The Catholic World, Vol. 19, April 1874‐September 1874Various
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 19, April 1874‐September 1874
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
Lastly, the mode of being which results from the accidental actuation of
the subject is only an accidentality, or an accidental actuality, as we
have already remarked, and is predicated of the subject, not as something
_received_ in it, but as something following from the actual reception of
the accidental act. Hence the substance, or the nature, which is the
subject of such accidental modes lies under them, not on account of its
receptivity, but on account of the resulting potentiality, which is a
proper appurtenance, not of the material term, but of the formal
complement of the substance. And, in fact, the complement of all created
essence always arises from the actuation of a potential term, and
therefore is itself necessarily potential—that is, liable to such
accidental changes as may result from any new actuation of the essential
term. This resulting potentiality is commonly styled _mobility_,
_changeableness_, or _affectibility_, and may be called _modal_
potentiality in opposition to the _passive_ potentiality which is the
characteristic of the essential term.
Hence a subject is said to _receive_ the accidental act, but not the
accidental mode; and, on the contrary, is said to _be affected_ by the
accidental mode, but not by the accidental act. We may say, however, that
a subject _is modified_ as well by the act as by the mode, because this
expression applies equally to the making of the change (_mutatio in
fieri_) and to the state that follows (_mutatio in facto esse_).
A subject has, therefore, two distinct manners of _underlying_: the one on
account of its receptivity, the other on account of its affectibility; the
one by reason of the _passive_ potentiality of its term, the other by
reason of the _modal_ potentiality of its complement. Thus a body,
according to its passive potentiality, underlies the _act_ produced in it
by a motive power, because it passively receives the motive determination,
and, according to its modal potentiality, it underlies _local movement_,
this movement being the immediate result of the determination received.
And in a similar manner our soul, inasmuch as it is receptive or passive,
underlies the act produced or the impression made in it by a cognizable
object; and inasmuch as it is affectible, it underlies the feeling or
affective movement, which immediately results from the cognition of the
object.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive