SUBSTRATE IS DEMANDED BY TRANSFORMATION OF ELEMENTS, BY THEIR DESTRUCTION AND DISSOLUTION.
6. Now let us speak of bodies. The mutual transformation of elements demonstrates that they must have a substrate. Their transformation is not a complete destruction; otherwise (a general) "being"[287] would perish in nonentity. Whereas, what is begotten would have passed from absolute nonentity to essence; and all change is no more than the passing of one form into another (as thought Aristotle).[288] It presupposes the existence of permanent (subject) which would receive the form of begotten things only after having lost the earlier form. This is demonstrated by destruction, which affects only something composite; therefore every dissolved object must have been a composite. Dissolution proves it also. For instance, where a vase is dissolved, the result is gold; on being dissolved, gold leaves water; and so analogy would suggest that the dissolution of water would result in something else, that is analogous to its nature. Finally, elements necessarily are either form, or primary matter, or the composites of form and matter. However, they cannot be form, because, without matter, they could not possess either mass nor magnitude. Nor can they be primary matter, because they are subject to destruction. They must therefore be composites of form and matter; form constituting their shape and quality, and matter a substrate that is indeterminate, because it is not a form.
THE VIEWS OF EMPEDOCLES AND ANAXAGORAS ON MATTER.
7. (According to Aristotle),[289] Empedocles thinks matter consists of elements; but this opinion is refuted by the decay to which they are exposed. (According to Aristotle),[290] Anaxagoras supposes that matter is a mixture and, instead of saying that this (mixture) is capable of becoming all things, he insists that it contains all things in actualization. Thus he annihilates the intelligence that he had introduced into the world; for, according to him, it is not intelligence that endows all the rest with shape and form; it is contemporaneous with matter, instead of preceding it.[291] Now it is impossible for intelligence to be the contemporary of matter, for if mixture participate in essence, then must essence precede it; if, however, essence itself be the mixture, they will need some third principle. Therefore if the demiurgic creator necessarily precede, what need was there for the forms in miniature to exist in matter, for intelligence to unravel their inextricable confusion, when it is possible to predicate qualities of matter, because matter had none of its own, and thus to subject matter entirely to shape? Besides, how could (the demiurgic creator) then be in all?
REFUTATION OF ANAXIMANDER'S VIEWS ABOUT MATTER.
(Anaximander)[292] had better explain the consistence of the infinity by which he explains matter. Does he, by infinity, mean immensity? In reality this would be impossible. Infinity exists neither by itself, nor in any other nature, as, for instance, the accident of a body. The infinite does not exist by itself, because each of its parts would necessarily be infinite. Nor does the infinite exist as an accident, because that of which it would be an accident would, by itself, be neither infinite, nor simple; and consequently, would not be matter.
REFUTATION OF DEMOCRITUS'S ATOMS AS EXPLANATIONS OF MATTER.
(According to Aristotle's account of Democritus),[293] neither could the atoms fulfil the part of matter because they are nothing (as before thought Cicero).[294] Every body is divisible to infinity. (Against the system of the atoms) might further be alleged the continuity and humidity of bodies. Besides nothing can exist without intelligence and soul, which could not be composed of atoms. Nothing with a nature different from the atoms could produce anything with the atoms, because no demiurgic creator could produce something with a matter that lacked continuity. Many other objections against this system have and can be made; but further discussion is unnecessary.