ons of each act. Therefore the
circumstances are individual accidents of human acts.

_I answer that,_ Since, according to the Philosopher (Peri Herm. i),
"words are the signs of what we understand," it must needs be that in
naming things we follow the process of intellectual knowledge. Now
our intellectual knowledge proceeds from the better known to the less
known. Accordingly with us, names of more obvious things are
transferred so as to signify things less obvious: and hence it is
that, as stated in _Metaph._ x, 4, "the notion of distance has been
transferred from things that are apart locally, to all kinds of
opposition": and in like manner words that signify local movement are
employed to designate all other movements, because bodies which are
circumscribed by place, are best known to us. And hence it is that
the word "circumstance" has passed from located things to human acts.

Now in things located, that is said to surround something, which is
outside it, but touches it, or is placed near it. Accordingly,
whatever conditions are outside the substance of an act, and yet in
some way touch the human act, are called circumstances. Now what is
outside a thing's substance, while it belongs to that thing, is
called its accident. Wherefore the circumstances of human acts should
be called their accidents.

Reply Obj. 1: The orator gives strength to his argument, in the first
place, from the substance of the act; and secondly, from the
circumstances of the act. Thus a man becomes indictable, first,
through being guilty of murder; secondly, through having done it
fraudulently, or from motives of greed or at a holy time or place,
and so forth. And so in the passage quoted, it is said pointedly that
the orator "adds strength to his argument," as though this were
something secondary.

Reply Obj. 2: A thing is said to be an accident of something in two
ways. First, from being in that thing: thus, whiteness is said to be
an accident of Socrates. Secondly, because it is together with that
thing in the same subject: thus, whiteness is an accident of the art
of music, inasmuch as they meet in the same subject, so as to touch
one another, as it were. And in this sense circumstances are said to
be the accidents of human acts.

Reply Obj. 3: As stated above (ad 2), an accident is said to
be the accident of an accident, from the fact that they meet in the
same subject. But this happens in two ways. First, in so far as two
accide