1. OUR CONCEPT OF BEING: its Expression and Features.—The term “Being” (Lat. ens; Gr. ὤν; Ger. Seiend; Fr. étant) as present participle of the verb to be (Lat. esse; Gr. ἔιναι; Ger. Sein; Fr. être) means existing (existens, existere). But the participle has come to be used as a noun; and as such it does not necessarily imply actual existence hic et nunc. It does indeed imply some relation to actual existence; for we designate as “being” (in the substantive sense) only whatever we conceive as actually existing or at least as capable of existing; and it is from the participial sense, which implies actual existence, that the substantive sense has been derived. Moreover, the intelligible use of the word “being” as a term implies a reference to some actually existing sphere of reality. It is in the substantive meaning the term will be most frequently used in these pages, as the context will show. When we speak of “a being” in the concrete, the word has the same meaning as “thing”(res) used in the wide sense in which this latter includes persons, places, events, facts and phenomena of whatsoever kind. In the same sense we speak of “a reality,” this term having taken on a concrete, in addition to its original abstract, meaning. “Being” has also this abstract sense when we speak of “the being or reality of things”. Finally it may be used in a collective sense to indicate the sum-total of all that is or can be—all reality.
(a) The notion of being, spontaneously reached by the human mind, is found on reflection to be the simplest of all notions, defying every attempt at analysis into simpler notions. It is involved in every other concept which we form of any object of thought whatsoever. Without it we could have no concept of anything.
(b) It is thus the first of all notions in the logical order, i.e. in the process of rational thought.
(c) It is also the first of all notions in the chronological order, the first which the human mind forms in the order of time. Not, of course, that we remember having formed it before any other more determinate notions. But the child’s awakening intellectual activity must have proceeded from the simplest, easiest, most superficial of all concepts, to fuller, clearer, and more determinate concepts,i.e. from the vague and confused notion of “being” or “thing” to notions of definite modes of being, or kinds of thing.
(d) This direct notion of being is likewise the most indeterminate of all notions; though not of course entirely indeterminate. An object of thought, to be conceivable or intelligible at all by our finite minds, must be rendered definite in some manner and degree; and even this widest notion of “being” is rendered intelligible only by being conceived as positive and as contrasting with absolute non-being or nothingness.
According to the Hegelian philosophy “pure thought” can apparently think “pure being,” i.e. being in absolute indeterminateness, being as not even differentiated from “pure not-being” or absolute nothingness. And this absolutely indeterminate confusion (we may not call it a “synthesis” or “unity”) of something and nothing, of being and not-being, of positive and negative, of affirmation and denial, would be conceived by our finite minds as the objective correlative of, and at the same time as absolutely identical with, its subjective correlative which is “pure thought”. Well, it is with the human mind and its objects, and how it thinks those objects, that we are concerned at present; not with speculations involving the gratuitous assumption of a Being that would transcend all duality of subject and object, all determinateness of knowing and being, all distinction of thought and thing. We believe that the human mind can establish the existence of a Supreme Being whose mode of Thought and Existence transcends all human comprehension, but it can do so only as the culminating achievement of all its speculation; and the transcendent Being it thus reaches has nothing in common with the monistic ideal-real being of Hegel’s philosophy. In endeavouring to set out from the high a priori ground of such an intangible conception, the Hegelian philosophy starts at the wrong end.
(e) Further, the notion of being is the most abstract of all notions, poorest in intension as it is widest in extension. We derive it from the data of our experience, and the process by which we reach it is a process of abstraction. We lay aside all the differences whereby things are distinguished from one another; we do not consider these differences; we prescind or abstract from them mentally, and retain for consideration only what is common to all of them. This common element forms the explicit content of our notion of being.
It must be noted, however, that we do not positively exclude the differences from the object of our concept; we cannot do this, for the simple reason that the differences too are “being,” inasmuch as they too are modes of being. Our attitude towards them is negative; we merely abstain from considering them explicitly, though they remain in our concept implicitly. The separation effected is only mental, subjective, notional, formal, negative; not objective, not real, not positive. Hence the process by which we narrow down the concept of being to the more comprehensive concept of this or that generic or specific mode of being, does not add to the former concept anything really new, or distinct from, or extraneous to it; but rather brings out explicitly something that was implicit in the latter. The composition of being with its modes is, therefore, only logical composition, not real.
