PROPOSITION IV.

Being is contracted to its inferior determinations, not after the manner of composition, but by way of a more express concept of some being contained under transcendental Being. Both concepts are simple, and only differ in their greater or less determinateness; and consequently the more determinate cannot be resolved into two elements, of which one is common with, the other outside of, the less determinate.

This Proposition gives a solution of the second difficulty exposed in the introduction to the last Proposition; and, as it is the most knotty and important of all the difficulties that bear upon this branch of the subject, there may be an advantage in repeating it with more of circumstance.

If, then, the objective concept of Being is one, and if, as such, it prescinds from all and each of the determinations or contractions of Being; it is not easy to understand how it is possible, having reached this transcendental height, to descend again, In the determination of Genera to their subordinate Species, the descent is made by means of a foreign element, so to speak, in the shape of a Differentia. Accordingly, it may be said that while the Genus, as Genus, is simple; its subordinate Species is the result of a logical composition, viz, of the Genus + the Difference. Thus, to take an instance, let Animal be the Genus. In order to determine it, the Difference, Having four feet, is added to it; and the result of the addition is, the contraction of the Genus and constitution of the species Quadruped. Now, it is evident that the differential addition is not essentially included in the objective concept of Animal, but is something adventitious and, as it were, external to it; otherwise, neither tables nor chairs could have four feet without becoming animals, while reptiles, birds, and fishes, could not be animals without being furnished with the same number of feet. The objective concept, therefore, of Quadruped is composite and admits of resolution into two forms: the one of which identifies it with its genus, while the other, as extraneous to the Genus, constitutes its specific nature. So far all is plain. But now, turn to Being. How is it to be determined? Extraneous addition is impossible; for that which is added is either something or nothing. It cannot be nothing; for the addition of nothing is no addition. Therefore, it is something. But something is Being; therefore, it is Being that determines Being. But this is impossible; for Being + Being = Being, and nothing else. Moreover -- to turn now to the supposed determination itself -- how is it to be resolved? Take Being as its quasi Genus; what is the remaining element? It is either Being or nothing. But Being, prescinded or divided from itself is no resolution into really distinct components. The question therefore returns; How can Being be contracted to its subordinate determinations, on the hypothesis that its objective concept is one prescinding from every more determinate form? It may be said, indeed, that Being is not a Genus, and, consequently, is incapable of division by whatsoever Difference. This is most true, and follows from its being a Transcendental. But the fact does not solve the difficulty; it only expresses it in other words. So far the above argument is irrefragable, that Being is incapable of division and consequent determination by anything extraneous added to itself; that it cannot, therefore, form part of a composite, but permeates through all its graduated contractions, even to the singular and individual. And thus much is freely conceded in the present Proposition. But can Being be no otherwise determined or contracted? Such is the question which awaits solution.

By way of introduction, let the ship appear on the scene again, as viewed through the telescope. When it has been brought to the exact focus, and all its parts and most minute appendages can be clearly and distinctly perceived; there is no real addition made to that obscure extended figure which first appeared within the field of view. The one is not a composite, which admits of resolution into that uncharacterized other and a new, extraneous element, by which the former has been differentiated. For, however numerous the parts of the vessel, however complete the arrangement of sails, ropes, pulleys, and the rest; they are all covered by that original, extended figure. There is nothing whatever new. The only difference is, that the object originally presented itself to the eye as a merely extended something; whereas, afterwards, it is seen in its specific characteristics as a ship belonging to a certain particular class. So, again, the mind may consider the quantity of an object in its indeterminate universality; and it may afterwards conceive it as determined by the inch, or the foot, or the yard, or the pole. Now, in these latter concepts, no real Differentia has been added to Quantity; for an inch is simply quantity; so is a foot, so a yard, so a pole; and no addition has been made save to the clearness and definiteness of the representation. Similarly, in the degrees of a Thermometer, no real addition is made to the essential nature of Heat; the degree only determines the intensity and precises the concept. Such is the way in which Being is contracted to its inferior determinations. The objective concept of Being and the objective concept of Substance, for instance, are not in one and the same object two distinct realities: but it is the same reality in both, with this sole difference; that in the former concept it is objected to the mind in its simplest, most confused, and indeterminate form; whereas in the latter it is contracted and determined by the distinguishing mode of Perseity. Accordingly, both concepts are equally simple. It is utterly impossible to resolve Substance into Being and Perseity, as two distinct components of one composite; because Perseity is a determination of Being, and therefore Being. Consequently, it determines Being and thereby contracts it; but it cannot really differentiate it.

The illustrations already given abundantly show the possibility of such a manner of determination or contraction; and this is sufficient to justify and establish the truth of the present Proposition. For the concept of Being is not really prescinded from its subordinates, but merely by an abstraction of the mind. Now, such abstraction can be effected only in one of two ways; either by a quasi separation of one from the other, as of the Formal from the Material, or of the Material from the Formal, whereby one grade is separated off from another, as in the instance of Genera and Differences; or by a sort of confused cognition by which the object is considered not distinctly and determinately as it really is, but according to a certain likeness or agreement which it has with other objects. But by this agreement, so far as the concept of Being is concerned, exists in things as regards their entire entities and modes: and therefore the confusion, or prescindent nature, of such concept is not the result of a separation by which one grade is cut off from another, but simply of a cognition which cuts off a confused from a distinct the and determinate concept.'^{1} To admit the former method of abstraction in the case of Being, involves the subject in all those inextricable difficulties which have been pointed out at the commencement; whereas the latter enables us to understand how Being can be one in its objective concept, prescinding from its determinations, and yet can be contracted to those subordinate determinations, without the introduction of an extraneous Difference.

The above explanation is in accordance with the teaching of St. Thomas: -- 'That which the intellect conceives as most known,' he remarks, 'and into which it resolves all its concepts, is Being; so that all the other concepts of the intellect must necessarily be formed by addition to Being. But nothing can be added to Being as of a nature extraneous to it, in the way that Difference is added to Genus; because every nature whatsoever is essentially Being. So that certain things are said to add to Being, in this way, viz., that they express its mode, which is not expressed by the simple name of Being.' And again, in the same place, 'Substance does not add to Being any Difference; but by the word, Substance, is expressed a special mode of being.'^{2} And, once more, in a passage which Suarez has passed over, 'Substance, Quantity and Quality, and that which is contained under them, contract Being, by determining Being to some definite Quiddity or Nature.'^{3}

{1} Suarez, Metaph. disp. ii, § 6, n. 10.

{2} De Verit. Q. i, a. I, in c.

{3} 1ae, v, 3, ad 1m.