In De ente et essentia D. Thomae Aquinatis commentaria

Whether matter can exist without form.

Concerning this part there arises a question, and this is the ninth: whether matter can exist without form. In this question three things must be done: first, Scotus’s opinion will be set forth; second, the opinion of St. Thomas; third, the arguments on the contrary will be answered.

As to the first, Scotus, in II Sent. dist. XII, q. II, holds that matter can exist without form, and argues in several ways to prove this.

First, thus: An accident does not depend on substance less than matter depends on form; but an accident can exist without substance, as is clear in the Sacrament of the altar. Therefore matter can exist without form.

Furthermore, What is absolutely distinct, and prior to another absolute, can without contradiction exist without it; matter with respect to form is of this kind; therefore it can exist without form. The minor is evident; the major is proved because what is prior, precisely as prior, does not depend on what is posterior. This is taken from Metaphysics V, text XVI: those things are prior which can exist without others, while the others cannot exist without them.

Furthermore, Whatever absolute reality God makes in creatures through a second cause that is not of the essence of the thing caused, He can make without it; but God makes matter through form, which is not of its essence; therefore He can make it without form.

Furthermore, Whatever God creates immediately, He immediately preserves, or can preserve; but God creates matter immediately; therefore He can preserve it immediately, and therefore without any form.

Furthermore, Since God wills nothing outside Himself necessarily, from His willing matter to exist it does not follow that He necessarily wills form to exist, unless because of a necessary connection between the two. But there is no such necessary connection between matter and form; therefore, and so on. That there is no such necessary connection between matter and form is proved because it would then follow that matter necessarily determined some determinate form for itself. The consequence is proved thus: what determines a genus of forms for itself determines some species in that genus, and what determines a species for itself determines existence in some individual of that species; for whatever is necessarily a man is necessarily this or that man. But the consequence is false: matter determines no form for itself. Therefore it remains that matter does not determine the genus of form for itself in order to exist. It is confirmed: whatever is contingently related to each member of an absolute genus is contingently related to that absolute genus; but matter is contingently related to each form; therefore matter is contingently related to the genus of form. It is further proved that if matter necessarily determined the genus of form for itself, it would also necessarily determine one sole individual of that genus. For one essential and singular thing cannot essentially depend on several things of the same genus; but matter is one essential and singular thing; therefore it is impossible for it to depend on several forms of the same genus. Thus, if it necessarily determines the genus of form for itself, it also necessarily determines some one form, which is false. So much for the first.

As to the second, St. Thomas, in I Sent. q. LXVI, art. 1, in De potentia, q. IV, art. 1, and in Quodlibet III, q. III, art. 1, confirms what he says here, namely that matter cannot exist without form, by two arguments.

The first leads to an impossibility, as follows: If matter existed without any form, matter would both be and not be at the same time. This involves a contradiction; therefore it is impossible. The consequence is proved as regards the second part, since the first is conceded by the adversaries. It is impossible for a formal effect to be separated from its form; but to exist is the formal effect of form, for form is defined as that which gives being to a thing. Therefore it is impossible to posit existence without form. For just as it is impossible to be white without whiteness, so it is impossible to be in act without act; but the first act, whose function is to give being, is the same as form. From the proposition, therefore, “Matter exists without any form,” two contradictories follow as true at once: from matter’s existing it follows that it is in act, while from its being without any form it follows that it is not in act. Scotus gives a certain response to this argument; but since it is merely chimerical and unworthy of discussion, let it be omitted. For, as Aristotle says, whom we learned from in Book IX of the Metaphysics what act is and how many kinds there are, it is foolish to trouble oneself over anyone uttering contradictions.