On the other hand, it would seem that when we abstract a generic mode of being from the specific modes subordinate to the former, we positively exclude the differentiating characteristics of these species; and that, conversely, when we narrow down the genus to a subordinate species we do so by adding on a differentiating mode which was not contained even implicitly in the generic concept. Thus, for example, the differentiating concept “rational” is not contained even implicitly in the generic concept “animal”: it is added on ab extra to the latter in order to reach the specific concept of “rational animal” or “man”; so that in abstracting the generic from the subordinate specific concept we prescind objectively and really from the differentiating concept, by positively excluding this latter. This kind of abstraction is called objective, real, positive; and the composition of such generic and differentiating modes of being is technically known as metaphysical composition. The different modes of being, which the mind can distinguish at different levels of abstraction in any specific concept—such as “rational,” “sentient,” “living,” “corporeal,” in the concept of “man”—are likewise known as “metaphysical grades” of being.
It has been questioned whether this latter kind of abstraction is always used in relating generic, specific, and differential modes of being. At first sight it would not appear to be a quite satisfactory account of the process in cases where the generic notion exhibits a mode of being which can be embodied only in one or other of a number of alternative specific modes by means of differentiae not found in any things lying outside the genus itself. The generic notion of “plane rectilinear figure” does not, of course, include explicitly its species “triangle,” “quadrilateral,” “pentagon,” etc.; nor does it include even implicitly any definite one of them. But the concept of each of the differentiating characters, e.g. the differentia “three-sidedness,” is unintelligible except as a mode of a “plane rectilinear figure”. This, however, is only accidental, i.e. due to the special objects considered; and even here there persists this difference that whereas what differentiates the species of plane rectilinear figures is not explicitly and formally plane-rectilinearity, that which differentiates finite from infinite being, or substantial from accidental being, is itself also formally and explicitly being. But there are other cases in which the abstraction is manifestly objective. Thus, for example, the differentiating concept “rational” does not even implicitly include the generic concept “animal,” for the former concept may be found realized in beings other than animals; and the differentiating concept “living” does not even implicitly include the concept “corporeal,” for it may be found realized in incorporeal beings.
(f) Since the notion of being is so simple that it cannot be analysed into simpler notions which might serve as its genus and differentia, it cannot strictly speaking be defined. We can only describe it by considering it from various points of view and comparing it with the various modes in which we find it realized. This is what we have been attempting so far. Considering its fundamental relation to existence we might say that “Being is that which exists or is at least capable of existing”: Ens est id quod existit vel saltem existere potest. Or, considering its relation to its opposite we might say that “Being is that which is not absolute nothingness”: Ens est id quod non est nihil absolutum. Or, considering its relation to our minds, we might say that “Being is whatever is thinkable, whatever can be an object of thought”.
(g) The notion of being is so universal that it transcends all actual and conceivable determinate modes of being: it embraces infinite being and all modes of finite being. In other words it is not itself a generic, but a transcendental notion. Wider than all, even the widest and highest genera, it is not itself a genus. A genus is determinable into its species by the addition of differences which lie outside the concept of the genus itself; being, as we have seen, is not in this way determinable into its modes.
2. In what Sense are all Things that Exist or can Exist said to be “Real” or to have “Being”?—A generic concept can be predicated univocally, i.e. in the same sense, of its subordinate species. These latter differ from one another by characteristics which lie outside the concept of the genus, while they all agree in realizing the generic concept itself: they do not of course realize it in the same way, but as such it is really and truly in each of them and is predicated in the same sense of each. But the characteristics which differentiate all genera and species from one another, and from the common notion of being, in which they all agree, are likewise being. That in which they differ is being, as well as that in which they agree. Hence we do not predicate “being” univocally of its various modes. When we say of the various classes of things which make up our experience that they are “real” (or “realities,” or “beings”), we do not apply this predicate in altogether the same sense to the several classes; for as applied to each class it connotes the whole content of each, not merely the part in which this agrees with, but also the part in which it differs from, the others. Nor yet do we apply the concept of “being” in a totally different sense to each separate determinate mode of being. When we predicate “being” of its modes the predication is not merely equivocal. The concept expressed by the predicate-term “being” is not totally different as applied to each subject-mode; for in all cases alike it implies either actual existence or some relation thereto. It only remains, therefore, that we must regard the notion of being, when predicated of its several modes, as partly the same and partly different; and this is what we mean when we say that the concept of being is analogical, that being is predicated analogically of its various modes.
