 Francisco Suárez  (1548–1617)[1]  was a highly influential philosopher and theologian of the Second Scholastic (or “Early Modern Scholasticism”), that is, the revitalized philosophical and theological inquiry of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, conducted within the tradition shaped by Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, and other medieval scholastics. While Suárez is commonly praised for his comprehensive, exhaustive, and systematic exposition of more or less everything known in philosophy up to his time (certainly, at any rate, in metaphysics), his achievement in this regard should not be permitted to overshadow the depth, power, and originality of his own ideas. He worked in a great variety of fields, including metaphysics, natural theology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of action, ethics, political philosophy, and law. In all these areas he made contributions the influences of which are so widespread and commonplace that they sometimes escape notice. Still, it is noteworthy that figures as distinct from one another in place, time, and philosophical orientation as Leibniz, Grotius, Pufendorf, Schopenhauer, and Heidegger, all found reason to cite him as a source of inspiration and influence. Grotius, for instance, praised the Jesuit doctor as a theologian and philosopher of such depth, breadth, and penetration that “he hardly had an equal” (Grotius, Letter of 15 October, 1633; 2001: 194).  See the entry on the  School of Salamanca for more context.