Abstract

Substance (substantia – underlying, underlying – the Latin translation of the Greek) is that which exists independently, in itself, unlike accidents, or properties existing in another (namely, in substance) and through another. Substance is something stable and permanent, as opposed to the volatile and transient; essence (Greek), underlying the phenomenon; indivisible, one, comprehended by the mind, in contrast to the plurality of the sensually perceptible. In the concept of substance, the most important aspect of being finds expression. In European thought the notion of substance received different interpretations: it was regarded as a concrete individual and as a single foundation of all that exists; as ontological reality and as a logical subject; as a spiritual principle and as a material substratum; as the invariable, self-identical essence of the phenomenon and as the law of change, the principle of constructing a series of events, the relation of the accessory of the set of single cases.