But the Schoolmen distinguished two kinds of substantial forms, the one spiritual and the other material. The former division is represented by the human soul, the anima rationalis; and they affirm as a matter, not merely of reason, but of faith, that every human soul is created out of nothing, and by this act of creation is endowed with the power of existing for all eternity, apart from the materia prima of which the corporeal frame of man is composed. And the anima rationalis, once united with the materia prima of the body, becomes its substantial form, and is the source of all the powers and faculties of man--of all the vital and sensitive phenomena which he exhibits--just as the substantial form of water is the source of all its qualities.
The "material substantial forms" are those which inform all other natural bodies except that of man; and the object of Suarez in the present Disputation, is to show that the axiom "ex nihilo nihil fit," though not true of the substantial form of man, is true of the substantial forms of all other bodies, the endless mutations of which constitute the ordinary course of nature. The origin of the difficulty which he discusses is easily comprehensible. Suppose a piece of bright iron to be exposed to the air. The existence of the iron depends on the presence within it of a substantial form, which is the cause of its properties, e.g. brightness, hardness, weight. But, by degrees, the iron becomes converted into a mass of rust, which is dull, and soft, and light, and, in all other respects, is quite different from the iron. As, in the scholastic view, this difference is due to the rust being informed by a new substantial form, the grave problem arises, how did this new substantial form come into being? Has it been created? or has it arisen by the power of natural causation? If the former hypothesis is correct, then the axiom, "ex nihilo nihil fit," is false, even in relation to the ordinary course of nature, seeing that such mutations of matter as imply the continual origin of new substantial forms are occurring every moment. But the harmonisation of Aristotle with theology was as dear to the Schoolmen, as the smoothing down the differences between Moses and science is to our Broad Churchmen, and they were proportionably unwilling to contradict one of Aristotle's fundamental propositions. Nor was their objection to flying in the face of the Stagirite likely to be lessened by the fact that such flight landed them in flat Pantheism.
So Father Suarez fights stoutly for the second hypothesis; and I quote the principal part of his argumentation as an exquisite specimen of that speech which is a "darkening of counsel."
"13. Secundo de omnibus aliis formis substantialibus [sc. materialibus] dicendum est non fieri proprie ex nihilo, sed ex potentia præjacentis materiæ educi: ideoque in effectione harum formarum nil fieri contra illud axioma, Ex nihilo nihil fit, si recte intelligatur. Hæc assertio sumitur ex Aristotele 1. Physicorum per totum et libro 7. Metaphyss. et ex aliis auctoribus, quos statim referam. Et declaratur breviter, nam fieri ex nihilo duo dicit, unum est fieri absolute et simpliciter, aliud est quod talis effectio fit ex nihilo. Primum propriè dicitur de re subsistente, quia ejus est fieri, cujus est esse: id autem proprie quod subsistit et habet esse; nam quod alteri adjacet, potius est quo aliud est. Ex hac ergo parte, formæ substantiales materiales non fiunt ex nihilo, quia proprie non fiunt. Atque hanc rationem reddit Divus Thomas 1 parte, quæstione 45, articulo 8, et quæstione 90, articulo 2, et ex dicendis magis explicabitur. Sumendo ergo ipsum fieri in hac proprietate et rigore, sic fieri ex nihilo est fieri secundum se totum, id est nulla sui parte præsupposita, ex quo fiat. Et hac ratione res naturales dum de novo fiunt, non fiunt ex nihilo, quia fiunt ex præsupposita materia, ex qua componuntur, et ita non fiunt, secundum se totæ, sed secundum aliquid sui. Formæ autem harum rerum, quamvis revera totam suam entitatem de novo accipiant, quam antea non habebant, quia vero ipsæ non fiunt, ut dictum est, ideo neque ex nihilo fiunt. Attamen, quia latiori modo sumendo verbum illud fieri negari non potest: quin forma facta sit, eo modo quo nunc est, et antea non erat, ut etiam probat ratio dubitandi posita in principio sectionis, ideo addendum est, sumpto fieri in hac amplitudine, fieri ex nihilo non tamen negare habitudinem materialis causæ intrinsecè componentis id quod fit, sed etiam habitudinem causæ materialis per se causantis et sustentantis formam quæ fit, seu confit. Diximus enim in superioribus materiam et esse causam compositi et formæ dependentis ab illa: ut res ergo dicatur ex nihilo fieri uterque modus causalitatis negari debet; et eodem sensu accipiendum est illud axioma, ut sit verum: Ex nihilo nihil fit, scilicet virtute agentis naturalis et finiti nihil fieri, nisi ex præsupposito subjecto per se concurrente, et ad compositum et ad formam, si utrumque suo modo ab eodem agente fiat. Ex his ergo rectè concluditur, formas substantiales materiales non fieri ex nihilo, quia fiunt ex materia, quæ in suo genere per se concurrit, et influit ad esse, et fieri talium formarum; quia, sicut esse non possunt nisi affixae materiæ, a qua sustententur in esse: ita nec fieri possunt, nisi earum effectio et penetratio in eadem materia sustentetur. Et hæc est propria et per se differentia inter effectionem ex nihilo, et ex aliquo, propter quam, ut infra ostendemus, prior modus efficiendi superat vim finitam naturaliam agentium, non vero posterior.
"14. Ex his etiam constat, proprie de his formis dici non creari, sed educi de potentia materiæ." [*]
- Suarez, loc. cit. Disput. xv. § ii.
If I may venture to interpret these hard sayings, Suarez conceives that the evolution of substantial forms in the ordinary course of nature, is conditioned not only by the existence of the materia prima, but also by a certain "concurrence and influence" which that materia exerts; and every new substantial form being thus conditioned, and in part, at any rate, caused, by a pre-existing something, cannot be said to be created out of nothing.
But as the whole tenor of the context shows, Suarez applies this argumentation merely to the evolution of material substantial forms in the ordinary course of nature. How the substantial forms of animals and plants primarily originated, is a question to which, so far as I am able to discover, he does not so much as allude in his "Metaphysical Disputations." Nor was there any necessity that he should do so, inasmuch as he has devoted a separate treatise of considerable bulk to the discussion of all the problems which arise out of the account of the Creation which is given in the Book of Genesis. And it is a matter of wonderment to me that Mr. Mivart, who somewhat sharply reproves "Mr. Darwin and others" for not acquainting themselves with the true teachings of his Church, should allow himself to be indebted to a heretic like myself for a knowledge of the existence of that "Tractatus de opere sex Dierum," [*] in which the learned Father, of whom he justly speaks, as "an authority widely venerated, and whose orthodoxy has never been questioned," directly opposes all those opinions for which Mr. Mivart claims the shelter of his authority.
- Tractatus de opere sex Dierum, seu de Universi Creatione, quatenus sex diebus perfecta esse, in libro Genesis cap. i. refertur, et praesertim de productione hominis in statu innocentiae. Ed. Birckmann, 1622.
In the tenth and eleventh chapters of the first book of this treatise, Suarez inquires in what sense the word "day," as employed in the first chapter of Genesis, is to be taken. He discusses the views of Philo and of Augustin on this question, and rejects them. He suggests that the approval of their allegorising interpretations by St. Thomas Aquinas, merely arose out of St. Thomas's modesty, and his desire not to seem openly to controvert St. Augustin--"voluisse Divus Thomas pro sua modestia subterfugere vim argumenti potius quam aperte Augustinum inconstantiæ arguere."