c. Proof of the Third Conclusion

39. The proof of the third conclusion [n.30] is that an absolute does not, from its being an absolute, require a term or terms, because then it would not be an absolute; therefore, if it requires a subject, this must be because of some other dependence essential to it; but there is no simply necessary dependence of any absolute on anything that is not of the absolute’s essence, save for dependence on the simply first extrinsic cause, namely on God.

40. Now a subject is not of the essence of an accident, because then ‘man is white’ would not be a being per accidens, which is against the Philosopher, Metaphysics 5.7.1017a7-22, 6.1015b16-26; 7.5.1030b14-27; for by adding to a thing what is of its essence one does not get a being per accidens, especially if that thing is in itself a being per se.

41. Now an accident in itself is a being per se, according to the Philosopher ibid. 5.7.1017a22-30; hence it is also per se in a genus. And a subject is not the simply first extrinsic cause of an accident, because God is not the subject of an accident. Therefore, the dependence of an absolute accident on a subject is not simply necessary (and I mean by simply necessary that whose opposite includes a contradiction). The proof of the major is that the first cause can perfectly supply the causality of any extrinsic cause with respect to any caused thing, because the first cause has in itself all such causality more eminently than a second does cause.

42. If you say ‘a subject is a material cause with respect to an accident, and God cannot supply the place of a material cause just as not of a formal cause either’ - on the contrary: according to the Philosopher, Metaphysics 8.4-5.1044b7-26, accidents do not have matter ‘from which’ but matter ‘in which’, or if they have matter ‘from which’ it is not a subject, because a subject along with an accident makes a being per accidens, as was said [n.40]. But what is per se intrinsic to the essence of an accident, whether matter or form, does not constitute a being per accidens, because an accident, as being a certain whole, arises from all the things that pertain to its essence.

43. From this reasoning it is clear why philosophers said that an accident cannot be without a subject; not indeed because they posited the subject to be of the essence of an accident (on the contrary, from these a being per accidens is constituted), nor because they posited inherence, or some or other respect to the subject, to be of the essence of an absolute accident (for it is a contradiction that some respect be included in the per se idea of an absolute, since then it would be absolute and non-absolute); but only because they posited an order of causes that was simply necessary, such that the first cause cannot cause what is caused by a second cause without that second cause. Now a subject does have some causality with respect to an accident, speaking of the natural order of causes. And so they denied that an accident, in the order of its causality they set down, exists without this cause. And to this extent is it said in Physics 1.4.188a9-10 that an intellect looking for the separation of accidents from subjects will be looking for things impossible. But the impossible is not that it include something repugnant to the first idea or quiddity of an absolute accident; for once such an impossible is posited, no rule for disputation can be preserved, especially as regard those consequents that are included along with their opposites in the antecedent. For it is plain that then, with such impossible thing posited, contradictories must at once be admitted. And thus, in the issue at hand, the greatest unacceptable result to which a respondent can be reduced is included, namely that of refutation.

44. But, as it is, the Philosopher in Physics 4.7.214a9-10 asks this question: if there were a space in which there was only color or sound, would it be a vacuum? And he replies definitively for one side, that if the space were receptive of a body it would be a vacuum. But if, from the primary understanding of what it is to be a color, a color’s being in a subject were included, then, since its subject could only be a body, from the first understanding of what was posed [sc. “if there were a space in which there was only color or sound, would it be a vacuum?”] one would get ‘a body is there’ and ‘a body is not there’; and so, once the hypothesis was posed, the response would at once have to be that the space would be a vacuum and not a vacuum.

45. The above discussion has been adduced for this purpose, so it may be seen that the Philosopher did not intend the contradiction to follow from the first quidditative idea of accident, just as neither did he posit ‘being in a subject’ to belong to the first quidditative idea of whiteness; but the impossibility he has is only because of the necessity he posits in the order of causes.