experience, when we have interpreted it, got the meaning of it, made it intelligible, and actually understood it, by the spontaneous exercise of intellect, the judging and reasoning faculty: then, obviously, we are at liberty to reflect critically on those antecedent spontaneous processes, on the knowledge which is the result of them, and the reality which is known through them; and by such critical reflection on those processes, their objects and their products, on the “reality as perceived and known” and on the “perceiving” and “knowing” of it, we may be able to distinguish between two classes of contributions to the total result which is the “known reality”: those which we must regard as purely mental, as modes or forms or subjectively constructed terms of the mental function of cognition itself (whether perceptual or conceptual), and those which we must regard as given or presented to the mind as objects, which are not in any sense constructed or contributed by the mind, which, therefore, are what they are independently of our mental activity, and which would be and remain what they are, and what we have apprehended them to be, even if we had never perceived or thought of them. This, according to the scholastics, is the sense—and it is a perfectly intelligible sense—in which we are called on to decide whether the related terms of any given distinction have been merely rendered distinct by the analytic activity of [pg 144] the cognitive process, or are themselves distinct realities irrespective of this process. That it is possible to carry on successfully, at least to some extent, this work of discrimination between the subjective and the objective factors of our cognitive experience, can scarcely be denied. It is what philosophers in every age have been attempting. There are, however, some distinctions about the nature of which philosophers have never been able to agree, some holding them to be real, others to be only virtual: the former view being indicative of the tendency to emphasize the rÔle of cognition as a passive representation of objectively given reality; the latter view being an expression of the opposite tendency to emphasize the active or constitutive or constructive factors whereby cognition assimilates to the mind's own mode of being the reality given to it in experience. In all cognition there is an assimilation of reality and mind, of object and subject. When certain distinctions are held to be real this consideration is emphasized: that in the cognitive process, as such, it is the mind that is assimilated to the objective reality.155 When these same distinctions are held to be logical this other consideration is emphasized: that in the cognitive process reality must also be assimilated to mind, must be mentalized so to speak: Now those philosophers who hold certain distinctions to be virtual, and not real, thereby ascribe to cognitive experience a larger sphere of constitutive [pg 145] or constructive influence than would be allowed to it by advocates of the reality of such distinctions. But by doing so are they to be regarded as calling into question the objective validity of human knowledge? By no means: the fact that the human mind can understand reality only by processes of abstracting, generalizing, comparing, relating, analysing and synthesizing—processes which involve the production of logical entities—in no way vitiates the value of these modes of understanding: it merely indicates that they are less perfect than intuitive modes of understanding which would dispense with such logical entities,—the modes characteristic of pure, angelic intelligences, or the knowledge of the Deity. The objective validity of human cognition is not interfered with either by enlarging or by restricting the domain of the mind's constitutive activity in forming such logical entities; nor, therefore, by claiming that certain distinctions are real rather than virtual, or vice versa. It must be remembered, moreover, that the virtual distinction is not purely logical: it has a foundation in the reality, a “ No doubt, any particular distinction cannot be virtual and at the same time simply real: either view of it must be erroneous: and possibly both, if it happen to be Fixing our attention on the virtual distinction we see that the mind is supposed by means of it to apprehend, through a plurality of distinct concepts, what it knows somehow or other to be one being. Now if it knows the reality to be really one, it knows that the formal object of every distinct concept of this reality is really identical with the objects of all the other concepts of the latter. This condition of things is certainly verified when the mind can see that each of the distinct concepts, though not explicitly presenting the objects of the others, nevertheless implicitly and necessarily involves all these other objects:156 for by seeing that the distinct concepts necessarily involve one another objectively it sees that the reality apprehended through all of them must necessarily be one reality. This is what takes place in the imperfect virtual distinction: the concepts prescind from one another formally, not objectively. But suppose that the distinct concepts prescind from one another objectively, so that they cannot be seen by any analysis to involve one another even [pg 147] implicitly, but present to the mind, so far as they themselves are concerned, adequately distinct modes of being—as happens in the perfect virtual distinction, e.g. between organic life, sentient life, and intellectual life (in man), or between animality and rationality (in man),—then the all-important question arises: How do we know, in any given case of this kind, whether or not these adequately distinct thought-objects are identical with one another in the reality? What is the test for determining whether or not, in a given case, these objects, which are many for abstract intellectual thought, are one being in the real order? The answer seems to be that internal and external sense experience can and does furnish us with embodiments of these intellectual manifolds,—embodiments each of which we apprehend as a being that is really one, as an individual subject of which they are conceptually distinct predicates.

