198 4G. Kasten Tallmadge out of a hat, A single example shonld sufi: monism must hold cither that spontancons generation is possible, thercby negating the principle of sulicient reason, not to mention “Harvey's law; or else that if anything lives the “ wavicle” lives. Anaxagoras still sounds like a tober man among bebblers ‘io former tunet is not only unphilosophie but also unseientife ‘tho laticr is a fantastic but presumably still hopeful guess, ‘Either of them is « far ery from the dosent nootic dualism of the illustrious successors of Thales of Miletus” G. Kasrex Tauiacanon, Tam ate of the fact that many eminent scholars (6.9 Sir Thome ‘ath hove eal the Say of Anseagirs a dowe ov mscking at the round of my diderense Bas been slisnty gin I hopes the receding aregrpbe A NOTE ON THE FORMAL OBJECT OF ‘MBTAPHYSICS ORROWING phrase from Avicenna, Stint Thomas Br xquinuy tee eat the Sot eonept wich the intellect Ton i the concopt of being, "his atest is important in totais a ndcod tin a eer pilnphicl guy. 1 trould be ridjoulous however, to imagine that te concept of Tring allded to inthis eonnetion i dente) with cat oo- toptof bing which th metaphyiian achiees only after lng tid arduous reflection, ‘Being as known inthe intial et of intlatal conception ia conserved at tat fat moment when eile hens are of a vaguly tnd indefinitely wndrtod nomewhat,enrdped fn the tapping of eile appenrunes, concerted ota apa, in the quilts which the eonss perosive but not an yet dif ferential frm how qualities nor abstracted Srom thet be iewed and considered in and fori, Were one to sed @ ord or tom in which fo expres tin it cone of being could eny be such aterm an would signify, at once and wan tingiabed, bth the sense quality persed and it being. Such 2 erm would be whet the logan call“ comnotative™ Tati word ike “album” niga? dalee” for fstante expen tones and ndistingiaod, the senile qualities of whiten, Macnm, ewectnes and the aubject in which thew quite are; when ter sgaication is rendered explicit “album” be comes “ens alum” or 70 alba” (and Likewie forthe other terms “nigrum” and duke”). The oocet of bing formed hy te spontsnenas impulse of rstiol nate in thio Set instant of itll contact with what is somibly apprchended thus contany the germ from ‘hich te metaphysialconept of being mst develop (if and hen it dove develop); Dut hat intense tony the or wt198 Gerald B. Phelan ginning, the starting-point, from whieh the intellect sets out to achieve the term of its abstractive activity, whieh is the full: lown concept of being as being in the plenitude of its trans. © condental value, its thorough-going analogical character and the’ | cewential variety of its modes. ‘ust as the habitus of fist principles is born of the notion of being thus formed within the intellost in its first enoounter with what is sensed, and of the spontascous judgment which follows that conception, 0 the habitus of metaphysical wisdom comes into existence at the moment when its specific object, the Doing of whatover is, stands revoaled before the intellect. For, ‘metaphysice is a habitus, an sacident of « rational suppositum, 1 quality of the speculative intellect, and, like all habitus, i constituted it it specie character by its proper object. That which the habitus of metaphysioe renders the speculative intl- lect apt to know is the vory being of whatever is, the formal constituent of being as such. What is it that formally com stitutoe being as being? Tt exnnot be any species or kind or rode of being, ele it eould not extend to all species, kinds end modes of being. It must obviously be something which in itself is devoid of all such limiting dotorminetions, free from all e- striction of form, species, uence or whatever else may involve potentiality, the soures of all limitation, and thereby eireum- soribe it within the boundaries of quidditative being. In other words, what is ultimately formal in all that is does not belong to the order of estence or quiddity but is the very act of being as such, the act by which whatever is in any way, shape or form whatever, exercises tho act of being, of existing, aoording to its nature, It is this ultimate formal constituent of being as such, saamely, the act of being (ease) which, when grasped by the intellect, specifies the habitus of metaphysical wisdom and dif- ferentiates it from overy other hebitus of Knowledge. ‘Tho act of being (cose) in itsof eannot strictly speaking be conceived by A