Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Philosophiae Naturalis

Sacred to the Divine Mother, illuminator of all wisdom, the best and greatest Virgin.

And to the throne of her sacred feet,¹ the angel of heavenly doctrine, the most faithful interpreter of the divine will,² the most splendid champion of the faith,³ the unconquerable shield of the Church,

To St. Thomas Aquinas, who irradiates all philosophy.

He gave me true knowledge of the things that are, so that I might know the arrangement of the earth and the powers of the elements.⁴

Generation taken generally can be understood as the common notion that abstracts from substantial and accidental generation. For even an accident can sometimes be generated: namely, if it receives being through a change from nonbeing, as in a change, and not only through a change from a contrary, as in motion. In this broadest sense, generation is defined as “a passage or change from nonbeing to being in a subject,” whether the being is substantial or accidental, qualified or absolute.

Substantial generation, taken in general, can mean generation as commonly found in living and nonliving things. It is defined as “the acquisition or change of a substantial form from its privation in matter.” This definition is drawn from various passages in Aristotle where he explained it. For in Physics VIII, text 62,¹ he said that generation is a change from nonbeing to being. And in On Generation and Corruption I, ch. 4,² that it is “a change of the whole into the whole, with no sensible subject remaining,” that is, into matter stripped of sensible accidents. Finally, in ch. 5³ of the same book, he says “substantial generation is a change from substance in potency to substance in act.”

Generation of living things, finally, has a special definition because it proceeds in a special way. It is usually defined in two ways. First, in general, as “the procession of a living thing from something,” which includes both univocal and equivocal generation of living things, whether from another living thing or from something nonliving, as when an animal is generated by heaven. Properly, however, generation of living things is defined when it also occurs through a vital generative action. In this sense it is “the procession of a living thing from a living thing, from a principle of life conjoined to it, into a likeness of nature, at least in the lowest species.” This includes every vital generation and substantial generation of a living thing, even in God, as we shall explain later.

One must nevertheless observe that substantial generation extends more broadly than generation absolutely speaking. Substantial generation is so called in contrast with accidental generation, whether what is generated is a part or a whole, the form that ultimately completes and terminates the entire generation or a nonultimate form that tends toward what is perfect and ultimate. Generation absolutely speaking, however, although it is never said of the generation of an accident, which is always qualified, is not said of every substantial generation either, but only of that by which being is had absolutely and ultimately completed. Hence the generation of a part is not called generation absolutely speaking, but rather a derivative generation by addition (adgeneration); and neither is the generation of an embryo’s form, which is imperfect and, as it were, on its way and tending toward the form of a human being or a horse, called generation absolutely speaking, because generation is not completed in it but tends further. On this, see St. Thomas, On Generation and Corruption I, lectures 8 and 9.⁴

Concerning the definition of substantial generation taken in general, only this difficulty arises: Is it essential to generation that it be a change, or does this belong to it accidentally, so that created generation could be preserved without change? As for uncreated generation, that is certain, since in it there is no passage from potency to act, on which the character of change is founded; rather, there is only a communication of pure act, in which the term is assimilated to the general principle that generates.

Some therefore think that generation is not essentially a change, but that it can be one and that change belongs to it accidentally. Their basis is that it is not essential to generation that the privation of the form to be generated precede it in duration. For, speaking of the connatural order, generation does not occur unless an alteration first takes place, as it were disposing the matter and beginning the generation; and thus it presupposes that the privation of the form to be generated precedes in duration. But the privation need not precede in duration if, at the very instant of generation, God were to produce matter that had not existed throughout all the preceding time, and at that instant introduce the form—as when something is generated from the Eucharistic species. For then, at the instant of generation, matter that remains in the generated thing is supplied by God. Such matter could be supplied even if nothing else had previously existed to take the place of matter and thus to take the place of a thing deprived of form. For example, if matter were newly created by God and an agent that draws out a form were applied to it, that generation could not be a change, because it would not proceed from privation to form, which is essential to the character of change as a passage from nonbeing to being. In that case there is no privation throughout all the preceding time, since the matter did not exist, nor at the very instant of generation, since then privation and form would exist simultaneously.

