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24 CONCERNING BEING AND ESSENCE 

thing accruing from without and effecting a composition with 
the essence, since no essence can be conceived without those 
things which are parts of essence. But every essence or quiddity 
can be conceived aside from the condition that something be 
known concerning its existence, for I can conceive what a man 
or phoenix is and still not know whether it has existence in the 
nature of things. Therefore it is clear that existence is some- 
thing other than essence or quiddity, unless perhaps there be 
something the quiddity of which is its very existence. And 
this thing can only be one and primary, because it is impossible 
that a multiplication of anything should be effected except by 
virtue of the addition of some difference, as the nature of genus 
is multiplied into species either by virtue of this, that the form 
is received in diverse matters, just as the nature of species is 
multiplied in diverse individuals, or by virtue of this, that it is 
one thing absolutely but another as received in something, as 
for instance if there were a certain separated heat it would be 
other than a non-separated heat from its very separation. But 
if some thing is posited which is existence alone such that the 
existence itself is subsisting, this existence does not receive an 
addition of difference, since then it would not be existence only 
but existence and beyond that some form; and much less does 
it receive an addition of matter because then it would be not 
a subsisting existence but a material existence. Wherefore it is 
clear that a thing such that it is its own existence cannot be 
except as one (unique). Whence it follows necessarily that in 
anything whatsoever except this (the unique) its existence 
must be one thing and its quiddity or nature or form another. 
Accordingly, in intelligences there is an existence over and 
beyond form, and therefore it has been said that an intelli- 
gence is form and existence. 

But all that belongs to anything is either caused from prin- 
ciples of its nature, as for instance risibility in man, or accrues