Substance in its concrete existence, not in its abstract essence, is said to be an accidental object of sense. St. Thomas, De Anima , III, Lect. The majority of Neo-Scholastic writers favour this latter view. The teaching of Catholic philosophy on the distinct reality of certain absolute, not purely modal, accidents was occasioned by the doctrine of the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist, though the arguments for the theory are deduced from natural experience. The same doctrine, however, suggests the further question, whether such accidents may not be separable from substance.
Reason alone offers no positive arguments for such separability.
Nor would the accidents thus separated, and supernaturally supported, lose their character as accidents, since they would still retain their essential property, i.e. natural exigence of inhesion. Of course the intrinsic possibility of such separation depends solely on the supernatural interference of God, nor may it extend to all classes of accidents. Thus, e.g., it is absolutely impossible for vital faculties, or acts, to exist outside their natural subjects, or principles. Theorists who, like the Cartesians, deny the objective, distinct entity of all accidents have been obliged to reconcile this negation with their belief in the Real Presence by maintaining that the species , or accidents, of bread and wine do not really remain in the Eucharist, but that after Consecration God produces on our senses the impressions corresponding to the natural phenomena. This theory obviously demands a seemingly unnecessary multiplication of miracles and has at present few if any serious advocates.