a. Solution of the First Doubt

53. Response to these doubts:

To the first [nn.46-49]: in no way must it be conceded that inherence is of the essence of whiteness; and the question moved by others about this seems fictitious and deceptive and without understanding. For even if asking whether the relation [sc. of inherence] is the same as whiteness would have some evidence to it, yet not on this ground is there reason to ask whether it is of the essence of whiteness, because nothing is of the essence of something save what intrinsically belongs to its quiddity; but a respect, though it be the same as the foundation, as was said of the respect of the creature to God [n.50], is yet not of its quiddity, because then no essence of a creature would be absolute. I assert the negative, therefore, that the inherence whereby whiteness inheres in its subject, is not of the essence of whiteness.

54. When argument is then drawn from Aristotle [nn.47-48], I say that he never thought this, that a form which is per se in an absolute genus includes any respect essentially; but the idea of inherence cannot be understood without the idea of respect, unless you do not understand what is meant by the name.

55. The first authority, then [from Aristotle, n.47], is brought from equivocation over the phrase ‘by the fact that’. For ‘by the fact that’ is not always a mark of the formal cause of what precedes it; for when Metaphysics 5.18.1022a14-20 says that ‘to the extent that’ or ‘by the fact that’ is said as often as ‘cause’ is said, the phrase can be a mark of any cause of what precedes it; and so, since substance is a cause of accident but is not of the essence of it, an accident is a being ‘by the fact that it is, in such manner, of being’, designating the causality in the substance. But not for this reason will the formal ‘to be’ in the entity of whiteness be the ‘to be’ of another entity.

56. Thus universally, a thing caused by any cause, in any genus of cause, is what it is because it is, in such manner, of being, that is, belongs to such cause in such genius and order of causing; nor yet is this relation to any cause something formal or essential in the thing caused, because then no caused thing would formally be absolute.

57. However some pervert this text, saying that Aristotle’s text is that “accidents are not beings [sc. as opposed to “are not called beings,” n.47]The authentic text does seem to be the reading Scotus rejects. ³⁸ save because they are, in such manner, of being” - this proposition the Philosopher neither asserts nor is it there [sc. in the text] nor does it follow from the Philosopher’s proposition; for just as the phrase ‘by the fact that’ can denote in the antecedent any cause of what precedes, so it can denote such a cause but not do so precisely, and consequently it does not denote such precision. But let it be that in the antecedent the precise cause were denoted just as it is in the consequent, yet neither proposition makes for the intended conclusion, that the relation imported by the term ‘of being’ is formal in the essence of whiteness. Now the phrase ‘in such manner, of being’ is taken for the substance that the preceding discussion was about - or for ‘totally of being’, according to another text, such that ‘totally’ does not thus state the totality of universality, because then an accident would be ‘of being’ taken in the most universal way, and thus it would not be a being, but it would be totally being, with the totality of perfection; and thus is substance totally being.

58. As to the other authority [n.47, “neither naturally fit nor able [to be separated from substance]” and the other things said there, it is plain how the Philosopher understands it, that it is because of the necessary order of caused thing to proximate cause; but there is not got from this that the relation to proximate cause is of the essence of the caused thing.

59. The authority from Metaphysics 4 and the like one from Metaphysics 7 about ‘knowable’ and ‘non-knowable’ [n.48] could, according to the appearance of the words, be adduced for the fact that an accident would have no formal entity, just as ‘health’ in the case of urine has nothing of the formal idea of health; and if it is adduced for this purpose, it is only ignorance of words. For it is plain that accidents are principles of acting and principles of knowing substance and per se objects of the senses (from On the Soul 1.1.402b16-3a2). But it is trifling to say that something is a principle of acting, either by real action on matter or by intentional action on the senses or intellect, and does not have any formal entity; for thus I could say that a chimaera acts or senses. It is also trifling that something is the per se property of being if it not have per se some entity, or that it is the term of some motion or change if it not have some entity. In the case of all substances, if they have properties, the properties are accidents. Also if there is any movement of growth, alteration, and ‘where’, it is to an accident as term.

60. The understanding of the philosopher therefore in the examples is not that they run all fours, for according to Damascene ch.70 “What is alike in everything will be altogether the same thing, not an example.” And so he says as preface, “it is not necessary for examples to be assigned that are complete and without defects; for it is necessary to consider in examples what is like and what is unlike.”

61. Thus I say that the examples of the Philosopher are to this effect, that just as the essential order is of medicine to animal in what it is ‘to be called healthy’, so the essential order is between substance and accident in having entitative being. But the examples are not to the effect that essential order to a subject is of the essence of the whiteness that has that order the way the idea of sign is essentially ‘healthy’ as said of urine. And the reason for the unlikeness is in this, that there is not in urine any absolute form by which it might be said to be healthy, although there is something absolute there on which the idea of sign is founded, namely the sort of color and digestion and other things that appear in it, but the very order to health is that by which urine is formally said to be healthy. And therefore is this altogether equivocal as far as concerns the name imposed on it from the concept by which an animal is said to be healthy; for although the health is the same that is in an animal formally and that is indicated by urine, yet ‘healthy’ is imposed to denote what has health formally, and what has health as a sign is purely equivocal. But on the other side ‘being’ is not purely equivocal, as was said elsewhere [Ord. I d.3 nn.26-41], and in each extreme there is an absolute thing because of which a thing is said to be a being, although on one of the absolutes an order to the other is founded.

62. To the argument [n.49] I say that inherence inheres in whiteness, otherwise whiteness would not be formally inherent by that inherence.

63. And when you ask about the inherence [n.49] by what inherence it inheres in whiteness, I say that it is the same as the inherence of whiteness, and so a stand is made there. The reason for this is plain in Ord. II d.1 q.5 n.205, because the relation is the same as the foundation, without which ‘being a foundation’ includes a contradiction. Of this sort is the inherence of the inherence, because it is a contradiction for the inherence of whiteness at a surface to be actual and not actually to inhere or not to have that inherence. It is similarly impossible and a contradiction for inherence to exist aptitudinally without inhering aptitudinally, and without being a foundation of the inherence, namely the whiteness itself; and it too is present in this foundation, for a respect cannot exist without being in a foundation because of the special repugnance a respect has to not being in a foundation. But, for the opposite reason, no inherence of an absolute form is the same as itself, for there is simply no repugnance in that form being and not being simply.