ESSENCE

(Lat. e entia, from e e, -to be or exist.) In Philosophy, a scholastic term, denoting what the Platonists called the idea of a species. The school philosophers give two significations of the word e ence: the first denoting the whole e ential perfection of a being, and consequently its entity, with all its intrinsic and nece ary attributes taken together; the second denoting the principal or most important attributes of any thing. The e ences of things were held by many to be uncreated, eternal, and inunutable. See Metaphysics. 418 ESTATE. [s. 431]