St. Thomas’s second argument for the same conclusion is this: Every individual determined to a complete or incomplete genus, existing per se in the nature of things, is in some definite species, either per se or reductively. Matter alone is in no definite species, neither per se nor reductively. Therefore matter alone cannot be just any individual in the nature of things. The minor is clear in itself; it would not be easy to imagine in what determinate species matter alone would be. The major is proved because every individual, complete or incomplete, if it exists per se in the nature of things as separate (I say this because of an individual of a genus, such as this substance, this animal, and so on), is not contained under a genus per se or reductively immediately, but through a species. For species mediate between genera and individuals, and, correspondingly, the principles of species mediate between the principles of genus and the principles of the individual. Moreover, this major can be proved ad hominem by taking Scotus’s statements in the fifth argument; there he expressly assumes that whatever determines some genus for itself determines some definite species of that genus. You can also argue ad hominem from Scotus’s statements there and prove the opposite of his intention as follows: Whatever determines some genus determines some definite species of that genus; matter alone determines the genus of substance; therefore it determines some definite species of substance, at least reductively; therefore matter alone would be in some definite species. This is false; the minor is accepted by everyone, and the reasoning is sound; therefore, and so on.

Aristotle approves this truth (as Scotus himself admits) in the cited place. But because Scotus says that Aristotle held this conclusion from a false foundation—namely, that God cannot act without second causes—I show that Scotus errs in this, on the basis of the Commentator’s statements. For Averroes, in II Physics, commentary XII, holds this conclusion from precisely the same foundation that St. Thomas brought forward in the first argument. There is no mention there of any connection of causality with the first cause, but only of act and potency; thus, from the nature of act and the nature of first matter, which is pure potency, Averroes concludes that two contradictories would be true at once, as was deduced. Avicenna too, in II of his Metaphysics, chapter III, holds Scotus’s conclusion to be impossible, and yet expressly posited that matter is created. Hence this opinion, as destructive of metaphysical principles, must be avoided. So much for the second.

As to the third, I answer. To the first, the antecedent is denied; pure potency depends more on act than imperfect act depends on perfect act. But against this Antonius Trombeta objects as follows: What is posterior depends more on what is prior than what is prior depends on what is posterior; but accident is posterior to substance, while matter is prior to form; therefore accident depends more on its subject than matter depends on form. Perhaps, he says, one might reply that matter is not prior but posterior to form. Against this: although matter is posterior to form in the order of perfection, it is prior in the order of generation, and consequently prior simply. The argument is: Whenever there are two orders, one of which is simply prior to the other, whatever is in the prior order is simply prior to anything existing in the posterior order; but the order of origin and the order of perfection are such that the order of origin is simply prior to the order of perfection (and this in limited nature); therefore whatever is prior in origin is simply prior to anything prior in the order of perfection. But matter is prior in origin to form, although form is prior in perfection; therefore matter is simply prior to form. The reasoning is sound, and the major is proved: namely, that the order of origin is simply prior to the order of perfection. For things prior in generation are posterior in perfection; nature always proceeds from the imperfect to the perfect. Therefore whatever is more imperfect is simply prior to anything more perfect; but first matter is more imperfect than form; therefore first matter is simply prior to form. Then further: It is simply prior to form, and everything prior in its own order can exist without what is posterior.

This is answered in three ways, to indicate the multiple defect of the argument.

First, it is said that, although form is posterior to matter in the order of generation, it is nevertheless prior even in the order of generation to existing matter. For it makes a great difference whether one says matter or existing matter: a surface is prior to whiteness, yet whiteness is prior to a surface having white existence. Thus, in the present case, since the discussion concerns existing matter (for if matter alone were posited in the nature of things, it would have to exist), it is clear that the assumption is false.

Second, it is said that another falsehood is assumed there, namely that the order of generation is simply prior to the order of perfection, while remaining within the limits of finite nature. Since act is simply prior to potency, whether God is posited finite or infinite, as is clear from Metaphysics IX, text XV, and XII, texts XXX, and since the priority of act is the priority of perfection, it follows that according to Aristotle and the truth the order of perfection is simply prior to the order of generation. Further, what is prior by nature, reason, and time is simply prior; the order of perfection is prior by nature, reason, and time to the order of imperfection, which is the order of generation and belongs on the side of the material cause. Therefore the order of perfection is simply prior. The middle proposition is also Aristotle’s, in Physics VIII, text LXXV, where he expressly speaks of finite nature to prove that circular motion is first. Hence, as to the proof: granting that things prior in generation are more imperfect and that nature proceeds from the imperfect to the perfect, the consequence is denied: therefore the order of generation is simply prior. Although a natural agent first reaches the imperfect, the agent must nevertheless first be perfect in itself, as is said in Metaphysics XII, text XL. Here observe that a liar must have a good memory: in the question concerning the first known, Antonius Trombeta now assumes the propositions he attacked there, and so on.

