Communications
6o8 THE COMMONWEAL October 15, 1930 COMMUNICATIONS SUBSTANCE AND ACCIDENTS Hillyard, Wash. TO the Editor:—I am inclosing a few pages in answer to the communication, Substance and...
...The truth is that among beings existing outside the mind there can be absolutely no tertium quid between matter and spirit, that is, absolutely no being can exist that would be neither material nor immaterial, for these two are contradictorily opposed and accordingly completely exhaust all reality between them...
...this group bears, and always has borne, too large a share of the public burdens...
...The following are a few of his misrepresentations...
...it supports no accidents...
...Many of these could be saved, in spite of their perversities, by gentle understanding and pursuing patience...
...Since substance and accidents are part of the matter I teach, I have endeavored to untangle a few of the confused notions Neo-Scholasticus has expressed on the subject...
...The concept of tree or of horse or of stone likewise abstracts from much that the individual trees or horses or stones possess as they exist outside the mind...
...The resulting abstract concept of substance is not a concept of immaterial substance, for it has abstracted from immateriality no less than from materiality...
...October 15, 1930 THE COMMONWEAL 609 THIRTY YEARS AN ANGLO-CATHOLIC Woodstock, Md...
...That such is the character of the decision its author himself has attested with equal publicity and clearness...
...Moreover they hold that substance need not be a substratum at all...
...All Aristotelians and Scholastics, generally," he says "teach that substance and accidents . . . are not determined in any species . . . they simply do not exist in the concrete," but yet they "coalesce to cause something to exist...
...Misinterpreting this doctrine, Neo-Scholasticus attributes to Scholastics the statement that substance simply does not exist in the concrete...
...Please give these matters your consideration, and confer a merited benefit upon a neglected class...
...but concrete, individuated horses and stones and substances and accidents do exist...
...Margaret McIntyre...
...Neo-Scholasticus also says that according to the Scholastics "substance is purely immaterial...
...Hospital charges, of course, do not include the physician's or surgeon's fees...
...You have sharp vision...
...What is most amazing is the sudden and complete change of attitude regarding prohibition...
...With such an attitude, however, the sentence above cited would be incompatible, and its publication by a member of the Catholic Church would be matter of the gravest scandal...
...William H. McClellan, S.J...
...They have always held that outside the mind there are two kinds of substances, the material and the immaterial, and that the substance of every body is material...
...if it exists not in itself but in another being, it is what the Scholastics call an accident...
...Bishop Chartrand is thus endowed...
...Neo-Scholasticus further states that, according to the Scholastics, substance "is a substratum which, like the soul in man, is whole in every part of the object...
...The argument would run like this: All men are animals...
...If the newspapers of the country would call the attention of the public to this unfortunate situation, and continue to point out its injustice, there can be no doubt that in the near future adequate and comfortable accommodations would be provided for this neglected group of our sick...
...With that kind of logic he might just as well have concluded that all men are irrational...
...He gives no evidence of having understood the barest fundamentals of Scholastic philosophy...
...Delany that your readers—who have not yet seen that sentence in its clearly specified setting—should be expressly aware that its writer was not yet wholly a disciple of "the teacher sent from God" at the time when he expressed the opinion in question...
...Hence if neither substance nor accidents exist, there cannot even exist a mind in which they might be a figment...
...substance is a substratum which, like the soul in man, is whole in every part of the object...
...Delany's unimpeachable loyalty a suspicion which might easily occur to readers (for instance) of the following sentence: "In answer to this plausible presentation of the Anglican position, I should say that it is quite possible that Anglicans have valid orders and that their sacraments are real...
...Now, Catholics are well aware that Leo XIII issued no mere disciplinary measure when in 1896 he publicly uttered the sentence: "We pronounce and declare with assured knowledge that ordinations performed by the Anglican rite have been and are invalid and completely null...
...As for the gentleman from Ohio who would run on a "flatearth" platform, that is no more irrelevant to politics than is Mr...
...We have ample accommodations for charity and wealthy patients but none for the patient of modest finances...
...Rev...
...When Scholastics claim objectivity for any general concept, be it substance or body or mineral or plant, they mean that all that is represented in the concept can be found in the individuals existing in the actual world of reality outside the mind...