Nor is it enough to say that privation precedes in an instant of nature, even though it does not precede in an instant of time. The objection is that an instant, or priority, of nature does not designate what is prior in existence and in reality; it signifies only the formal aspect according to which something is said to belong or not belong to something, not whether it in fact belongs or does not belong to it. Thus, for privation to precede in an instant of nature means only that form does not belong to matter according to its essence, or that matter lacks that form of itself—not that it actually lacks it in reality. For in that instant it cannot lack the form, since it has it. Therefore this does not preserve the fact that there is a real change, because in reality it does not pass from privation to form: in reality there is no such privation. Moreover, change requires that a subject be otherwise now than it was before, as St. Thomas says, Summa Theologiae I, q. 45, a. 2, ad 2. But in that case matter is not otherwise now than it was before, since it did not previously exist in the order of things. Therefore there would be no true change.

Nevertheless, one must say: Every created generation that has a material cause from which it takes place is essentially and intrinsically a change.

This is clear first because the Philosopher continually defines generation through change, and thus holds that change belongs to generation’s essence and definition. This is evident in this book, On Generation and Corruption, text 23,⁵ where he defines generation as “a change of the whole, with no sensible subject remaining”; and in text 25,⁶ where generation is a change “from substance in potency to substance in act.” In Physics VIII, text 62,⁷ generation is “a change from nonbeing to being”; and in Physics V, text 7,⁸ it is “a change from non-subject to subject.” Aristotle continually assigns change as generation’s generic character, which means it is essential to generation. Hence St. Thomas explicitly says, On the Power of God, q. 2, a. 1, ad 15,⁹ “generation is a species of change insofar as nature is received through generation in some matter, which is the subject of change.” He therefore presupposes that change is the generic predicate of generation and consequently essential to it. The same follows from those passages where he teaches that generation and corruption are two changes, although they are not two motions, as in On Truth, q. 28, aa. 1 and 6,¹⁰ and Summa Theologiae I–II, q. 113, a. 6, as we shall weigh in the next article. Finally, the Philosopher’s definition of motion in Physics III¹¹ also applies to instantaneous change and generation, as we proved from Thomas and Aristotle in Physics III, q. 14, a. 1.¹²

The reason is that generation essentially occurs between two terms, a starting term and a terminating term. It draws out or introduces a form, which it regards as its terminating term, since it is a tendency toward that term and is specified by it. But if it essentially has a terminating term, it also essentially regards a starting term, because it is impossible to understand a new terminating term coming to be unless from some starting term, whether negative, privative, or positive. Every passage or tendency from a starting term to a terminating term in a subject is essentially a change, since one thing is left behind and another acquired. For neither are both acquired nor both left behind; rather, one is received and the other relinquished, and this takes place in some subject. Therefore generation is essentially a change.

This is confirmed because, through the introduction of a form at the instant of generation, even if privation did not precede in time, matter is formally reduced from potency to act, and the form is truly and properly drawn out from matter’s potentiality. Therefore matter is truly and properly changed. The inference is clear: the potentiality and indifference of matter are found there, reduced to act by the form, and the form itself is drawn out from that potentiality of matter into act. Therefore matter is found to have been changed from potency to act and informed by the form. This informing, in the order of formal causality, removes matter’s potentiality and excludes privation from the resulting actuality. Therefore an actual change of state is given; hence generation, which brings all this about, is a change in coming-to-be, just as the form itself brings about a formal change in the state of actuality.

To the opposing basis we reply that, in the case of generation from the Eucharistic species, we already said in Physics II, q. 2, art. 3, at the end,¹³ that the natural order of generation is not altered there, because quantity, preserved without a subject, takes the place of substance in every respect. Thus it receives the preceding dispositions by which matter is determined for generation, and consequently takes the place of matter deprived of form. For this reason privation precedes in that generation—not in matter, but in what substitutes for matter, namely quantity insofar as it takes matter’s place. At the instant of generation, matter is supplied by God as a constituent of the generated thing, with the same determination toward form that had previously arisen in the quantity through the force of those dispositions, just as if matter had preceded throughout all the prior time. For matter is produced as continuous with what had previously taken the place of matter. Thus that generation occurs from privation, which at that instant is expelled from matter in the state of actuality; throughout the preceding time it had preceded not formally in matter itself, but virtually, that is, in what occupied matter’s place. But in the case where nothing had previously existed, either as matter or as something taking its place and receiving dispositions for generation, we reply that then it suffices for the change found in that case that privation precede by priority of nature, though not by time.

