QUANTA
591
QUAPAW
be continued afterwards by sending the children to the
public catechetical instructions, or by supplying
their religious instruction in some other way. The
formal admission of the child to first Communion
rests with the father, or the one taking hia place,
and with the confessor. The decree supposes these
to act together, and when they agree on the ad-
mission no one may interfere. Where the parents
are negligent or indifferent or opposed to their chil-
dren's first Communion, the confessor can assume the
entire responsibility. Should the confessors oppose
the admission of children whose parents know they
have begun to reason, the prudent course in practice
is to present the children to another confessor, for
every confessor has a right to admit a child to private
first Communion.
General Communion. — A public ceremony devolving not on the confessor but on the parish priest, who is required to have yearly one or several of these general Communions, which may be simple or solemn. The simple (a) will admit the (1) little children making their first Communion, also (2) those who have pre- viously approached the Holy Table. The decree re- quires some days of instruction and preparation for both classes of children when they receive in a body. This can be given as conditions and circumstances permit, attention being paid to the spirit and sub- stance of this provision. Every pastor can arrange a solemn ceremony in which those would participate who had completed a course in Christian Doctrine. Every year during the time the faithful can satisfy their Easter duty, the "Quam singulari" must be read to the people in the vernacular. Every five years in their ad limina, ordinaries will be obliged to report the observance of the decree to the Holy See.
Gennari in II Mon. Ecc. (Aug., Sept., 1910); Vermeebsch, De Prima Puerorum Communione; Besson in Nouvelle Revue Thiologique (Nov., Dec. 1910); Ferrereb in Razdn y Fe (Dec, 1910); Canb£ in The Sentinel (March, 1911 — ); Ecclesiastical Renew (Oct., 1910); Zvi.vKl\, Early First Communion; The Child Prepared for First Communion (New York, 1911); Lucas, The Decree " Quam sinffulari" and the Age for First Communion; Ma- LONEY in The Catholic World (Feb., 1911); Nebi. La Prima Cu- munione dei fancuilli; Lintelo, // Decreto sulV Eta della Prima Comunione; Maccono, La Prima Comunione; P&dagogische Be- deulung des Dekrets iiber Erst-Kommunion (HUdesheim, 1911); Die Kommunion der Kinder (M.&iQZ, 1911); see also current Catholic, especially foreign, reviews, Sept. to Dec, 1910; also many pastoral letters of bishops of United States and Europe.
John T. McNicholas.
Quanta Cura. See Syllabus of Pius IX
Quantity (Gr. iroo-Jc; Lat. quantilas, quantum, correlate to tantum). Aristotle, in his "Categories" places quantity (with which he deals at length from the logical standpoint in the sixth chapter) first in his enumeration of the nine accidents. His list of the possible heads of classification of predicates has refer- ence to a concrete, material subject, and, as shown by the last two predicaments (jacere and habere), prin- cipally to man. Quantity does not, therefore, as philosophy is at present divided, fall properly under the treatment of ontology, but of cosmology. It pre- supposes the material. In ' 'Metaphysics' ', IV, the con- crete quantum is described as "that which is divisible into the parts included in it, of which any and each is potentially one and hoc quid". By this description the inexistent parts of the quantum, are discriminated from the elements in the compound, the matter and the form, which are not each potentially "one and hoc quid". Quantity is distinguished into (1) con- tinuous, and (2) discrete. Continuous (geometrical) quantity is that which consists of parts having posi- tion in reference to each other, so that the limit of the one is the limit of the next. These parts, each poten- tially "one and hoc quid", do not form a multitude, an aggregate of units, but one divisible quantum, or measurable size. They are not actual entities. (This doctrine is not unanimously held in the School.) Continuous quantity is further subdivided into (1)
successive, and (2) permanent. Time and movement
are examples of successive, the line, surface or tri-
dimensional body of permanent continuous quantity.
It is to be noted that time and movement have no
reality apart from quantified things which move, and
of which the movement is measurable; and that the
line and superficies are no more than abstractions
practised upon the real quantum — tridimensional
body. Discrete (arithmetical) quantity is made up of
discontinuous parts. The resultant whole is a unity
per accidens, in which the elements coexist as a
plurality. Number and speech are given as examples.
Quantity has no contrary, nor does it admit degrees.
There is no contrary to a given length or superficies;
nor is any one quantity, as such, more a quantity
than another is. Large, small, etc., as used in refer-
ence to extended things, fall more properly under the
category of relation. Equal and unequal are affirmed
of objects in virtue of their quantity alone. Not only
is material substance affected by the accidental form
of quantity, but all the other accidents are measur-
able, at least per accidens, as when we say " much
and little white". St. Thomas ("Summa", III, Q.
Ixxvii, a. 2) makes all the accidents "related to their
subject by the medium of dimensive quantity, as the
first subject of colour is said to be the superficies".
An important question is raised as to the nature of the distinction to be drawn between substance and quantity. The School generally, following Aristotle, holds that, as quantity is that reality which makes the indivisible substance potentially divisible (Physics, 1. 2), the distinction to be admitted is a real one. There is considerable diversity of opinion as to whether this can be demonstrated by arguments of natural reason. Aristotle's own argument lies in the consideration that length, breadth, and depth are quantities, but are not substances. But against this it has been urged that these things do not exist as such at all. They are abstractions formed by the dissociation produced by varying concomitants. Suarez, Pesch, De San, Nys, and others hold that the distinction is demonstrable ; but most of the arguments advanced are negative ones. For Descartes and his school, quantity, or extension, is the essence of cor- poreal substance. The distinction to which allusion has just been made has no place in the system (of. Descartes). The definition of the Council of Trent, however, teaches that quantity is really distinct from substance. It is of faith that the substances of bread and wine in the Eucharist are changed at the consecra- tion (Sess. XIII, cap. iv); but the quantity remains sensibly unaltered. To escape this difficulty, the Cartesians had recourse to several explanations, none of which seems to be in any way satisfactory. Con- tinuous quantity is seen to be, in the philosophy of the School, an attribute and accident of body. Cor- poreal substance, as such, is not quantitatively divis- ible. When actuated by quantity it becomes so; but is not yet spatially displayed. The accident is thus distinguished by Scholastics from the further accident of formal extension which is complementary to it, and by which the parts, already rendered distinct by quan- tity, are localized in space. Through the aptitude to being determined by this accidental form, matter is held to be individuated; the principle of indi- viduation of corporeal beings is materia quantitate signata.
Grote, Aristotle (London, 1872); Haan, Philoaophia na- turalis (Freiburg, 1898) ; Lorenzelli, Philosophies Theorc ticw Institutiones (Rome. 1896) ; Mebcier, Ontologie (Louvain, 1902) ; NTS, Cosmologie (Louvain, 1906) ; St. Thomas Aquinas, Opera (Parma. 1852). (Cf. especially De principio individuationis^ De natura materioe et dimensionibus interminatis, De natura generis, De nalura accidenlis.) FrANCIS AvELING.
Quapaw Indians. — A tribe now nearly extinct, but formerly one of the most important of the lower Mississippi region, occupying several villages about