38. The Real Distinction.—In the next place it must be remembered, comparing the virtual distinction with the real, that philosophers have recognized two kinds of real distinction: the major or absolute real distinction, and the minor real, or modal distinction. Before defining these let us see what are the usual signs by which a real distinction in general can be recognized.

Two distinct thought-objects are regarded as really distinct (1) when they are found to exist separately and apart from each [pg 149] other in time or space, as is the case with any two individuals such as John and James, or a man and a horse; (2) when, although they are found in the same individual, one of them at least is separable from the other, in the sense that it can actually exist without that other: for example, the soul of any individual man can exist apart from the material principle with which it is actually united to form this living human individual; the individual himself can exist without the particular accidental modes, such as sitting, thinking, speaking, which actually affect his being at any particular instant of his existence.

From this we can gather in the first place that the distinction between two “individuals,”—individual “persons” or individual “things”—is a real distinction in the fullest and plainest sense of this expression, a major or absolute real distinction. It is, moreover, not merely real but actual. Two existing “individuals” are always actually divided and separate from each other, while each is actually one or actually undivided in itself. And they are so “independently of the consideration of the mind”.

In the second place, assuming that the mind can apprehend, in the individuals of its experience, a unity resulting from the union or composition of separable factors or principles, whether essential or accidental [27 (b)]; and assuming that it can know these factors to be really separable (though actually one and undivided), that is, separable in the sense that each of any two such factors, or at least one of them, could actually exist without the other,—it regards the distinction between such factors as real. They are really distinct because though actually one and undivided they are potentially manifold. If each has a positive entity of its own, so that absolutely speaking each could exist without the other, the distinction is still regarded as an absolute or major real distinction. For example, the human soul can exist without the body; the body can exist without the soul, being actualized by the new formative principle or principles which replace the soul at death; therefore there is an absolute real distinction between the soul and the body of the living human individual: although both factors form one actual being, still, independently of the consideration of the mind the one factor is not the other: each is really, though only potentially, other than the factor with which it is united: the relation of “one” to “other” though not actually verified of either factor (since there is only one actual being: the existing individual [pg 150] man), is potentially and really verified, i.e. verifiable of each. Again, the individual corporeal substance can, absolutely speaking, exist without its connatural accident of external or local extension; this latter can, absolutely speaking, exist without its connatural substance;158 therefore these are absolutely and really distinct.

If only one of the factors is seen to be capable of existing without the other, and the latter to be such that it could not actually exist except as united with the former, so that the separability is not mutual, the distinction is regarded still as real, but only as a minor or modal distinction. Such, for instance, is the distinction between a body and its location, or its state of rest or motion: and, in general, the distinction between a substance and what are called its accidental modes or modal accidents. The distinction is regarded as real because reflection is held to assure us that it is in the reality itself independently of the mind, and not merely imposed by the mind on the reality because of some ground or reason in the reality. It is called a modal distinction rather than an absolute real distinction because those accidental modes of a substance do not seem to have of themselves sufficient reality to warrant our calling them “things” or “realities,” but rather merely “modes” or “determinations” of things or realities. It is significant, as throwing light on the relation of the virtual to the real distinction, that some authors call the modal distinction not a real distinction but a “distinctio media,” i.e. intermediate between a real and a logical distinction; and that the question whether it should be called simply a real distinction, or “intermediate” between a real and a logical distinction is regarded by some as “a purely verbal question.”159 We shall recur to the modal distinction later (68).

