HISTORICAL SKETCH

Historical Development of this Theory from Aristotle to the Present Day.—The founder of this system was Aristotle (B.C. 384—322), who in the year 334 founded the Peripatetic School at Athens. His disciples remained for the most part faithful to his thought until the first century before Christ. But from that time till the sixth century, the epoch of the dissolution of the Greek Philosophy, Peripateticism underwent great modifications under the influence of Pythagorean and Platonic infiltrations.

During the first period of the Middle Ages, which extend from the ninth to the twelfth century, Western Philosophy did not remain indifferent to the hylomorphic system of the Stagirite. Yet this doctrine had but a second place and was always misunderstood. During this period the two most celebrated commentators were Avicenna (980—1036) and Averroes (1126—1198).

The thirteenth century was the golden age of Scholasticism. Through the medium of the Arabians and of the Greeks of Byzantium, the West became acquainted with the original works of Aristotle. Physics and metaphysics, in which the cosmological theory is contained, being popularized by means of numerous Latin translations became the subject of keen controversies. A galaxy of distinguished philosophers gave their attention to this newly found mine: Alexander of Hales, Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, Henry of Ghent and St. Thomas Aquinas.

The period of decadence began with the second half of the fourteenth century and the first half of the fifteenth. The most distinguished Thomist of the fifteenth century was Capreolus, called by his contemporaries ‘Princeps Thomistarum.

From the fifteenth to the seventeenth century, the traditional philosophy had to battle against the tide of new ideas, the Renaissance and the Reformation, to which it offered but a feeble resistance. The indifference of the Thomists with regard to the rapid progress made by the natural sciences and the contempt of the men of science for speculative study continued to discredit the old Scholasticism. However, this period was not without individual theologians and philosophers of note, such as Cajetan, Sylvester of Ferrara, Soto, Baiiez, John of St. Thomas, Fonseca, Vasquez and Suarez.

At the beginning of the seventeenth century, the works of Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler gave a great impetus to astronomy and physics. But these important discoveries which marked the awakening of scientific thought dealt a great blow to the Aristotelian physics. It then happened that, owing to the disfavour which resulted from confusing the philosophic system of Aristotle and the scientific conclusions to which this system is in no way necessarily bound, both scientists and philosophers abandoned altogether the Peripatetic-Scholastic philosophy. Only during the second half of the last century was a restoration inaugurated by Liberatore and Sanseverino in Italy, and Kleutgen in Germany. These attempts, generous but too isolated, exercised only a limited influence until Pope Leo XIII, witnessing the babel of confusion in philosophic thought and dismayed at the progress of so many false systems, urged the Christian world in his encyclical .AEterni Patris to return to the Scholastic teaching so admirably systematized by St. Thomas Aquinas.

EXPOSITION OF THE SCHOLASTIC THEORY

Leading Ideas of this Theory.—This system can be reduced to three fundamental propositions:

1. Simple bodies and chemical compounds are beings endowed with substantial unity, specifically distinct from one another, and naturally extended

2. These beings possess active and passive powers which belong to them in virtue of their substantial essence and are indissolubly bound up with it.

3. They have an inherent tendency to realize by the exercise of their native energies certain special ends.

From these principles there follows an important corollary: the possibility, or rather the necessity of substantial transformation and, in consequence, the existence in every natural body of two constitutive principles, matter and form.

Analysis of Substantial Transformation.—If the chemical compound is substantially one, if it constitutes, as such, a new species, the elements which form it must have been dispossessed of their own specific essential notes in order that they may receive in exchange a specific common determination, namely that of the compound.

On the other hand, it is clear that in this change an essential indeterminate part of each elemental being must persist unchanged in the final resultant of the transformation. For if not, the transformed substances would be annihilated and replaced by a new substance, drawn in its entirety from nothing. The name substantial lorm is given to that specific determination from which the nature and the actuality of the body result; it is the principle which comes into being and disappears at each intimate transformation of matter. The indeterminate part of the being which serves as a substratum for the reception of the essential forms is called primary matter.

ART. I.

PRIMARY MATTER

Primary matter, in this philosophical conception, is a real part of a material being, but it is not a being in itself, it carries no stamp such as differentiates all corporeal beings from one another. And lacking all substantial determination, it of course still more lacks the chemical and physical properties with which the different kinds of inorganic bodies are endowed. It is itself neither gold, nor silver, nor copper, although it can be brought to the perfection of these metals by the reception of the determining principles peculiar to each of them. Primary matter is a substantial principle which in conjunction with the form it assumes constitutes a physical body: it would then be quite wrong to relegate it to the category of mere logical entities. Nevertheless, because of its complete indetermination, we conceive it as not capable of being realized except in union with a form, that is, except in some corporeal being.

