The Catholic World, Vol. 21, April, 1875, to September, 1875 / A Monthly Magazine of General Literature and Science

by Various

Moreover, our conception of materia prima as an imaginary point in space may help us to realize more completely the distinction which must be made between the non-entity of the first matter and absolute nothingness. Absolute nothingness is a mere negation of being, or a negative non-entity; whereas the non-entity of the first matter is formally constituted by a privation, and must be styled a privative non-entity. For, as the matter and its substantial form are the constituents of one and the same primitive essence, we cannot think of the matter without reference to the form, nor of the form without reference to the matter. And therefore, when, in order to conceive the first matter, we suppress mentally the substantial form, we deprive the matter of what it essentially requires for its existence; and it is in consequence of such a process that we reduce the matter to a non-entity. Now, to exclude from the matter the form which is due to it is to constitute the matter under a privation. Therefore the resulting non-entity of the first matter is a privative non-entity. Indeed, privation is defined as “the absence of something due to a subject,” and we can scarcely say that a non-entity is a subject. But this definition applies to real privations only, which require a real subject lacking something due to it; as when a man has lost an eye or a foot. But in our case, as we are concerned with a pure potency of being, which has no reality at all, our subject can be nothing else than a non-entity. This is the subject which demands the form of which it is bereaved, as it cannot even be conceived without reference to it. The very name of matter, which it retains, points out a form as its transcendental correlative; while the epithet “first” points out the fact that this matter is yet destitute of that being which it should have in order to deserve the name of real matter.

But, much as this notion of the first matter agrees with that of “pure potency” and of “first potency,” the followers of the peripatetic system will say that their first matter is something quite different, as is evident from their theory of substantial generations, which would have no meaning, if the first matter were not a reality. Let us, then, waive for the present the notion of “pure potency,” and turn our attention to that of “real potency,” that we may see what kind of reality the first matter must be, when the “first matter” is identified with the matter actually existing under a substantial form.

The matter actuated by a form is a real potency, and nothing more. It is only by stretching the word “being” beyond its legitimate meaning that this real potency is sometimes called a real being. In fact, the potential term of the real being is real, not on account of any real entity involved in its own nature, but merely on account of the real act by which it is actuated. How anything can be real without possessing an entity of its own our reader may easily understand by recollecting what we have often remarked about the centre of a sphere, whose reality is entirely due to the spherical form, or by reflecting that negations and privations are similarly called real, not because of any entity involved in them, but simply because they are appurtenances of real beings.

We have seen that S. Augustine would fain have called the primitive matter a nothing-something and a being non-being, if such phrases had been allowable. His thought was deep, but he could not find words to express it thoroughly. Our “real potency” is that “nothing-something” which was in the mind of the holy doctor. S. Thomas gives us a clew to the explanation of such a “nothing-something” by remarking that to be and to have being are not precisely the same thing. To be is the attribute of a complete act, whilst to have being is the attribute of a potency actuated by its act. That is said to be which contains in itself the formal reason of its being; whilst that is said to have being which does not contain in itself the formal reason of its being, but receives its being from without, and puts it on as a borrowed garment. Of course, God alone can be said to be in the fullest meaning of the term, as he alone contains in himself the adequate reason of his being; yet all created essence can be said to be, inasmuch as it contains in itself the formal reason of its being—that is, an act giving existence to a potency; whereas the potency itself can be said merely to have being, because being is not included in the nature of potency, but must come to it from a distinct source. And therefore, as a thing colored has color, but is not color, and as a body animated has life, but is not life, so the matter actuated by its form has being, but is not a being.

Some philosophers, who failed to take notice of this distinction, maintained that the matter which exists under a substantial form is an incomplete being, and an incomplete substance. The expression is not correct. For, if the matter which lies under the substantial form were an incomplete being, it would be the office of the form to complete it. Now, the substantial form can have no such office; for the form always inchoates what the matter completes. It is always the term that completes the act, whilst the act actuates the term by giving it the first being. Hence the matter which lies under its substantial form is not an incomplete entity. Nor is it an entity destined to complete the form; for, if the term which completes a form were a being, such a term would be a real subject, and thus the form terminated to it would not be strictly substantial, as it would not give it the first being. Moreover, the matter and the substantial form constitute one primitive essence, in which it is impossible to admit a multiplicity of entitative constituents; and therefore, since the substantial form, which is a formal source of being, is evidently an entitative constituent, it follows that the matter lying under it has no entity of its own, but is merely clothed with the entity of its form.

