Substance
in philosophy, that which is and abides as distinguished from accident, which has no existence of itself, and is essentially mutable. The derivation of the word in this sense is, according to Augustine, from the Latin subsistere, and so that which subsists of or by itself; Locke prefers to connect it with the Latin substo = to stand under, to support, to uphold. The first idea of substance is probably derived from the consciousness of selfthe conviction gained by experience that, while sensations, thoughts, and purposes are continually changing, the Ego Ego constantly remains the same. Observation teaches us that bodies external to us remain the same as to quantity or extension, though their color and figure, their state of motion or of rest may be changed. Locke, without departing from the knowable, placed the substance of an object in some essential or fundamental quality, the presence of which maintained, while its removal destroyed, the identity of the object, and Fichte made it consist in a synthesis of attributes; holding that these, synthetically united, gave substance, while substance analyzed gave attributes.
SUBTRACTION In theology, essence, nature, being.
Used specially of the Three Persons in the Godhead, who are said to be the same substance, i. e., to possess one common essence. The principle of substance in philosophy is the law of the human mind by which every quality or mode of being is referred to a substance. In algebra, the operation of putting one quantity in place of another, to which it is equal, but differently expressed.
In theology, the doctrine that in the crucifixion Christ was divinely substituted for, or took the place of, the elect, or of all mankind obeying the law in their stead, suffering the penalty expiating their sins, and procuring for them salvation. Used also of the principle involved in the bloody sacrifices of the Jewish economy (in which the animals were types of Christ). and in a still wider sense of the offering of the lower animals in the place of men, and of unbloody in the place of bloody sacrifices in ethnic religions. See ARMINIANISM:
CALVINISM: SACRIFICE.