Essence and Existence

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(Latinessentia, existentia)

Since they are transcendentals, it is not possible to put forward a strict definition of either of the subjects of the present article.Essence, however, is properly described as that whereby a thing is what it is.Existence is that whereby the essence is an actuality in the line of being.

Essence

Essence is properly described as that whereby a thing is what it is, an equivalent of theto ti en einai ofAristotle (Metaph., VII, 7). The essence is thus the radical or ground from which the various properties of a thing emanate and to which they are necessarily referred. Thus the notion of the essence is seen to be the abstract counterpart of the concrete entity; the latter signifying that which is or may be (ens actu, ens potentiâ), while the former points to the reason or ground why it is precisely what it is. As furnishing in this manner an answer to the question What? (Quid?) — as, e.g., What is man? — essence is equivalent toquiddity; and thus, asSt. Thomas remarks (I, Q. iii, a. 3), the essence of a thing is that which is expressed by its definition.

Synonyms

Nature

Essence and nature express the same reality envisaged in the two points of view as being or acting. As the essence is that whereby any given thing is that which it is, the ground of its characteristics and the principle of its being, so its nature is that whereby it acts as it does, the essence considered as the foundation and principle of its operation. Hence againSt. Thomas: "Nature is seen to signify the essence of a thing according as it has relation to its proper operation" (De ente et essentia, cap. i).

Form

Furthermore, essence is also in a manner synonymous with form, since it is chiefly by their formal principle that beings are segregated into one or other of the species. Thus, while created spiritual things, because they are not composed ofmatter and form, are specifically what they are by reason of their essences or "forms" alone, the compounded beings of the corporeal world receive their specification and determination of nature, or essence, principally from their substantial forms.

Species

A further synonym of essence is species; but it is to be carefully noted that essence in this connexion is used rather with alogical or metaphysical connotation than with a real or physical one. This distinction is of considerable importance. The real or physical essence of compound entities consists in, or results from, the union of the constituent parts. Thus if we consider man as a being composed ofmatter and form, body andsoul, the physical essence will be the body andsoul. Apart from any act of abstraction, body andsoul exist in the physical order as the constituents of man. On the other hand, we may consider man as the result of a composition ofgenus proximum anddifferentia ultima, i.e. of his animality and his rationality. Here the essence, humanity, is metaphysical orlogical. Thus, while the real essence, to speak still only of composite beings, consists in the collection of all those physical component parts that are required to constitute the entity what it is, either actually or potentially existent, without which it can be neither actual nor potential, thelogical essence is no more than the composition ofideas or notions, abstracted mentally and referred together in what are known as "second intentions".

Distinction between metaphysical and physical essence

This consideration provides a basis for the distinction of essences according to the degree of physical and metaphysical complexity or simplicity which they severally display. The Supreme Being has — or rather is — a unique and utterly simple essence, free from all composition, whether physical or metaphysical. Moreover, inGod — otherwise, as we shall see, than in creatures — there is no distinction of any kind between His essence and His existence. Spiritual created beings, however, as free from the composition ofmatter and form, have physically simple essences; yet they are composite in that their essences are the result of a union of genus and differentia, and are not identical with their existence. In theangel the essence is the species consequent on this union. Corporeal creatures not only share in metaphysical complexity of essence, but have, on account of their material composition, a physical complexity as well.

The characteristic attributes of the essence are immutability, indivisibility,necessity, andinfinity.

Immutability.— Since the essence of anything is that whereby the thing is what it is, it follows directly from the principle of contradiction that essences must be immutable. This, of course, is nottrue in the sense that physical essences cannot be brought into being or cease to exist, nor that they cannot be decomposed into their constituent parts, nor yet that they are not subject to accidental modification. The essence ofGod alone, as stated above, is so entirely free from any sort of composition that it is in the strictest sense immutable. Every essence, however, is immutable in this, that it cannot be changed or broken up into its constituent parts and yet remain the same essence. The attribute istranscendental and is applied to essence precisely as it is essence. Thus, while the essence of any given man may be broken up into body andsoul, animality and rationality, man as man and humanity as humanity is changeless. One individual ceases to exist; the essence itself, whether verified or not in concrete actuality, persists. The definition, "man is a rational animal", is aneternally immutabletruth, verifiable whenever and wherever the subject man is given, either as a concrete and existent entity, or as a mere potentiality.

Indivisibility.— Similarly, essences are said to be indivisible; that is to say, an essence ceases to be what it is when it is broken up into its constituents. Neither body norsoul alone is man. Neither animality nor rationality, taken separately, is humanity. Therefore, precisely as essence, it is indivisible.

