 James offered two arguments to support his position. The first was based on the principle that the mode of natural love must be commensurate with the mode of being and, hence, of the mode of being one—since everything that is is one. Now a thing is one with itself by virtue of numerical identity, but it is one with something else by virtue of a certain conformity. For instance, Socrates is one with himself by virtue of his being Socrates, but he is one with Plato by virtue of the fact that both share the same form. But the being something has by virtue of numerical identity is “greater” than the being it has by reason of something it shares with another. And given that the species of natural love follows the mode of being, it follows that it is more perfect to love oneself than to love another (Quodl. II, q. 20, p. 206, 148 – p. 149, 165). The second argument attempted to derive the same conclusion from the principle that “God’s love of charity elevates [human] nature’s” love of God ( Quodl. II, q. 20, p. 207, 166–167). James reasoned that there was only one way in which charity could elevate nature, namely by making it love God above all else. But if this was so, it had to follow “that nature in itself cannot love God in this way (...). For if it could, it would not need to be elevated by charity.” (Quodl. II, q. 20, p. 207, 181–184). And for James to say that nature itself cannot love God above all else was just to say that man naturally loves himself above all else. QED.