And first let us make some
linguistic remarks about it. The essence of each thing is what it is
said to be propter se. For being you is not being musical, since you
are not by your very nature musical. What, then, you are by your
very nature is your essence.
Nor yet is the whole of this the essence of a thing; not that
which is propter se as white is to a surface, because being a
surface is not identical with being white. But again the combination
of both-'being a white surface'-is not the essence of surface, because
'surface' itself is added. The formula, therefore, in which the term
itself is not present but its meaning is expressed, this is the
formula of the essence of each thing. Therefore if to be a white
surface is to be a smooth surface, to be white and to be smooth are
one and the same.
But since there are also compounds answering to the other
categories (for there is a substratum for each category, e.g. for
quality, quantity, time, place, and motion), we must inquire whether
there is a formula of the essence of each of them, i.e. whether to
these compounds also there belongs an essence, e.g. 'white man'. Let
the compound be denoted by 'cloak'. What is the essence of cloak? But,
it may be said, this also is not a propter se expression. We reply
that there are just two ways in which a predicate may fail to be
true of a subject propter se, and one of these results from the
addition, and the other from the omission, of a determinant. One
kind of predicate is not propter se because the term that is being
defined is combined with another determinant, e.
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