Passivity of Primary Matter.—By its essence it is destined to receive a determining principle or form; by its essence also it is a passive potentiality Accordingly its universal passivity extends to all essential perfections as well as to all accidental properties.

41. Dependence of Matter on Form.—Primary matter would return to nothing were it deprived of all essential form, for what is entirely indeterminate can have no proper existence. It depends therefore on essential form intrinsically and absolutely. In other words, what exists is not exactly the material substrate in an isolated state, but matter determined and made specific, the body.
42. Evolution of Primary Matter.—Conceived in the abstract, first matter may be regarded as a subject capable of receiving any and every essential form of nature. But as it is in reality, as individualized in this or that body of the universe, its natural receptivity is limited, inasmuch as the manner and extent of its evolution in point of fact depends upon the material beings which contain it and upon the laws governing chemical combinations. The matter of a simple body, for example, can never become the matter of another simple body, since the elements are not transformable into one another. With this one reservation, then, we may say that primary matter admits of a passive evolution to an unlimited extent. It may abandon its elementary forms to receive in their stead, under the violent influence of chemical reactions, the form of a compound body. Then from relatively simple compounds, it may pass to others more and more complex until finally, after many transformations, it takes its place in the living substance, either of a vegetable, or of an animal, or even of man where it concurs, in its own sphere, in the highest functions of sensitive and intellectual life.
43. Unity of Primary Matter.—Primary matter is, from the logical point of view, one. By a mental abstraction, we strip it of the various essential forms which determine it and of the special powers it possesses in virtue of these forms, and it then stands before the mind as something truly one. Ontologically, however, or in point of fact, there are just as many examples of it as there are distinct bodies; for each material being has its own allotted quantity of matter.*
44. NB. Our Knowledge of Primary Matter.—Neither our senses nor our imagination is able to afford us an adequate representation of this indeterminate element; for whatever falls under the perception of our senses is concrete and individualized — namely, the phenomena of material substances, or, to speak more precisely, the compound of substance and accident which we knew as a ‘body’. Only by our reason can we indirectly form an idea of primary matter; an idea, partly positive and partly negative, which represents it as the potential subject of the specific types of being which are realized in the material world
45. [*We venture as meticulous critics to suggest that the results of scientific research, notably with regard to radio-activity, which has detected detached corpuscles from elements and given currency to the electric theory of matter, may allow one even to modify this one reservation. We do not wish to imply, however, what indeed some who seem to profess Scholasticism suggest, that these minute corpuscles, howsoever named, or the homogeneous ether by which they are ensphered, are primary matter: for were they such, then a reality would be a substance, a determinate kind of being, and yet by the definition of primary matter wholly indeterminate (Cp. Scholasticism and Modern Thought by Dr. Coffey, Irish Theological Quarterly, 1909). We merely say that to-day it would not seem contrary to fact to assert that the matter, or at least part of the matter, of some elements may become that of others. If some elements can be wholly transmuted, there is less difficulty in modifying the reservation.]

ART. II.

SUBSTANTIAL FORM

Meaning and Function of Substantial Form.—Beneath the manifold accidental determinations by means of which we distinguish one body from another lies something much more radical which is the cause of one body being of an essentially different kind from another body. This deeper determination which is at the very bottom of a being and makes it to be of the kind it is, is all that is meant by substantial form.

Substantial form, or as it is also called essential form, is, logically conceived, anterior to all accidental realities, for these are nothing but its visible manifestation. Yet although it is thus anterior to and the primordial source of all the perfections a body possesses, it is itself dependent upon primary matter inasmuch as it can neither come into existence nor continue in it apart from this, its connatural subject.

1. Part of the function of substantial form is to determine primary matter, to confer on material essence that intrinsic complement which it needs before it can exist: for only a complete essence of a determinate species is capable of existence. On this account, therefore, the form is said to be the principle of being.

2. Substantial form is also called the principle of action.— According to St. Thomas, activity is the operation of the physical compound, of the ‘body’ made up of matter and form; the body alone can act, since action is an unfolding or display of being and only the compound-body enjoys proper existence. But whilst this is true, we must remember that substantial form is the first cause of all the determinations a compound possesses; and therefore, on the ground that every being acts according to the measure of its perfections and as it is actual, substantial form must be the foundation of a body’s activities.

3. Finally, it has the further name of principle of finality. When the form gives to the body its specific nature, it impresses upon it an inclination towards the ends ordained for it, and this inherent tendency controls all the properties that result from the essence of the body.

