224 HUMANISM xn 



seems to be pretty generally agreed that the old view of 

 Substance is worthless. It lingers on chiefly because 

 reconstruction has not kept pace with criticism. And 

 yet Lotze s criticism of Substantiality brings him (un 

 consciously it would seem) very close to the Aristotelian 

 conception. After pointing out the uselessness of the 

 substratum view he declares l that &quot; it is not in virtue of 

 a substance contained in them that things are, they are 

 when they are able to produce the appearance of their 

 being such a substance.&quot; It is thus out of the behaviour 

 of a thing that we construct its essence, and this should 

 properly be regarded, not as an extrinsic power but rather 

 an immanent and individual law which maintains its 

 identity and guides its varying reactions in its dealings 

 with the other members of the cosmos. Lotze s con 

 struction is excellent so far as it goes, but still entangled 

 in polemic against the catchwords which it is striving to 

 supersede. And so he hardly makes plain what is this 

 individual law, and how the illusion of an underlying 

 substance is produced. It is better, therefore, to start at 

 once from Aristotle on the straight roau to truth, than 

 to attain it after devious wanderings among the paths of 

 error. 



VIII 



The Aristotelian conception of Energeia is our best 

 starting-point because it affords no foothold for an 

 unknowable substratum. Indeed of such a view of 

 substance it is the final refutation. For it a substratum 

 could only be the potentiality of an actuality which was 

 the true substance, and so far from explaining the latter 

 would need it for its own explanation. As evepyeia is 

 prior to c&amp;gt;iW/u9, so is the behaviour of a thing to the 

 substance conceived to render that behaviour possible. 2 



1 Metaphysics, 37. 



2 This principle really involves the rejection of several popular superstitions in 

 philosophy. For instance, the so-called a priori element in knowledge stands 

 in the relation of 5tVa/tus to actual knowledge, and, so far from explaining it, 

 needs to have its assumption justified by its convenience for the purposes of actual 

 knowing. Similarly, the ultimate reason why we may not argue monistically from 