In the third place it must be noted that separability in the sense explained, even non-mutual, is not regarded as the only index to a real distinction. In other words, certain distinctions are held by some to be real even though this test of separability does not apply. For instance, it is commonly held that not merely in man but in all corporeal individuals the formative and the determinable principle of the nature or substance, the This, then, raises once more the question: What sort of “separation” or “separability” is the test of a real distinction? Is it separateness in and for sense perception, or separateness in and for intellectual thought? The former is certainly the fundamental index of the real distinction; for all our knowledge of reality originates in sense experience, and separateness in time and space, which marks its data, is the key to our knowledge of reality as a manifold of really distinct individual beings; and when we infer from sense-experience the actual existence of a spiritual domain of reality we can conceive its “individuals” only after the analogy of the corporeal individuals of our immediate sense experience. Scholastic philosophers, following Aristotle, have always taken the manifoldness of reality, i.e. its presentation in sense experience in the form of “individuals,” of “this” and “that,” “τοδὲ τι,” “ Of course, if conceptually distinct thought-objects are seen to be mutually incompatible they cannot be found realized except in really distinct individuals: the union of them is only an This, as we have seen already, is the case for which it is really difficult to find a satisfactory test: and hence the different views to be found among scholastic philosophers as to the nature of the distinctions which the mind makes or discovers within the individual. The difficulty is this. The conceptual distinction between compatible thought-objects is not a proof of real distinction when these thought-objects are found united in one individual of sense experience, as e.g. animality and rationality in man; and the only distinction given to us by sense experience, at least directly and immediately, as undoubtedly real, is the distinction between corporeal individuals existing apart in space or time, as e.g. between man and man. How then, can we show that any distinctions within the individual are real?

Well, we have seen that certain entities, which are objects of sense or of thought, or of both, can disappear from the individual without the residue thereby perishing or ceasing to exist actually as an individual: the human soul survives, as an actual individual reality, after its separation from the material principle with which it formed the individual man; the individual man persists while the accidental modes that affect him disappear. In such cases as these, intellect, interpreting sense experience and reasoning from it, places a real distinction, in the composite individual, between the factors that can continue to exist without others, and these latter. In doing so it is apparently applying the analogy of the typical real distinction—that between one individual and another. The factor, or group of factors, which can continue to exist actually after the separation of the others, is an individual: and what were separated from it were apparently real entities, though they may have perished by the actual separation. But on what ground is the distinction between the material principle and the vital principle of a plant or an animal, for example, regarded as real? Again on the ground furnished by the analogy of the distinction between individuals of sense experience. Note that it is not between the material and the vital principles as objects of abstract thought, i.e. between the materiality and the vitality of the plant or the animal, that a real distinction is claimed: these are regarded only as conceptually distinct aspects of the plant or the animal; nor is it admitted that because one of these thought-objects is found embodied elsewhere in nature without the other—materiality without vitality in the inorganic universe—we can therefore conclude that they are really distinct in the plant or the animal. No; it is between the two principles conceived as coexisting and united in the concrete individual that the real distinction is claimed. And it is held to be [pg 153] a real distinction because substantial change in corporeal things, i.e. corruption and generation of individual corporeal substances, is held to be real. If it is real there is a real separation of essential factors when the individual perishes. And the factors continue to be real, as potential principles of other individuals, when any individual corporeal substance perishes. Each principle may not continue to exist actually as such in isolation from the other—though some scholastics hold that, absolutely speaking, they could be conserved apart, as actual entities, by the Author of Nature. But they can actually exist as essential principles of other actual individuals: they are real potentialities, which become actual in other individuals. Thus we see that they are conceived throughout after the analogy of the individual. Those who hold that, absolutely speaking, the material principle as such, 39. Some Questionable Distinctions. The Scotist Distinction.—The difficulty of discriminating between the virtual and the real distinction in an individual has given rise to the conception of distinctions which some maintain to be real, others to be less than real. The virtual distinction, as we have hitherto understood it, may be described as extrinsic inasmuch as it arises in the individual only when we consider the latter under different aspects, or in different relations to things extrinsic to it. By regarding an individual under different aspects—e.g. a man under the aspects of animality and rationality—we can predicate contradictory attributes of the individual, e.g. of a man that “he is similar to a horse,” and that “he is not similar to a horse”. Now it is maintained by some that although independently of the consideration of the mind the grounds of these contradictory predications are not actually distinct in the individual, nevertheless even before such consideration the individual has a real intrinsic capacity to have these contradictory predicates affirmed of him: they can be affirmed of him not merely when he is regarded, and because he is regarded, under conceptually different aspects, but because these principles, “animality” and “rationality,” are already really in him not merely as aspects but as distinct capacities, as potentially distinct principles of contradictory predications.