Necessity.— In like manner necessity is predicated of essences. They arenecessary in that, though they may be merely possible and contingent, each must of necessity always be itself. In the order of actual being, the real essence is necessarily what it is, since it is that whereby the thing is what it is; in the order of the merely possible, it must necessarily be identical with itself.

Infinity.— Finally, essences are said to be eternal andinfinite in the negative sense that, as essences, there is no reason for their non-existence, nor for their limitation to a given number ofindividuals in any species.

From what has been said, the distinction between essence considered as physical and as metaphysical will be apparent. It is the metaphysical essence that is eternal, immutable, indivisible,necessary, etc.; the physical essence that is temporal, contingent, etc. In other words, the metaphysical essence is a formal universal, while the physical essence is that real particularization of the universal that provides the basis for the abstraction.

Non-Scholastic views

So far the present article has been occupied in exhibiting theScholastic view with regard to essence, and in obtaining a certain precision of thought rather than in raising any problems intimately connected with the subject. Notice must be taken, however, of aphilosophical tradition which has found adherents mainly among Britishphilosophers and which is at variance with theScholastic. This tradition would treat as futile and illusory any investigation or discussion concerning the essences of things. By those who hold it, either

Of those who take up one or other of these positions with regard to the essence of things, the most prominent may be cited.

Hobbes and Locke, Mill, Hume, Reid, and Bain, the Positivists and theAgnostics generally, together with a considerable number of scientists of the present day, would not improperly be described as eitherdoubtful or dogmatically negative as to the reality, meaning, and cognoscibility of essence. The proponents and defenders of such a position are by no means always consistent. While they make statements of their case, based for the most part on purely subjective views of the nature of reality, that the essences of beings are nonentities, or at least unknowable, and, as a consequence, that the wholescience ofmetaphysics is no more than a jargon of meaningless terms and exploded theories, they, on the other hand, express opinions and make implicit admissions that tell strongly against their own thesis. Indeed, it would generally seem that thesephilosophers, to some extent at least, misunderstand the position which they attack, that they combat a sort ofintuitiveknowledge of essences,erroneously supposed by them to be claimed byScholastics, and do not at all grasp the theory of the natures of things as derived from a painstaking consideration of their characteristic properties. Thus even Bain admits that there may in all probability be some one fundamentalproperty to which all the others might be referred; and he even uses the words "real essence" to designate thatproperty. Mill tells us that "to penetrate to the more hidden agreement on which these more obvious and superficial agreements (the differentiæ leading to the greatest number of interesting propria) depend, is often one of the most difficult of scientific problems. And as it is among the most difficult, so it seldom fails to be among the most important". Father Rickaby in his "General Metaphysics" gives the citations from both Mill and Bain, as well as an important admission from Comte, that the natural tendency of man is to inquire for persistent types, a synonym, in this context, for essences. Thephilosophical tradition, orschool, to which allusion is made — although we have anticipated its assertions by the admissions into which its professors have allowed themselves to be drawn by the exigencies of reason and human language — may be divided roughly into two main classes, with their representatives in Locke and Mill. Locke got rid of the olddoctrine by making the "supposed essences" no more than the bare significations of their names. He does not, indeed, deny that there are real essences; on the contrary, he fully admits this. But he asserts that we are incapable of knowing more than the nominal orlogical essences which we form mentally for ourselves. Mill, though, as we have seen, he occasionally abandons his standpoint for one more in keeping with theScholastic view, professedly goes further than Locke in utterly rejecting real essences, a rejection quite in keeping with his general theory ofknowledge, which eliminates substance,causality, andnecessarytruth.

The considerations previously advanced will serve to indicate a line of argument used against scepticism in this matter. TheScholastics do not and never have claimed any direct or perfect acquaintance with the intimate essences of all things. They recognize that, in very many cases, no more than an approximateknowledge can be obtained, and this only through accidental characteristics and consequently by a very indirect method. Still, though the existence of the concrete beings, of which the essences are in question, is contingent and mutable,humanknowledge, especially in the field of mathematics, reaches out to the absolute andnecessary. For example, the properties of a circle or triangle are deducible from its essence. That the one differs specifically from the other, and each from other figures, that their diverse andnecessary attributes, their characteristic properties, are dependent upon their several natures and can be inferred by a mathematical process from these — so much weknow. Thedeductive character of certain geometricalproofs, proceeding from essential definitions, may at least be urged as an indication that thehumanmind is capable of grasping and of dealing with essences.

