Being; a study in metaphysics

Contents

PAGE

Introduction vii

CHAPTER

Preface

The treatise on Being herein submitted is an attempt to simplify a subject very important to the student of philosophy. In making the attempt, the author has pursued the method adopted by him in his treatise on Certitude.

Introduction

The solidity of a building depends mainly on the stability of its foundation. When this is poorly laid, the building is unsafe ; when this becomes undermined, the edifice is sure to topple to the ground and bury its inmates under its ruins. Now, what the foundation is to a building, that metaphysics is to philosophy. Its notions and principles form the groundwork of all knowledge. One single error in matters metaphysical is often enough to bring about the total downfall of all true science and leave doubt and falsehood in its place. And not only does the fate of the natural sciences hinge upon correct metaphysical tenets : supernatural religion itself is dependent upon them ; for faith must be reasonable ; and how can it be so when first principles are perverted and denied ?

We need but cast a glance at the History of Philosophy to fmcl ample proof for our contention. All the false philosophy of modern times, which has wrought such frightful havoc in the realm of truth, starts with erroneous views upon metaphysical questions. Thus, to give just a few instances, Hegel bases his monvii viii Introduction

strous doctrine of philosophy on a wrong conception of "indeterminate being" (ens ut sic). Spinoza builds his wild speculations on an arbitrary definition of " substance." Kant endeavors to show that the existence of God cannot be certainly known " by the things that are made," for the reason that with him both the " concept of cause " and the " principle of causality " are purely subjective, and hence not applicable to things in themselves. Locke, by making personality consist in " actual self-consciousness," renders two of the most fundamental mysteries of our faith self-contradictory, namely, the Trinity of persons in the Godhead, and the unity of person in Christ. Descartes, as far as lay in him, dealt the deathblow to metaphysics by his teaching on the origin of " possible being" : and this same Descartes is the father of the modern philosophical movement from Spinoza to Hegel.

From this we can see how important it is, to lay the foundation of philosophy broad and deep by expounding and safeguarding metaphysical notions and principles, however subtle and abstruse they may be.

Considerations such as these have encouraged us to undertake a systematic development of the concept of " BEING," the most metaphysical of all metaphysical concepts : with what success, the following pages will show.

CHAPTER FIRST The Term Being

Summary: The province of metaphysics — The notion of being — Being and " ens " compared — Being employed as a participle and as a participial adjective — "Ens" as a noun and as a participle — Chimerical being — Wholly indefinite being described — Synonyms of being — The opposite of being or "nothing."

i. The Province of Metaphysics. The

science of metaphysics opens with the consideration of the idea of being. For metaphysics investigates those notions which possess the most far-reaching universality. Some of these notions are literally common to all things : as, being, unity, truth, goodness; whilst the others occur in pairs of opposites or correlatives, which divide all things between themselves in such wise that either the one or the other of the two associated notions is predicable of any object whatsoever: as, cause and effect, substance and accident, I potency and existence. Hence these latter concepts might be called disjunctively common to all things. St. Thomas says that the subject-matter of metaphysics is " ens et ea quae ipsum consequuntur," that is, " being and those things which are consequent upon being."

Metaphysics, then, examines the broadest, and therefore the most fundamental, of notions. The reign of these notions is felt throughout the vast realm of existence and possibility. He who lays sacrilegious hands on any one of them by calling its objective validity into question, thereby brings the edifice of knowledge crashing about his head ; nay more, such a one would reduce all being to absolute nothingness, did its existence depend on his denial. Father Balmes expresses this fundamental necessity in his own striking and graceful way : " Ontology," he says, " circulates like life-giving fluid through all the other sciences" (Fund. Phil. v. 2, n. 288). Hence it is that metaphysics has been called the queen of sciences. These considerations prove the folly of those who belittle and discountenance the study of metaphysics. They tell us, metaphysics is intangible, obscure, and prosaic. It is not intangible, but it is abstruse; and how could it be otherwise considering that it deals with the most extensive and most universal of notions. It is not obscure, but profound ; for it descends to the lowest depths of reality and thought, to the last

The Term Being 3

causes, which lie buried away down as the foundations and basis of all things. Metaphysics, finally, is not prosaic ; but it is sublime. True, it does not lay claim to that attractiveness and fascination which truths, clothed with all the witchery of fancy, possess: for the concrete only can present itself to man with all that fulness of perfection which appeals to the sense of the beautiful : but metaphysics is vast, it is comprehensive, it eludes whatever the fancy in its wildest flights can conjure up ; and these are some of the characteristics of the sublime.