The virtual distinction, understood in this way, is described as intrinsic. It is rejected by some on the ground that, at least in its application to finite realities, it involves a violation of the principle of contradiction: it seems to imply that one and the same individual has in itself absolutely (and not merely as considered [pg 154] under different aspects and relations) the capacity to verify of itself contradictory predicates.

Scotus and his followers go even farther than the advocates of this intrinsic virtual distinction by maintaining the existence of a distinction which on the one hand they hold to be less than real because it is not between “thing and thing,” and on the other hand to be more than logical or virtual, because it actually exists between the various thought-objects or “ To this it is replied, firstly, that if such predications were truly contradictory we could avoid violation of the principle of contradiction only by inferring a real distinction—which Scotists deny to exist—between these grounds; secondly, that such predications are not truly contradictory inasmuch as “he is similar” really means “he is partially similar,” and “he is not similar” means “he is not completely similar”; therefore when we say that a man's rationality “is not the principle whereby he resembles a horse,” and his animality “is the principle whereby he resembles a horse,” we mean (a) that his rationality is not the principle of complete resemblance, though we know it is the principle of partial resemblance, inasmuch as we see it to be really identical with that which is the principle of partial resemblance, viz. his animality; and we mean (b) that his animality is the principle of his partial resemblance to a horse, not of total resemblance, for we know that the animality of a man is not perfectly similar to that of a horse, the former being really identical with rationality, the latter with irrationality. When, then, we predicate of one thing that “it is similar to some other thing,” and that “it is not similar to this other thing” we are not really predicating contradictories of the same thing; if we take the predicates as contradictories they are true of the same reality undoubtedly, but not under the same aspect. Scotists themselves admit that the real identity of these aspects involves no violation of the principle of contradiction; why, then, should these be held to be actually distinct formalities independently of the consideration of the mind? How can a distinction that is actual independently of the mind's analysis of the reality be other than real? Is not predication a work of the mind? And must not the conditions on which reality verifies the predication be determined by the mind? If, then, we see that in order to justify this predication—of “similar” and “not similar”—about any reality, it is merely necessary that the mind should apprehend this reality to be in its undivided unity equivalent to manifold grades of being or perfection which the mind itself can grasp as mentally distinct aspects, by distinct concepts, how can we be justified in supposing that these grades of being are not merely distinguishable, but actually distinct in the reality itself, independently of the mind?

The Scotist doctrine here is indicative of the tendency to emphasize, perhaps unduly, the assimilation of reality as a datum with the mind which interprets this datum; to regard the constitution of reality itself as being what [pg 156] abstract thought, irrespective of sense experience, would represent it; and accordingly to place in the reality as being actually there, independently of thought, distinctions which as a matter of fact may be merely the product of thought itself.

Scotists, by advocating an actual distinction between these grades of being, as “formalities” in the individual, have exposed themselves to the charge of extreme realism. They teach that each of these “formalities” has, for abstract thought, a formal unity which is But the “formal” unity of any such essential grade of being Scotists will not admit to be a real unity, though they hold it to be characteristic of reality independently of our thought. They contend that this unity is quite compatible with the real plurality conferred upon being by the principles which individuate the latter; and thus they cannot be fairly accused of monism. Their reasoning here is characteristically subtle. Just as any metaphysical grade of being, considered as an object of thought, is in itself neither manifold individually nor one universally—so that, as Thomists say, designating it in this condition as the Thus, the metaphysical grade of being, which, as considered in itself, [pg 157] Thomists hold to be an abstraction, having no other unity than that which thought confers upon it by making it logically universal, Scotists on the contrary hold to be as such something positive in the ontological order, having there a “formal” unity corresponding to the “conceptual” or “logical” unity which thought confers upon it by universalizing it. The metaphysical grade of being, thus conceived as something positive in the real order, Scotists will not admit to be a “reality,” nor the unity which characterizes it a “real” unity. But after all, if such a “formality” with its proportionate “unity,” is independent of thought; and if on the other hand “universality” is the work of thought, so that the universal as such cannot be real, it is not easy to see how the Scotist doctrine escapes the error of extreme realism. The metaphysical grade of being is a “formality” only because it is made abstract by thought; and it has “unity” only because it is made logically universal by thought; therefore to contend that as such it is something positive in the real order, independently of thought, is to “reify” the abstract and universal as such: which is extreme realism.

