Ontology or the Theory of Being Part 8

It would appear, therefore, that we cannot reach a true conception of what we are to regard as _really one_, or _really manifold_, by abstract thought alone. It is external and internal sense experience, not abstract thought, which first brings us into direct and immediate mental contact with _actually existing_ reality. What we have therefore to determine is this: Does sense experience, or does it not, reveal reality to us as a _real manifold_, not as _one being_ but as _beings_ coexisting outside one another in s.p.a.ce, succeeding one another in time, interdependent on one another, interacting on one another, and by this interaction causing and undergoing real change, each producing others, or being produced by others, really distinct from itself? In other words, is separateness of existence in time or s.p.a.ce, as revealed in sense experience, a sufficient index of the real manifoldness of corporeal being, and of the really distinct individuality of each such being?-or are we to take it that because those s.p.a.ce and time distinctions have to be apprehended by thought in order that not merely sense but intellect may apprehend corporeal beings as really manifold, therefore these distinctions are not _in the reality_ given to us?

Or, again, is each person's own conscious experience of himself as one being, of his own unity, and of his distinctness from other persons, a sufficient index that the distinction between person and person is a real distinction?-or are we to take it that because his _feeling_ of his individual unity through sense consciousness must be interpreted by the _thought-concepts_ of "one"-"individual"-"person"-"distinct" from "others," these concepts do not truly express what is really given him to interpret? Finally, if we can infer from the actually existing material reality which forms the immediate datum of direct experience, or from the human _Ego_ as given in this experience, the actual existence of a real mode of being which is not material but spiritual, by what tests can we determine whether this spiritual mode of being is really one, or whether there is a real plurality of such beings? The solution of these questions bears directly on the validity of the adequate or "greater" real distinction, the "_distinctio realis major seu absoluta_".

The philosophy which defends the validity of this distinction,-which holds that the distinction between individual human beings, and between individual living things generally, is in the fullest and truest sense a real distinction,-is at all events in conformity with universally prevailing modes of thought and language; while the monism which repudiates these spontaneous interpretations of experience as invalid by denying all real manifoldness to reality, can make itself intelligible only by doing violence to thought and language alike. Not that this alone is a disproof of monism; but at all events it creates a presumption against a system to find it running counter to any of those universal spontaneous beliefs which appear to be rooted in man's rational nature. On the other hand, the philosophy which accords with common belief in proclaiming a real plurality in being has to reconcile intellect with sense, and the universal with the individual, by solving the important problem of _individuation_: What is it that makes real being individual, if, notwithstanding the fact that intellect apprehends reality as abstract and universal, reality nevertheless can exist only as concrete and individual? (29-33).

38. THE REAL DISTINCTION.-In the next place it must be remembered, comparing the virtual distinction with the real, that philosophers have recognized two kinds of real distinction: the _major_ or _absolute_ real distinction, and the _minor_ real, or _modal_ distinction. Before defining these let us see what are the usual signs by which a real distinction in general can be recognized.

The relation of efficient causality, of efficient cause and effect, between two objects of thought, is sometimes set down as a sure sign of a (major) real distinction between them.(157) And the reason alleged is that a thing cannot be the efficient cause of itself: the efficient cause is necessarily extrinsic to the effect and cannot be really identical with the latter. It is to be noted that this test applies to reality as actually existing, as producing or undergoing change, and that it is derived from our sense experience of reality in process of change. But since our concept of efficient causality has its origin in our internal experience of our own _selves_ as active agents, as causing some portion of what enters into our experience, the test seems to a.s.sume that we have already introduced into this experience a real distinction between the self and what is caused by the self. It is not clear that the relation of efficient cause to effect, as applied to created causes, can precede and reveal, in our experience, the relation of what is _really one_ to what is _really other_, in this experience. If the reality revealed to us in our direct experience, the phenomenal universe, has been brought into existence by the creative act of a Supreme Being, this, of course, implies a real distinction between Creator and creature. But it does not seem possible in this case, or indeed in any case, to prove the existence of the causal relation antecedently to that of the real distinction, or to utilize the former as an index to the latter.