2. The notion of being. The foregoing considerations indicate that being is the most metaphysical of all metaphysical notions ; for it is a term which may be applied to whatever has reality; and this is the reason, too, why the science of metaphysics begins with the analysis of being.

3. Being and ens compared. But here we are forced into an awkward situation. We are concerned here with the meaning of the English word " being/' and not with the Greek term ov, or the Latin " ens." Now, we are apt to ascribe to being all that the old philosophers say of ov and of " ens." Are we justified in doing so? Is being the exact equivalent of the Latin " ens," which is the literal rendering of the Greek ov r

But perhaps some one might ask, why refer to the meaning of the Latin " ens " at all ? We are not discussing this subject in Latin, but in English.

There are several reasons why we should take particular notice of the Latin term " ens " in this connection. For, in the first place, the subject of being has been, and still is sifted most thoroughly in Latin works, which expound the teaching of the schoolmen; and hence a comparison of the Latin " ens " and the English " being," cannot but be very useful to all familiar with the original Latin sources. Moreover, very much of the philosophic thought stored up in English treatises has been garnered from the Scholastics. Lastly, the word " ens " has been incorporated into the English language, as any of our larger dictionaries will attest. Thus, one of them, the Century Dictionary, gives the following quotation under "ens";

" To thee, Creator uncreate, O ens entium, divinely great." 1

1 It sometimes happens that scholarly students who are fond of the language of Virgil, Horace, and Cicero are shocked at meeting such a solecism or Latin monstrosity as the present participle of the verb " esse," and feel inclined perhaps to look with contempt upon the Schoolmen for using this and similar incorrect and uncouth expressions. We should not judge the scholastic philosophers too harshly for this apparent assault upon the purity of the Latin. For it must be admitted that this tongue is not rich in convenient philosophic terms and phrases, and that it lacks suitable expressions for some of the most ordinary and fundamental ideas of speculative thought. Thus, such words

The Term Being 5

Let us now return to the question just mooted, Are the Latin word " ens " and the English term " being " synonymous ?

To settle this point, let us first determine the meaning of " being," and then compare it with the various acceptations of " ens."

4. Being employed as a participle and as a participial adjective. Being, as here understood, although it has the ending of a participle, is, in reality, a verbal noun with a twofold meanas " essentia," " existentia," " possibilitas," " individuation " personalitas," " causalitas," " certitudo," " motivum," and many others will be looked for in vain in classical writers. The Romans were a war-like nation, a practical people: they did not care much for subtle theorizing. This would explain the comparative barrenness of their language in terms and phrases for conveying abstract philosophic notions. The Greeks, on the contrary, were the very antipodes of the Romans in their relation to philosophy; for, their tongue teems with a wonderful wealth of clear-cut, metaphysical words and expressions, and justly glories in a surpassing suppleness and pliability for communicating the nicest shades of meaning. What then were the Scholastic philosophers to do? The Latin was the established medium of thought of those earnest and deep thinkers. It was not feasible to substitute the Greek tongue in place of the Latin ; they did not think it wise to transplant Greek idioms unchanged into another language. Hence they felt themselves compelled to coin certain words and phrases, as we ourselves are doing constantly. As regards the frequent occurrence of the present participle of " esse," " ens," which may seem to some a barbarism for which no apology can be offered, something can be said in defence and palliation of Scholastic usage. For, as Andrew's Latin Dictionary tells us, "the part. pres. ens is used by Caesar according to Prise, p. 1140 P. and by Sergius Flavius according to Quint. 8. 3. 33."

ing, namely that of a participle and that of a participial adjective. For the sake of greater clearness, let us first state the difference between a participle and a participial adjective in general, and then apply it to our case.

The participial adjective denotes capacity, fitness, ability, readiness for the performance of an action ; whilst the participle as such expresses the actualization or exercise of that capacity, fitness, ability and readiness.

Thus, when I say, " the physician is observing " or " the gladiator is daring" I mean that the former possesses the power of observation to a marked degree, and the latter is ready or prepared to face danger. But when I declare that the physician is observing the symptoms of his patient or the gladiator daring the lion, I want to denote the actualization of that power or readiness, in a word, the actual performance of an action.

Now let us transfer this to being. Mind, we do not say that being is a participle or a participial adjective; but that it may have the force of either. For it sometimes denotes merely reality, capacity for existence, that which can exist, regardless of the fact of its actual existence or non-existence. In this case, being has the force of a participial adjective; for example, when I say, God is infinite being. It is used in this way especially where it performs

The Term Being 7

the office of objective case to the verb " to have," as in the following propositions, " A blade of grass has being," " A dew-drop has being."