...This patient must confess his impecuniosity and avail himself of charity treatment, or be forced into ruinous expense, resulting in many instances in the mortgage and ultimate loss of his hard-earned home...
...It strikes me: When public sentiment seemed dry "Enforcement" was the candidate's cry...
...The philosophy professors here were much amused at the manner in which Neo-Scholasticus misinterpreted and distorted Scholastic doctrine...
...I know a little Franciscan who has the gift extraordinary and I have known some others...
...I had hoped at first to condense the answer into the number of lines you usually permit in a communication, but I found the erroneous statements of Neo-Scholasticus so numerous and so radical that, though I selected only a few of them for criticism, they could not be answered clearly in less space than is given below: Scholastic doctrine, as explained by Neo-Scholasticus, becomes quite unrecognizable...
...The divine Substance is not a substratum...
...Although The Commonweal has in no way insinuated the contrary, I respectfully offer this observation merely in order to avert from Dr...
...They have a right to this consideration...
...But even our priests, good, zealous and self-sacrificing as they are, are not gifted alike in violent charity...
...Every existing mineral or plant or animal is a substance...
...Rev...
...These statements, as they stand, would Le denied by any Scholastic philosopher...
...Now, since the concept of animal does not include rationality, it therefore includes irrationality...
...they do not affirm, but emphatically deny, that it exists outside the mind abstracted from individuation and specific differentiation, as it was represented in the mind...
...At any rate, this fantastic idea would provide a new controversial topic for our Senate and readers of the Congressional Record will agree that one is sorely needed...
...FOR PATIENTS OF MODERATE MEANS New Orleans, La...
...Similarly, outside the mind there exists no abstract horse or stone or substance or accident...
...and if I am not misinformed, their author, in concluding that part of his work, has taken the precaution to note that the opinions there recorded belong to a period prior to his actual profession of faith...
...The truth is that it abstracts from both...
...This is clearly an unjust and a thoughtless discrimination against a most worthy group of our people...
...Delany's own unqualified submission to every public and formal decision of the Holy See stands fully attested by his conduct...
...Under the delusion, however, that they represent Scholastic doctrine, Neo-Scholasticus concludes that according to Scholastic principles "substance and accidents are mere entia rationis, figments of the mind without even a fundomentus in re," and that "material objects are really and substantially spiritual...
...Scholastics have never taught that all substances are immaterial...
...TO the Editor:—I am inclosing a few pages in answer to the communication, Substance and Accidents, published in The Commonweal of September 17...
...Scholastics are realists but not ultrarealists...
...But the point is that while one does not hold with Freud nor with the many false psychiatrists who discredit the science, many of these wayward souls have quirks in their brains that the sympathetic pressure of charity could iron out...
...For whatever exists must exist either in itself or not in itself but in another being...
...TO the Editor:—I want to tell you of my high appreciation of the true charity of your editorial...
...The truth is that Scholastics distinctly deny that any material substance is whole in every part of the object...
...Elsie A. Galik...
...On considering the concrete material and immaterial substances existing outside the mind, we can focus our attention on that which both have in common, namely substance, and abstract or omit from our representation both the differentiations, materiality and immateriality...
...Something should be done to give patients of modest means the benefit of hospital treatment at moderate and safe cost...
...This, however, would not be true of the opening chapters of his book...
...THE COMING ELECTIONS Newark, N. J. TO the Editor:—With the approach of the fall elections the antics of the congressional candidates are most interesting to watch...
...The cause of much of his misinterpretation seems to be a failure to grasp the fundamental Scholastic doctrine on general concepts...
...I hope your article may widely sow the seed of vehement charity...
...Failing to grasp this point, he concludes that, according to the Scholastic doctrine of substance, "material objects are really and substantially spiritual...
...E. P. Lowe...
...They then give the real definition of substance: "that which exists in itself and not in another being as in a subject of inhesion...
...And yet it is from this group that most of our hospital patients are derived...
...substance is purely immaterial...
...Do Scholastics therefore hold that trees and horses and stones "simply do not exist in the concrete...
...Such state institutions, under the continuous supervision of the state, and the auspices of the National Institute of Health at Washington, would also be able to develop more modernly the science of hospital sanitation, now wofully neglected...
...for a mind must exist either in itself or not in itself, and hence must be either a substance or an accident...
