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Rh But this cannot be if Socrates is to remain unique as this man. The result, so far, seems to be perfectly obvious. It is as Aristotle said. The individual as such is an immediate object, but not an intelligible object. What result, after all, could be more obvious? Nobody’s knowing of Socrates could be Socrates, or even another case of the same man. Hence, in order to save the reality of the individual, you have to exclude some aspect of him from any possible intelligible knowledge. And this aspect is precisely his individuality as Socrates. This flesh, these bones, — they are matter. You will never get them into pure form.

But, alas! — one’s perplexities have only begun. Socrates, it seems, is, as individual, unique, and therefore never to be made an object of intelligently complete contemplation. Only his type — his humanity, whiteness, etc. — could be imitated by a knower of him. Knowledge is of the common, the universal. Is this the end? No, indeed; for there is One who knows Socrates through and through, and who knew him from eternity, when time was not. That One is God. The Divine ideas are not only of universals, but of individuals. Thomas expressly proves the fact. Moreover, Socrates, even as individual, has a twofold being: in God, as an individual idea eternally present; and out of God, as created being. Are these two cases of the unique Socrates the same? No; Thomas, in one passage, very carefully distinguishes the two, — and curiously enough he distinguishes the created being of things, as their hoc esse, from their ideal being in God, their esse. Yet