viduality. By an individual, as an object of knowledge, one means something opposed to a universal. Now by a universal, as man, one means an object of thought that one can conceive as logically “divided” into “various parts of which it can be predicated.” Thus, man is divisible into the European and non-European classes of men. But of both classes, man itself can be predicated. On the other hand, by an individual, one means an object of knowledge that “cannot be divided into parts of which it can be predicated,” or, in the terminology of Scotus, that “cannot be divided into partes subjectivas.” Thus, the leg or the eye of Socrates is not Socrates, and Socrates cannot be divided into parts of which Socrates can be predicated. Or, again, there cannot be two men, each of whom has the nature of Socrates. Herein Socrates the individual differs from man. A snow-flake, or other corporeal thing, is an individual precisely in so far as one says: “It is this, and such a this that you cannot predicate it, the whole, of any of its parts, or of any two representative cases.” Not otherwise, however, for Duns Scotus, could the individuality even of the angels be logically defined. But such a formal definition is a mere introduction to the general problem.
Duns Scotus examines, at great length, not only Thomas’s theory, but also other theories of the metaphysical principle that can give individuals this character of logical indivisibility. This principle, he reasons, cannot be in any sense a mere negation. This stone is not an individual merely because it is not that stone, but rather because there is “something
