B. To the Second

155. To the second [n.107] I say that an accident can be the subject of an accident, taking ‘subject’ in the second way, though not taking it in the first way [n.146].

156. And when the opposite is proved from the Philosopher Metaphysics 4 [n.108], a triple response can be made.

First, that the ‘because’ does not indicate cause but concomitance, so that the sense is: for an accident is not an accident of an accident save ‘because’ (that is ‘when’) both are accident to some other thing. For this was something necessary with the Philosopher, who did not reckon that an accident without a subject could support another accident, as was said in the preceding question [n.55].

157. Second, it can be said that the Philosopher is speaking of disparate accidents, as his example there shows; for he says, “I mean ‘white’ and ‘musical’.”

158. Third, it can be said that the remark ‘an accident is not an accident of an accident’ is not stated as true but is stated as something following from the hypothesis that he intends there to reject; for he argues as follows [Metaphysics 4.4.1007b18-20, 8.1012b13-22]: if contradictories are true together then every predication is per accidens, and consequently predication has to keep going infinitely; but in infinite things there is no order, Metaphysics 2.2.994b19-20, because where there is no first, there is no second;     therefore no accident has an order per se to another accident, and consequently this other accident is no more an accident of it than it is of that other.

159. And the text agrees with this way of expounding it, for it does not say ‘an accident is an accident of an accident only because both are accident of the same thing’ but ‘an accident is not an accident of an accident, unless because etc     .’ by which he indicates that he does not assert the proposition as true but that he is inferring it from prior premises. And if one expounds the text in this way, the opposite can more be deduced from the authority than the proposed conclusion; for, according to this exposition, it will be inferred as something unacceptable, not asserted as something true.

160. And when the proof is given about ‘being per se’ and ‘being in another’ [n.109], the response is plain from the preceding solution [nn.83-91]; for in the way these features are proper to substance and to accident, in that way can ‘to be per se’ and ‘to sub-stand’ not apply to accident, just as ‘to inhere’ cannot apply to substance; but this holds when ‘to sub-stand’ is taken as it applies to what is ultimately the term of the dependence of inherence.

161. And when, lastly, proof through the idea of dependence [n.109] is given, because an accident cannot be the term of a dependence of the same idea - ‘altogether of the same idea’ can be conceded, because a different independence is required in the ultimate term, and this independence prohibits a dependence altogether the same as that which is a dependence on it. But a dependence that is ‘in some way of the same idea’ is not repugnant to what is the term of the dependence - just as every creature depends on God (and that in idea of God as effective cause), and yet one creature depends on another as if on such a cause, but not as on the altogether first effective cause, of which sort is dependence on the First thing. Thus, in the issue at hand, all accidents depend on substance as the subject, when taking ‘subject’ in the first way [n.146]; and consequently, in the way that it is proper for substance to be the term, no accident can be the term of the dependence of accidents as the ultimate term of them.