A Teaching with a Missing English Word
Anything changeable is both
i.) what it is, and
ii.) capable of becoming something else. .
So i. and ii. are parts of a changeable thing (parts meaning “distinguishable in some way”). These parts follow directly from the meaning of the compound word “changeable thing”, and are therefore judged as “essential” to changeble things.
A changeable thing is one thing, but not always in the same way. A thing is one inasmuch as it has a unity, but not all unities are the same. Some have a unity through cooperation, like an army or the parts of a bicycle. Some others also have the unity of living.
For what lives, to cease to exist means to die. But to cease to exist means for a thing to cease being what it is, and hence to no longer have part i. that was mentioned above. English does not have a term in common usage for part i. when said of living things.
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Just Thomism 