Two distinct thought-objects are regarded as _really_ distinct (1) when they are found to exist separately and apart from each other in time or s.p.a.ce, as is the case with any two individuals such as John and James, or a man and a horse; (2) when, although they are found in the same individual, one of them at least is separable from the other, in the sense that it can actually exist without that other: for example, the soul of any individual man can exist apart from the material principle with which it is actually united to form this living human individual; the individual himself can exist without the particular accidental modes, such as sitting, thinking, speaking, which actually affect his being at any particular instant of his existence.

From this we can gather in the first place that the distinction between two "individuals,"-individual "persons" or individual "things"-is a real distinction in the fullest and plainest sense of this expression, a major or absolute real distinction. It is, moreover, not merely real but actual.

Two existing "individuals" are always actually divided and separate from each other, while each is actually one or actually undivided in itself.

And they are so "independently of the consideration of the mind".

In the second place, a.s.suming that the mind can apprehend, in the individuals of its experience, a unity resulting from the union or composition of separable factors or principles, whether essential or accidental [27 (_b_)]; and a.s.suming that it can know these factors to be really separable (though actually one and undivided), that is, separable in the sense that each of any two such factors, or at least one of them, could actually exist without the other,-it regards the distinction between such factors as real. They are really distinct because though _actually_ one and undivided they are _potentially_ manifold. If each has a positive ent.i.ty of its own, so that absolutely speaking each could exist without the other, the distinction is still regarded as an absolute or major real distinction. For example, the human soul can exist without the body; the body can exist without the soul, being actualized by the new formative principle or principles which replace the soul at death; therefore there is an absolute real distinction between the soul and the body of the living human individual: although both factors form _one actual being_, still, independently of the consideration of the mind _the one factor is not the other_: each is really, though only potentially, other than the factor with which it is united: the relation of "one" to "other" though not _actually_ verified of either factor (since there is only _one actual_ being: the existing individual man), is potentially and really verified, _i.e._ _verifiable_ of each. Again, the individual corporeal substance can, absolutely speaking, exist without its connatural accident of external or local extension; this latter can, absolutely speaking, exist without its connatural substance;(158) therefore these are absolutely and really distinct.

If only one of the factors is seen to be capable of existing without the other, and the latter to be such that it could not actually exist except as united with the former, so that the separability is not mutual, the distinction is regarded still as real, but only as a _minor_ or _modal_ distinction. Such, for instance, is the distinction between a body and its location, or its state of rest or motion: and, in general, the distinction between a substance and what are called its accidental modes or modal accidents. The distinction is regarded as real because reflection is held to a.s.sure us that it is in the reality itself independently of the mind, and not merely imposed by the mind on the reality because of some ground or reason in the reality. It is called a modal distinction rather than an absolute real distinction because those accidental modes of a substance do not seem to have of themselves sufficient reality to warrant our calling them "things" or "realities," but rather merely "modes" or "determinations" of things or realities. It is significant, as throwing light on the relation of the virtual to the real distinction, that some authors call the modal distinction not a real distinction but a "distinctio _media_," _i.e._ intermediate between a real and a logical distinction; and that the question whether it should be called simply a real distinction, or "intermediate" between a real and a logical distinction is regarded by some as "a purely verbal question."(159) We shall recur to the modal distinction later (68).

In the third place it must be noted that separability _in the sense explained_, even non-mutual, is not regarded as the _only_ index to a real distinction. In other words, certain distinctions are held by some to be real even though this test of separability does not apply. For instance, it is commonly held that not merely in man but in _all_ corporeal individuals the formative and the determinable principle of the nature or substance, the _forma substantialis_ and the _materia prima_, are really distinct, although it is admitted that, apart from the case of the human soul, _neither_ can actually exist except in union with the other. What is held in regard to _accidental_ modes is also applied to these essential principles of the corporeal substance: _viz._ that there is here a special reason why such principles cannot actually exist in isolation. Of their very nature they are held to be such that they cannot be _actualized_ or _actually exist_ in isolation, but only in union. But this fact, it is contended, does not prove that the principles in question are merely mentally distinct aspects of one reality: the fact that they cannot actually exist as such separately does not prove that they are not really separable; and it is contended that they are really and actually separated whenever an individual corporeal substance undergoes substantial change.

This, then, raises once more the question: What sort of "separation" or "separability" is the test of a real distinction?