Analogical predication is of two kinds: a term or concept may be affirmed of a variety of subjects either by analogy of attribution or by analogy of proportion. We may, for instance, speak not only of a man as “healthy,” but also of his food, his countenance, his occupation, his companionship, etc., as “healthy”. Now health is found really only in the man, but it is attributed to the other things owing to some extrinsic but real connexion which they have with his health, whether as cause, or effect, or indication, of the latter. This is analogy of attribution; the subject of which the predicate is properly and primarily affirmed being known as the primary analogue or analogum princeps, those to which it is transferred being called the analogata. It underlies the figures of speech known as metynomy and synechdoche. Now on account of the various relations that exist between the different modes of being, relations of cause and effect, whole and part, means and end, ground and consequence, etc.—relations which constitute the orders of existing and possible things, the physical and the metaphysical orders—being is of course predicated of its modes by analogy of attribution; and in such predication infinite being is the primary analogue for finite beings, and the substance-mode of being for all accident-modes of being.
Inasmuch, however, as being is not merely attributed to these modes extrinsically, but belongs to all of them intrinsically, it is also predicated of them by analogy of proportion. This latter sort of analogy is based on similarity of relations. For example, the act of understanding bears a relation to the mind similar to that which the act of seeing bears to the eye, and hence we say of the mind that it “sees” things when it understands them. Or, again, we speak of a verdant valley in the sunshine as “smiling,” because its appearance bears a relation to the valley similar to that which a smile bears to the human countenance. Or again, we speak of the parched earth as “thirsting” for the rains, or of the devout soul as “thirsting” for God, because these relations are recognized as similar to that of a thirsty person towards the drink for which he thirsts. In all such cases the analogical concept implies not indeed the same attribute (differently realized) in all the analogues (as in univocal predication) but rather a similarity in the relation or proportion in which each analogue embodies or realizes some attribute or attributes peculiar to itself. Seeing is to the eye as understanding is to the mind; smiling is to the countenance as the pleasing appearance of its natural features is to the valley. Rain is to the parched earth, and God is to the devout soul, as drink is to the thirsty person. It will be noted that in all such cases the analogical concept is affirmed primarily and properly of some one thing (the analogum princeps), and of the other only secondarily, and relatively to the former.
Now, if we reflect on the manner in which being is affirmed of its various modes (e.g. of the infinite and the finite; or of substance and accident; or of spiritual and corporeal substances; or of quantities, or qualities, or causes, etc.) we can see firstly that although these differ from one another by all that each of them is, by the whole being of each, yet there is an all-pervading similarity between the relations which these modes bear each to its own existence. All have, or can have, actual existence: each according to the grade of perfection of its own reality. If we conceive infinite being as the cause of all finite beings, then the former exists in a manner appropriate to its all-perfect reality, and finite beings in a manner proportionate to their limited realities; and so of the various modes of finite being among themselves. Moreover, we can see secondly, as will be explained more fully below, that being is affirmed of the finite by virtue of its dependence on the infinite, and of accident by virtue of its dependence on substance. Being or reality is therefore predicated of its modes by analogy of proportion.
Is a concept, when applied in this way, one, or is it really manifold? It is not simply one, for this would yield univocal predication; nor is it simply manifold, for this would give equivocal predication. Being, considered in its vague, imperfect, inadequate sense, as involving some common or similar proportion or relation to existence in all its analogues, is one; considered as representing clearly and adequately what is thus similarly related to each of the analogues, it is manifold.
Analogy of proportion is the basis of the figure of speech known as metaphor. It would be a mistake, however, to infer from this that what is thus analogically predicated of a number of things belongs intrinsically and properly only to one of them, being transferred by a mere extrinsic denomination to the others; and that therefore it does not express any genuine knowledge on our part about the nature of these other things. It does give us real knowledge about them. Metaphor is not equivocation; but perhaps more usually it is understood not to give us real knowledge because it is understood to be based on resemblances that are merely fanciful, not real. Still, no matter how slender and remote be the proportional resemblance on which the analogical use of language is based, in so far forth as it has such a real basis it gives us real insight into the nature of the analogues. And if we hesitate to describe such a use of language as “metaphorical,” this is only because“metaphor” perhaps too commonly connotes a certain transferred and improper extension of the meaning of terms, based upon a purely fanciful resemblance.