Nevertheless, as we shall see later, the form can lend itself to real division in the purely quantitative order. In this case, it diminishes in extent without losing anything of its qualitative perfection.

Classification of Forms.—The name material or purely corporeal forms is given to those specific principles which are intrinsically dependent on matter: such are the forms of chemical bodies, vegetables and animals.

The name immaterial or subsistent forms is given to those which, while naturally destined to inform matter, are nevertheless capable of existing and acting without it; among such is the human soul.

According to Aristotelian physics there are also permanent and transitory forms. The former determine individual substances that are endowed with stable and permanent existence. The latter mark the different stages through which a substance passes before acquiring its final perfect state. According to St. Thomas, the human foetus is successively informed by three essential forms — a vegetative soul, a sensitive soul, and finally a rational soul. The first two have a function essentially transitory, that of predisposing the matter for the reception of the rational soul.

Can there be several Essential Forms In the Same Being? — A single essential form determines a being in its

specific nature and subsistence.

1. There can be nothing intermediary between substantial forms and accidental forms. If it is of the function of substantial form to constitute in conjunction with matter a complete substance, any additional form is necessarily foreign to the essence and consequently is accidental to it.

2. Substantial form communicates to a body its essential unity. If, then, several forms could simultaneously belong to the same material subject, this latter would belong to several distinct bodies—which entails a manifest contradiction.

3. A form can come into existence only in matter which is predisposed to receive it. In order to receive simultaneously several forms, the same material substrate would have to present several different and opposite dispositions, and this for obvious reasons cannot be allowed.

3. Finally, since a specific determining principle is the cause not only of a body’s essential perfection but also of all the determinations proper to its inferior principles, the hypothesis of a plurality of forms, even subordinated to one another, is useless.

Divisibility of Essential Forms.—According to St. Thomas and the majority of the Scholastics later than the thirteenth century, all corporeal forms are divisible except the principle of life in the higher animals. In the light, however, of the present data furnished by science, this opinion requires certain modifications.

The Inorganic World .—It is now admitted that the atom of simple bodies and the molecule of compound bodies constitute true individualities, beings endowed with their own existence. Now although the form of these bodies is theoretically divisible, as a matter of fact the parts which would result from a division, would not be — contrary to the opinion of St. Thomas — of the same species as the integral being from which they took their existence : for every separation of the chemical constituents of a mineral substance brings with it a change of species. So great is the imperfection of essential forms in the inorganic world that they are not only immersed, to use St. Thomas’ word, in matter, but are dependent for their generation and existence upon a determined quantity of matter. The atomic weights, of 16 of oxygen, 32 of sulphur, 35.5 of chlorine, are so many definite masses of matter necessary for the very existence of these bodies. Here the subjection of the form to its substrate is as profound as possible; the physical impossibility of breaking it up without destroying it provides us with an evident proof. The case becomes otherwise, however, according as one ascends in the scale of beings, when the subordination of forms to the quantity of matter progressively diminishes.

The Vegetable Kingdom.—It is easy to multiply a plant, either by cuttings, graftings, layers, or inoculations. The individuals thus obtained faithfully preserve the characteristics of the parent-stock; they continue its course of life, undergoing the same development without any appreciable change marking the passage from the common life to the individual life. The specific principle uniformly spread throughout the parent-stock can, then, be divided into parts each of which preserves, yet with complete independence, the being which it recently had in common with the other parts produced along with it. Hence it is said that the form of a plant is actually one and potentially manifold. Here the cosmological theory of the Middle Ages is seen to be in perfect harmony with the data of botanical science.

The Animal Kingdom.—The division of the lower animals such as hydras and earth-worms, leads to the same conclusion. Here again the new beings constituted by detached portions are clearly of exactly the same nature as the trunks from which they are detached. Moreover, there seems no reason why such divisibility must be said to be confined only to the lower grades of the animal kingdom. For if we inquire what is the basic reason of the divisibility of corporeal forms, we find it is simply their intrinsic dependence upon matter: the formative principles, since they are necessarily united to this substrate, necessarily partake of the natural imperfections of the body, they constitute with the matter the immediate subject of extension, and with it make up one quantified whole of which divisibility is an essential property. It may often be the case with the higher animals that, owing to the division of labour and to the multiplicity of the organs required for the normal functioning of sensitive life, detached portions are unfitted to survive and die before they can reproduce the complete type of the species. But there seems no sufficient reason for refusing to their vital principle a really quantitative character.