Is it separateness in and for sense perception, or separateness in and for intellectual thought? The former is certainly the fundamental index of the real distinction; for all our knowledge of reality originates in sense experience, and separateness in time and s.p.a.ce, which marks its data, is the key to our knowledge of reality as a manifold of really distinct individual beings; and when we infer from sense-experience the actual existence of a _spiritual_ domain of reality we can conceive _its_ "individuals"

only after the a.n.a.logy of the corporeal individuals of our immediate sense experience. Scholastic philosophers, following Aristotle, have always taken the manifoldness of reality, _i.e._ its presentation in sense experience in the form of "individuals,"

of "this" and "that," "t?d? t?," "_hoc aliquid_," as an unquestioned and unquestionable _real datum_. Not that they navely a.s.sumed everything _perceived by the senses_ as an individual, in time and s.p.a.ce, to be really an individual: they realized that what is perceived by sense as _one_ limited continuum, occupying a definite portion of s.p.a.ce, may be in reality an aggregate of many individuals; and they recognized the need of scrutinizing and a.n.a.lysing those apparent individuals in order to test their real individuality; but they held, and rightly, that sense experience does present to us some data that are unmistakably real individuals-individual men, for instance.

Next, they saw that intellectual thought, by a.n.a.lysing sense experience, ama.s.ses an ever-growing mult.i.tude of abstract and conceptually distinct thought-objects, which it utilizes as predicates for the interpretation of this sense experience. These thought-objects intellect can unite or separate; can in some cases positively see to be mutually compatible or incompatible; can form into ideal or possible complexes. But whether or not the _conceptually_ distinct, though mutually compatible, thought-objects forming any such complex, will be also _really distinct_ from one another, is a question which evidently cannot arise until such a complex is considered as an actual or possible _individual being_: for it is the individual only that exists or can exist. They will be _really_ distinct when found actualized in _distinct individuals_. Even the _conceptually_ one and self-identical abstract thought-object will be _really distinct from itself_ when embodied in distinct individuals; the one single abstract thought-object, "humanity," "human nature," is really distinct from itself in John and in James; the humanity of John is _really other_ than the humanity of James.

Of course, if conceptually distinct thought-objects are seen to be mutually incompatible they cannot be found realized except in really distinct individuals: the union of them is only an _ens rationis_. Again it may be that the intellect is unable to p.r.o.nounce positively as to whether they are compatible or not (18): as to whether the complex forms a possible being or not. But when the intellect positively sees such thought-objects to be mutually compatible-by interpretation of, and inference from, its actual sense experience of them as embodied in individuals (18)-and when, furthermore, it now finds a number of them co-existing in some one actual individual, the question recurs: How can it know whether they are _really distinct_ from each other, though actually united to form one (essentially or accidentally composite) individual, or only conceptually distinct aspects of one (simple) individual [27 (_b_)]?

This, as we have seen already, is the case for which it is really difficult to find a satisfactory test: and hence the different views to be found among scholastic philosophers as to the nature of the distinctions which the mind makes or discovers _within the individual_. The difficulty is this. The conceptual distinction between compatible thought-objects is not a proof of real distinction when these thought-objects are found united in _one individual_ of sense experience, as _e.g._ animality and rationality in man; and the only distinction given to us by sense experience, at least directly and immediately, as undoubtedly real, is the distinction _between_ corporeal _individuals_ existing apart in s.p.a.ce or time, as _e.g._ between man and man.

How then, can we show that any distinctions _within the individual_ are real?

Well, we have seen that certain ent.i.ties, which are objects of sense or of thought, or of both, can disappear from the individual without the residue thereby peris.h.i.+ng or ceasing to exist actually as an individual: the human soul survives, as an actual individual reality, after its separation from the material principle with which it formed the individual man; the individual man persists while the accidental modes that affect him disappear. In such cases as these, intellect, interpreting sense experience and reasoning from it, places a real distinction, in the composite individual, between the factors that can continue to exist without others, and these latter. In doing so it is apparently applying the a.n.a.logy of the typical real distinction-that between one individual and another. The factor, or group of factors, which can continue to exist actually after the separation of the others, is an individual: and what were separated from it were apparently real ent.i.ties, though they may have perished by the actual separation. But on what ground is the distinction between the material principle and the vital principle of a plant or an animal, for example, regarded as real? Again on the ground furnished by the a.n.a.logy of the distinction between individuals of sense experience. Note that it is not between the material and the vital principles _as objects of abstract thought_, _i.e._ between the _materiality_ and the _vitality_ of the plant or the animal, that a real distinction is claimed: these are regarded only as conceptually distinct aspects of the plant or the animal; nor is it admitted that because one of these thought-objects is found embodied elsewhere in nature without the other-materiality without vitality in the inorganic universe-we can therefore conclude that they are really distinct in the plant or the animal. No; it is between the two principles conceived as coexisting and united in the concrete individual that the real distinction is claimed. And it is held to be a real distinction because substantial change in corporeal things, _i.e._ corruption and generation of individual corporeal substances, is held to be real. If it is real there is a real separation of essential factors when the individual perishes.