All our language is primarily and properly expressive of concepts derived from the sensible appearances of material realities. As applied to the suprasensible, intelligible aspects of these realities, such as substance and cause, or to spiritual realities, such as the human soul and God, it is analogical in another sense; not as opposed to univocal, but as opposed to proper. That is, it expresses concepts which are not formed directly from the presence of the things which they signify, but are gathered from other things to which the latter are necessarily related in a variety of ways.Considering the origin of our knowledge, the material, the sensible, the phenomenal, comes first in order, and moulds our concepts and language primarily to its own proper representation and expression; while the spiritual, the intelligible, the substantial, comes later, and must make use of the concepts and language thus already moulded.
If we consider, however, not the order in which we get our knowledge, but the order of reality in the objects of our knowledge, being or reality is primarily and more properly predicated of the infinite than of the finite, of the Creator than of the creature, of the spiritual than of the material, of substances than of their accidents and sensible manifestations or phenomena. Yet we do not predicate being or reality of the finite, or of creatures, in a mere transferred, extrinsic, improper sense, as if these were mere manifestations of the infinite, or mere effects of the First Cause, to which alone reality would properly belong. For creatures, finite things, are in a true and proper sense also real.
Duns Scotus and those who think with him contend that the concept of being, derived as it is from our experience of finite being, if applied only analogically to infinite being would give us no genuine knowledge about the latter. They maintain that whenever a universal concept is applied to the objects in which it is realized intrinsically, it is affirmed of these objects univocally. The notion of being, in its most imperfect, inadequate, indeterminate sense, is, they say, one and the same in so far forth as it is applicable to the infinite and the finite, and to all the modes of the finite; and it is therefore predicated of all univocally. But although they apply the concept of being univocally to the infinite and the finite, i.e. to God and creatures, they admit that the reality corresponding to this univocal concept is totally different in God and in creatures: that God differs by all that He is from creatures, and they by all that they are from Him. While, however, Scotists emphasize the formal oneness or identity of the indeterminate common concept, followers of St. Thomas emphasize the fact that the various modes of being differ totally, by all that each of them is, from one another; and, from this radical diversity in the modes of being, they infer that the common concept should not be regarded as simply the same, but only as proportionally the same, as expressive of a similar relation of each intrinsically different mode of reality to actual existence.
Thomists lay still greater stress, perhaps, upon the second consideration referred to above, as a reason for regarding being as an analogical concept when affirmed of Creator and creature, or of substance and accident: the consideration that the finite is dependent on the infinite, and accident on substance. If being is realized in a true and proper sense, and intrinsically, as it undoubtedly is, in whatever is distinguishable from nothingness, why not say that we should affirm being or reality of all things “either as a genus in the strict sense, or else in some sense not analogical but proper, after the manner in which we predicate a genus of its species and individuals?... Since the object of our universal idea of being is admitted to be really in all things, we can evidently abstract from what is proper to substance and to accident, just as we abstract from what is proper to plants and to animals when we affirm of these that they are living things.”
“In reply to this difficulty,” Father Kleutgen continues, “we say in the first place that the idea of being is in truth less analogical and more proper than any belonging to the first sort of analogy [i.e. of attribution], and that therefore it approaches more closely to generic concepts properly so called. At the same time the difference which separates both from the latter concepts remains. For a name applied to many things is analogical if what it signifies is realized par excellence in one, and in the others only subordinately and dependently on that. Hence it is that Aristotle regards predication as analogical when something is affirmed of many things (1) either because these have a certain relation to some one thing, (2) or because they depend on some one thing. In the former case the thing signified by the name is really and properly found only in one single thing, and is affirmed of all the others only in virtue of some real relation of these to the former, whether this be (a) that these things merely resemble that single thing [metaphor], or (b) bear some other relation to it, such as that of effect to cause, etc. [metonymy]. In the latter case the thing signified by the name is really in each of the things of which it is affirmed; but it is in one alone par excellence, and in the others only by depending, for its very existence in them, on that one. Now the object of the term being is found indeed in accidents, e.g. in quantity, colour, shape; but certainly it must be applied primarily to substance, and to accidents only dependently on the latter: for quantity, colour, shape can have being only because the corporeal substance possesses these determinations. But this is not at all the case with a genus and its species. These differ from the genus, not by any such dependence, but by the addition of some special perfection to the constituents of the genus; for example, in the brute beast sensibility is added to vegetative life, and in man intelligence is added to sensibility. Here there is no relation of dependence for existence. Even if we considered human life as that of which life is principally asserted, we could not say that plants and brute beasts so depended for their life on the life of man that we could not affirm life of them except as dependent on the life of man: as we cannot attribute being to accidents except by reason of their dependence on substance. Hence it is that we can consider apart, and in itself, life in general, and attribute this to all living things without relating it to any other being.”
