PROPOSITION XXXIX.

Haecceity adds to the specific Nature, considered absolutely, something distinct from that Nature, not only in material Substances and Accidents, but likewise in all immaterial Entities that are created and finite.

I. The first argument, by which the truth of this Proposition is established, has more of an elenchtic than of an absolute cogency; and may be thus stated. The oniy reason why it has been denied by some Philosophers, that Haecceity adds to the specific nature of purely spiritual Beings something distinct from that nature is, that they consider determined Matter in material Substances to be the adequate principle of individuation. But this opinion is destitute of any solid foundation, as will be seen by the Theses which are immediately to follow, wherein the doctrine of the Angelic Doctor touching this point will be fully discussed. But, even supposing for the moment, (though by no means granting), that the aforesaid opinion is true; it would not follow that the present Proposition is untenable or false. For, if determined Matter be the adequate principle of individuation in material Substances, this does not hinder, but that there may be some other principle of individuation in Substances that are not material. Distinct Natures and Entities have distinct principles, accommodated to their own peculiar Being. Angelic composition is not the composition of material Beings; just as the substantial constitution of human beings is not that of irrational animals. Wherefore, it is not impossible that the principle of individuating difference in pure Spirits may be other than that which constitutes the Individual in material Substances.

II. The truth of this Thesis is confirmed by an argument, whose premisses are borrowed from Natural Theology. For God essentially includes in His Divine Nature His own positive Individuation and Self-incommunicability to inferiors, (after the manner in which a specific Nature is communicable to many included under it), simply by reason of His infinity. Whence the conclusion may be safely drawn, that it is not intrinsically impossible for any specific Nature to be in such manner communicable to inferiors. But, if so; that by which the specific Nature is determined to a given individual, or, in other words, the Haecceity, must be something really distinct from the specific Nature. Nor can it be urged in reply that, albeit the created nature of purely spiritual Beings is not absolutely infinite; nevertheless, it is infinite after a sort and in a certain definite order. For such infinity must be either extensive or intensive. Now, to assert the first of an Angelic nature, is simply to beg the question; while the second cannot be demonstratively shown and, even if it could, would not hinder the possible multiplication of individuals under that specific Nature. It cannot be demonstratively shown; on the contrary, the reverse is more consonant with reason. For the whole intensive perfection of an angel is contained within the limits of a definite Species, which is an effectual bar to its infinity. And, if it could be proved; there is nothing to hinder this intensive infinity from being participable by many.

III. A third confirmatory argument is derived from the nature of the human soul. For it is an immaterial and spiritual Substance, and yet its specific essence is determined to this individual by a real addition; consequently, its Haecceity is something really distinct from the specific Nature, as such. To this it may be answered that, though the soul of man is a spiritual Substance; yet, that it is incomplete, and has a Transcendental relation to the body which it informs, by reason of which it is individuated. But such an evasion will not serve its turn. For it must be remembered that the human soul, specifically considered, has a relation to the human body, also specifically considered. It is only this soul which has a Transcendental relation to this individual body; consequently, the Haecceity of the soul is, in order of nature, prior to the said Transcendental relation, which cannot, accordingly, be the adequate principle of such Haecceity.

IV. A further argument may be drawn from the instance of spiritual Accidents. For it is beyond all controversy, that the successive thoughts or volitions of a pure Spirit are individual; so that Angelic thought becomes this or that thought in the concrete, by some real addition made to Angelic thought, specifically considered, -- to say nothing of the individual difference between the thought of one Spirit and that of another; which might possibly be laid to the account of a distinction in the persons who think. Now, if, in the same Subject or Angel, thoughts are numerically or individually distinct and really distinct; it is obvious that, in the instance of these thoughts, there must be a real principle of individuation, by which one thought is really distinguished from another. But, if this is manifestly true of the acts; why not, in like manner, of the faculty that gives birth to such acts? Both are immaterial and spiritual; and both are de facto individuated. Therefore, if acts of thought and of volition are individually determined in the same Subject, by something real added to the specific Nature of both; it is, to say the least, presumable, that the faculties of thought and will and, consequently, the specific Nature, should likewise be determined, in this individual Angel, by something real added to the said specific Nature.

V. The rejection of the present Proposition would involve an unreasonable limitation of the Divine Omnipotence. For, if the individual determination of each Angel should be identical with its specific Nature, so that no real addition should be made to the latter by such individuation; it would follow that every Angelic Species or Order would in itself be essentially individual, so that it would involve a contradiction in terms to suppose that God could create more than one Angel of the same Species or Order.

Consequently, if, as Supernatural Theology teaches, a number of these Angels should have fallen from their first estate, and have become anomalies to the Universal Whole; it would be impossible for God to repair His losses, and a vast number of Angelic Orders would be for ever lost to the heavenly Hierarchy. The Angelic Doctor, as will be presently seen, shrinks with something like horror from such a conclusion; and explicitly affirms, that such a reparation is not outside the sphere of the Divine Omnipotence. But, if the specific Nature of a Spirit were, essentially and without addition, its own principle of individuation, nothing can be plainer than that God could not de potentia absoluta multiply individuals in a given Species; for He cannot change the Essences of things, since this would be to change Himself.