But being very frequently signifies the actualization of the capacity for existence. It is plain that in this instance, it has the force of the participle " existing " ; for that which actualizes the capacity for existence, is, of course, existence itself. A case in point would be the sentence, " The Guardian Angels are loving, devoted beings," i. e. loving, devoted, existing realities.

5. Ens as a noun and as a participle. The Latin word " ens " is likewise used in two ways, namely as a noun and as a participle. When employed as a participle, it is equivalent in meaning to " existing," and hence corresponds to the English being in one of the acceptations just given. As a noun, ens has the same signification as the English participial adjective ; for in Latin, participles are often used as nouns to express capacity for something, as when I say, " Omne vivens est substantia."

Let us now note in what being and ens differ. In the first place, being is in common use in our everyday language, whereas ens is a purely philosophical term of middle age Latin.

As regards the meaning of the two, it would seem that in English, being, in its ordinary acceptation, denotes the same as that which exists.

This also is the prevailing signification of the word " ens " in Latin. Thus, St. Thomas tells us that the word " ens " is chiefly used to designate the existent, whilst the term " res " is reserved for expressing essence in its most abstract form or the mere capability for existence.

However, as hinted before, " ens " may also be used as a noun, and " being " in the sense of a participial adjective, provided it appears from the context or in some other way that such use is intended.

" Being " is also frequently taken as the present participle of the auxiliary verb " to be," as in the sentence, " The enterprise is being carried out " ; and very often, it is employed in place of the copula " is " in participial constructions ; e. g. "This being so . ."Of course,

" ens " is never used in this manner.

The above comparison shows that, excepting the last two acceptations of " being," " ens " and " being " are substantially equivalents.

Let us now analyze a little more accurately the nature of being as having the force of a participial adjective. For it is with being in this sense only, that we are at present concerned.

6. Chimerical being. But before entering upon our analysis of being thus taken, we must first somewhat restrict its meaning. For being can exist in a twofold state, namely, in the real and in the logical state. At present, our busi-

The Term Being 9

tiess is with " real being," that is being which can exist apart from the mind, and not with " logical being " or being whose existence is confined to the region of mere thought. Being of this latter sort is called " ens rationis," a mere creature or figment of the mind, which is never to be found outside of cognition. Thus, should I conceive a triangular square as something, or attribute being to a number of animals sitting in council and making speeches, or to rocks and stocks listening in rapture to Orpheus' lute — it is plain that in all these cases the " being " signified can have existence nowhere except in the mind : being of this sort is a mere mental product or figment, and might not unfittingly be called " chimerical " being. For, according to Webster, " chimerical " in one of its meanings denotes the same as " having or capable of having no existence except in thought."

7. Wholly indefinite being described. Our concern here, then, is not with this kind of being, but with real being, and that in its most general acceptation, that is, as shorn of all determinations and" specifications whatsoever. Hence, we abstract even from the circumstance, as to whether it is actual or merely possible. Being as here taken, is the most indeterminate concept conceivable; it is a concept in which abstraction has been pushed to its ultimate limit, a concept stript of whatever discriminates or io Being

differentiates one thing from another; it is the vanishing point of all distinction and diversity; it is being conceived in its greatest vagueness. It might not improperly be styled in English " wholly indefinite being " ; and this is what the Schoolmen call " ens ut sic," " being as such."

8. Synonyms of being. There are a number of synonyms of the term being, as thing, something, reality, entity, object. To determine their very nice shades of difference, belongs to the grammarian and lexicographer rather than to the philosopher. We would only call attention to the term " object," which regards being as presented to the mind. For "object" from the Latin " objicere," literally signifies that which is thrown or lies before (viz. the mind). Webster defines " object " as " that which is set or may be regarded as set before the mind, so as to be apprehended or known." The other synonyms of being view being rather as it is in itself.

9. The opposite of being or " nothing." Thus far we have spoken of the meaning of being and of some of its synonyms, all positive notions. But the explanation of a positive concept calls for the elucidation of its opposite. For opposites are, after a manner, correlated, and on this account involve, suggest and shed light upon, each other. Now the opposite of " being " is its negation, namely " non-being " or

The Term Being n

" nothing," of which " beinglessness " and " nothingness " form the abstract names.