“It might still be objected that the one single being of which we may affirm life primarily and principally, ought to be not human life, but absolute life. And between this divine life and the life of all other beings there is a relation of dependence, which reaches even to the very existence of life in these other beings. In fact all life depends on the absolute life, not indeed in the way accident depends on substance, but in a manner no less real and far more excellent. This is entirely true; but what are we to conclude from it if not precisely this, which scholasticism teaches: that the perfections found in the various species of creatures can be affirmed of these in the same sense (univocé), but that they can be affirmed of God and creatures only analogically?”
“From all of which we can understand why it is that in regard to genera and species the analogy is in the things but not in our thoughts, while in regard to substance and accidents it is both in the things and in our thoughts: a difference which rests not solely on our manner of conceiving things, nor a fortiori on mere caprice or fancy, but which has its basis in the very nature of the things themselves. For though in the former case there is a certain analogy in the things themselves, inasmuch as the same nature, that of the genus, is realized in the species in different ways, still, as we have seen, that is not sufficient, without the relation of dependence, to yield a basis for analogy in our thoughts. For it is precisely because accident, as a determination of substance, presupposes this latter, that being cannot be affirmed of accident except as dependent on substance.”
These paragraphs will have shown with sufficient clearness why we should regard being not as an univocal but as an analogical concept, when referred to God and creatures, or to substance and accident. For the rest, the divergence between the Scotist and the Thomist views is not very important, because Scotists also will deny that being is a genus of which the infinite and the finite would be species; finite and infinite are not differentiae superadded to being, inasmuch as each of these differs by its whole reality, and not merely by a determining portion, from the other; it is owing to the limitations of our abstractive way of understanding reality that we have to conceive the infinite by first conceiving being in the abstract, and then mentally determining this concept by another, namely, by the concept of “infinite mode of being”; the infinite, and whatever perfections we predicate formally of the infinite, transcend all genera, species and differentiae, because the distinction of being into infinite and finite is prior to the distinction into genera, species and differentiae; this latter distinction applying only to finite, not to infinite being.
The observations we have just been making in regard to the analogy of being are of greater importance than the beginner can be expected to realize. A proper appreciation of the way in which being or reality is conceived by the mind to appertain to the data of our experience, is indispensable to the defence of Theism as against Agnosticism and Pantheism.
3. Real Being and Logical Being.—We may next illustrate the notion of being by approaching it from another standpoint—by examining a fundamental distinction which may be drawn betweenreal being (ens reale) and logical being (ens rationis).
We derive all our knowledge, through external and internal sense perception, from the domain of actually existing things, these things including our own selves and our own minds. We form, from the data of sense-consciousness, by an intellectual process proper, mental representations of an abstract and universal character, which reveal to us partial aspects and phases of the natures of things. We have no intuitive intellectual insight into these natures. It is only by abstracting their various aspects, by comparing these in judgments, and reaching still further aspects by inferences, that we progress in our knowledge of things—gradually, step by step, discursivé, discurrendo. All this implies reflection on, and comparison of, our own ideas, our mental views of things. It involves the processes of defining and classifying, affirming and denying, abstracting and generalizing, analysing and synthesizing, comparing and relating in a variety of ways the objects grasped by our thought. Now in all these complex functions, by which alone the mind can interpret rationally what is given to it, by which alone, in other words, it can know reality, the mind necessarily and inevitably forms for itself (and expresses in intelligible language) a series of concepts which have for their objects only the modes in which, and the relations by means of which, it makes such gradual progress in its interpretation of what is given to it, in its knowledge of the real. These concepts are called secundae intentiones mentis—concepts of the second order, so to speak. And their objects, the modes and mutual relations of our primae intentiones or direct concepts, are called entia rationis—logical entities. For example, abstractness is a mode which affects not the reality which we apprehend intellectually, but the concept by which we apprehend it. So, too, is the universality of a concept, its communicability or applicability to an indefinite multitude of similar realities—the “intentio universalitatis,” as it is called—a mode of concept, not of the realities represented by the latter. So, likewise, is the absence of other reality than that represented by the concept, the relative nothingness or non-being by contrast with which the concept is realized as positive; and the absolute nothingness or non-being which is the logical correlative of the concept of being; and the static, unchanging self-identity of the object as conceived in the abstract. These are not modes of reality as it is but as it is conceived. Again, the manifold logical relations which we establish between our concepts—relations of (extensive or intensive) identity or distinction, inclusion or inherence, etc.