When one presses the point that if privation did not precede in duration there would be no real change from that privation to being, we reply first that if change is removed in that case, generation too is removed; and whatever suffices for generation to remain suffices for change to remain. I add that privation need not precede in duration; it is enough that it be excluded and expelled in reality at that instant by the form introduced by an external agent or drawn out from matter, so that there is change at that instant. Change does not require privation to exist in reality, but requires the real exclusion of privation. Privation is excluded, even if it did not precede in duration, simply because the potentiality of matter is changed by an external agent that draws out a form. Thus the absence of a form is excluded not through its own emanation, but through the action—and therefore the change—of an external agent. Although priority of nature does not signify the existence or duration of a thing, but only that by nature something belongs or does not belong, this suffices for the subject to be said to change when the action of an external agent excludes privation: not a privation that formally inhered, but one that would have inhered if the agent’s action had not removed it by drawing out or uniting the form.

As for the final objection—that change means being otherwise now than before—we reply that, in instantaneous changes, if some motion precedes them as a required disposition, as commonly happens according to the order of nature, then the subject must be otherwise now than before by temporal priority, since those dispositions and motions, and likewise the privation of the form to be generated, precede in time. But if an instantaneous change is considered precisely in itself, with what naturally precedes it set aside, change means being otherwise now than before by priority of nature, provided that privation is prevented from occurring in the subject by the action of an external agent introducing the form. For this is what must determine whether the change occurs without a preexisting privation. Thus at that real instant privation is present not as affecting the subject, but as being expelled from it through an external action. For that priority of nature is not one of existence, but of expulsion and consequently of change at that instant in which the form is introduced.

If you say that for rest it is not enough for something to be disposed in the same way now and before according to priority of nature—otherwise something could be at rest in only one instant—but that it must be disposed as before by priority of time; therefore the same must be required for change, which is opposed to rest, we reply: privative rest requires that something be disposed now as it was before by priority of time, but negative rest does not. The same is required of motion, which consists of two changes, namely generation and corruption, but not of an instantaneous change considered precisely in itself, as when it is not joined to a preceding motion or to the corruption of an opposite form. Motion properly opposed to rest is that which includes two changes, corruption and generation, or is successive motion, in which the subject is otherwise now than before by priority of time. This is not required of instantaneous change, just as it is not required of negative rest.

On the generation of living things

Two phrases in the definition of generation of living things need to be explained. One is how it is “a procession from a principle of life conjoined to it”; the other is “into a likeness of nature.”

To explain the first phrase, one must observe that for the generation of a nonliving thing it is not required that the generated thing or the matter from which it is generated be conjoined to the generator and within it. It is enough for the matter to be placed beside the generator and applied to it externally, so that something is generated from it, as fire generates fire from wood placed beside and applied to it, without being united within it. Living things, however, form within themselves what they generate and provide from their own substance the matter from which it is generated. Indeed, the more perfect the nature of a living thing, the more closely the generated thing is joined to its generating principle. Thus, in intellectual nature, what proceeds from the intellect remains within the intellect not only while it is produced and formed, but for as long as it exists; it is not emitted into another power or subject.

From this St. Thomas distinguishes different degrees of emanation in living things, according to whether the generated thing is more or less closely joined to its generating principle, in Summa contra Gentiles IV, ch. 11, and Sentences III, dist. 8, q. 1, a. 1.¹⁴ Thus we see in plants and animals that seed proceeds and falls away from them; in it are the formative power of the generated thing and the matter from which it is formed. Hence at first the offspring is joined to its generator, as fruit to a tree and the fetus to the womb of an animal, but it is later separated from it at birth. It is therefore said to proceed from a conjoined principle of life both because the matter from which it is formed and the formative power of the seed are produced from the generator, and because it is first joined to the generator and formed within it before birth. In sensitive life, cognition is produced by the very sensory powers and is more intimate to its principle because it occurs through an immanent action. Yet it is not wholly intimate, both because it requires an external principle—namely, an impressed species—and because it produces some term, namely an image or species, in other powers: from the external sense to the common sense, from the common sense to imagination, and from imagination to memory, as will be said in On the Soul III.¹⁵ In intellectual life, the emanation of cognition is still more intimate to its principle. Although in us it requires impressed species that come from outside, the expressed species or word formed through them does not pass to another power, but remains in the intellect itself. Intellectual life is higher still in angels, who do not receive species from outside, since they lack senses; rather, species are born within their intellect or infused there by God. The expressed species also remains within their intellect, but because it is an accident and not a substance, it does not attain perfect generation. Therefore the most perfect generation in every respect is in God, in whom what proceeds is a substance and is so conjoined to its principle as to be one and consubstantial with it, according to the words of John 10:¹⁶ “I and the Father are one.” This entire discussion is St. Thomas’s.