Nothing or non-being admits of a twofold meaning, according to the sense in which we take " thing " or " being " which it negatives. If these stand for that which actually exists, then " nothing " merely denotes the non-existent, and includes whatever is not, yet can be: thus understood " nothing " is not an empty concept, as might perhaps seem at first sight, but the plenitude of all possible reality. " Nothing " taken in this sense is technically known as " positive " nothing. It has this meaning in the following verse found in the second book of Machabees : " I beseech thee, my son, look upon heaven and earth and all that is in them, and consider that God made them out of nothing and mankind also."

But " nothing " has also another signification. It sometimes denotes the negation of " thing " or " being " in its broadest acceptation as that which can be ; in this case, it conveys the same meaning as the impossible, or that which neither exists nor can exist, and is, in philosophical terminology, styled " absolute nothing." To this region of absolute " beinglessness " must be relegated all absurdities, contradictions and inconceivabilities ; as a square circle, a thinking block of wood, a tree suffering pain, a finite God, and the like. They are all included under the figments of the mind (entia rationis), mentioned before. Beinglessness of this sort is entirely barren; the very conception of a state of absolute nothingness ever obtaining, is itself an absurdity. For had such ever been the case, nothing would or could exist.

CHAPTER SECOND Unity and Commonness of Being

Summary: Inquiry outlined — Comprehension and extension of ideas — Thesis : Concept of being one in itself and common to all things — Preliminary remarks to thesis — Two exceptions taken — Proofs of thesis — Answer to exceptions.

10. Inquiry outlined. After having thus explained the meaning of " being " and its opposite " nothing," let us now enter a little more deeply into this matter by determining some of the properties of being.

In examining the concept of being, we are at once struck with its absolute universality. For the term being can be applied to everything. The question now forces itself upon the inquirer, Is being as thus referable to all things one and the same concept throughout, or is it manifold in its signification ? v

ii. Comprehension and extension of ideas. But before going any further in our exposition of being, we must first briefly recall from Dialectics a few notions which we shall have frequent occasion of using and which, unless clearly grasped, would seriously hamper us in our investigations, namely the notions " comprehension " and " extension " in their logical meaning.

By the comprehension of a notion (or concept) we understand that which the notion comprises, namely the sum total of the attributes which go to make up its meaning. Thus the comprehension of " eagle," for instance, is, corporeal, living, irrational, feathered, rapacious biped, having strong talons and beak, remarkable for strength, size, graceful figure, keenness of vision, extraordinary flight, etc. Another name for the comprehension of a notion is " content." In fact, this term seems preferable, since its prevailing meaning suggests more readily than comprehension, the sum total of the attributes constituting a given notion. For comprehension, according to its primary signification, denotes the act of grasping an object with the mind, whereas the radical meaning of content is all that which a thing contains. It also appears from the above explanation that the content of a notion is really nothing else than its meaning or definition; for what is the meaning or definition of a conception but the totality of notes constituting it ?

Extension, the other term to be explained, stands in very close relationship to content. It has a twofold meaning. In its primary signification it denotes the capacity which an idea possesses, of representing a greater or smaller

Unity and Commonness of Being 15

number of kinds, species, or individuals; or, to express it somewhat differently, it is the applicability of an idea to a more or less wide range of objects.

Thus understood, extension is a property of ideas. It is, as it were, the measure of an idea, its scope, breadth or sphere. Hence the terms " scope," " breadth," " sphere," when predicated of ideas, are used synonymously with extension.

The word extension is chosen in the above logical signification, because for an idea to apply to a subject, is, after a manner, to "extend" to it.

To illustrate what we have just said by an example: the idea "tree" has a larger extension than the idea " oak," because the predicability of the former is greater than that of the latter ; in fact, " oak-tree " is contained within the scope of " tree."

But it is not unusual to employ the word " extension " for the objects themselves which can be ranked under a given concept. Thus the entire aggregate of trees viewed either as groups or as individuals makes up the extension of " tree."

The objects classed under a certain idea are called the subjects of that idea, because the idea in question is predicable of these objects as its subjects. They are also sometimes named the subordinate parts or simply the subordinates of the idea comprising them. Thus, when I say, " The oak and the elm are trees," I regard " oak " and " elm " as subjects, subordinate to the concept " tree."

Hitherto we have viewed comprehension and extension, each in itself. Considering them as related to one another, we discover this peculiarity about them, that the two vary in an inverse ratio, that is to say, if the comprehension of an idea increases, its extension diminishes, and vice versa. For example, take the notion " man," and add to it the note " white " ; it is plain at once that by thus making the sum total of predicates larger, I narrow down the sphere of the applicability of the concept " man." For " white man " embraces fewer individuals than " man " alone.

