In the middle ages 217

the water, in our simile ; for eonstence too is limited

by the capacity of every recipient being. This ca-

pacity is the sum total of the potentialities which

from moment to moment become actual reali-

ties, by being invested with existence. That oak

of the forest which is invested with the most beauti-

ful qualities of its species, and with the most per-

fect vital forces ; that man of genius who is endowed

with the most precious gifts of mind and body, —

these possess the maximum of existence that can

possibly be found in the species of oak and of man.

But, be it remembered, the capacity for existence

in each of these is limited and circumscribed by the

very fact of the apportioned potentiality, or "es-

sence." In this beautiful conception of Thomas, a

vigorous oak has a larger measure of existence than

a stunted one; a man of genius possesses existence

in a larger sense than a man of inferior mind, —

because the great man and the vigorous oak posses?*

a larger measure of powers and activities, and be-

cause these powers and activities exist. But, once

more, there is a limit even to their existence.

On the other hand, to return to our simile, let us

picture to ourselves an existence indefinitely uncir-

cumscribed, say the ocean, without shore to confine

or to limit it. Such existence, pure and unqualified.

is that of God. God is existence; He is nothing but

the plentitude of existence ; He is the one who is, —

Ego sum qui sum — whose very essence is His ex-

218 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION

istence. All other beings receive some degree of

existence, — the degree increasing in measure with

their increasing capacity. But they receive, in each

instance, this degree of existence from God. The

created agents, or secondary causes, determine the

capacity of the vessel, and the size varies unceas-

ingly; God alone fills it to the full capacity of ex-

istence.

It is God who is the direct disjjcnser of exis-

tence, from that of pure spirits to that of atoms.

It is He who sustains everything, that is anything,

short of piu'e nothing. It is He who directs the

world toward the goal, which is known to Hiin

alo7ie; and presumptuous, nay rash, would it be

for men to seek to penetrate the mystery. In short,

God is existence ; other beings receive existence — an

existence distinct from His own — just in propor-

tion as they have the power to receive it. No one

can say what Infinity implies. "The highest knowl-

edge which we can have of God in this life," writes

Thomas Aquinas, "is to know that He is above all

that we can think concerning Him."*'

Scholastic metaphysics thus finds its culmina-

tions in theodicy. Starting out from the study of

the changing corporeal world, it rises to the Being

without whom change would be inexplicable. But

its main object is none the less a study of the cor-

poreal beings which suiround us. Hence one may

В« De Veritate, q. II, art. 2.