PROPOSITION LIX.

The real intrinsic principle of Generic Unity is the Essence of the individual, as embracing within itself a concord or similarity with entities of another kind, and, consequently, as capable of ulterior determination.

This Thesis follows as a Corollary from the preceding; and, therefore, only needs declaration. For it has been seen that every Nature possesses certain notes of similarity with other Natures; and that these notes offer to the intellect a real foundation for conceiving each of those Natures, wherein such similarity of essential notes is to be found, as one. When the intellect so conceives, the result is a Generic Universal; or, in other words, a Universal which includes within its periphery more than one Species. A Genus is, consequently, a synthetical concept. It is essentially unitive; and its foundation is similarity of Nature. Yet, for all this, it represents the Essence or Specific Nature as a whole, though indeterminately. It needs the representation of additional notes; in order that the Nature represented may be considered as proximately capable of individuation and, as a consequence, of existence outside its causes.