23. Now that accident for which we give a certain name to any body, or the accident which denominates its subject, is commonly called the ESSENCE thereof; as rationality is the essence of a man; whiteness, of any white thing, and extension the essence of a body. And the same essence, in as much as it is generated, is called the FORM. Again, a body, in respect of any accident, is called the SUBJECT, and in respect of the form it is called the MATTER.
Also, the production or perishing of any accident makes its subject be said to be changed; only the production or perishing of form makes it be said it is generated or destroyed; but in all generation and mutation, the name of matter still remains. For a table made of wood is not only wooden, but wood; and a statue of brass is brass as well as brazen; though Aristotle, in his Metaphysics, says, that whatsoever is made of any thing ought not to be called ἐκεινὸ, but ἐκέινινον; as that which is made of wood, not ξύλον, but ξύλινον, that is, not wood, but wooden.
First matter, what.
24. And as for that matter which is common to all things, and which philosophers, following Aristotle, usually call materia prima, that is, first matter, it is not any body distinct from all other bodies, nor is it one of them. What then is it? A mere name; yet a name which is not of vain use; for it signifies a conception of body without the consideration of any form or other accident except only magnitude or extension, and aptness to receive form and other accident. So that whensoever we have use of the name body in general, if we use that of materia prima, we do well. For as when a man not knowing which was first, water or ice, would find out which of the two were the matter of both, he would be fain to suppose some third matter which were neither of these two; so he that would find out what is the matter of all things, ought to suppose such as is not the matter of anything that exists. Wherefore materia prima is nothing; and therefore they do not attribute to it either form or any other accident besides quantity; whereas all singular things have their forms and accidents certain.
Materia prima, therefore, is body in general, that is, body considered universally, not as having neither form nor any accident, but in which no form nor any other accident but quantity are at all considered, that is, they are not drawn into argumentation.
That the whole is greater than any part thereof, why demonstrated.
25. From what has been said, those axioms may be demonstrated, which are assumed by Euclid in the beginning of his first element, about the equality and inequality of magnitudes; of which, omitting the rest, I will here demonstrate only this one, the whole is greater than any part thereof; to the end that the reader may know that those axioms are not indemonstrable, and therefore not principles of demonstration; and from hence learn to be wary how he admits any thing for a principle, which is not at least as evident as these are. Greater is defined to be that, whose part is equal to the whole of another. Now if we suppose any whole to be A, and a part of it to be B; seeing the whole B is equal to itself, and the same B is a part of A; therefore a part of A will be equal to the whole B. Wherefore, by the definition above, A is greater than B; which was to be proved.
CHAPTER IX.
OF CAUSE AND EFFECT.
[1.] Action and passion, what they are.—[2.] Action and passion mediate and immediate.—[3.] Cause simply taken. Cause without which no effect follows, or cause necessary by supposition.—[4.] Cause efficient and material.—[5.] An entire cause is always sufficient to produce its effect. At the same instant that the cause is entire, the effect is produced. Every effect has a necessary cause.—[6.] The generation of effects is continual. What is the beginning in causation.—[7.] No cause of motion but in a body contiguous and moved.—[8.] The same agents and patients, if alike disposed, produce like effects though at different times.—[9.] All mutation is motion.—[10.] Contingent accidents, what they are.