The second phrase is “into a likeness of nature.” It designates what the thing proceeding in generation must be like, and the mode in which it must proceed. For generation of a living thing requires that what proceeds be not only something generated, but also a son. Hairs, nails, worms, and similar things are generated from a living thing: they proceed actively from it, with the living thing supplying the matter from which they are formed, yet they do not proceed as sons, because they are not in the likeness of nature. Second, generation itself must be essentially assimilative—not only concomitantly or in the first mode of per se predication, but also in the fourth mode of per se predication—so that “the generator assimilates” is per se in that mode, just as “the hot thing heats” and “the physician cures” are. For generation is an action that propagates nature; therefore it must produce in the image and likeness of the generator, as though expressing it. This is to be assimilative in the fourth mode, and not only in the first mode of per se predication.

For this reason one understands how the procession of the Word in divine things is generation, whereas the procession of the Holy Spirit is not. The procession of the Holy Spirit is indeed the procession of a thing like its source by identity and concomitance, indeed essentially in the first mode of per se predication, because it is a procession within God and, in the general account, whatever is within God is God. Formally, however, and in the fourth mode, it proceeds only as a divine impulse; because it is divine, what belongs to it is not so much likeness as identity, essentially in the first mode of per se predication, with that from which it proceeds. Thus its procession is not assimilative. The Word, by contrast, according to the very formal character by which it proceeds, proceeds within the intellect as an image and as like its generating principle in the fourth mode of per se predication, not merely by reason of identity because it is within God. Therefore it is most properly generation and an assimilative procession in substance and nature, namely in the divine act of being understood and of understanding. It is like this: if a man could produce another man both from a lump of earth through the art of his hands and through seminal propagation, the one proceeding by propagation would be a son, while the one produced artificially would not be a son, although both would essentially be true human beings. Thus generation requires that something proceed in likeness both on the part of the generated thing itself and on the part of its assimilative mode of proceeding. This is required by the force of generation; for accidentally, because of some impediment, a thing may degenerate from perfect likeness, as in a monster. It would then be a true but defective generation, properly speaking a degeneration.

The whole difficulty among the ancient philosophers concerning the investigation of substantial generation consisted in their inability to understand prime matter as being in potency to being absolutely, while nevertheless being a being in reality in itself. Consequently, they could not understand substantial form as giving matter being absolutely, namely, first being itself. For in that case matter would lack all being of itself and consequently would not be a being; but a being does not come from nonbeing, because nothing comes from nothing, as the Philosopher discusses at length in Physics I,¹ in this book, On Generation and Corruption I,² and Metaphysics XI, ch. 6.³ Thus we said in Physics III, q. 3,⁴ that unless matter is posited as a being in potency in such a way that it lacks every entitative being of itself, we have no principle by which to show that there is a substantial form that gives first being, which is being absolutely and substantial being.

From this it is entirely clear that Aristotle and St. Thomas, who follows him, were wholly unaware of the claim that prime matter has of itself an entitative act and incomplete existence. The ancients thought that matter was nonbeing and absolutely nothing precisely because it was a being in potency, as is clear from the Philosopher in this book, On Generation and Corruption I, text 12,⁵ where he says, “This above all is what the ancient philosophers feared when they assigned an account of substantial generation: that something might be generated from preexisting nothing.” Explaining this, St. Thomas says there, lecture 6, near the end,⁶ “The first philosophers especially feared that something might be generated from nothing preexisting; for what is not a being in act is nothing. Thus it seems that there could not be generation absolutely in this way, namely, that substance be generated from what is not a being in act but is a being in potency.” The ancients therefore thought that matter, precisely because it was a being in potency, was nothing and consequently lacked an entitative act or partial existence. For if matter had that, it would be quite consistent for it to be a being in potency with respect to forms and yet not be nothing, since in order to be nothing it must lack every existence, even partial existence. But the ancient philosophers inferred that if something was a being in potency and not in act, it was nothing; therefore they thought that if matter was a being in potency, it lacked all being, even partial being. Aristotle, rejecting this view of the ancients, does not say that matter has an entitative act or existence although it is in potency to forms. Rather, he says that matter is not nothing but exists insofar as it is under different forms, which is why the generation of one thing is the corruption of another. Thus generation occurs per se from a being in potency, but per accidens from a being in act: for it is per accidens to generation that matter existed under this or that form, which is corrupted and through which matter has being in act, as he teaches in Physics I, text 66,⁷ and On Generation and Corruption I, text 17,⁸ as St. Thomas explains there, lecture 7, near the end.⁹ But if matter, insofar as it concurs in generation per accidens, is a being in act—that is, through the form that is corrupted—Aristotle plainly presupposes that matter of itself does not have an entitative act or partial existence. Otherwise generation would occur per se from a being in act, since matter would exist or be a being in act not through the form but through its own entity.