III. WHAT IS THE FOUNDATION OF INDIVIDUAL UNITY IN MATERIAL AND IMMATERIAL SUBSTANCES, AS WELL AS IN ACCIDENTS?

It would seem becoming to warn the reader antecedently, that he is about to enter upon a more, than usually abstruse and perplexed discussion, whose difficulties have been much increased by an answer to the above question, which is supposed to claim the authority of the Philosopher alike and of the Angelic Doctor. It does not appear, however, that the former has ever professedly treated this particular point in any of his writings; consequently, all reference to his authority will be omitted. But the authority of St. Thomas remains; than which nothing can be graver. Yet his teaching on this head appears, at first sight, to oppose itself to that resolution of the present question by Suarez, which will be developed and defended in these pages. That there is, however, no real contrariety between them, it will be one principal object of the succeeding Propositions to establish; and the reader will hardly blame the prolixity of the examination, when he finds that it introduces him to those primary ideas of Form and Matter, (afterwards to be examined at length in the Book on Causes), which constitute so prominent and distinctive a feature in the Philosophy of the School.

The present inquiry is not directed to the discovery of any extrinsic principle, or principles, of Individuation, such as its efficient or final cause; but of its intrinsic principle. Now, the intrinsic principle of Individuation may be understood in three different ways, constitutively, genetically, sensilely; and the question proposed will receive a different answer, accordingly as it is regarded under one or other of these three different aspects. The intrinsic principle, constitutive of Individuation, is that reality in a being which constitutes it individually one, and, accordingly, supposes that being to be, at least conceptually, really and actually complete in its own nature. The words, at least conceptually, have been added, because Haecceity, like Existence, may be ideal; that is, we may conceive an individual, and we may conceive his existence, as, for instance, in the case of Antichrist. The genetic intrinsic principle, or root, of Individuation is that internal principle which gives birth to, or is the occasion of, Individuation in the course of generation, while the Being is in process of becoming. If these two significations of the question are to be compared with one another; the former may be said, after a sort, to treat the matter physically, the latter metaphysically. The sensile intrinsic principle of Individuation is that which offers itself to the human senses; and is, in consequence, the foundation of our sensile perception of the individual. It answers to the question, How do I presently (i.e. in virtue of corporal presence) know that William is an individual, distinct from everybody else? In the Theses that follow, the discussion will pursue these three paths, in the order in which they have been here given.

The investigation includes all Being, so far as the possible subject-matter is concerned. For all real, actual, Being is individual, whether it be Substance or Accident. Yet One Being is excluded; not because He is not individual (for this He is supremely), but because with Him, and with Him alone, Essence is, in its own necessity, individual. God cannot but be individually One, by virtue of the infinity of His perfection. He is individually One, because He is. For, being what He is, He is essentially incommunicable in Himself to any other. The sole foundation of His Individuation is, that He is what He is, God the Infinite and the infinitely Perfect. The present discussion, therefore, includes only finite or created Being. Among these, Substance holds the foremost place; for Substance is absolute, Accident has a transcendental, entitative, relation to Substance. It is in consonance, therefore, with the natural order, that Substance should assume the foremost place in the present investigation. But finite Substance is of two kinds, immaterial and material. Of these, immaterial Substance is nobler in nature, and absolutely more intelligible, because more actual and nearer to the Prototype; but, in the case of the human mind, (forasmuch as it receives all its impressions from the senses, and conceives of nothing that is not primordially derived from the same Source), the order is reversed; for material Substance is more easily intelligible than spiritual. Following, therefore, the arrangement most consonant with human thought, the Propositions that follow will first of all treat of material, then of spiritual Substance; and, finally, of material and immaterial Accidents.

It will not be amiss to set the question once more clearly before us, as a sort of chart to direct us along our voyage of discovery. In created substances, the human intellect conceives a metaphysical composition of the specific Nature and the individual Difference. For, just as that which the Specific Difference according to metaphysical consideration adds to the Genus, is contractive or determinative of this latter and constitutive of the Species; so that which Haecceity adds to Species numerically contracts and determines this latter, and constitutes the Individual. Now, metaphysical composition has always a real foundation in the object so conceived. The question therefore arises, What is the real foundation of that individuation of each material substance, which, together with the specific Nature, metaphysically composes and constitutes this individual substance? To put it in the concrete: -- There is the dog Fido. it is plain that he has the specific Nature of a dog, by which he is distinguished from all other irrational animals, and which secures for him the appellative of dog. But there is something more in him; for he is this dog in particular, as distinguished from every other dog, even of the same kind. Evidently enough, that something added is not anything really distinct from the dog Fido's nature, yet the intellect conceives something in that nature which is common to many, and something that is special to Fido -- in other words, individual. What is more; those two concepts are true, and correspond with an objective reality. So we ask, What is there in that dog, which is the intrinsic principle constitutive of his individuality? Wherefore,