being - nonbeing - principle of noncontradiction
being (as existent) - being (as essence) - principle of identity
being - divison - one - many
being - one - true
being - act - perfect - desirable - good
If we now ask ourselves what it is that leads the mind to the formation of each train of ideas as given above, the answer proves most revealing. Each procession of ideas, it will be found, is commanded by discoveries of distinction or opposition - opposition not all of the same degree, however, but ranging from pure contradiction to mere relation. This points to opposition, or the mind's recognition of it, as an essential factor of intellectual life, the occasion (if not the stimulant) of intellectual growth and development. The idealists Hegel and Hamelin, we might note, were to perceive and pursue this theme unwaveringly. But a realist philosophy, too, is nurtured by the perception of opposition. Yet there is a difference; for in a realist philosophy the opposition conceived by the mind always relates to reality and does no more than reflect the antithetical diversity contained in reality.
b) Granted, then, that the transcendentals make a system, what are its most notable characteristics? Above all it is, as just intimated, a realist system; more precisely, it is founded on the primacy of the notion of being, which but mirrors the primacy of being itself. Pythagorean and Platonist thought had always a marked propensity for giving priority to the Good or the One and conceiving them as separate or earth-shorn principles of which the things of earth were but remote participations. In St. Thomas, on the other hand, the prior (and first) experience is being, which is to say reality under the aspect of being, and good and one for their part are not given separate existence but become properties of that which exists, namely being. This view of the matter does not, of course, rule out a Being with the attributes of unity and goodness which gives being to all other things through a manner of participation; St. Thomas, as a matter of fact, adopts the principle of participation. But far from jeopardizing the metaphysical substantiality of things terrene, participation in the Thomistic context tends rather to assure it.
On both counts, then, we have to do with a realist system of transcendentals; not only is it founded on being (reality), but the reality of experience (our world) is truly being. Furthermore, the realist universe of St. Thomas is thoroughly integrated; for, thanks to the convertibility of the transcendentals, the order of thought and action (presided over respectively by the true and the good) come together in being, ultimately in the first being, where unity and truth and goodness attain absolute identity with being itself.
c) Further characterizing the metaphysical realism of St. Thomas is a certain intellectualism; the true takes ontological precedence of the good. St. Thomas is very explicit on this point. There is, he says, an order among the transcendentals. Being is first, then one, next the true, and last the good. Or, as St. Thomas puts it:
The order of these transcendent names, accordingly, if they are considered in themselves, is as follows: after being comes the one; after the one comes the true; and then after the true comes good.38
The true, then, as St. Thomas reiterates over and over, is prior to the good. Two reasons lead him to this conclusion.39 First, compared with the good the true stands in closer association with being, which itself is prior to the good. For the true relates to being in itself or absolutely, whereas the formality (ratio) of good results from being according as it is perfect. To which St. Thomas adds this second consideration, that knowledge naturally precedes appetition. Thus, whether in activity or in object, the order of truth stands prior to the order of good. The implications of this position of St. Thomas appear at every turn; for the position is cardinal to his thought, governing every principal orientation. And it reverts, as we have now seen, to the very first discoveries of metaphysical inquiry.