To the contrary...

To the contrary, one may attribute to a single thing the concept of being the cause of an existent in the very state in which one attributes to it the concept of being the effect of another existent. In technical terms: contrariety in philosophical concepts requires the unity of both the aspect and what is added to it. We have learned that one must pay attention to two points regarding the employment of concepts.

First, one must take into consideration the specific characteristics of each kind of concept, so as to avoid over generalization from one kind of concept to another, and in this respect one must especially pay attention to the characteristics specific to each of these three kinds of concepts: whatish, philosophical and logical, for many philosophical difficulties are the effect of confusion about them. The other point is that one must not fall…