to be an innate property in bodies; and, therefore, animals and plants, and parts of animals and plants, as well as natural bodies, as fire and water, air and earth, the elements, in fact, are essences; to which may be added the bodies which are derived from the elements, as the heavens, stars, sun, and moon. Some, however, regarded the boundaries of bodies, as surface, line, point, and unit, as essences, rather than bodies or solids themselves. Thus, essence, according to the first definition, seems to be scarcely distinguishable from nature. Aristotle[1], however, in another passage, considers it under four heads: as mode of being, as universal, genus, and subject; and subject he held to be essence in a fuller sense than the others. Plato admitted of essence in forms, mathematical abstractions, as also in sentient bodies; and the Pythagoreans first, and Plato later, adopted unity as essence. Aristotle, in fact, seems to confine his definitions of these abstract powers or entities to the outer world; and others to comprehend, under the term, the abstractions of pure science, and the immediate operations of general laws.
The term "accident" was with Aristotle[2], as it is with us, significant of chance or possibility, as well as what is necessary and constant. The former is exemplified by an individual, when digging, finding a treasure, as this is an occurrence neither necessary nor constant; and thus there can be no assignable cause, save chance, which itself is undefinable, he adds, for an incident so purely casual.
