Essence and being

Meaning

Essence can name what a thing is, but it can also concern the subtle substance the author believes sustains its life. I.3's argument from nourishment presents a fifth essence distinguishable from the superfluities of the four elements. I.4's one and single thing then use the language of being within a distinction between universal cause and particular subject. These occurrences should not all be reduced to an isolated extract sold or collected under one name. In I.3’s phrase about the sun bringing matter’s quality en essence, the new English says into being; this is a local existence/formative sense, distinct from the subtle fifth essence described earlier in the same unit.

II.3.5 makes a different logical use: more and less of a power do not make a thing more or less what it is. Human beings remain equally human in essence despite differences in their capacities. The distinction matters to the cabbage example and to the ordering of purer and less pure parts. Degrees of efficacy are not automatically degrees of essential identity.