And the factors continue to be real, as _potential_ principles of other individuals, when any individual corporeal substance perishes. Each principle may not continue to exist actually as such in isolation from the other-though some scholastics hold that, absolutely speaking, they could be conserved apart, as actual ent.i.ties, by the Author of Nature. But they _can_ actually exist _as essential principles of other actual individuals_: they are real _potentialities_, which _become actual_ in other individuals. Thus we see that they are conceived throughout _after the a.n.a.logy of the individual_. Those who hold that, absolutely speaking, the material principle as such, _materia prima_, could actually exist in isolation from any formative principle, should apparently admit that in such a case it would be _an individual reality_.

39. SOME QUESTIONABLE DISTINCTIONS. THE SCOTIST DISTINCTION.-The difficulty of discriminating between the virtual and the real distinction in an individual has given rise to the conception of distinctions which some maintain to be real, others to be less than real. The virtual distinction, as we have hitherto understood it, may be described as _extrinsic_ inasmuch as it arises in the individual only when we consider the latter under different aspects, or in different relations to things extrinsic to it. By regarding an individual under different aspects-_e.g._ a man under the aspects of animality and rationality-we can predicate contradictory attributes of the individual, _e.g._ of a man that "he is similar to a horse," and that "he is not similar to a horse". Now it is maintained by some that although independently of the consideration of the mind the grounds of these contradictory predications are not _actually_ distinct in the individual, nevertheless even before such consideration the individual has a real _intrinsic capacity_ to have these contradictory predicates affirmed of him: they can be affirmed of him not merely when he is regarded, and because he is regarded, under conceptually different aspects, but because these principles, "animality" and "rationality," are already really in him not merely as aspects but as distinct capacities, as potentially distinct principles of contradictory predications.

The virtual distinction, understood in this way, is described as _intrinsic_. It is rejected by some on the ground that, at least in its application to finite realities, it involves a violation of the principle of contradiction: it seems to imply that one and the same individual has in itself absolutely (and not merely as considered under different aspects and relations) the capacity to verify of itself contradictory predicates.

Scotus and his followers go even farther than the advocates of this intrinsic virtual distinction by maintaining the existence of a distinction which on the one hand they hold to be less than real because it is not between "thing and thing," and on the other hand to be more than logical or virtual, because it _actually_ exists between the various thought-objects or "_formalitates_" (such, _e.g._ as animality and rationality) in the individual, independently of the a.n.a.lytic activity whereby the mind detects these in the latter. This distinction Scotists call a "formal distinction, actual on the part of the thing"-"_distinctio formalis_, _actualis ex natura rei_." Hence the name "formalists" applied to Scotists, from their advocacy of this "Scotistic" distinction. It is, they explain, a distinction not between "things" ("_res_") but between "formalities" ("_formalitates_"). By "thing" as opposed to "formality"

they mean not merely the individual, but also any positive thought-object which, though it may not be capable of existing apart, can really appear in, or disappear from, a thing which can so exist: for instance, the essential factors of a really composite essence, its accidental modes, and its real relations. By "formality" they mean a positive thought-object which is absolutely inseparable from the thing in which it is apprehended, which cannot exist without the thing, nor the thing without it: for instance, all the metaphysical grades of being in an individual, such as substantiality, corporeity, life, animality, rationality, individuality, in an individual man. The distinction is called "formal" because it is between such "formalities"-each of which is the positive term of a separate concept of the individual. It is called "_actual_ on the side of the thing" because it is claimed to be _actually_ in the latter apart from our mental apprehension of the individual. What has chiefly influenced Scotists in claiming this distinction to be thus _actually_ in the individual, independently of our mental activity, is the consideration that these metaphysical grades are grounds on which we can predicate contradictory attributes of the same individual, _e.g._ of an individual man that "he is similar to a horse" and that "he is not similar to a horse": whence they infer that in order to avoid violation of the principle of contradiction, we must suppose these grounds to be _actually_ distinct in the thing.