40. Ontological Truth Considered from Analysis of Experience.—We have seen that when the mind thinks of any reality it apprehends it as “one,” that ontological unity is a transcendental attribute of being; and this consideration led us to consider the manifoldness and the distinctions which characterize the totality of our experience. Now man himself is a real being surrounded by all the other real beings that constitute the universe. Moreover he finds himself endowed with faculties which bring him into conscious relations both with himself and with those other beings; and only by the proper interpretation of these relations can he understand aright his place in the universe. The first in order of these relations is that of reality to mind (25). This relation between mind and reality is what we understand by Truth.

Now truth is attributed both to knowledge and to things. We say that a person thinks or judges truly, that his knowledge is true (or correct, or accurate), when things really are as he thinks or judges them to be. The truth which we thus ascribe to knowledge, to the mind interpreting reality, is logical truth: a relation of concord or conformity of the mind interpreting reality—or, of the mind's judgment about reality—with the reality itself.162 Logical truth is dealt with in Logic and Epistemology. We are concerned here only with the truth that is attributed to reality, to things themselves: ontological, metaphysical, transcendental truth, as it is called. There is nothing abstruse or far-fetched about the use of the terms “true” and “truth” as equivalent to “real” and “reality”. We speak of “true” gold, a “true” friend, a “veritable” hero, etc. Now what do we mean by thus ascribing truth to a thing? We mean that it corresponds to a mental type or ideal. We call a liquid true wine or real wine, for [pg 159] instance, when it verifies in itself the definition we have formed of the nature of wine. Hence whenever we apply the terms “true” or “truth” to a thing we shall find that we are considering that thing not absolutely and in itself but in reference to an idea in our minds: we do not say of a thing simply that it is true, we say that it is truly such or such a thing, i.e. that it is really of a certain nature already conceived by our minds. If the appearance of the thing suggests comparison with some such ideal type or nature, and if the thing is seen on examination not really to verify this nature in itself, we say that it is not really or truly such or such a thing: e.g. that a certain liquid is not really wine, or is not true wine. When we have no such ideal type to which to refer a thing, when we do not know its nature, cannot classify and name it, we have to suspend our judgment and say that we do not know what the thing really is. Hence, for example, the new rays discovered by RÖntgen were called provisionally “X rays,” their real nature being at first unknown. We see, then, that real or ontological truth is simply reality considered as conformable with an ideal type, with an idea in the mind.

Whence does the human mind derive these ideal types, these concepts or definitions of the nature of things? It derives them from actually experienced reality by abstraction, comparison, generalization, and reflection on the data of its experience.163 Hence it follows that the ontological truth of things is not known by the mind antecedently to the formation of the mental type. It is, of course, in the things antecedently to any judgment we form about the things; and the logical truth of our judgments is dependent on it, for logical truth is the conformity of our judgments with the real nature of things. But antecedently to all exercise of human thought, antecedently to our conception of the nature of a thing, the thing has not for us formal or actual ontological truth: it has only fundamental or potential ontological truth. If in this condition reality had actual ontological truth for us, there would be no ground for our distinguishing mentally between the reality and the truth of things; whereas the existence of this mental or logical distinction is undeniable. The concept of reality is the concept of something absolute; the concept of ontological truth is the concept of something relative, not of an absolute but of a relative property of being.