Third, it is said that, even granting the entire process, the final consequence is worthless. For it is false that everything prior can, in reality, be separated from every posterior, as will be said in answer to the second.

But against the first response, which holds that matter does not have its own existence but begs it from form, one objects thus: Whatever is competent to cause in act at some point is also competent to exist at that same point; but first matter is competent to cause at the first point at which it receives form; therefore at that point it is competent to exist. But at that point it does not have the existence of form; therefore it has its own existence.

It is confirmed because matter either causes the composite and receives form when it exists, or when it does not exist. Not when it does not exist; therefore when it exists. Therefore at that point its own existence belongs to it, because the existence of form follows upon the whole composite. It is confirmed a second time because a cause does not beg from its effect; but matter causes the existence of the composite and of form; therefore it does not beg existence from them, and so on.

To this it is said that it is enough for a cause to have existence at every instant of time during which it actually causes. Nor does it appear necessary that existence belong to it at every point of nature at which causality belongs to it. For the order of nature is such that, in the same instant of time, matter receives form, from which the composite results; actual existence then comes to the composite, so that the composite exists first, form second, and matter third. As to the first point, the major is denied. To the first confirmation it is said that matter causes when it exists, because it exists at every instant during which it causes; for that is when it is a temporal terminus. To the second confirmation it is said that, although a cause as cause does not beg from its effect, a material cause does beg from its effect, which is its cause in another genus of cause, since causes are causes of one another, Metaphysics V, text II. The Scotists must admit these responses, however, because since Scotus holds, in II Sent. dist. II, q. 3, that existence is the last act posterior to the whole categorial coordination, although not really distinct from the thing whose it is, the essence of matter must, by the nature of the thing, have a relation to its existence as potency to act. One can then argue as follows: The essence of matter, as distinct from its existence, by the nature of the thing causes its existence in the genus of material cause by receiving it; therefore existence belongs to it at that point. Thus it has existence before it receives it, while remaining at that same point. Or the essence of matter receives its existence by the nature of the thing when it exists or when it does not exist, and so on.

To the second principal argument, the major is denied. To its proof it is said that not dependence alone, but a necessary connection of some things, can be the cause of their inseparability. To what is brought forward from Metaphysics V it is said that a universal affirmative does not simply convert. This is true: whatever can exist without others, while others cannot exist without them, is prior. But it does not convert: whatever is prior can exist without others, while others cannot exist without it.

And note that Scotus’s maxim, “every absolute prior thing,” and so on, cannot be preserved even by following Scotus’s path, as is shown presently by two examples. First, essential parts taken together are prior to the whole, and yet according to Scotus they cannot exist without the whole.

Second, the category of quantity is an absolute category prior to the category of quality, especially as regards its fourth species; yet continuous quantity cannot be made without figure. If quantity without figure is said to be possible, it is either finite or infinite. Not infinite, because that would not be assignable; and even if one imagined that it could be given, since it would have to be linear, it would be either a straight or a curved line, and thus would be a figure. If finite, then it is figured; for figure is that which is enclosed by one or more termini. Likewise, it either has straight, curved, or circular lines, and so on.

As to the third, whatever may be said of the major, the minor is denied: although form is not of the essence of matter, it is of the essence of existing matter.

To the fourth it is said that, since the medium is twofold, effective and formal, whatever God causes immediately effectively He can preserve without an effective intermediate cause; but not without a formal intermediate cause, and form is such a medium with respect to matter.