To this it is replied, firstly, that if such predications were truly contradictory we could avoid violation of the principle of contradiction only by inferring a _real_ distinction-which Scotists deny to exist-between these grounds; secondly, that such predications are not truly contradictory inasmuch as "he is similar" really means "he is partially similar," and "he is not similar" means "he is not completely similar"; therefore when we say that a man's rationality "_is not_ the principle whereby he resembles a horse," and his animality "_is_ the principle whereby he resembles a horse," we mean (_a_) that his rationality is not the principle of complete resemblance, though we know it is the principle of partial resemblance, inasmuch as we see it to be really identical with that which is the principle of partial resemblance, _viz._ his animality; and we mean (_b_) that his animality is the principle of his partial resemblance to a horse, not of total resemblance, for we know that the animality of a man is not perfectly similar to that of a horse, the former being really identical with rationality, the latter with irrationality. When, then, we predicate of one thing that "it is similar to some other thing," and that "it is not similar to this other thing" we are not really predicating contradictories of the same thing; if we take the predicates as contradictories they are true of the same reality undoubtedly, but not under the same aspect. Scotists themselves admit that the _real ident.i.ty_ of these aspects involves no violation of the principle of contradiction; why, then, should these be held to be _actually_ distinct formalities independently of the consideration of the mind? How can a distinction that is actual independently of the mind's a.n.a.lysis of the reality be other than real? Is not predication a work of the mind? And must not the conditions on which reality verifies the predication be determined by the mind? If, then, we see that in order to justify this predication-of "similar" and "not similar"-about any reality, it is merely necessary that the mind should apprehend this reality to be in its undivided unity equivalent to manifold grades of being or perfection which the mind itself can grasp as mentally distinct aspects, by distinct concepts, how can we be justified in supposing that these grades of being are not merely _distinguishable_, but _actually distinct_ in the reality itself, _independently of the mind_?

The Scotist doctrine here is indicative of the tendency to emphasize, perhaps unduly, the a.s.similation of reality as a datum with the mind which interprets this datum; to regard the const.i.tution of reality itself as being what abstract thought, irrespective of sense experience, would represent it; and accordingly to place in the reality as being actually there, independently of thought, distinctions which as a matter of fact may be merely the product of thought itself.

Scotists, by advocating an _actual_ distinction between these grades of being, as "formalities" in the individual, have exposed themselves to the charge of extreme realism. They teach that each of these "formalities" has, for abstract thought, a _formal_ unity which is _sui generis_. And this unity is not regarded as a product of thought, any more than the distinction between such unities. Thus, the materiality apprehended by thought in all material things is one, not because it is made one by the abstracting and universalizing activity of thought, as most if not all other scholastics teach; it is not merely _conceptually one_ through our thought-activity, it is _formally one_ apart from the latter; and it thus knits into a "formal" unity all material things. And so does "life" all living things; and "animality" all animals; and "rationality" all men. Now, if this "formal unity" of any such essential or metaphysical grade of being were regarded as a real unity, monism would be of course the logically inevitable corollary of the theory.

But the "formal" unity of any such essential grade of being Scotists will not admit to be a real unity, though they hold it to be characteristic of reality independently of our thought. They contend that this unity is quite compatible with the _real plurality_ conferred upon being by the principles which individuate the latter; and thus they cannot be fairly accused of monism. Their reasoning here is characteristically subtle. Just as any metaphysical grade of being, considered as an object of thought, is in itself neither manifold individually nor one universally-so that, as Thomists say, designating it in this condition as the _universale dir.e.c.t.u.m_, or _metaphysic.u.m_, or _fundamentale_, or _quoad rem conceptam_, we can truly affirm of it in this condition neither that it is one (logically, as a universal) nor that it is manifold (really, as multiplied in actual individuals),(160)-so likewise, Scotists contend, it is in this condition _ontologically_, as an ent.i.ty in the real order independently of thought, and as such has a unity of its own, a formal unity, which, while uniting in a formal unity all the individuals that embody it, is itself incapable of fitting this grade of being for actual existence, and therefore admits those ultimate individuating principles which make it a real manifold in the actual order.(161)

