NOTE : 47 EMINENT, D Überagend, and even better Hervorragend; F Eminent, I Eminente. A- In the etymological and usual sense, superior and distinguished by this superiority. "Eminenter est supra omnem mensuram, super omnes gradus eminencia per metaphoram est excellencia." "Eminently means beyond any measure, above any level eminence metaphorically expresses excellence." GOCLENIUS, V°, 146b, 147a. B- Especially conflicts with formal. "Oppositum ejus: certo modo et mensura, item formaliter (bonitas, sapientia) sunt in Deo ut illarum causa ac principio eminenter vel formaliter; multa, quae rebus physicis tribuntur, eminenter ac nobilissimo modo, perfectissime: Deus movet se non hoc nostro modo, sed alio nobis incomperto." Its opposite is: in a determined way and measure, or formally (kindness, wisdom) are in God, as in their cause and principle, eminently or formally, many a characters which are attributed to physical objects are in him eminently and in a most noble way, in a supreme perfection: God does not move like us, but in some way we ignore ." GOCLENIUS, V°, 146b, 147a. In Descartes' work, who thus follows the scholastics' use, éminent conflicts at the same time with formel and objectif. An "entity" can exist in three different ways: objectively in the idea we have of it; formally in the being that represents this idea; eminently in the principle from which the being extracts its reality. "A stone now cannot begin to beif it is not produced by a thing that formally or eminently owns everything, that is included in the stone's composition, that is to say that contains in itself the same things, or the other more excellent things that are in the stone" Troisième méditation, §17. "If the objective reality of any of my ideas is such as I clearly know that it is not formally nor eminently in me it necessarily follows from it that I am not the only one in the world, but that there is still some other thing that exists and that is the cause of such an idea." Ibid, §12 C- We call eminent domain (lat. scol. dominium eminens) the right of general and superior property that would have in principle the State over the citizens' (or subjects') private property. The existence of such a right is moreover denied by most of the modern legislations, that generally speaking only grant the State the right of expropriation on account of public utility, legally certified, and in return for a fair and preliminary indemnity (1789 Declaration of Human Rights, art. 17, Code Civil, art. 545). D- Log. Eminent comprehension, the one that is a group of characters belonging to the concept in such a way that it has necessarily to possess one of them: for instance, for a whole, the character of being even or uneven for a proposition, of being either undivided, particular, or universal. See Comprehension . CRITICISM The meanings B and C are actually very close, if not even identical: because we say something eminently exists in something else when it is not actually in it, but possessing some power or property by which the first one can be fathered from. Wolff, ontology , §845, wanted to suppress this character and to reduce the eminent existence into the presence of a character taking the place of the one of which it is all about. But it is not enough to be said: eminent is different from virtual for virtuality needs something else than what it is virtual for in oder to be actualized, whereas eminence does not need it. Therefore virtuality, in the point of view of existence, contains something less than reality whereas eminence contains something more. We can assume that the concept of eminent existence corresponds in no way to reality, is not the concept of changing the traditional meaning of that term in quitting from its comprehension the power of producing what it is about. Note. About Eminent. "Per emineniam esse dicitur ens quod proprie loquando non est, ubi tamen quid habet in se quod vicem ejus supples quod proprie eidem tribui repugnat." "We say of a being that he is "par éminence" (this or that) when he is strictly speaking not this or that, but having something in himself that plays the role of what he would be nonsensical to attribute him strictly speaking." In WOLFF's ontology, §245. The scholastics, he says, add that furthermore the being which is attributed this quality per eminentiem has to have the ability of producing out of himself what he eminently owns: but this condition, as he sees it, is not always implied by the use of this term.