Note on the Formal Object of Metaphysics 199 say finite mind. It needs to be linked with some, atleast vague, notion of a thing which exercises this act But when the meta paysician thinks of being, he thinks primarily of the act by ‘which all being in (e5se) and only secondarily of the thing oF the quiddity which exercises this act and which is, as it were, but the vebiele by which the knowledge of that act (esse) is transported to his mind and tho staif or stay or prop which rupbolds it in conception, Tust a, in the initial act of the intel- leet whereby the first notion of boing is attained, the concept of being is wrapped up in the concrete apprehension of sensible (qualities and only vaguely grasped while the quidditative expest tf the sensed object predominates, o inthe peak of metaphysical slstraction wherein the concept of being as being is elaborated, something like the reverse of this takos place. ‘The quidditative substream of the act of being (esse) is but vaguely and im- plieitly conceived while the act of being itso (cece) is explicitly fevinaged and stands at the focus of intellectual intuition. ‘The hubitas of metaphysics is specified, of course, by its formal object; Zor, all habitas are specified by the formal con stituent of their respective objects, When, therefore, the ques- tion is asked, “ What isthe formal object of metaphysics,” there cam be but one answer, namely, that which formally oonstitutes its object, being (x quon ext), as being (id quod ust) ; and this is the act of being (208). Metaphysics cannot, consequently, bo rogarded as « philoso- phy of form or « philosophy of ecsence. It is a philosophy of whatever is or ean be in any manner whatsoever, considered specifially in the light of the ultimate existential actuality of all reality, the act of being’ (esse). Metaphysics is definitely csistontial ‘The existential charaoter of the metaphysical thought of Saint Thomas Aquinas is strikingly manifested in two short tentences whieh he waote in answer to an objection in the first stcle of the first queetion of hia Quacstio Diopulata de Ver.200 Gerald B. Photon fate, ‘The objection is drawn from a statement of Boethius to ‘he effect that ese and quad eat axe diverse in all ereated things, ‘This statement is used to support the contention that in eres tures the true is diverse from being (ene) on the ground that ‘the true follows from the eese of things, not from the quod ex, Since esse is diverse from quod eat and quod est is the sume a Deing (ens), it should follow thst the true mut be diverse from being (ens). In dealing with this objection, Saint Thomas states frst, that ‘when itis suid tht ease and quod eet are diverse in ereatures, a ‘distinction ig drawn betwoen the act of being and that to which ‘the act of being belongs; second, that the constitutive intel | Ligibility of boing (ratio entis) arises from the act of being, not from that to which the act of being belongs. The argument in question is therefore inconclusive; in fact it is a non sequitur. Considering this statement in oonjunction with the well. Iknovn description of tho object of metaphysics, ene én quantum ens, it would appear that the first ene in thie phrase designates the material object of the acienoo of metaphysis, being, in the { sens of whatever is or ean be (wih, eetute is the material object, requires a formality in order to differentiate i from eng a5 the object of any and every other habitus of knowledge) end the second ens, qualied by in quantum, designates this very formal determination and seta off ong, the object of metaphysics | from any and every other aspoot of ene which may specify a cognitive habitus. Tt is this sooond one which characterizes Jing formally as the object of metaphysics, sinve in designating ‘he esse of what is as that which formally constitutes being as the object of metaphysics, it expresses the ultimate in the order ‘of formal constituents, Tn other words, being (ens) which is the object of metaphysics, the specific constituent of the most perfect habitus of th speculative intellect, is being (ens) oon sidered according to its intrinsio intelligibility as being (ratio. entis) which isthe aot of being (actus easendi) or ease of what A Note on the Pormel Object of Metaphysics 201 is, Peraphrasing tho famoua dictum ene in quantum ens one ray say ens, 6. id quod est (with emphasis upon id quod) in quantum one i, id quod est (with emphasis upon est) Gana B. Paszan.