Now, the scholastic definition of substance and Spinoza’s definition embody two entirely distinct notions. Spinoza’s definition conveys what scholastics mean by the Self-Existent Being, _Ens a se_; and this the scholastics distinguish from caused or created being, _ens ab alio_. Both phrases refer formally and primarily, not to the mode of a being’s existence when it does exist, but to the origin of this existence in relation to the being’s essence; and specifically it marks the distinction between the Essence that is self-explaining, self-existent, essentially actual (“_a_ se”), the Necessary Being, and essences that do not themselves explain or account for their own actual existence, essences that have not their actual existence from themselves or of themselves, essences that are in regard to their actual existence contingent or dependent, essences which, therefore, if they actually exist, can do so only dependently on some other being whence they have derived this existence (“_ab_ alio”) and on which they essentially depend for its continuance. Not the least evil of Spinoza’s definition is the confusion caused by gratuitously wresting an important philosophical term like _substance_ from its traditional sense and using it with quite a different meaning; and the same is true in its measure of the other mistaken notions of substance which we have been examining. By defining substance as an _ens in se_, or _per se stans_, scholastic philosophers mean simply that substance does not depend _intrinsically_ on any _subjective_ or _material_ cause in which its actuality would be supported; they do not mean to imply that it does not depend _extrinsically_ on an efficient cause from which it has its actuality and by which it is conserved in being. They assert that all _created_ substances, no less than all accidents, have their being “_ab alio_” from God; that they exist only by the Divine creation and conservation, and act only by the Divine _concursus_ or concurrence; but while substances and accidents are both alike dependent on this extrinsic conserving and concurring influence of a Divine, Transcendent Being, substances are exempt from this other and distinct mode of dependence which characterizes accidents: intrinsic dependence on a subject in which they have their actuality.(246)