Thus the principle for showing against the ancient philosophers that substantial generation occurs and that substantial form is introduced into matter is drawn from only two sources. First, from being, which distinguishes substance from accident—namely, per se being, which is primary and underlies other things. For if substantial generation occurs, it must give per se being and introduce a form that gives such being. Second, the principle is drawn from substantial corruption, which is opposed to generation. For if corruption occurs, so does substantial generation.

Proceeding in the first way, one must necessarily take as the principle that matter is a being in potency without any entitative act. For substantial generation is presupposed to be that by which substantial being is acquired, or by which a thing becomes a being absolutely. Since the ancients said that whatever is a being must be a being in act, they consequently inferred that if generation presupposes some being as its subject, it must presuppose a being in act. Thus no generation could produce substantial being itself—that is, primary and foundational being, which is substantial. Since, in accordance with Aristotle’s principles, we admit that nothing comes from nothing and, in turn, that substantial generation makes a being absolutely by giving it primary and substantial being, we must say that the subject from which substantial generation occurs, namely prime matter, is neither nothing nor a being in act of itself, but a being in potency per se and in act through another, namely through form.

But if matter is once posited as a being in act of itself and as existing through an entitative act, one cannot prove against the ancients that the form coming to it is substantial and that generation is substantial, giving first and complete being, unless one proves against them that even if partial being is presupposed in matter, substantial being can result for it through the form that comes to it and the parts themselves can be substantially united. But Aristotle provides no principle for this, nor can one be given without begging the question. For it cannot be established against those who deny substantial generation and substantial form—as the ancients did when they said that matter is the whole substance of a thing—that some form and action are substantial except by reference to the substantial being they provide, namely the primary being that underlies everything. But if they presuppose some partial being in matter, this path is closed and the principle weakened. For how can one prove that the being given by the form is primary and substantial if it presupposes another being in the matter to which the form comes? If one says that this being is partial, that is precisely what remained to be proved, and it begs the question. For the ancients denied that there is a substantial form and held that matter is the whole substance of a thing. How, then, can one prove that those partial beings belong to prime matter and to form in such a way that together they constitute generation absolutely? If some integral part is produced and joined to another that already has being, that change will be adgeneration, not first generation, because it presupposes some prior being. Likewise, if being is presupposed in matter and the form produced adds another being to it, even if partial, one cannot prove that this is generation absolutely, because its substantiality cannot be proved from the very first being on which that proof must rest, since some being is presupposed in matter. Thus the ancients would say that form does not give first being and being absolutely, but adds to or adgenerates upon a presupposed being.

In our view, however, since there is only one being, which belongs to the composite through form as its principle and actualizes matter, to give being to the composite through form is the same as giving it first being and being absolutely. On the other hand, one cannot prove against the ancients that the two parts—matter and form—are substantial unless one either presupposes these parts, which they denied (and so begs the question), or proves them substantial because they are necessary for generation and corruption. But that again is what they denied: they denied substantial generation and corruption, admitting only alteration, which makes latent forms appear or hides them. Therefore, unless one says that form gives first being itself and consequently that matter is in potency to form in such a way that it presupposes no being in itself but has all its being through form, substantial generation cannot be proved against the ancients.

The second principle proves that substantial generation occurs, namely, from corruption itself. For it is clear that substantial corruption occurs; therefore generation must occur.

The inference is sound: if forms are substantially corrupted when they cease to be, then they are substantially generated when they begin, and do not merely appear anew; otherwise, when they cease, they would merely be hidden. The premise is proved both because, if there were no substantial corruption, every substance would be incorruptible in its substantial being, and because if a form is not corrupted but remains in matter or is not distinct from matter, then its proper attributes would remain as well. There would be no reason for us to preserve the proper attributes while the form and nature to which they belong remained. But it is clear that when an animal dies, its sensory powers do not remain in the earth or fire into which it is converted. Nor can one say that these powers remain there impeded and hidden; for then, if fire had the power of sight and hearing but these were impeded, fire would be blind and deaf, since it would possess these powers under impediment. Finally, it is clear that substantial corruption occurs in a human being because, when the person dies, the soul remains separated from the body. Otherwise the human being would not die if the soul remained united to matter, and the human being would be substantially incorruptible. For the soul is neither hidden in matter nor drawn out from it, but comes from outside. Therefore, when the soul departs, a new form must begin to exist in matter through true generation, since the form it had is substantially separated from it.