To the fifth it is denied that there is no necessary connection between matter and form. As to its proof, the consequence is denied, and the major of the proof is false. What is added—namely, that whatever is necessarily a man is necessarily this or that man—yields nothing more than this: because matter necessarily determines the genus of form for itself, matter cannot exist without this or that form. That is our intention. The consequence, “A is necessarily a man; therefore A is necessarily this determinate man or that one,” does not hold, but only vaguely. Thus it is conceded that matter necessarily determines form; therefore it necessarily determines this or that form, not determinately but vaguely.

To the confirmation, when it is said, “Whatever is contingently related to each member of an absolute genus is contingently related to the genus itself,” the same answer is given by distinguishing between being contingently related to each member determinately and vaguely. In the first way the major is false. In the second way the minor is false: matter is not contingently but necessarily related to each form indeterminately and vaguely.

To the other proof it is said that one thing, essentially one and singular negatively, as first matter is, can essentially depend for its being on several things of the same genus indeterminately and vaguely, insofar as those several things have one common account: in the present case, all forms agree in giving actual being. Reflect this argument against Scotus concerning quantity and figure, and perhaps you will persuade him of its weakness: continuous quantity determines the genus of figure for itself, yet claims no particular figure. So much for the fourth.

Thus the essence of a composite substance differs from that of a simple substance in this: the essence of a composite substance embraces not form alone or matter alone, but form and matter; whereas the essence of a simple substance is form alone. From this arise two other differences. One is that the essence of a composite substance can be signified as a whole or as a part; this occurs because of the designation of matter, as was said. Hence the essence of a composite thing is not predicated of the composite thing in every way. For it cannot be said that man is his own quiddity. But the essence of a simple thing, which is its form, can be signified only as a whole, since there is nothing there besides form that receives form, as it were. Therefore, however the essence of a simple substance is taken, it is predicated of it. Hence Avicenna says that the quiddity of a simple substance is the simple thing itself, because there is no recipient of it.

In this second part of the chapter he compares the essences of simple substances with the essences of composite substances, assigning three differences between them. The first difference is that the essence of a simple substance signifies form alone, whereas the essence of a composite substance signifies a composite made from matter and form; each part of the difference is clear from what was said above. The second difference is that the essence of a composite substance can be signified as a whole and as a part, but not the essence of a simple substance. Hence it follows that, because a predicate ought not have the character of a part, the essence of a composite substance is sometimes predicated of it and sometimes not—namely, when it is signified as a part. But the essence of a simple substance, since it cannot be denoted as a part, is always predicated of that whose essence it is.

For the evidentness of this difference, it must be noted that at first sight it appears false because it is clear that, once names have been imposed on separate substances, their essences can be signified in the abstract and in the concrete, and consequently as whole and part. For I can say “Gabriel” and “Gabrielity,” “God” and “Deity,” and so on. But although it appears so, to one who examines carefully the opposite becomes clear.

For consider that we are speaking of the essences of things and of the conditions that follow upon them, not of those that arise from the mere work of the intellect. The essences of composite substances, because they really have two parts, or because they are forms in matter, possess in themselves the basis for the intellect to establish in them signification in the manner of a part and in the manner of a whole. When it signifies that form in something possessing or bearing it, it signifies it as a whole and a concrete, as “man”; but when it signifies it not as in something possessing or bearing it, but in itself, it signifies it abstractly and in the manner of a part, as “humanity.” But the essences of immaterial substances, because they are forms not received in matter, do not possess in themselves the basis for being signified concretely and abstractly, as whole and part, and so on. For there is no bearer or borne thing there. But because our intellect understands simple and highest things in the manner of composite things, it was therefore necessary, as the Commentator says in XII Metaphysics, commentary XXXIX, and St. Thomas in I, q. 13, that it form an abstract and a concrete in them and understand them in the manner of whole and part.

