It is only in the former (as has been said) that a middle term can be shown; rendering it possible that Quiddity or Essence should be declared by a valid formal syllogism, though it cannot be demonstrated by syllogism.
Pressing for definition, you never get much further than that each given quiddity means a certain Whatness.
Therefore God's existence is not the same as His essence--that is, as His quiddity or nature.
Hence the angelic and the Divine intellect have the entire knowledge of a thing at once and perfectly; and hence also in knowing the quiddity of a thing they know at once whatever we can know by composition, division, and reasoning.
Whereas the proper object of the human intellect, which is united to a body, is a quiddity or nature existing in corporeal matter; and through such natures of visible things it rises to a certain knowledge of things invisible.
For the proper object of the human intellect is the quiddity of a material thing, which comes under the action of the senses and the imagination.
And the reason of this is that this indivisible has a certain opposition to a corporeal being, the quiddity of which is the primary and proper object of the intellect.
I answer that, Since a faculty and its object are proportional to each other, the intellect must be related to the infinite, as is its object, which is the quiddity of a material thing.
But in the absolute consideration of the quiddity of a thing, and of those things which are known thereby, the intellect is never deceived.
Thirdly, because all in one genus agree in the quiddity or essence of the genus which is predicated of them as an essential, but they differ in their existence.
In one sense it means the quiddity of a thing, signified by its definition, and thus we say that the definition means the substance of a thing; in which sense substance is called by the Greeks ousia, what we may call "essence.
And since that which is known first and of itself by our cognitive power is its proper object, we must consider its relationship to that quiddity in order to discover in what order the indivisible is known.
I answer that, The object of our intellect in its present state is the quiddity of a material thing, which it abstracts from the phantasms, as above stated (Q.
The above list will hopefully give you a few useful examples demonstrating the appropriate usage of "quiddity" in a variety of sentences. We hope that you will now be able to make sentences using this word.