—are logical entities, entia rationis: relations of genus, species, differentia, proprium, accidens; the affirmative or negative relation between predicate and subject in judgment; the mutual relations of antecedent and consequent in inference. Now all these logical entities, orobjecta secundae intentionis mentis, are relations established by the mind itself between its own thoughts; they have, no doubt, a foundation in the real objects of those thoughts as well as in the constitution and limitations of the mind itself; but they have themselves, and can have, no other being than that which they have as products of thought. Their sole being consists in being thought of. They are necessary creations or products of the thought-process as this goes on in the human mind. We see that it is only by means of these relations we can progress in understanding things. In the thought-process we cannot help bringing them to light—and thinking them after the manner of realities, per modum entis. Whatever we think we must think through the concept of “being”; whatever we conceive we must conceive as “being”; but on reflection we easily see that such entities as “nothingness,” “negation or absence or privation of being,” “universality,” “predicate”—and, in general, all relations established by our own thought between our own ideas representative of reality—can have themselves no reality proper, no actual or possible existence, other than that which they get from the mind in virtue of its making them objects of its own thought. Hence the scholastic definition of a logical entity or ens rationis as “that which has objective being merely in the intellect”: “illud quod habet esse objective tantum in intellectu, seu ... id quod a ratione excogitatur ut ens, cum tamen in se entitatem non habeat”. Of course the mental process by which we think such entities, the mental state in which they are held in consciousness, is just as real as any other mental process or state. But the entity which is thus held in consciousness has and can have no other reality than what it has by being an object of thought. And this precisely is what distinguishes it from real being, from reality; for the latter, besides the ideal existence it has in the mind which thinks of it, has, or at least can have, a real existence of its own, independently altogether of our thinking about it. We assume here, of course—what is established elsewhere, as against the subjective idealism of phenomenists and the objective idealism of Berkeley—that the reality of actual things does not consist in their being perceived or thought of, that their “esse” is not “percipi,” that they have a reality other than and independent of their actual presence to the thought of any human mind. And even purely possible things, even the creatures of our own fancy, the fictions of fable and romance, could, absolutely speaking and without any contradiction, have an existence in the actual order, in addition to the mental existence they receive from those who fancy them. Such entities, therefore, differ from entia rationis; they, too, are real beings.
What the reality of purely possible things is we shall discuss later on. Actually existing things at all events we assume to be given to the knowing mind, not to be created by the latter. Even in regard to these, however, we must remember that the mind in knowing them, in interpreting them, in seeking to penetrate the nature of them, is not purely passive; that reality as known to us—or, in other words, our knowledge of reality—is the product of a twofold factor: the subjective which is the mind, and the objective which is the extramental reality acting on, and thus revealing itself to, the mind. Hence it is that when we come to analyse in detail our knowledge of the nature of things—or, in other words, the natures of things as revealed to our minds—it will not be always easy to distinguish in each particular case the properties, aspects, relations, distinctions, etc., which are real (in the sense of being there in the reality independently of the consideration of the mind) from those that are merelylogical (in the sense of being produced and superadded to the reality by the mental process itself). Yet it is obviously a matter of the very first importance to determine, as far as may be possible, to what extent our knowledge of reality is not merely a mental interpretation, but a mental construction, of the latter; and whether, if there be a constructive or constitutive factor in thought, this should be regarded as interfering with the validity of thought as representative of reality. This problem—of the relation of the ens rationis to the ens reale in the process of cognition—has given rise to discussions which, in modern times, have largely contributed to the formation of that special branch of philosophical enquiry which is called Epistemology. But it must not be imagined that this very problem was not discussed, and very widely discussed, by philosophers long before the problem of the validity of knowledge assumed the prominent place it has won for itself in modern philosophy. Even a moderate familiarity with scholastic philosophy will enable the student to recognize this problem, in a variety of phases, in the discussions of the medieval schoolmen concerning the concepts of matter and form, the simplicity and composition of beings, and the nature of the various distinctions—whether logical, virtual, formal, or real—which the mind either invents or detects in the realities it endeavours to understand and explain.