Other authors commonly offer further proofs, but they have little force against the ancients—for example, that prime matter is in passive potency to all forms, that there are different substantial forms, and that different accidents and operations must follow different forms, since matter of itself is indifferent to all things.

These arguments beg the question, because what the ancients denied was precisely that there are substantial forms or that accidents follow a form newly arriving in matter, rather than merely appearing anew in matter in which they were latent of themselves. They said that matter was a being in act and did not need a substantial form to give it first and substantial being, but only one presupposing matter’s existence. Thus every form newly arriving would be accidental, because it would not have the proper character of substance, which implies first being that underlies other things. Therefore, unless one affirms that matter is a being in potency in such a way that it also has first being through form, these proofs are emptied of force.

Against substantial generation explained in this way, there are few difficulties. The argument of the ancients that moved them has no force. They said there could not be a form that gives first being, as substantial being must be, for such a form would come to a subject having no being at all, since form gives first being to its subject. Therefore that subject would be nothing, and thus something would simply come from nothing—which is not generation but creation.

To this we reply, following the teaching of Aristotle and St. Thomas, that prime matter is neither nothing nor a being in act, that is, existing per se by reason of its own entity. Rather, it exists through another, namely through form. Thus of itself it is a being capable of existence as well as of form, although it is neither form itself nor existence itself. What is capable of existence is truly a being and is not nothing in the contradictory sense opposed to being, because nothing is capable of existence neither per se nor through another. Matter, however, truly exists as subject to form, though not without form. Indeed, even the substantial composite itself does not exist or operate without a mode of subsistence and without accidents.

Second, you will object: In the substance that is generated, only essence and existence are found. Essence cannot come to be, because when existence is removed, only essential predicates remain, which are eternally true and independent of time. Existence, however, is not substance, but something that belongs to substance accidentally, on the assumption that it is distinct from substance. Indeed, the very act of generation is an accident in the category of action; therefore its term is an accident.

We reply that essence is not made or produced with respect to the essential connection of predicates taken objectively; in this way it is an eternal truth. But subjectively, as existing in itself, the essence and substance itself is produced as the subject of existence, so that essence is related as the existing thing, while existence is that by which it exists, as the actual term of production and of being outside its causes. Although existence is said to belong accidentally, it is not so as a predicamental accident, but as an accidentally predicable mode or term of substance, since it is reduced to the category of substance. In reality, however, essence itself is produced as the subject of existence—not separately from existence, nor separately from production, but through it. Nature is not produced separately from the composite or supposit, but in it. Essence insofar as it is subject to existence is temporal, not eternal or an eternal truth, because existence and the subjection of essence to existence are given through a temporal action. Generation is formally an accident in the category of action, but terminatively it regards substance, since it proceeds from the generative potency by the power of substance. Therefore it is an accident, yet it tends toward producing substance.

Finally, it is argued: If one generation succeeds another, it follows that things diverse in species share the same matter, and therefore are not substantially and in every respect diverse. Likewise matter will belong to different species, now to one and now to another, according to the different forms with which it is united. Thus it will not remain simply the same, since it derives its actuality and species from form.

We reply that there is no difficulty in things diverse in species having matter in common, as they do, though not by being informed simultaneously but successively, because matter is thus capable of all forms and in potency to them. They do not therefore share the same matter numerically; rather, the same matter, according to its potentiality, serves different forms in different composites, one form successively excluding another and constituting a different composite. There is no difficulty in this. Nor is there any difficulty in matter, through being informed, participating successively in different species of forms and constituting different composites, because it is in potency to them. Of itself it has only potential entity, which it does not receive from form; rather, by receiving forms in itself, it is actualized by them and reduced in act to the species by which it is informed. Since matter is a part of the species and of the composite it constitutes, it can be reduced in act to many species, because it is in potency to all of them.

