2. Scotus’ own Opinion

168. I respond then affirmatively to the question [sc. the sixth question, n.142].

169. For which purpose I bring forward the following sort of reason: just as unity in general per se follows entity in general, so any unity per se follows some entity; therefore if unity simply (of which sort is the unity of the individual frequently described before [nn.48, 76, 165], namely that to which division into several subjective parts is repugnant and to which not being this designated thing is repugnant) exists in things (as every opinion supposes), then it follows per se some per se entity; but it does not follow per se the entity of nature, because it has some unity proper to itself and per se, a real unity, as was proved in the solution to the first question [n.30]; therefore it follows some other entity and determines this entity, and it will make a one per se with the entity of nature, because the whole of which it is this unity is perfect of itself.

170. Any difference of differences is ultimately reduced to things that are primarily diverse (otherwise there would be no stop to differences); but individuals differ properly, because they are diverse ‘identical thing beings’ [1 d.3 n.132]; therefore their difference is reduced to what is primarily diverse. But what is primarily diverse is not the nature in this thing and in that thing, because that by which things formally agree is not the same as that by which they really differ, although the same thing can be distinct really and agree really; for to be distinct and to be that by which something is first distinct differ a great deal (so it will be like this in the case of unity). Therefore, beside the nature in this thing and in that, there are some primarily diverse things by which this thing and that thing differ (this in this thing and that in that thing); and these primarily diverse things cannot be negations, from the second question [n.57], nor accidents, from the fourth question ]n.111]; therefore they will be some positive entities per se determining nature.

171. An objection against the first argument here [n.169] is that if there is some real unity less than numerical unity, it is the unity of something either in what is numerically the same or in something other. Not in what is numerically the same, because everything in what is numerically the same is one in number; nor in two things, because nothing in them is really one, for that is proper to the divine supposits (the way the saying of Damascene was explained above, n.39).

172. I reply: just as in the solution to the first question (about this issue, nn.32, 34) it was said that nature is naturally prior to this nature, so too the proper unity consequent to nature as nature is naturally prior to the unity of it as this nature; and it is under this idea that nature is considered in metaphysics, that the definition of it is assigned, and that propositions about it are in the first mode per se [n.32]. There is, then, in the identical thing that is one in number some entity which unity less than numerical unity follows, and it is real; and that of which it is such unity is one of itself with numerical unity. I concede therefore that the real unity is not of something existing in two individuals but in one.

173. And when you object that ‘everything in what is numerically the same is one in number’ [n.171], I make my reply first in some other similar and more manifest case: everything that is in one species is one in species; the color therefore in whiteness is one in species; the conclusion ‘therefore it does not have a unity less than the unity of the species’ does not follow. For as was said elsewhere (namely 1 d.8 n.214 in the question about the attributes, before the solution of the principle argument about attributes, when solving the first doubt), that ‘something can be said to be animate either denominatively, as body, or per se in the first mode, as man’ (and thus a surface is said to be white denominatively, and a white surface is said to be white per se in the first mode because the subject includes the predicate) - so I say that a potential which is contracted by an actual is informed by that actual, and thereby it is informed by the unity consequent to that actuality or to that act; and so it is one by the unity proper to that actual, but it is thus one denominatively (and it is not of itself thus one, neither in the first mode nor through any essential part).

174. The color in whiteness, therefore, is one in species, but it is not so of itself either per se or first but only denominatively; now the specific difference is first one, because being divided into things several in species is first repugnant to it; whiteness is one in species per se, but not first, because it is so through something intrinsic to it (as through the difference).

175. I concede therefore that everything in this stone is one in number, either first, or per se, or denominatively: ‘first’ perhaps as that by which such unity belongs to this composite; ‘per se’ this stone, of which that which is first one by this unity is per se part; ‘denominatively’ only the potential which is perfected by this actual, and which quasi-denominatively has regard to the actual’s actuality.

176. I further clarify this solution [nn.168-170]: what the entity is by which that unity [sc. of the individual] is perfected can be made clear by a likeness to the entity from which the specific difference is taken. The specific difference indeed, or the entity from which the specific difference is taken, can be compared to what is below it, or to what is above it, or to what is next to it.

177. In the first way [sc. comparison with what is below], it is per se repugnant to the specific difference, and to the specific entity, to be divided into things several in essence, in species or nature, and thereby this is repugnant to the whole of that of which the entity is per se part; thus, in the issue at hand, it is repugnant first to this individual entity to be divided into any subjective parts whatever, and thereby such division is per se repugnant to the whole of that of which the individual entity is part. And the difference is only in the fact that the unity of the specific nature is less than the former unity [sc. of the individual entity], and for that reason the specific nature does not exclude all division according to quantitative parts, but only excludes the division of essential parts; the former unity, however, excludes every division.

178. And the proposed solution is sufficiently confirmed from this, that, because any unity less than the former unity has a proper entity which it per se follows, it does not seem probable to deny to the former most perfect unity [sc. the numerical unity of the individual entity, cf. n.58] a proper entity which it follows.