4. Real Being and Ideal Being.—The latter of these expressions has a multiplicity of kindred meanings. We use it here in the sense of “being known,” i.e. to signify the “esse intentionale,” the mental presence, which, in the scholastic theory of knowledge, an entity of whatsoever kind, whether real or logical, must have in the mind of the knower in order that he be aware of that entity. A mere logical entity, as we have seen, has and can have no other mode of being than this which consists in being an object of the mind’s awareness. All real being, too, when it becomes an object of any kind of human cognition whatsoever—of intellectual thought, whether direct or reflex; of sense perception, whether external or internal—must obtain this sort of mental presence or mental existence: thereby alone can it become an “objectum cognitum”. Only by such mental mirroring, or reproduction, or reconstruction, can reality become so related and connected with mind as to reveal itself to mind. Under this peculiar relation which we call cognition, the mind, as we know from psychology and epistemology, is not passive: if reality revealed itself immediately, as it is, to a purely passive mind (were such conceivable), the existence of error would be unaccountable; but the mind is not passive: under the influence of the reality it forms the intellectual concept (theverbum mentale), or the sense percept (the species sensibilis expressa), in and through which, and by means of which, it attains to its knowledge of the real.
But prior (ontologically) to this mental existence, and as partial cause of the latter, there is the real existence or being, which reality has independently of its being known by any individual human mind. Real being, then, as distinguished here from ideal being, is that which exists or can exist extramentally, whether it is known by the human mind or not, i.e. whether it exists also mentally or not.
That there is such real being, apart from the “thought”-being whereby the mind is constituted formally knowing, is proved elsewhere; as also that this esse intentionale has modes which cannot be attributed to the esse reale. We merely note these points here in order to indicate the errors involved in the opposite contentions. Our concepts are characterized by abstractness, by a consequent static immutability, by a plurality often resulting from purely mental distinctions, by a universality which transcends those distinctions and unifies the variety of all subordinate concepts in the widest concept of being. Now if, for example, we attribute the unifying mental mode of universality to real being, we must draw the pantheistic conclusion that all real being is one: the logical outcome of extreme realism. If, again, we transfer purely mental distinctions to the unity of the Absolute or Supreme Being, thus making them real, we thereby deny infinite perfection to the most perfect being conceivable: an error of which some catholic philosophers of the later middle ages have been accused with some foundation. If, finally, we identify the esse reale with the esse intentionale, and this with the thought-process itself, we find ourselves at the starting-point of Hegelian monism.
5. Fundamental Distinctions in Real Being.—Leaving logical and ideal being aside, and fixing our attention exclusively on real being, we may indicate here a few of the most fundamental distinctions which experience enables us to recognize in our study of the universal order of things.
(a) Possible or Potential Being and Actual Being.—The first of these distinctions is that between possibility and actuality, between that which can be and that which actually is. For a proper understanding of this distinction, which will be dealt with presently, it is necessary to note here the following divisions of actual being, which will be studied in detail later on.
(b) Infinite Being and Finite Beings.—All people have a sufficiently clear notion of Infinite Being, or Infinitely Perfect Being: though not all philosophers are agreed as to how precisely we get this notion, or whether there actually exists such a being, or whether if such being does exist we can attain to a certain knowledge of such existence. By infinite being we mean a being possessing all conceivable perfections in the most perfect conceivable manner; and by finite beings all such beings as have actually any conceivable limitation to their perfection. About these nominal definitions there is no dispute; and scholasticism identifies their respective objects with God and creatures.
(c) Necessary Being and Contingent Beings.—Necessary being we conceive as that being which exists of necessity: being which if conceived at all cannot be conceived as non-existent: being in the very concept of which is essentially involved the concept of actual existence: so that the attempt to conceive such being as non-existent would be an attempt to conceive what would be self-contradictory. Contingent being, on the other hand, is being which is conceived not to exist of necessity: being which may be conceived as not actually existent: being in the concept of which is not involved the concept of actual existence. The same observations apply to this distinction as to the preceding one. It is obvious that any being which we regard as actual we must regard either as necessary or as contingent; and, secondly, that necessary being must be considered as absolutely independent, as having its actual existence from itself, by its own nature; while contingent being must be considered as dependent for its actual existence on some being other than itself. Hence necessary being is termed Ens a se, contingent being Ens ab alio.