Thus, the metaphysical grade of being, which, as considered in itself, Thomists hold to be an abstraction, having no other unity than that which thought confers upon it by making it logically universal, Scotists on the contrary hold to be as such something positive in the ontological order, having there a "formal" unity corresponding to the "conceptual" or "logical" unity which thought confers upon it by universalizing it. The metaphysical grade of being, thus conceived as something positive in the real order, Scotists will not admit to be a "reality," nor the unity which characterizes it a "real" unity. But after all, if such a "formality" with its proportionate "unity," is independent of thought; and if on the other hand "universality" is the work of thought, so that the universal as such cannot be real, it is not easy to see how the Scotist doctrine escapes the error of extreme realism. The metaphysical grade of being is a "formality" only because it is _made abstract_ by thought; and it has "unity" only because it is _made logically universal_ by thought; therefore to contend that as such it is something positive in the real order, independently of thought, is to "reify" the abstract and universal as such: which is extreme realism.

CHAPTER V. REALITY AND THE TRUE.

40. ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH CONSIDERED FROM a.n.a.lYSIS OF EXPERIENCE.-We have seen that when the mind thinks of any reality it apprehends it as "one," that ontological unity is a transcendental attribute of being; and this consideration led us to consider the manifoldness and the distinctions which characterize the totality of our experience. Now man himself is a real being surrounded by all the other real beings that const.i.tute the universe. Moreover he finds himself endowed with faculties which bring him into conscious relations both with himself and with those other beings; and only by the proper interpretation of these relations can he understand aright his place in the universe. The first in order of these relations is that of reality to mind (25). This relation between mind and reality is what we understand by _Truth_.

Now truth is attributed both to knowledge and to things. We say that a person thinks or judges _truly_, that his knowledge is _true_ (or correct, or accurate), when things really are as he thinks or judges them to be.

The truth which we thus ascribe to knowledge, to the mind interpreting reality, is _logical_ truth: a relation of concord or conformity of the mind interpreting reality-or, of the mind's judgment about reality-with the reality itself.(162) Logical truth is dealt with in Logic and Epistemology. We are concerned here only with the truth that is attributed to reality, to things themselves: ontological, metaphysical, transcendental truth, as it is called. There is nothing abstruse or far-fetched about the use of the terms "true" and "truth" as equivalent to "real" and "reality". We speak of "true" gold, a "true" friend, a "veritable" hero, etc. Now what do we mean by thus ascribing truth to a thing? We mean that it corresponds to a mental type or ideal. We call a liquid true wine or real wine, for instance, when it verifies in itself the definition we have formed of the nature of wine. Hence whenever we apply the terms "true" or "truth" to a thing we shall find that we are considering that thing not absolutely and in itself but in reference to an idea in our minds: we do not say of a thing simply that it is true, we say that it is _truly such or such_ a thing, _i.e._ that it is really of a certain nature already conceived by our minds. If the appearance of the thing suggests comparison with some such ideal type or nature, and if the thing is seen on examination not really to verify this nature in itself, we say that it is not really or truly such or such a thing: _e.g._ that a certain liquid is not really wine, or is not true wine. When we have no such ideal type to which to refer a thing, when we do not know its nature, cannot cla.s.sify and name it, we have to suspend our judgment and say that we do not know what the thing _really_ is. Hence, for example, the new rays discovered by Rontgen were called provisionally "X rays," their real nature being at first unknown. We see, then, that real or ontological truth is simply reality considered as conformable with an ideal type, with an idea in the mind.

Whence does the human mind derive these ideal types, these concepts or definitions of the nature of things? It derives them from actually experienced reality by abstraction, comparison, generalization, and reflection on the data of its experience.(163) Hence it follows that the ontological truth of things is not known by the mind antecedently to the formation of the mental type. It is, of course, in the things antecedently to any judgment we form about the things; and the logical truth of our judgments is dependent on it, for logical truth is the conformity of our judgments with the real nature of things. But antecedently to all exercise of human thought, antecedently to our conception of the nature of a thing, the thing has not for us _formal_ or _actual_ ontological truth: it has only fundamental or _potential_ ontological truth. If in this condition reality had actual ontological truth for us, there would be no ground for our distinguis.h.i.+ng mentally between the reality and the truth of things; whereas the existence of this mental or logical distinction is undeniable.

The concept of reality is the concept of something absolute; the concept of ontological truth is the concept of something relative, not of an absolute but of a relative property of being.