179. Now, comparing the specific nature to what is above it [n.176], I say that the reality from which is taken the specific difference is actual with respect to the reality from which is taken the genus or the idea of the genus, such that this latter reality is not formally the former; otherwise there would be trifling in the definition, and the genus alone (or the difference) would be sufficient for the defining, because it would indicate the whole entity of the thing defined. However, sometimes what contracts the genus is other than the form from which the idea of the genus is taken (when the species adds some reality over and above the nature of the genus), and sometimes it is not another thing but only another formality or another formal concept of the same thing; and accordingly some specific difference has a concept that is not simply simple, namely a difference that is taken from the form, and some does have a concept simply simple, namely a difference that is taken from the ultimate abstraction of the form (this distinction of specific differences was stated in 1 d.3 nn.159-161, about how some specific differences include a being and some do not).

180. In this respect the reality of the individual is like the specific reality, because it is quasi act determining the quasi possible and potential reality of the species; but in this other respect it is not like it, because it is never taken from an added form but is taken precisely from the ultimate reality of the form.

181. It is also unlike it in another respect, that the specific reality constitutes the composite (of which it is part) in quidditative being, because it is a certain quidditative entity; but the reality of the individual is primarily diverse from every quidditative entity. The fact is proved from this, that when one understands any quidditative entity (speaking of limited quidditative entity), the entity is common to many, and its being said of many, each of which is it, is not repugnant to it; therefore this other entity [sc. of the individual], which is of itself a different entity from the quiddity or the quidditative entity, cannot constitute the whole (of which it is part) in quidditative being, but in being of another idea.

182. And because the quiddity is often called form by the Philosopher (as is plain from Metaphysics 5.2.1013a26-28 ch. ‘On Causes’ and in many other places; and from Metaphysics 7.11.1037a32-b5 ch. ‘On Parts of Definition’, that “in things where there is no matter the ‘what it is’ is the same as the ‘of what it is’;” Aristotle is speaking, as will be explained [nn.204-207], of matter and form), and because whatever has a contracted quiddity [nn.206-205] is often called by him a material thing (and Boethius in his book On the Trinity maintains that no form can be the subject of an accident, because form is predicated of the ‘what’ of some other thing; and if humanity is a subject, this yet does not belong to it as it is form; humanity indeed is not a form of another composite part, as of a composite of form and matter, but belongs to the whole composite that is possessed of a contracted quiddity, or in which there is a contracted quiddity) - therefore every specific reality constitutes a thing in formal being (because it constitutes it in quidditative being), and the reality of the individual constitutes it precisely in material being (that is, in contracted being). And herefrom follows the logical point that ‘the former is essentially formal, the latter material’, because the latter precisely constitutes a thing in idea of what can be a subject and the former in idea of what can be a predicate; but a formal predicate has the idea of form, and what can be a subject has the idea of matter.

183. But, third, comparing specific difference to what is next to it, namely to another specific difference [n.176] - although sometimes it is possible for the specific difference not to be first diverse from another, as with the entity that is taken from form, yet the ultimate specific difference is first diverse from another, namely the one that has a concept simply simple [n.179]. And in this respect I say that the individual difference is likened to the specific difference universally taken, because every individual entity is first diverse from any other.

184. And from this the answer to the following objection appears: for it is objected that either this [individual] entity and that are of the same idea or they are not. If they are, then from them can be abstracted some entity, and this a specific one (and about it one must ask by what it is contracted to this entity and to that; if it is contracted of itself, then by parity of reasoning there could be a stand at the nature of stone; if by something else, then there will be a regress to infinity); if they are of a different idea, then the things constituted will also be of a different idea, and so they will not be individuals of the same species.

185. I reply. Ultimate specific differences are primarily diverse, and so from them nothing per se one can be abstracted; yet it does not thereby follow that the things constituted are primarily diverse and not of some one idea. For that certain things are equally distinct can be understood in two ways: either because they are equally incompossible (namely because they cannot be in the same thing), or because they agree equally in nothing. And in the first way it is true that distinct things are as equally diverse as what distinguishes them (for what distinguishes them cannot be incompossible without the distinct things also being incompossible); in the second way it is universally impossible, because distinct things include not only what distinguishes them but also something else (which is quasi potential with respect to what distinguishes them), and yet the things that do the distinguishing in that something else do not agree.

186. About individual entities I reply in the same way as was replied about differences primarily diverse [n.185], that individual entities are primarily diverse (that is, they agree in nothing the same), and yet there is no need that distinct things be diverse simply; still, just as the entities are incompossible so are also the individuals that have those entities.

187. And if you ask me what this individual entity is from which the individual difference is taken, whether it is matter or form or the composite, I reply:

Every quidditative entity - whether partial or total - of any genus is of itself indifferent, as quidditative entity, to this entity or to that, so that it is, as quidditative entity, naturally prior to this entity as it is this; and just as being a ‘this’ does not agree with it as it is naturally prior, so the opposite is not repugnant to it of its own idea; and just as the composite, as it is nature, does not include its own entity (by which it is formally ‘this’), so neither does mater, as it is nature, include its own entity (by which it is ‘this matter’), nor either does form, as it is nature, include its own entity.

188. Therefore ‘this entity’ is not matter or form or the composite insofar as each of them is ‘nature’; but there is an ultimate reality of the being that is matter or that is form or that is the composite, such that whatever is common and yet determinable can, however much it is one thing, still be distinguished into several formally distinct realities, of which this reality is not formally that one; and this reality is formally an entity of singularity, and that is formally an entity of nature. Nor can these two realities be thing and thing in the way that the realities can from which genus is taken and from which difference is taken (from which the specific reality is taken); but always they are, in the same thing (whether in a part or the whole), realities, formally distinct, of the same thing.