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tinctio formalis is intermediate between the dislinctio
ralionis tantum, or the distinction made by the intel-
lect alone, and the dislinctio realis, or that which ex-
ists in reality. The former occurs, e. g., between the
definition and the thing defined, the latter, within the
realm of created reality, between things that can exist
separately or at least can be made to exist separately
by Divine omnipotence, as, e. g., between the different
parts of a body or between substance and accident.
A thing is "'formally distinct" when it is such in es-
sence and in concept that it can be thought of by it-
self, when it is not another thing, though with that
other it may be so closely united that not even omni-
potence can separate it, e. g. the soul and its faculties
and these faculties among themselves. The soul
forms with its faculties only one thing (res), but con-
ceptually it is not identical with the intellect or the
will, nor are intellect and will the same. Thus we
have various realities, entities, or formalities of one
and the same thing. So far as the thing itself exists,
these entities have their own being; for each entity
has its own being or its own existence. But existence
is not identical with subsistence. The accident, e. g.,
has its own being, its own existence, which is different
from the existence of the substance in which it inheres,
just because the accident is not identical with the sub-
stance. But it has no subsistence of its own, since it
is not a thing existing by itself, but inheres in the sub-
stance as its subject and support; it is not an inde-
pendent being. Moreover, only actually existing
things have real being: in other words, being is identi-
cal with existence. In the state of mere ideality or
possibility, before their realization, things have an es-
sence, an itleal conceivable being, but not an actual
one; else they could not be created or annihilated,
since they would have had an existence before their
creation. And since being is eo ipso also true and
good, only those things are really good and true which
actually e.xist. If God, therefore, by an act of His
free will gives existence to the essences. He makes
them by this very act also true and good. In this
sense, it is quite correct to say that according to
Scotus things are true and good because God so wills.
By this assertion, however, he does not deny that
things are good and true in themselves. They have
an objective being, and thence also objective truth
and goodness, because they are in the likeness of God,
\\Tiose being, goodness, and truth they imitate. At
the same time, in their ideal being they are necessary;
the ideas of them are not produced by the Divine
free will, but by the Divine intellect, which, without
the co-operation of God's will, recognizes His own
infinite essence as imitable by finite things, and thus
of necessity conceives the ideas. In this ideal state
God necessarily wills the things, since they cannot but
be pleasing to Him as images of His own essence.
But from this it does not follow that He must will
them with an effective will, i. e. that He must realize
them. God is entirely free in determining what things
shall come into existence.
God alone is absolutely immaterial since He alone is absolute and perfect actuality, without any poten- tiality for becoming other than what He is. All crea- tures, angels and human souls included, are material, because they are changeable and may become the sub- ject of accidents. But from this it does not follow that souls and angels are corporeal ; on the contrarj', they are spiritual, physically simple, though material in the sense just explained. Since all created things, corporeal and spiritual, are composed of potentiality and actuality, the same matrrin prima is the founda- tion of all, and therefore all things have a common .substratum, a common material basis. This materia, in itself quite imlcterminate, may be determined to any .sort of thing by a form — a spiritual form deter- mines it to a spirit, a corporerO form to a material body. Scotus, however, does not teach an extreme
Realism; he does not attribute to the universals or
abstract essences, e. g. genus and species, an existence
of their own, independent of the individual beings in
which they are realized. It is true, he holds that
materia prima, as the indetermmate principle, can be
separated from the jorma, or the determuiing princi-
ple, at least by Divine omnipotence, and that it can
then exist by itself. Conceptually, the materia is
altogether different from the forma; moreover, the
same materia can be determined by entirely different
forms, and the same form can be united with different
materia:, as is evident from the processes of generation
and corruption. For this reason God at least can
separate the one from the other, just as in the Holy
Eucharist He keeps the accidents of bread and wine in
existence, without a substance in which they inhere.
It is no less certain that Scotus teaches a plurality of
forms in the same thing. The human body, e. g.,
taken by itself, without the soul, has its own form, the
forma corporeitatis. It is transmitted to the child by
its parents and is different from the rational soul,
which is infused by God himself. The forma corporei-
tatis gives the body a sort of human form, though
quite imperfect, and remains after the rational soul
has departed from the body in death until decomposi-
tion takes place. Nevertheless, it is the rational soul
■which is the essential form of the body or of man ; this
constitutes with the body one being, one substance,
one person, one man. With all its faculties, vegeta-
tive, sensitive, and intellectual, it is the immediate
work' of God, Who infuses it into the child. There is
only one soul in man, but we can distinguish in it
several forms; for conceptually the intellectual is not
the same as the sensitive, nor is this identical with the
vegetative, nor the vegetative with that which gives
the body, as such, its form ; yet all these belong for-
mally, by their concept and essence, to the one indi-
visible soul. Scotus also maintains a formal distinc-
tion between the universal nature of each thing and its
individualit.y, e. g. in Plato between his human nature
and that which makes him just Plato — his Platoneity.
For the one is not the other; the individuality is
added to the human nature and with it constitutes the
human individual. In this sense the property or differ-
ence, or the ha:cceitas, is the principium indiriduationis.
Hence it is clear that there are many points of re-
semblance between matter and form on the one hand
and universal natures and their individualization on
the other. But Scotus is far from teaching extreme
Realism. According to his view, matter can exist
without form, but not the universal essence without
individuation ; nor can the different forms of the same
thing exist by themselves. He does not maintain that
the uniform' matter underlying all created things is
the absolute being which exists by itself, independent
of the individuals, and is then determined by added
forms, first to genera, then to species, and lastly to in-
dividuals. On the contrary, materia prima, which
according to him can exist without a form, is already
something individual and numerically determined.
In reality there is no materia without form, and vice
versa. The materia which God created had already
a certain form, the imperfect form of chaos. God
could create matter by itself and form by itself, but
both would then be "something individual, numer-
ically, though not specifically, "different from other
matter and other forms of the same kind. This mat-
ter, numerically different from other matter, could
then be united "with a form, also numerically different
from other forms of the same kind; and the result
would be a compound indi\-idual, numerically differ-
ent from other individuals of the same kind. From
such intli\idualized matter, fonii, and compound we
get by abstraction the idea of a universal matter, a
universal form, a universal compound, e. g. of a uni-
versal man. But by themselves universal matter and
universal form cannot exist. The universal as such is
