222 HUMANISM xii 



VII 



And now what shall we say of Substance ? Is it not 

 plain that we have acquired of it a conception which will 

 help it out of the mire in which it has floundered over 

 long ? A brief reminder of the history of the conception 

 may suffice to make this clear, and perhaps impress on us 

 the tragic slowness with which truth prevails. As its 

 very name implies, it has been usual to regard substance 

 as a permanent substratum which persists through change 

 and constitutes the real essence or being of a thing, 

 that which makes it what it is. It is the thing itself or 

 in itself, the hidden core of its intrinsic nature which is 

 the real source of its behaviour, however thickly it may 

 seem to be overlaid with variable states, the accidents 

 which the exigencies of its interaction with other things 

 may impose upon it. And there can be no doubt that 

 the behaviour of things renders this thought extremely 

 plausible. For some features in the behaviour of things 

 are so much more persistent and characteristic than others 

 that we cannot but esteem them differently. The dis 

 tinction, therefore, of the perdurable substance and the 

 fleeting accidents is natural, and, in the first instance, 

 of great practical value. But as formulated in the con 

 ception of Substance, the distinction overshoots the mark. 

 It fails to express the very difference it was intended to 

 bring out, and when it is thought out, it lapses into 

 impotent absurdity. 



For the distinction was not really meant to be one 

 between what was accessible and inaccessible to observa 

 tion, nor is a hard and fast line to be drawn between 

 * essential and accidental attributes. So soon as we 

 inquire, therefore, what is the nature of Substance as it 

 really is in itself and apart from its accidents, the futility 

 of our conception is revealed. It appears that, strictly 

 speaking, all we know about a thing is its accidents/ and 

 that we cannot comprehend how even its most essential 

 properties inhere in its substance. The substance thus 