But, true though it is that the matter lying under a substantial form has no entity of its own, it is, however, a real term, as we have already intimated; hence it may be called a reality. And since reality and entity are commonly used as synonymous, we may admit that the formed matter is an entity, adjectively, not substantively, just as we admit that ivory is a sphere when it lies under a spherical form. Nevertheless the ivory, to speak more properly, should be said to have sphericity rather than to be a sphere; for, though it is the subject of sphericity, it is not spherical of its own nature. In the same manner, a body vivified by a soul is called living; but, properly speaking, it should be styled having life, because life is not a property of the body as such, but it springs from the presence of the soul in the body. The like is to be said of the being of the matter as actuated by the substantial form. It is from the form alone that such a matter has its first being; and therefore such a matter has only a borrowed being, and is a real potency, not a real entity. Such is, we believe, the true interpretation of S. Augustine’s phrase: “nothing-something” and “being non-being”—Nihil aliquid, et est non est.

Nor is it strange that the matter should be a reality without being an entity, properly so called; for the like happens with all the real terms of contingent things. Thus the real term of a line (the point) is no linear entity, though it certainly belongs to the line, and is something real in the line; the real term of time (the present instant, or the now) is no temporal entity, as it has no extension, though it certainly belongs to time, and is something real in time; the real term of a body (the simple element) is no bodily entity, as it has no bulk, though it certainly belongs to the body, and is something real in it; the real term of a circle (the centre) is no circular entity, though it certainly belongs to the circle, and is something real in it. And in like manner the real term of a primitive contingent substance (its potency) is no substantial entity, though it evidently belongs to the contingent substance, and is something real in it. In God alone, whose being excludes contingency, the substantial term (the Word) stands forth as a true entity—a most perfect and infinite entity—for, as the term of the divine generation is not educed out of nothing, it is absolutely free from all potentiality, and is in eternal possession of infinite actuality. Hence it is that God alone, as we have above remarked, can be said to be in the fullest meaning of the term.

As the best authors agree that the matter which is under a substantial form is no being, but only “a real potency,” we will dispense with further considerations on this special point. What we have said suffices to give our readers an idea of the materia prima of the ancients, and of the different manners in which it has been understood.

Substantial form.—Coming now to the notion of the substantial form the first thing which deserves special notice is the fact that the phrase “substantial form” can be interpreted in two manners, owing to the double meaning attached to the epithet “substantial.” All the forms which supervene to a specific nature already constituted have been called “accidental,” and all the forms which enter into the constitution of a specific nature have been called “substantial.” But as the accident can be contrasted with the essence no less than with the substance of a thing, so the substantial form can be defined either as that which gives the first being to a certain essence, or as that which gives the first being to a substance as such. The schoolmen, in fact, left us two definitions of their substantial forms, of which the first is: “The substantial form is that which gives the first being to the matter”; the second is: “The substantial form is that which gives the first being to a thing.” The first definition belongs to the form strictly substantial, for the result of the first actuation of matter is a primitive substance; whereas the second has a much wider range, because all things which involve material composition, in their specific nature, receive the first specific being by a form which needs not give the first existence to their material components, and which, therefore, is not strictly a substantial form. Thus a molecule of oxygen, because it contains a definite number of primitive elements, cannot be formally constituted in its specific nature, except by a specific composition; and such a composition is an essential, though not a truly substantial, form of the compound, as we shall more fully explain in another article.

The strictly substantial form contains in itself the whole reason of the being of the substance; for the matter which completes it does not contribute to the constitution of the substance, except as a mere term—that is, by simply receiving existence, and therefore without adding any new entity to the entity of the form. Whence it follows that the form itself contains the whole reason of the resulting essence. “Although the essence of a being,” says S. Thomas, “is neither the form alone nor the matter alone, yet the form alone is, in its own manner, the cause of such an essence.”[31] It cannot, however, be inferred from this that the strictly substantial form is a physical being. Physical beings have a complete essence and an existence of their own; which is not the case with any material form. “Even the forms themselves,” according to S. Thomas, “have no being; it is only the compounds (of matter and form) that have being through them.”[32] And again: “The substantial form itself has no complete essence; for in the definition of the substantial form it is necessary to include that of which it is the form.”[33] It is plain that a being which has no complete essence and no possibility of a separate existence cannot be styled a physical being, but only a metaphysical constituent of the physical being.