To know and distinguish substantial generation among the many actions that concur in it, we must investigate two things. First, whether substantial generation is an action and change distinct from the whole dispositive action that works upon matter through alteration, or whether, once alteration has been brought to the final disposition, generation results without a new action. Second, within the generative action itself, what formal aspect we should assign as constituting the very notion of substantial generation. For the generative action includes the notion of eduction or production of a form, likewise the union of form with matter, and also conversion and similar notions; among these we must discern what formally belongs to the notion of generation. As for the actions following generation, there is no need to investigate how generation is distinguished from them: once generation is completed and has passed, it is clear how the remaining actions are distinguished from it and do not constitute generation but presuppose it, as nutrition, growth, and the like. From what principle substantial generation immediately proceeds at the instant when it is completed and the form is introduced, we shall say in art. 7.

First difficulty.

On the first question, some hold that generation is not an action distinct from alteration. Rather, once alteration is posited, generation follows it as something that results; this is called generation and stands as the terminus of alteration—not something produced by alteration and specifying it, for that is a quality, but something consequent and resultant without a new exercise of efficient causality, because of its natural connection with those dispositions, just as proper attributes result from an essence once it is posited, without a new exercise of efficient causality.

Their first basis is drawn from certain authorities of St. Thomas, in which he often repeats that generation is the terminus of alteration. In particular, in the treatise On the Nature of Matter, that is, Opusc. 42,¹ he says: “Alteration, by which matter is stripped of its prior form, requires in itself a subject actually existing, because it is a motion; but at its true terminus it does not require a subject actually existing, and its terminus is generation.” Speaking of the generation of a human being, ST I, q. 118, a. 2, ad 4, he says that “a human being generates its like insofar as, through the power of its seed, matter is disposed to receive such a form.” Here St. Thomas locates generation even precisely as the generation of a like thing in the seed’s dispositive action.

Next, they draw support from reason: accidents by themselves cannot produce a substance through a substantial action distinct from an accidental one, since an accident does not produce per se; nor can a substance immediately produce such a distinct action per se, since it is not immediately operative. Nor can an accident, as moved by a substance, produce that distinct action, because the same difficulty arises concerning that motion: how does it proceed from the substance without another accident as intermediary? If the accident does not receive a new and more excellent motion in order to produce a substance, then the very same action by which it produces the accident, without becoming more excellent or elevated, produces the substance. This is the intended claim: the same action that reaches heat passes on to the substance of fire, with the heat posited as resulting from its connection with that substance.

Nevertheless, the opposite must be maintained: generation is an action distinct from alteration, and substance does not result from alteration or from the quality produced by it, as proper attributes result from an essence. Rather, substance is produced by a true exercise of efficient causality distinct from the efficient causality by which the quality itself is produced through alteration.

Nor did St. Thomas ever say that substance itself results from alteration or from the quality produced by it. He said that generation—that is, the action itself—is the terminus of alteration. If substance resulted from alteration, he would not say that generation is the terminus of alteration, but that the thing itself generated is its terminus. If generation itself is the terminus of alteration, then it is an action distinct from alteration.

That St. Thomas posits generation itself as an action distinct from alteration is clear first because, in SCG III, ch. 69, he says: “If accidental forms, which are in corporeal things, have their own actions, much more does a substantial form have some action proper to it. But the action of such a form is not to dispose matter, since this is done through alteration, for which accidental forms suffice. Therefore the form of the generator is the principle of an action by which a substantial form is introduced into the thing generated.” Thus St. Thomas distinguishes the action introducing the substantial form from the action disposing matter, which is alteration; he says an accidental form suffices for the latter, whereas the former requires the substantial form of the generator, though not as its proximate principle.

Again, generation and corruption are called termini of alteration in such a way that they also have further termini; insofar as they have further termini, they are not the generated or corrupted substance itself, but an action or tendency toward it. The antecedent is proved from St. Thomas, ST II-II, q. 164, a. 1, ad 7, where he says: “Death can be taken in one way for the privation of life itself, and in another way insofar as it names the corruption itself, which terminates in the aforesaid privation. We can speak of corruption, as of generation, in two ways: in one way, as it is the terminus of alteration; in another way, corruption can be taken together with the preceding alteration, insofar as someone is said to be dying while being moved toward death.” Behold how St. Thomas both acknowledges that corruption, like generation, is the terminus of alteration and says that corruption terminates in privation. Generation, then, likewise terminates in the opposite of privation, namely, form. He therefore holds that generation and corruption are not only something distinct from alteration as a produced or resultant terminus, but are actions, since they are directed toward a terminus.

The basis for the assertion is this: the alteration that proceeds throughout the time preceding the instant of generation exists in a subject that is ceasing to be and being corrupted. Therefore the generated substance itself cannot result from that alteration unless a new and distinct action intervenes to produce the substance.

