Glossary
GLOSSARY
accident. An incidental property of a thing; that which affects something and is outside its essence. For example, “whiteness” can be an accident of a wall but is not of its substance. See substance.
actuality, primary (actus primus). A power or potential that is not currently actualized. See actuality, secondary.
actuality, secondary (actus secundus). The actual operation of a thing. See actuality, primary.
appetite, concupiscible (ἐπιθυμία). A division of the sensitive appetite, the concupiscible appetite is the faculty by which someone desires what seems good to him and avoids what seems bad. See appetite, irascible; appetite, sensitive.
appetite, intellectual. The faculty by which a human being desires the good or avoids the bad that he has known by his intellect; it is the same thing as the “will.” See appetite, sensitive.
appetite, irascible (θύμoς). A division of the sensitive appetite, the irascible appetite is the faculty by which someone desires to give up what seems good or undertake what seems bad in order to obtain a greater good or avoid a greater evil. See appetite, concupiscible; appetite, sensitive.
appetite, sensitive. The faculty by which a sensing being desires what it perceives as good and avoids what it perceives as bad. It is subdivided into the concupiscible appetite and the irascible appetite. See appetite, concupiscible; appetite, intellectual; appetite, irascible.
cause, efficient. That through which something is accomplished or made and on which the result depends.
cause, final. The same as an “end,” that is, an aim, purpose, or goal. An end is the cause for which a doer acts, or that for whose sake something happens.
cause, formal. See form.
cause, material. See material.
form. That which completes another thing or determines it or through which it operates. “Form” is that which gives the being of a thing. For example, wood can be the material of a carved statue. In this case, the form of the statue is the shape or figure that makes it a statue and not simply wood. See material.
humor. Bodily fluid. A technical term from early physiology. The four principal humors were believed to result in four basic personality traits: blood (sanguine), pituitary or phlegm (phlegmatic), cholera or yellow bile (choleric), and black bile (melancholy).
justice, commutative. Justice exercised among equals, dealing mainly with commerce and contracts. See justice, distributive.
justice, distributive. Justice exercised by a superior toward inferiors, in which a governor gives to each one what he deserves. See justice, commutative.
material. In scholastic thought, most things are composites, consisting of matter (or “material”) and form. The matter is thought of as determinable, and the form is what determines it, or makes an individual thing to be what it is. For example, a particular statue’s matter may be marble, and its form is its figure or shape. See form.
power, vegetative. A power of the soul, possessed also by animals and plants, thought to have three functions: nutrition, growth, and generation.
proper. Always befitting or belonging to something and befitting or belonging to it alone.
reduplication. A statement that uses one of the following phrases: “insofar as, as, as such, in this sense,” and the like to indicate the reason why the predicate should go with the subject.
related things. In nature or in recognition, two items are related if, when one is mentioned or recognized, the other is as well. The one implies the other.
relation, foundation of. What causes two things to be related.
substance. A being subsisting of itself. A concrete reality, that which exists. See accident.