This inverse ratio between comprehension and extension, however, does not obtain, except when the new attribute (or mark) joined is such as belongs only to some of the individuals to which it is annexed : in other words when the mark in question is restrictive.

For if it is not restrictive, but merely explicative, that is, involved in the concept to which it is united, although not distinctly expressed by it, then the above law regarding the inverse ratio of content and extension does not hold. Thus take the concept " rational being " and modify it by the accession of " endowed

Unity and Commonness of Being ly

with the power of speech," — " capable of perceiving the incongruous and giving expression to this perception by laughter " : we do not thereby lessen the number of individuals, of which the notion " rational being " alone is affirmable.

12. Being one in itself and common to ail things. After this interruption, let us again take up the thread of our discussion where we began to inquire whether being as predicable of any thing whatever, is one and the same concept wherever applied, or whether it is manifold in its signification. It will serve the purpose of clearness to formulate in a thesis what we have to say on this subject.

THESIS i

The concept being is one in itself and common to all things.

13. Preliminary remarks. When we affirm that the concept of being is one in itself, we want to say that it does not exhibit in its content any of the determinations differentiating the objects of which it is predicated, but abstracts from all of them. We state this in refutation of certain philosophers who consider being as a sort of mosaic or agglomeration of all the objects to which it can be applied. According to them, when I conceive being, I really represent to myself God, creatures, substance and accident, at least in a hazy and confused way.

The unity attributed to being here is, of course, logical unity, of which we shall say a little more presently.

In the second part of the thesis, we assert that the concept of being is " transcendental." A transcendental concept is one which is affirmable of all things whatsoever, and hence, as it were, transcends or passes beyond, all other notions of a circumscribed scope of applicability. It is, then, opposed to a " universal " concept, which can, indeed, be attributed to many things, but not to all.

Note also that we speak here principally of the objective concept, although what is true of it, can, with certain restrictions, be likewise applied to the subjective. The subjective concept, as we know from Dialectics, is the act of the mind representing an object, whilst the objective, is this object as represented by the mind.

14. Two exceptions taken to the unity and commonness of being. The statement embodied in our first thesis may perhaps seem to some self-evident, and its further elucidation be considered a mere loss of time. But looking more closely into the matter, the case is not so simple, and the road before us not so smooth, as would appear at first sight. For if the concept " being " is common to all things, then it must in

Unity and Commonness of Being 19

some way include all things; consequently it must receive, and, as it were, absorb into itself all the real differences by which things are distinguished one from another : but if so, how can it remain one? Hence, it would almost seem that oneness and commonness in respect to all things are exclusive of each other. Again, are there not certain realities, such as the Uncreated and the created, substance and its accidental modifications, which have no points of resemblance at all, and hence cannot enter into one common concept ?

But let us first put our thesis on a firm basis and then see how we can dispose of the above seeming paradox and puzzle.

15. First proof of the unity and commonness of being. We prove our above assertion thus : In order that the mind may form a concept which is at once one and common to all things, there must, in the first place, be some sort of resemblance amongst all things, that renders it possible for the intellect to gather them all into one common notion ;- and secondly, the intellect must be able to unravel and separate the common element from the myriad forms through which things differ from one another. Now it cannot be denied that all realities do bear some sort of likeness to each other in one particular at least : they are all something, they are all opposed to nothing. The Lord Almighty and his lowliest

2o Being

handiwork are something: the one towering to infinite hights, it is true, and the other just rising above the abyss of nothingness : yet both have this in common that they are real, that they are not nothing. The human soul is a something, and so are its thoughts and aspirations which come and go whilst itself endures. However much the permanent soul and the fleeting thought and affection may differ, they are similar in this, that they are set over against the void of nothingness.

There is then an element in which all things agree. But for the mind to conceive all things under one aspect, it is not enough that they should be alike in something; the intellect must, moreover, be able to disentangle the common feature from the multiform differences which diversify it: and this it can do. For it possesses the power of abstraction in its highest perfection. By the aid of this power, the intellectual faculty can lop off, one after another, all the differentiating marks between things, until it arrives at a concept, simple, all-embracing, in which all entities agree. And this is the concept of totally indeterminate being, of being in general, of " ens ut sic," in the Schoolmen's phrase. Take, for example, the concept man: drop, one by one, all his distinguishing characteristics, such as rational, sensitive, living, corporeal, substantial, and you will come to the no-