We shall look for in vain;
Yet, though we have laid her
Beneath the dark sod,
She bloometh this spring
In the garden of God.
SUBSTANTIAL GENERATIONS.
I.
We have shown that the intrinsic principles of the primitive material substance are the matter and the substantial form; and we have proved that in the material element the matter is a mere mathematical point—the centre of a virtual sphere—whilst the substantial form which gives existence to such a centre is an act, or an active principle, having a spherical character, and constituting a sphere of power all around that centre, as shown by its exertions directed all around in accordance with the Newtonian law. Hence the nature of the matter as actuated by its substantial form, and the nature of the substantial form as terminated to its matter, are fully determined.
It would seem that nothing remains to be investigated about this subject; for, when we have reached the first constituent principles of a given essence, the metaphysical analysis is at an end. One question, however, remains to be settled between us and the philosophers of the Aristotelic school concerning the mutual relation of the matter and the substantial form in a material being. Is such a relation variable or invariable? Is the matter separable from any given substantial form, as the Aristotelic theory assumes, or are the matter and its form so bound together as to form a unit substantially unchangeable? Can substantial forms be supplanted and superseded by other substantial forms, or do they continue for ever as they were at the instant of their creation?