Species

44 Species

When he does discuss the more general sense of species, he repeats the stan-

dard view, although he makes an interesting observation about inmae species being

individuals:

These [species infimae or specialissimae] are called individuals, in so far as they are

not further divisible formally. Individuals however are called particulars in so far as

they are not further divisible neither materially nor formally.^59

So there are two senses of “individual” in play here, says Thomas. One is sim-
ply that it is atomic—not further formally divisible. But there are also individuals
that are not materially divisible, and they are particulars. For Thomas, the inmae
species is a formal, but not a material, individual. Of course, the question whether
species are individuals and what kind of individual they might be is a vexed modern
issue, as we shall see.
It is not clear whether Aquinas was a Realist or a Conceptualist on universals. It
may be that he held both views at different times or on different issues.^60
Aquinas allows that living species can be generated by spontaneous generation
from putrefaction.^61 However, he says

Species, also, that are new, if any such appear, existed beforehand in various active

powers; so that animals, and perhaps even new species of animals, are produced by

putrefaction by the power which the stars and elements received at the beginning.

Again, animals of new kinds arise occasionally from the connection of individuals

belonging to different species, as the mule is the offspring of an ass and a mare; but

even these existed previously in their causes, in the works of the six days. ... Hence it

is written (Eccles. 1:10), “Nothing under the sun is new, for it hath already gone before,

in the ages that were before us.”^62

In other words, species only express what potential they have already been given
by God at creation, as had Augustine. This hardly licenses Zirkle’s claim^63 that
Aquinas held a mutabilist view. Also see his De principiis naturae, in which he
restates this view of potentials expressed in generation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aaron, R. I. 1952. The Theory of Universals. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Abulaa, David. 1988. Frederick II: A Medieval Emperor. London/New York/Ringwood,

Vic.: Allen Lane/Penguin.

Albertus Magnus. 1987. Man and the Beasts (De animalibus, Books 22–26). Binghamton, NY:

Medieval & Renaissance Texts & Studies, Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance

Studies.

(^59) In lib. X Met. Lect 10, 21–23. Quoted in McKeon 1930, 498.
(^60) See Brower 2016 for a discussion.
(^61) Summa I.73.1. Obj 3.
(^62) Loc. cit. Reply to Objection 3.
(^63) Zirkle 1959, 640.