The difference posited here must therefore be understood with this addition: the essence of composite substances possesses in itself the basis for being signifiable in the manner of whole and part; the essence of simple substances does not possess in itself the basis for being signified in the manner of whole and part, but receives it from the intellect alone. Therefore the difference between abstract and concrete in composite substances is from the side of the thing, and is reduced to the distinction between the subject bearing and the form borne. The difference between abstract and concrete in separate substances, however, is only from the side of the intellect, as the Commentator says there. For this reason Avicenna says that the quiddity of a simple thing is the simple thing itself, while the quiddity of a composite is not the composite itself.

Concerning this passage there is one doubt: whether it is true that in separate substances the quiddity is the same as that whose quiddity it is, that is, nature and supposit. The reason for doubting is that St. Thomas, in Quodlibet II, q. II, art. II, says that according to Aristotle, Metaphysics VII, texts XX and XXI, in those things to which some accident is added, nature and supposit are distinct; and since in all intellects other than the first some accident exists, nature and supposit—or quiddity and that whose quiddity it is—are distinct. On the other hand, in III On the Soul, commentary IX, he says that in things separate from matter “what it is” and that whose it is are the same. And in the First Part, q. III, art. 3, St. Thomas expressly says this, as also appears here from Avicenna’s authority.

For understanding this difficulty, it must be noted that by the name “nature” is understood that which is signified by a definition, while by the name “supposit” is understood an individual possessing that quiddity. According to the threefold grade of substances in the universe, the difference of supposit from nature is found in three ways.

In material substances, indeed, the supposit differs from nature in two ways according to the thing, and beyond this according to reason. It differs in the first way intrinsically, because the supposit intrinsically includes some real thing that nature does not include, namely the principles of individuation. If Socrates were defined, this matter would be placed in his definition, whereas it is not placed in the definition of human nature. It differs in the second way extrinsically, because the supposit includes some real extrinsic thing, namely actual existence, which nature does not include. For existence is first the act of the supposit, whose coming-to-be it is; nevertheless, it would fall within the definition of Socrates if he were defined. It differs in a third way according to reason, as is clear.

In separate substances other than the first, however, the supposit differs from nature in only two ways: extrinsically according to the thing, and according to reason. For the supposit includes no real intrinsic thing in them that nature does not include, because it is not individuated by some positive contracting principle that determines the specific nature and is intrinsic to the supposit as an individual difference, as happens in material substances. But because in them, as will appear, existence differs really from nature, and existence is first, as was said, the act of the supposit, the supposit differs extrinsically from nature: it adds the reality of existence extrinsically. It differs secondly according to reason, as is clear. In God, however, the blessed supposit differs in only one way, namely according to reason, because the divine nature is not individuated by an added feature, nor is His existence really distinct from His essence. Hence it is clear that both parts of the doubt are true in some way: in separate substances “what it is” and that whose it is differ according to the thing, because they differ by an extrinsic difference according to the thing; and they are the same, because they do not differ by any intrinsic real difference. That this is St. Thomas’s mind can easily become known to one who carefully attends to his statements in the cited places.

The second difference is this: because the essences of composite things, insofar as they are received in designated matter or multiplied according to its division, can be the same in species and diverse in number. But since the essence of simple things is not received in matter, such multiplication cannot occur there. Therefore it is not necessary that several individuals of one species be found in those substances. Rather, as Avicenna expressly says, however many individuals there are, so many species there are. Here the third difference is set down, called second in order among those arising from the first. It is said that the essence of a composite substance and the essence of a simple substance also differ in this: the essence of a composite substance is capable of numerical multiplication within the same species, as human essence is numerically distinguished in Socrates and—

each individual constitutes one species and is specifically distinguished from another. Its foundation lies in two propositions, the first of which is this: Since act is what divides and separates, Metaphysics VII, text XLVI, every division is either formal or quantitative, as Aristotle says in III Metaphysics, text II, and the Commentator in I Physics, commentary VI. The second is: Specific forms are formally indivisible. From these it follows that specific forms received in matter are divided according to the division of matter through quantity, and thus become many individuals of the same species. But a specific form not received in matter is without every kind of division: formal division, because it is the most specific species; quantitative division, because it is not received in matter, which quantity follows. Therefore there cannot be many individuals in the same species: multitude follows division.