| It is a composition of first matter and substantial form. | It is a material substance endowed with determinate forces. |
II. WHAT IS A CHEMICAL BODY—FOR INSTANCE, WATER?
| It is a composition of first matter and the aqueous substantial form. | It is oxygen and hydrogen combined in the proportions of 88 to 11. The forces of the two components remain identical in the composition, although in the state of combination they do not manifest all their special characteristics. |
III. HOW ARE THE SIMPLE BODIES EXTRACTED FROM A CHEMICAL COMPOUND?
| At the moment of decomposition the substantial form of the compound is destroyed and replaced by the substantial form of the components, which are produced from their own proper non-existence (ex nihilo sui); and the simple bodies recover their former proportions. | The force of the chemical re-agent destroys the combination and union of the simple bodies, dies, which return to their primitive state, and manifest anew their proper forces in all their integrity. |
IV. WHAT IS AN ANIMAL BODY—THE BODY OF A MAN, FOR EXAMPLE—OR A PART OF SUCH A BODY, AS A BONE, ETC.?
| This body is a composition of first matter and a substantial form. In man this substantial form is the rational soul, which gives to the matter its corporeity, or corporeal being. In such a way that a body, taken in the reduplicative sense—that is, inasmuch as it is considered simply as body—is a composition of first matter and the soul, which latter gives to the body its specific material being. | The human body, like all bodies, is a composition of molecules and of parts endowed with chemical forces which are united together by the mutual action of these forces; but, during life, these forces are subjected and subordinated to the vital force of the soul, which penetrates them, dominates them, and unifies them in their vital functions, and which gives to the entire body the form of a human body, life, and sensibility. Note.—Form does not mean figure but the determining principle of the specific nature which this organized body possesses as a human body. |
V.—WHAT PRODUCES DEATH IN THE ANIMAL BODY AND THE HUMAN BODY?
| At the moment when the soul departs from the body there is produced in it a new substantial form, the cadaverous form, which by its union with the first matter constitutes the corpse. But when the dissolution of the corpse proceeds gradually by the effect of corruption, the cadaverous form is succeeded by new substantial forms, produced from previous non-existence (ex nihilo sui), as numerous and different as are the substances resulting from corruption, the mephitic particles dispersed in the air being included. | Death consists simply in the separation of the soul and body, and does not exact the production of any substantial form. The chemical forces, which are no longer dominated by the soul, act freely, and the dissolution of the corpse is nothing but the natural result of their action. |
The theory here presented under the name of the peripatetic, and claiming to be the genuine doctrine of Aristotle and St. Thomas, is frequently called the theory of substantial generations. Under that name it has been examined and opposed in the series of metaphysical articles in this magazine already referred to. It is necessary to explain, before proceeding further, that the term matter in scholastic philosophy denotes, not the complete material being or body, whether simple or compound, such as oxygen, water, iron, etc., but merely one element or component of the material substance—viz., the common, indeterminate element, which is the same in all, having a potency or receptivity for every possible determination, but no fixed and necessary union with any. It is the principle of extension, but not extended; the source of inertia and all that is passive, yet not a solid atom; the subject of qualities and active forces, but itself possessing no quiddity or quality, and not having existence, or the possibility of existence, except as joined with its compart, the active and determining element, joined with it in order to make any single material substance. This active element is called the substantial form, which is equally incapable of subsisting alone, and therefore has no separate being, yet is capable of giving its first being to matter, and thus constituting with it material substance. According to the peripatetic theory, as stated above, in chemical combinations which produce a new, compound substance, such as water, nothing remains of the components except the material substratum or first matter. The determining form which gave this matter its specific being as oxygen and hydrogen are destroyed, and a new form, the aqueous, springs forth to give the matter a new first being and constitute the substance water. There is, consequently, in this and every similar case, the generation of a new substance, in which the matter is pre-existent, but the substantial form is educed from the passive potency of the matter, [ex nihilo sui], or from utter previous non-existence.