86 THE SCIENCE OF LOGIC. 



kinds being complex may agree together in some points while differing in 

 others with intricate variety ; so that when we have distinguished the species 

 to which objects conform, and the attributes which they possess, we cannot 

 divide the latter among the former without overlapping.&quot; l 



48. ACCIDENS: SEPARABLE AND INSEPARABLE ACCIDENTS. 

 When the predicate of a judgment gives an attribute which 

 neither forms part of the connotation of the subject nor has any 

 necessary connexion with the latter, the predication is said to be 

 accidental or contingent to be in the predicable called Accidens. 

 An Accidens is, therefore, an attribute to whose presence or 

 absence the subject is indifferent 2 We may distinguish between 

 the Accident of an Individual e.g. &quot;sleeping&quot; or &quot;waking,&quot; 

 u well &quot; or &quot;ill,&quot; in reference to any individual and the Accident 

 of a Class, e.g. &quot;red-haired,&quot; &quot;learned,&quot; &quot;virtuous,&quot; in reference 

 to the class of human beings. 



Of course when we speak of an attribute as being an &quot; acci 

 dent &quot; of an &quot;individual,&quot; we do not mean that the attribute is 

 unessential to the individual in the concrete state in which we 

 conceive him as possessing it if we say that &quot; John is (here and 

 now) asleep,&quot; it is essential to him here and now to be asleep if 

 our proposition is true. What we mean is that the attribute 

 &quot; asleep &quot; is accidentally or contingently conjoined with the other 

 general characteristics which we have already included in our con 

 cept of John, so that this concept the &quot;ratio subjecti&quot; in the 

 words of Cajetan would remain unaltered even if John were not 

 here and now asleep. 



That reality, whatever it is, in any individual, which distinguishes that 

 individual numerically from other individuals of the same species, is called the 

 Principle of Individuation &quot; Principium Individuationis&quot;. The problem 

 as to what precisely that reality is, has long been discussed in the schools ; and 

 it is a gratifying sign of the impartial study which present-day thinkers are 

 beginning to devote to scholasticism, that Mr. Joseph recognizes in this 

 question &quot;a serious philosophical problem &quot;. 3 His own view, that individua- 

 tion depends not on substantial form nor upon matter conceived in the 

 abstract, but perhaps upon matter somehow related to mass, appears to us to 

 come very near the mind of St. Thomas himself upon this problem. It is, 

 however, a question for metaphysics rather than for logic. 



A more important distinction is that between separable and 



1 JOSEPH, ibid., p. 91. 



2 &quot;Accidens, id est, accidentale praedicatum, id esse dicitur, quod indifferenter 

 aftirmari et negari contingit absque hoc quod subject! ratio destruatur.&quot; CAJETAN, 

 Liber Praedicabilium, cap. 4. 

 3 op. cit., p. 76. 