Gradation of Substantial Forms.—From the simplest body up to man, between the world of matter and that of spirit, there stretches a continuous series of essential perfections. According to the Thomistic theory, a single form fixes each of these beings in its nature and subsistence, since every higher form contains virtually, despite its unity, all the perfections of the other forms which it supplants In the chemical compound, the substantial form is the natural substitute of the elemental forms which have disappeared. In the vegetable it is the source of the chemical, physical and mechanical activities of the mineral substances which are incorporated in it; it makes them all converge to one end, which is the nutrition and development of the being. In the animal it is the one and ultimate principle of the energies of the brute matter and of vegetative and sensitive life. And in man it is his rational soul, the single principle, as will be seen in Psychology, which makes him at once a living, sentient and intellectual being.

ART. III.

THE SUBSTANTIAL COMPOUND

The Union of Matter and Form.—Since they are intrinsically dependent on each other, the two essential principles of being exist only in virtue of their union. The primary exigence of matter is to receive a profound, specific impress, an essential form, in order that it may become some specific kind of body. The form, on its part, is essentially nothing but the determination of its potential subject, matter, which from being merely potential it makes definite and actual. Together they make up one complete essence, one basic principle of action, a single material being.

But in spite of this mutual and essential interdependence the matter and the form that are united in the compound are nevertheless two distinct realities. For it is impossible to conceive that two realities having characteristics diametrically opposed should be converted into a third reality without either of them undergoing some change in its nature. Now neither matter nor form changes by having to constitute the compound essence: did it do so it would cease to verify the idea of material or of formal cause and would be an efficient cause rather than a constituent one.

Lastly, inasmuch as neither matter nor form is the reason whereby the essence they constitute is existent, this further determination, this ultimate actuality, existence, must needs be something additional to, and distinct from the subject that receives it 52, Hence the concrete essence, compounded of matter and substantial form, is potential with respect to its further completion, namely, to existence; this is its last determination or actuality which clinches the compound and makes it a being in the strictest senses.

ART IV.

PROPERTIES

Natural Connexion between Properties and Substance.— There are two kinds of accidents: contingent accidents and necessary accidents or properties.

When we glance at the material world, some accidents immediately strike us as not attaching necessarily and invariably to the bodies in which we see them; they may come and go without the bodies changing essentially—such as local movement, mechanical impulse, colour, etc. These are called contingent accidents.

On the other hand, other accidents are properties—quantity, extension, and active and passive powers, notably calorific, electric and magnetic forces, and chemical affinity—which not only are never entirely absent but may even not undergo more than certain modifications, fixed by the nature of each body, without involving a change of species. It is these necessary accidents of a body which together characterize it and, as experience shows, serve as the basis of scientific classification. Now how is it that each different kind of inorganic being invariably possesses a definite group of properties?

The substance, he says, is the final cause of the properties: the latter are natural instruments or means which the substance has at its disposal for attaining its ends. They exist only for the sake of the substance.

The substance is the material cause, in the sense that it sustains the properties and receives them within itself from the moment they are generated.

But the substance cannot be said to be the efficient cause of its properties, since in no created being is action a substantial reality: created beings act in virtue of their secondary powers or faculties which are the vent for their activity and make it of different kinds. The words ‘quodammodo activa’ must then be interpreted in another sense than that of true efficient causality. It is this :— When an extrinsic agent invests matter with an essential form and thereby realizes a new essence, in doing so and by the same action it clothes it with all its necessary accidents.

Here the efficient causality of the extrinsic agent has a double effect: namely a principal effect, the new form, and a secondary effect, the natural properties. Now these two effects are indissolubly connected with each other, for the reason that the new substance has an influence upon the activity of the extrinsic agent in so far as it determines the sphere of its action and its power of reaching to the accidental realities that are the necessary resultants of its substantial existence. On this account it does influence their genesis; and the causality which it most closely approaches, though never truly realizes, is efficient causality.

In addition to this immediate physical reason of the connexion between substance and its properties, a remote reason may be drawn from the finality of material beings.

Every being of the inorganic as well as of the organic kingdom has to co-operate by the exercise of its natural energies for the general good (Gen. Metaphysics, i 82). Moreover as it is incompatible with the Wisdom of the Creator to make beings without a purpose to fulfil, so it is incompatible that He should leave them for a moment without the means necessary for its attainment. Now properties are these necessary means, they are the immediate principles of action but for which a substance would be without vent for activity. We see then that it would be absurd for a substance to have its powers of action determined simply by the caprice of chance, or, in other words, why the connexion must be more than merely contingent. Thus are we brought back to the necessity of the fact of which the Thomistic theory, as we have just seen, affords the proximate explanation.