In the middle ages 209

That extended matter, materia signata, is the prin-

ciple of individuation. In other words, without ecc-

tension, and extended matter, there would be no

reason why several individuals of the same kind

should exist.

Indeed, a substantial form as such, is foreign to

and indifferent to reduplication ; and, as long as one

considers form, one cannot find any reason why

there should be two identical forms, why one form

should limit itself, instead of retaining within itself

all the capacity of realization. Forma irrecepta est

illimitata. But the question takes on a new aspect

when this form must unite with matter, in order to

exist, and so take on extended existence. My body

has the limitation of extension, and therefore there

is place for your body and for millions of bodies be-

sides yours and mine. An oak has a limited exten-

sion in space, and at the point where it ceases to fill

space there is also place for many more. And the

same may be said of all corporeal beings in the end-

less species within the cosmos.

There is an important consequence, which fol-

lows directly from this philosophy. If there exist

some limited beings which are not corporeal beings,

and therefore are pure perfections, pure forms,

(pure Intelligences for instance), then no redupli-

cation is possible in that realm of being. They dif-

fer from one another as the oak-form differs from

the beech-form or the hydrogen-form.

This last consideration explains why the problem

210 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION

of individuation is different from the problem of

individuality. Each existing being is an individual-

ity; and therefore a pure Intelligence, if existent,

is an individuality.* But individuation means a

special restriction of individuality, that is to say a

reduplication of several identical forms in one

group, — hence called specific groups, species.

VI

All the doctrines which we have sought to explain

are to be applied to human beings or human per-

sonalities. We are impenetrable and incommuni-

cable substances, or personalities. No philosophy

ever insisted more than did the scholastic philos-

ophy upon this independence, and upon the dignity

and value of human life, — by virtue of this doctrine

of personality. All kinds of relations exist between

men; for instance, — the family and political rela-

tions. But, as we shall see,^ they do not touch di-

rectly our innermost substance, whicli with Leib-

nitz we may call "ferociously independent."

A human personality is composed of body and

4 This theory is all too frequently misunderstood. Thus Henry

Adams erroneously writes as follows: "Thomas admitted that the

angels were universals" (Mont ^St. Michel and Chartres, p. 364).

This is of course a misunderstanding; incorporeal beings are not

deprived of individuality because they are without matter, Thomas

Aquinas seems to have written the following in direct contradiction:

"Non est verum quod substantia separata non sit singularis et indi-

viduum aliquod; alinquin non haberet aliquam operationem." See

his De unitate intellectus contra Averroistas, edit. Parme, 1865, vol.

XVI, p. 221.

fi Ch. X, v.