(d) Absolute Being and Relative Beings.—In modern philosophy the terms “absolute” and “relative,” as applied to being, correspond roughly with the terms “God” and “creatures” in the usage of theistic philosophers. But the former pair of terms is really of wider application than the latter. The term absolute means, etymologically, that which is loosed, unfettered, disengaged or free from bonds (absolutum, ab-solvere, solvo = se-luo, from λύω): that, therefore, which is not bound up with anything else, which is in some sense self-sufficing, independent; while the relative is that which is in some way bound up with something else, and which is so far not self-sufficing or independent. That, therefore, is ontologically absolute which is in some sense self-sufficing, independent of other things, in its existence; while the ontologically relative is that which depends in some real way for its existence on something else. Again, that is logically absolute which can be conceived and known by us without reference to anything else; while the logically relative is that which we can conceive and know only through our knowledge of something else. And since we usually name things according to the way in which we conceive them, we regard as absolute any being which is by itself and of itself that which we conceive it to be, or that which its name implies; and as relative any being which is what its name implies only in virtue of some relation to something else. Thus, a man is a man absolutely, while he is a friend only relatively to others.
It is obvious that the primary and general meaning of the terms “absolute” and “relative” can be applied and extended in a variety of ways. For instance, all being may be said to be “relative” to the knowing mind, in the sense that all knowledge involves a transcendental relation of the known object to the knowing subject. In this widest and most improper sense even God Himself is relative, not however as being, but as known. Again, when we apply the same attribute to a variety of things we may see that it is found in one of them in the most perfect manner conceivable, or at least in a fuller and higher degree than it is found in the others; and that it is found in these others only with some sort of subordination to, and dependence on, the former: we then say that it belongs to thisprimarily or absolutely, and to the others only secondarily or relatively. This is a less improper application of the terms than in the preceding case. What we have especially to remember here is that there are many different kinds of dependence or subordination, all alike giving rise to the same usage.
Hence, applying the terms absolute and relative to the predicate “being” or “real” or “reality,” it is obvious in the first place that the potential as such can be called “being,” or “reality” only in relation to the actual. It is the actual that is being simpliciter, par excellence; the potential is so only in relation to this. Again, substances may be termed beings absolutely, while accidents are beings only relatively, because of their dependence on substances; though this relation is quite different from the relation of potential to actual being. Finally all finite, contingent realities, actual and possible, are what they are only because of their dependence on the Infinite and Necessary Being: and hence the former are relative and the latter absolute; though here again the relation is different from that of accident to substance, or of potential to actual.
Since the order of being includes all orders, and since a being is absolutely such-or-such in any order only when that being realizes in all its fulness and purity such-or-such reality, it follows that the being which realizes in all its fulness the reality of being is the Absolute Being in the highest possible sense of this term. This concept of Absolute Being is the richest and most comprehensive of all possible concepts: it is the very antithesis of that other concept of “being in general” which is common to everything and distinguished only from nothingness. It includes in itself all actual and possible modes and grades and perfections of finite things, apart from their limitations, embodying all of them in the one highest and richest concept of that which makes all of them real and actual,viz. the concept of Actuality or Actual Reality itself.
Hegel and his followers have involved themselves in a pantheistic philosophy by neglecting to distinguish between those two totally different concepts. A similar error has also resulted from failure to distinguish between the various modes in which being that is relative may be dependent on being that is absolute. God is the Absolute Being; creatures are relative. So too is substance absolute being, compared with accidents as inhering and existing in substance. But God is not therefore to be conceived as the one all-pervading substance, of which all finite things, all phenomena, would be only accidental manifestations.
6. THE STATIC AND THE Changing.—The things we see around us, the things which make up the immediate data of our experience, not only are or exist; they also become, or come into actual existence; they change; they pass out of actual existence. The abstract notion of being represents its object to the mind in a static, permanent, changeless, self-identical condition; but if this condition were an adequate representation of reality change would be unreal, would be only an illusion. This is what the Eleatic philosophers of ancient Greece believed, distinguishing merely between being and nothingness. But they were mistaken; for change in things is too obviously real to be eliminated by calling it an illusion: even if it were an illusion, this illusion at least would have to be accounted for. In order, therefore, to understand reality we must employ not merely the notion of being (something static), but also the notion of becoming, change, process, appearing and disappearing (something kinetic, and something dynamic). In doing so, however, we must not fall into the error of the opposite extreme from the Eleatics—by regarding change as the adequate representation of reality. This is what Heraclitus and the later Ionians did: holding that nothing is, that all becomes (πάντα ρέι), that change is all reality, that the stable, the permanent, is non-existent, unreal, an illusion. This too is false; for change would be unintelligible without at least an abiding law of change, a permanent principle of some sort; which, in turn, involves the reality of some sort of abiding, stable, permanent being.
We must then—with Aristotle, as against both of those one-sided conceptions—hold to the reality both of being and of becoming; and proceed to see how the stable and the changing can both be real.
To convince ourselves that they are both real, very little