[Footnote 724: ][ (return) ] Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," pp. 120, 123.
The opposition of matter and form, with Aristotle, corresponds to the opposition between the element of generality and the element of particularity. Matter is indeterminate; form is determinate. Matter, abstracted from form, in thought, is entirely without predicate and distinction; form is that which enters into the definition of every subject, and without which it could not be defined. Matter is capable of the widest diversity of forms, but is itself without form. Pure form is, in fact, that which is without matter, or, in other words, it is the pure conception of being. Matter is the necessary condition of the existence of a thing; form is the essence of each thing, that in virtue of which substance is possible, and without which it is inconceivable. On the one side is passivity, possibility of existence, capacity of action; on the other side is activity, actuality, thought. The unity of these two in the realm of determined being constitutes every individual substance. The relation of matter and form, logically apprehended, is thus the relation of POTENTIALITY and ACTUALITY.
This is a further and indeed a most important step in the Aristotelian theology. Matter, as we have seen, after all, amounts to merely capacity for action, and if we can not discover some productive power to develop potentiality into actuality, we look in vain for some explanation of the phenomena around us. The discovery, however, of energy (ἐνέργεια), as a principle of this description, is precisely what we wanted, and a momentary glance at the actual phenomena will show its perfect identity with the εἶδος, or form. [725] "For instance, what is a calm? It is evenness in the surface of the sea. Here the sea is the subject, that is, the matter in capacity, but the evenness is the energy or actuality;... energy is thus as form." [726] The form (or idea) is thus an energy or actuality (ἐνέργεια); the
matter is a capacity or potentiality (δύναµις), requiring the co-operation of the energy to produce a result. These terms, which are first employed by Aristotle in their philosophical signification, are characteristic of his whole system. It is, therefore, important we should grasp their precise philosophical import; and this can only be done by considering them in the strictest relation to each other. It is in this relation they are defined by Aristotle. "Now ἐνέργεια is the existence of a thing not in the sense of its potentially existing. The term potentially we use, for instance, of the statue in the block, and of the half in the whole (since it may be subtracted), and of a person knowing a thing, even when he is not thinking of it, but might be so; whereas ἐνέργεια is the opposite. By applying the various instances our meaning will be plain, and one must not seek a definition in each case, but rather grasp the conception of the analogy as a whole,--that it is as that which builds to that which has a capacity for building; as the waking to the sleeping; as that which sees to that which has sight, but whose eyes are closed; as the definite form to the shapeless matter; as the complete to the unaccomplished. In this contrast, let the ἐνέργεια be set off as forming the one side, and on the other let the potential stand. Things are said to be in ἐνέργεια not always in like manner (except so far as there is an analogy, that as this thing is in this, and related to this, so is that in that, or related to that); for sometimes it implies motion as opposed to the capacity of motion, and sometimes complete existence opposed to undeveloped matter". [727] As the term δύναµις has the double meaning of "possibility of existence" as well as "capacity of action" so there is the double contrast of "action" as opposed to the capacity of action; and "actual existence" opposed to possible existence or potentiality. To express accurately this latter antithesis, Aristotle introduced the term ἐντελέχεια [728]--entelechy, of which the most natural account is that it is a compound of ἐν τέλει ἔχειν--"being in a state of perfection." [729] This term, however, rarely occurs in the "Metaphysics," whilst ἐνέργεια is everywhere employed, not only to express activity as opposed to passivity, but complete existence as opposed to undeveloped matter.
[Footnote 725: ][ (return) ] "That which Aristotle calls 'form' is not to be confounded with what we may perhaps call shape [or figure]; a hand severed from the arm, for instance, has still the outward shape of a hand, but, according to Aristotelian apprehension, it is only a hand now as to matter, and not as to form; an actual hand, a hand as to form, is only that which can do the proper work of a hand."--Schwegler's "History of Philosophy," p. 122.
[Footnote 726: ][ (return) ] "Metaphysics," bk. vii. ch. ii.
[Footnote 727: ][ (return) ] "Metaphysics," bk. viii. ch. vi.
[Footnote 728: ][ (return) ] "Entelechy indicates the perfected act, the completely actual."--Schw.
[Footnote 729: ][ (return) ] Grant's Aristotle's "Ethics," vol. i. p. 184.
"In Physics δύναµις answers to the necessary conditions for the existence of any thing before that thing exists. It thus corresponds to ὕλη, both to the πρώτη ὕλη--the first matter, or matter devoid of all qualities, which is capable of becoming any definite substance, as, for example, marble; and also to the ἐσχάτη ὕλη--or matter capable of receiving form, as marble the form of the statue." Marble then exists potentially in the simple elements before it is marble. The statue exists potentially in the marble before it is carved. All objects of thought exist, either purely in potentiality, or purely in actuality, or both in potentiality and in actuality. This division makes an entire chain of all existence. At the one end is matter, the πρώτη ὕλη which has a merely potential existence, which is necessary as a condition, but which having no form and no qualities, is totally incapable of being realized by the mind. At the other end of the chain is pure form, which is not at all matter, the absolute and the unconditioned, the eternal substance and energy without matter (οὐσία ἀίδιος καὶ ἐνέργεια ἄνευ δυνάµεως), who can not be thought as non-existing--the self-existent God. Between these two extremes is the whole row of creatures, which out of potentiality evermore spring into actual being. [730]