Similarly, and even from the admissions of the opponents of theScholastic tradition given above, it may reasonably be maintained that we have a directknowledge of essence, and also an indirect, orinductiveknowledge of the physical natures existent in the world about us. The essences thus known do not necessarily point to the fact of existence; they may or may not exist; but they certify to us what the things in question are. Theknowledge and reality of essences emerges also from thedoctrine ofuniversals, which, although formally subjective in character, aretrue expressions of the objective realities from which they are abstracted. As Father Rickaby remarks: "In the rough the form of expression could hardly be rejected, thatscience seeks to arrive at the very nature of things and has some measure of success in the enterprise"; and again, "In short, the very admission that there is such a thing as physicalscience, and thatscience iscognitio rerum per causas — aknowledge of things, according to therationale of them — is tantamount to saying that some manner of acquaintance with essences is possible; that the world does present its objects ranged according to at least a certain number of different kinds, and that we can do something to mark off one kind from another." (General Metaphysics, c. III.)

Existence

Existence is that whereby the essence is an actuality in the line of being. By its actuation the essence is removed from the merely possible, is placed outside its causes, and exists in the world of actual things.St. Thomas describes it as the first or primary act of the essence as contrasted with its secondary act or operation (I Sent., dist. xxxiii, Q. i, a. 1, ad 1); and again, as "the actuality of all form or nature" (Summa, I, Q. iii, a. 4). Whereas the essence or quiddity gives an answer to the question as towhat the thing is, the existence is the affirmative to the question as towhether it is. Thus, while created essences are divided into both possible and actual, existence is always actual and opposed by its nature to simple potentiality.

With regard to the existence of things, the question has been raised as to whether, in the ideal order, the possible is antecedent to the actual. The consideration here does not touch on the real or physical order, in which it is conceded byScholastics that the potentiality of creatures precedes their actuality. The unique actuality, pure and simple (as against such theorists as von Hartmann, maintaining an absolute primitive potentiality ofall existence), that necessarily precedes all potentiality, is that ofGod, in Whom essence and existence are identical. We are concerned with the question: Is the concept of a possible entity prior to that of an existing one?Rosmini answers this question in the affirmative. The School generally takes the opposite view, maintaining the thesis that the primitiveidea is of existent entity — that is, essence as actualized and placed outside of its causes — in the concrete, though confused and indeterminate. Such anidea is of narrow intension, but extensively it embraces all being. The thesis is supported by various considerations, such as that the essence is related to its existence as potential to actual, that the act generally is prior to potentiality, and that this latter is known, and only known, through its corresponding actuality. Or, weknow the possible being as that which may be, or may exist; and thisnecessary relation to actual existence, without which the possible is not presented to the mind, indicates the priority, in the line of thought, of the actually existent over the merely possible. Existence is thus seen to be in some sense distinguished from the essence which it actuates.

The question agitated in the School arises at this point: What is the nature of the distinction that obtains between the physical essence and the existence of creatures? It is to be borne in mind that the controversy turns not upon a distinction between the merely possible essence and the same essence as actualized, and thus physically existent; but on the far different and extremely nice point as to the nature of the distinction to be drawn between the actualized and physically existent essence and its existence or actuality, by which it is existent in the physical order. That there is no such distinction inGod is conceded by all. With regard to creatures, several opinions have been advanced. ManyThomists hold that a real distinction obtains here and that the essence and existence of creatures differ as different entities. Others, among themDominicus Soto, Lepidi, etc., seem to prefer a distinction other than real. TheScotists, affirming their "formal distinction", which is neither preciselylogical nor real, but practically equivalent to virtual, decide the point against a real distinction. Francisco Suárez, with many of hisschool, teaches that the distinction to be made is alogical one. The principal arguments in favour of the two chief views may be summarized as follows: —

Thomists:

Suarez:

These positions are maintained, not only by argument, but by reference to the authority and teaching ofSt. Thomas, as to whose genuinedoctrine there is considerable difference of opinion and interpretation. It does not, however, appear to be a matter of great moment, asSoto remarks, whether one holds or rejects thedoctrine of a real distinction between essence and existence, so long as the difference betweenGod and His creatures is safe-guarded, in that existence is admitted to be of the essence ofGod and not of the essence of creatures. And this would seem to be sufficiently provided for even in the supposition that created essences are not distinct from their existences as one thing is from another, but as a thing from its mode.

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