...Neo-Scholasticus obviously is not a Neo-Scholastic, for NeoScholasticism is not by any means Anti-Scholasticism...
...And again, "Substance is confessedly immaterial, according to Aristotelians...
...Therefore all men are irrational...
...He should carry this statement to its logical conclusion and declare that nothing whatever exists, neither God nor man, neither this world nor the next, neither mind nor matter...
...we merely assert that it is a being that exists in itself and not in another being as in a subject of inhesion...
...What is here said of the objectivity of the concept of substance, must be said also of all general concepts...
...TO the Editor:—A very unfortunate hospital situation confronts our people today in the lack of proper facilities for patients of moderate means...
...This hospital expense often runs as high as $25.00 per day...
...Selden P. Delany's forthcoming apologia, which appears in your issue of September 24, is so frankly Catholic in general attitude as to suggest to the average reader (especially in view of subsequent events) that it proceeded from one who had already become the Church's member and her pupil in the doctrine of Christ...
...Whenever Scholastic writers define substance as "that which supports the accidents," they point out that this is only a nominal definition indicating the etymology of the word, and an imperfect definition which is applicable only to created substances and fails to bring out the genuine notion of substance...
...He stated a dogmatic fact, namely, that a certain rite of ordination submitted by its users to his examination was incapable of conferring Christian priesthood...
...Only a short time ago the very suggestion of any amendment to the inviolable Eighteenth would produce horrified cries of "Nullification...
...Now, as more votes they strive to get, "Repeal" is their promise to the wet...
...Neo-Scholasticus seems to have been led into his misinterpretation also of this point by confusing the abstract notion of substance as it is represented in the mind with concrete substances as they exist outside the mind, and by misunderstanding the whole process of abstraction...
...If private enterprise refuses to afford the needed relief, the state could build the institution and fix a moderate charge for service, and thus save this meritorious group from the imposition of the ruinous charges assessed today in profit-yielding institutions...
...What they do hold is that in the concrete world of actual reality there exists no abstract tree which is neither a pine nor an oak nor any other kind of tree, but merely a tree as such...
...It therefore seems to me due to Dr...
...Since Neo-Scholasticus erroneously thinks that, according to the Scholastics, substance and accidents "simply do not exist in the concrete," he concludes: "Substance and accidents are mere entia rationis, figments of the mind without even a fundamentum in re...
...Neo-Scholasticus, however, seems to think that since the abstract concept of substance does not include materiality, it therefore includes immateriality...
...Thus if any Scholastics say that substance is not determined in any species, they mean that the concept of substance, abstracted as it is in the mind from all specific determination, is not determined in any species...
...Today the sick, the middle class included, are compelled to pay the price charged by fashionable hotels, receiving only very mediocre cuisine, and, besides, have to pay extra for all other needs and furnishings, including operating room and anaesthesia...
...TO the Editor—The splendid extract from Dr...
...Heflin's outburst on the Vatican in the midst of a tariff debate...
...The genuine Scholastic doctrine is that substance as such, or substance taken as something abstracted from all specific determination, exists only in the mind, but that outside the mind exist concrete, individuated substances in which is found all that is represented in the abstract concept of substance...
...we neither affirm nor deny its materiality...
...THIS BROTHER'S KEEPER Indianapolis, Ind...
...Accordingly when we call a horse a substance we do not call it an immaterial thing...
...Now, between matter and spirit there is no mean, no tertium quid, if we, as we must, exclude the composite, man...
...Dr...
...William E. Donnelly, SJ...
...they do not mean that outside the mind any substance can exist abstracted from specific determination...
...He should not have excluded man, for a tertium quid between matter and spirit must be neither the one nor the other...
...man, however, is composed of a material part and a spiritual part, which, though substantially united, are really distinct...
...It is not matter in any sense, not even by figure of speech...
...It is naked, nude immateriality...
...In his letter of the following year to the Archbishop of Paris, the Pontiff, after remarking that his decision had not been received with due respect in certain quarters, observed: "No one who was prudent and right-minded could represent our verdict as open to dispute, and all Catholics were bound to embrace it with unqualified submission, as being for all time fixed, confirmed, irrevocable...
...If it exists in itself, it is what the Scholastics call a substance...
Vol. 12 • October 1930 • No. 24