But if for the human mind the ontological truth of things is-at least proximately, immediately, and in the first place-their conformity with the abstract concepts of essences or natures, concepts derived by the mind from an a.n.a.lysis of its experience, how can this ontological truth be one for all men, or immutable and necessary? For, since men form different and divergent and conflicting conceptions as to the natures of things, and so have different views and standards of truth for things, ontological truth would seem, according to the exposition just outlined, to be not one but manifold, not immutable but variable: consequences which surely cannot be admitted? The answer to this difficulty will lead us to a deeper and more fundamental conception of what ontological truth really is.

First, then, we must consider that all men are endowed with the same sort of intellect, an intellect capable of some insight at least into the nature of things; that therefore they abstract the same transcendental notions and the same widest concepts from their experience: transcendental concepts of being, unity, truth, goodness; generic concepts of substance, matter, spirit, cause, of accident, quant.i.ty, mult.i.tude, number, ident.i.ty, similarity, distinction, diversity, etc. They also form the same _specific_ concepts of possible essences. Although, therefore, they may disagree and err in regard to _the application_ of those concepts, especially of the lower, richer and more complex specific concepts, to the actual data of their experience, they agree in the fact that they have those common concepts or idea-types of reality; also in the fact that when they apply those concepts _rightly_ (_i.e._ by _logically true_ judgments) to the things that make up their experience, they have so far grasped the real natures of these things; and finally in recognizing that the ontological truth of these things lies in the conformity of the latter with their true and proper mental types or essences. And just as each of these latter is one, indivisible, immutable, necessary and eternal (14, 15), so is the ontological truth of things, whether possible or actual, one, indivisible, immutable, necessary and eternal. Of course, just as the human mind does not const.i.tute but only apprehends reality, so the human mind does not const.i.tute the ontological truth of reality, but only apprehends it. Every reality is capable of producing in the human mind a more or less adequate mental representation of itself: in this lies what we may call the potential or fundamental ontological truth of reality. When it does produce such a mental concept of itself its relation of conformity to this concept is its formal ontological truth. Of course the human mind may err in applying to any reality a wrong concept; when it does it has so far failed to grasp the real nature of the thing and therefore the ontological truth which is really identical with this nature. But the thing still has its ontological truth, independently of the erring mind; not only fundamental truth, but also possibly formal truth in so far as it may be rightly apprehended, and thus related to its proper mental type, by other human minds. Reality itself, therefore, is not and cannot be false, as we shall see more fully later; error or falsity is an accident only of the mind interpreting reality.

41. ONTOLOGICAL TRUTH CONSIDERED SYNTHETICALLY, FROM THE STANDPOINT OF ITS ULTIMATE REAL BASIS.-So far we have explained ontological truth as a relation of reality to the human intelligence; but this relation is not one of dependence. The objective term of the relation, the reality itself, is anterior to the human mind, it is not const.i.tuted by the latter. The subjective term, the abstract concept, is indeed as a vital product dependent on the mind, but as representative of reality it is determined only by the latter. Is there, however, an Intelligence to which reality is _essentially_ conformed, other than the human intelligence? Granted the actual existence of contingent realities, and granted that the human mind can derive from these realities rational principles which it sees to be necessarily and universally applicable to all the data of experience, we can demonstrate the existence of a Necessary Being, a First and Self-Existent Intelligence. Realizing, then, that G.o.d has created all things according to Infinite Wisdom, we can see that the essences of things are imitations of exemplar ideas in the Divine Mind (20). On the Divine Mind they depend essentially for their reality and intelligibility.

It is because all created realities, including the human mind itself, are adumbrations of the Divine Essence, that they are intelligible to the human mind. Thus we see that in the ontological order, in the order of real gradation and dependence among things, as distinct from the order of human experience,(164) the reason why reality has ontological truth for the human mind is because it is antecedently and essentially in accord with the Divine Mind from which it derives its intelligibility. Although, therefore, ontological truth is for us proximately and immediately the conformity of reality with our own conceptions, it is primarily and fundamentally the essential conformity of all reality with the Divine Mind. All reality, actual and possible, including the Divine Essence itself, is actually comprehended by the Divine Mind, is actually in conformity with the exemplar ideas in the Divine Mind, and has therefore ontological truth even independently of its relation to created minds; but "in the (impossible) hypothesis of the absence of all intellect, such a thing as truth would be inconceivable".(165)

The reason, therefore, why things are ontologically true for our minds, why our minds can apprehend their essences, why we can have any true knowledge about them, is in fact because both our minds and all things else, being expressions of the Divine Essence, are in essential conformity with the Divine Intellect. Not that we must know all this in order to have any logical truth, any true knowledge, about things; or in order to ascribe to things the ontological truth which consists in their conformity with our conception of their nature. The atheist can have a true knowledge of things and can recognize in them their conformity with his mental conception of their nature; only he is unaware of the real and fundamental reason why he can do so. Nor can he, of course, while denying the existence of G.o.d, rise to the fuller conception of ontological truth which consists in the essential conformity of all reality with the Divine Intellect, and its essential dependence on the latter for its intelligibility to the human intellect.

Naturally, it is this latter and fuller conception of ontological truth that has been at all times expounded by scholastic philosophers.(166) We may therefore, define ontological truth as _the essential conformity of reality, as an object of thought, with intellect, and primarily and especially with the Divine Intellect_.

The conformity of reality with the Divine Intellect is described as _essential_ to reality, in the sense that the reality is dependent on the Divine Intellect for its intelligibility; it derives its intelligibility from the latter. The conformity of reality with the human intellect is also essential in the sense that _potential_ conformity with the latter is inseparable from reality; it is an aspect really identical with, and only logically distinct from, the latter. But inasmuch as the _actual_ conformity of reality with our human conception of it is contingent on the existence of human intelligences, and is not _ultimately_ dependent on the latter, inasmuch as reality does not derive its intelligibility _ultimately_ from this conception-seeing that rather this conception is derived from the reality and is ultimately dependent on the Divine Exemplar,-this conformity of reality with the human mind is sometimes spoken of as _accidental_ to reality in contrast with the relation of dependence which exists between reality and the Divine Mind.

Bearing in mind that reality derives its intelligibility from its essential conformity with the Divine Mind, and that the human mind derives _its_ truth from the reality, we can understand how it has been said of truth in general that it is first in the Uncreated Intellect, then in things, then in created intellects; that the primary source and measure of all truth is the Divine Intellect Itself Unmeasured, "mensurans, non mensuratus"; that created reality is measured by, or conformed with, the Divine Intellect, and is in turn the measure of the human intellect, conforming the latter with itself, "mensurans et mensurata"; and that, finally, the human intellect, measured by created reality and the Divine Mind, is itself the measure of no natural things but only of the products of human art, "intellectus noster ... non mensurans quidem res naturales, sed artificiales tantum".(167)

Is truth _one_, then, or is it _manifold_? Logical truth is manifold-multiplied by the number of created intelligences, and by the number of distinct cognitions in each. The primary ontological truth which consists in the conformity of all reality with the Divine Intellect is one: there is no real plurality of archetype ideas in the Divine Mind; they are manifold only to our imperfect human mode of thinking. The secondary ontological truth which consists in the conformity of things with the abstract concepts of created intelligences is conditioned by, and multiplied with, the manifoldness of the latter.(168)

Again to the question: Is truth _eternal_ or _temporal_?-we reply in a similar way that the truth of the Divine comprehension of reality, actual and possible, is eternal, but that no other truth is eternal. There is no eternal truth outside of G.o.d. Created things are not eternal; and truth is consecutive on reality: where there is no reality there is no ontological truth: the conformity of things with human conceptions and the logical truth of the latter are both alike temporal.(169)

Finally, we may say that the truth of the Divine Intellect is _immutable_; and so is the essential conformity of all reality with the Divine Intellect. The change to which created reality is essentially subject is itself essentially conformed with the Divine Mind; it is, so to speak, part and parcel of the ontological truth of this reality in relation to the Divine Mind, and cannot therefore interfere with this ontological truth. When the acorn grows into the oak the whole process has its ontological truth; that of the acorn changes, not into falsity, but into another truth, that of the oak.(170) We see, then, that as things change, their truth does not change in the sense of being lost or giving place to falsity: the truth of one state changes to the truth of another while the ontological truth of the changing reality perseveres immutably.

The same immutability attaches to the truth of things in relation to the human mind: with the qualification, to which we shall return (43), that they may occasion false judgments in the human mind, and on that account be designated "false".