PROPOSITION XLI.

Matter, quantitatively determined, cannot be the intrinsic constitutive principle of Individuation in material substances.

PROLEGOMENON.

Quantity is pronounced by the Philosophy of the School to be an Accident, informing material substance; and is either Continuous or Discrete. Continuous Quantity, with which alone we have to do at present, gives to its Subject extension, divisibility, position, and, by virtue of its limits, measure and shape. Every Accident, and therefore Quantity, presupposes its Subject; that is, in other words, the matter must have been previously, in order of nature at least, if not of time, actuated by its definite Form, and the substantial composite have been thus constituted. Then the accidental Forms, of which Quantity is first and foremost, supervene.

There is a question touching Continuous Quantity, which has been, and still is, much debated in the Schools; and it is necessary to the conclusiveness of the arguments which will be produced in proof of the present Proposition, that it should be referred to here. It has to do with the order, or manner, in which Quantity informs material Substance. Some Doctors maintain that it immediately informs the entire corporeal substance; while others affirm that, though (as all agree) it supervenes on the complete constitution of corporeal substance, nevertheless, it immediately informs the matter, and only mediately the Form and integral composite. This is obviously not the place for a discussion touching the respective merits of these two opinions. It suffices here to say that, whichever opinion is adopted, the impossibility that matter, quantitatively determined, should be the intrinsic constitutive principle of individuation, in the instance of material substances, remains the same. First of all, therefore, to take each of these opinions by itself: --

I. If quantity immediately informs the whole Composite; Matter, quantitatively determined, cannot be the intrinsic constitutive principle of Individuation. For,

a. According to that which has been stated in the Prolegomenon, the Subject of the Quantity must be fully constituted, before it can receive its supervening Accidental Form. But, according to this hypothesis, the Subject of the Quantity is the entire Composite. Therefore, the entire Composite Substance must be already fully constituted, previous to its information by its determined Quantity. But, as all action is terminated to the Individual, not to the Common or Universal; it follows, that the composite Substance must have been constituted in its proper Haecceity, before receiving its Quantitative Form. Therefore, Matter, as determined by Quantity, cannot be the constitutive principle of Individuation in the instance of material Substances.

6. From this matter as actuated by this form there results, prior to any information by Quantity or other Accident, this individual, material Substance, which is really one, and entitatively distinct from every other. If it were not so, this Quantity would essentially enter into the composition of this material Substance; consequently, it would not be an accidental Form, nor could it be posterior, even in order of nature, to the Substance itself. Hence it follows, that the Matter is individuated, the Form individuated, and the whole Composite Substance individuated, prior to the information of Quantity. But, if so; Matter, quantitatively determined, cannot possibly be the constitutive principle of Individuation. For it has been already proved, that Matter alone cannot be such, even germinally; and Quantity presupposes the Haecceity of the Matter, the Haecceity of the Form, and the Haecceity of the entire composite.

II. If it be assumed that Quantity immediately informs Primordial Matter, and only mediately the form and entire Composite; it will still remain impossible that Matter, quantitatively informed, should be the intrinsic constitutive principle of Individuation in material substances. For it so happens, that Matter, informed by determinate Quantity, is de facto subjected to different successive Forms and, therefore, remains the same in various distinct individuals. Thus, a sapling or a branch is now green, now withered and dead. In the former case it was informed by the vegetative Form which substantially actuated the living tree; in the latter case, that Form has receded into the potentiality of the Matter, and has been succeeded by another substantial Form. Yet, the determined Quantity, with its measure and shape, remains as before. The same thing occurs in the living and dead body of a man, and in a multitude of other cases.

III. Three further arguments there are that are of equal cogency, whichever of the two opinions be adopted.

i. Quantity is an Accident and, therefore, presupposes its Subject and the complete constitution of that Subject. Consequently, it cannot enter into the constitution of an individual Substance, nor into the constitution of the Individuality of that Substance. For, as has been shown, the Haecceity is not really distinct from the Specific Nature, as considered in the Individual. Against this argument, however, may be urged an objection, derived from the doctrine, already stated, concerning the nature of Transcendental Unity. For it was there emphatically declared, that Unity formally consists of Indivision in Being; and that the division or distinction from every other being was not included in the formal concept of Unity, but followed as a consequence. Now, as Individual Unity is nothing but Transcendental Unity contracted or determined, the former, like the latter, will represent in its formal concept Indivision of the Individual; while its individual separation, or numerical distinction, from every other, only follows as a consequence. But if so, then, why may not the individual Unity of material Substance, formally considered, be rooted in the substantial Composite itself; and its distinction and division from every other follow, as a consequence, from the information by its definite quantity? Let it suffice for answer that, if such distinction and division from every other were the consequence of any positive addition to Being, the objection might hold good and the hypothesis be admitted. But it has been seen, on the contrary, that this negation of identity follows of itself, on the position simply of the other term; so that, provided there be some other, the indivision of Being in itself ipso facto divides it off from that other. The same must be said of individual Unity; and, consequently, its incommunicability to another is included in its own Indivision, and only requires the presence of the other term of distinction.

ii. Forasmuch as Quantity is an Accident; it is not its part to distinguish entitatively one Matter from another, or one part of the same Matter from another part. On the contrary, it presupposes its Subject entitatively constituted and, therefore, already individual; consequently, its partial information of the Subject presupposes the constitution of material parts in that subject. Thus, for instance, the definite Quantity which informs the body of a certain man and partially informs its separate organs and, members presupposes not only the entitative constitution of the man, but likewise of his separate organs and members. Wherefore, Quantity presupposes entitative and substantial distinction, which is the property of individual Unity; it cannot, accordingly, be the intrinsic constitutive principle of the latter. Quantity, indeed, gives quantitative and local or situated Unity and Distinction, but not entitative; and the former does not cause, but is caused by, the latter.

iii. If Matter quantitatively determined were the intrinsic constitutive principle of individual Unity; it would follow, that the same material Substance would be all but ceaselessly receiving new Individuation, and become a nucleus of individuals indefinitely numerous. For, -- not to take the instances of stones or other inorganic substances changed in their quantity by attrition, compression, dilatation, -- growing plants and animals are perpetually increasing in their quantity and changing in their figure. But, in this hypothesis, with every change there must be a corresponding change of Haecceity; and thus, the plant or animal would be determined to as many fresh individuations as there were moments in its growth; to say nothing of similar quantitative changes which take place in its decline. The conclusion is manifestly repugnant to common sense.