De Rervm Natvra Constantivm Scientia, Principiis Et Affectionibvs Commvnibvs, Dispvtatio

D I S P V T A T I O D E original: "Disputation on"

because the order by which quantity is referred to substance, as an accident, is the same as the essence of quantity; therefore, it happens that the Mathematician cannot help but involve the order of quantity to substance, at least with a confused cognition.

XLVII. Moreover, quantity is the extension of parts, by which the parts of a thing are rendered distant from one another. From this, when it contains the parts of both corporeal substances and their accidents as drawn apart from one another, the first question arises: is the extension of quantity other, and in reality different, from that extension by which the parts of the substance and of the remaining accidents are comprehended as extended?

XLIIX. The opinion of those who deny they are distinguished is placed in this: they think that the substance, by encompassing the reason of the body, has it granted by its own nature—by the very fact that it exists in the produced universe—that the parts it encompasses are distant from one another, without the order and aid of another thing to which the extension of the parts should be primarily due. In the same way, the accidents proper to the corporeal substance attain the extension of their parts by the very fact that, as accidents near to the substance, they follow the same [extension]. With this foundation laid, they have a way to refute the most powerful arguments which can be drawn partly from the Sacrament of the Most Holy Eucharist, and partly from other chapters of things.

XLIX. Those who establish that quantity is in reality different from substance and other accidents, place the formal reason of quantity in this: that they are extended by the extension of their parts, which is primarily due to them.