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.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.g. if in defining
the essence of white one were to state the formula of white man; the
other because in the subject another determinant is combined with that
which is expressed in the formula, e.g. if 'cloak' meant 'white
man', and one were to define cloak as white; white man is white
indeed, but its essence is not to be white.
But is being-a-cloak an essence at all? Probably not. For the
essence is precisely what something is; but when an attribute is
asserted of a subject other than itself, the complex is not
precisely what some 'this' is, e.g. white man is not precisely what
some 'this' is, since thisness belongs only to substances. Therefore
there is an essence only of those things whose formula is a
definition. But we have a definition not where we have a word and a
formula identical in meaning (for in that case all formulae or sets of
words would be definitions; for there will be some name for any set of
words whatever, so that even the Iliad will be a definition), but
where there is a formula of something primary; and primary things
are those which do not imply the predication of one element in them of
another element
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