The antecedent will be established below, arts. 6 and 7, and is conceded by the proponents of the opposite view, since alteration, being a motion, is not received in bare matter but in a composite. Before the instant of generation, however, the generated composite does not exist; rather, the composite to be corrupted exists at the instant of generation. Therefore alteration is received in that composite.

The consequence is proved as follows. Generation cannot result from alteration in the subject in which the alteration exists, since that subject is corrupted by generation; thus generation does not result in it, for the thing generated and the subject in which the alteration preceding the instant of generation exists are incompatible. If generation instead results in another subject, in which the alteration does not exist because that subject is corrupted along with the former subject, then generation cannot result from that very alteration; otherwise it would result from what destroys it. This is impossible, since resultant properties are grounded in a necessary and per se connection of one thing with another, whereas there can be no necessary connection, by way of such resultance, with what is incompatible with it.

It cannot be said, then, that this resultance requires alteration to exist at the very instant when generation results, but that it suffices for alteration to have existed immediately beforehand and to remain virtually at the instant of generation. For the whole force of our argument rests on this: something cannot come to be by resultance, rather than by a new action, precisely when it does not exist but is incompatible with that thing. Resultance, as distinguished from action, is grounded in the necessary and per se connection of one thing with another, such that when the one exists, the other exists as resulting from it, since they come to be through the same action; when the first ceases, the second also ceases, as a proper attribute results from an essence and exists with it.

But alteration, as an action and motion, ceases in the very subject that is corrupted and does not exist at the instant of generation. Therefore the generated thing does not result from it, nor does it have being from it by resultance, since it is rather incompatible with it at that same instant.

If you say that the connection exists because that disposition necessitates generation, the reply is that a connection and necessity do exist between one action and another—namely, between the alterative and generative actions. Thus, given the first action, the agent is necessitated to perform the second, just as, once assent to the premises is given, the intellect is necessitated to assent to the conclusion. Yet assent to the conclusion is an act distinct from assent to the premises. This connection between actions presupposes that generation is a distinct action; otherwise it would not follow, by force of the connection, as distinct from the first action. It does not mean that, through the force of a mere connection, another thing results from the very same action that produces one terminus, without a new action, as proper attributes result.

To the first basis for the opposing view, drawn from the authorities of St. Thomas, we reply that when he says generation is the terminus of alteration, the meaning is that it is alteration’s end as a more principal action toward which alteration is ordered—not an object produced by resultance, but a distinct action that necessarily arises from the generator once alteration has been presupposed as disposing. It is like saying that assent to the conclusion is the terminus of assent to the premises. This is clear from St. Thomas’s own teaching. In Quodlibet II, a. 4,² he says: “Through alteration matter is disposed to form, and through local motion a luminous body approaches a position from which it illuminates; accordingly, generation and corruption are called the terminus of alteration, and illumination the terminus of local motion.” He says similar things in ST I, q. 53, a. 3, where he compares local motion in relation to illumination with the motion of generation in relation to alteration. But it is clear that illumination is an action distinct from local motion; therefore substantial generation too is an action distinct from alteration. This also explains what St. Thomas says in Quodlibet VII, a. 9,³ that alteration has two termini, namely, a quality and a substantial form. It is understood to have two termini not by one terminus resulting from the other, but by this action being ordered to another. The same interpretation applies to his statement in Opusc. 42,⁴ that generation is the terminus of alteration: it is the terminus as an end, as a distinct and more principal action, not because the generated substance itself arises from alteration by resultance without a new action.

As for what is adduced from St. Thomas concerning the generation of a human being, we reply that a human being is said to generate its like insofar as matter is disposed through its power—not by producing or drawing the form out of matter, as in other generations, but because, by disposing matter, it unites the form to it and thus reaches the form as united. This interpretation is taken from St. Thomas himself, De potentia, q. 3, a. 9, ad 6,⁵ where he says that in other generations “the generator is the cause of the form itself, but in the case of the rational soul it is the cause of the union of such a form with matter by disposing matter for it; it need not be the cause of the form itself.” St. Thomas does not say whether, just as in other generations the form is produced by a distinct action apart from the disposing alteration, so in the case of a human form reached by union it is reached through a distinct action.

There are different opinions on this point. Ferrariensis, in SCG II, ch. 89,⁶ seems to admit only that through the power of its seed a human being produces the dispositions by which the body is disposed to share in the rational soul; the soul’s union with the body necessarily follows those dispositions, and on this account the power of the seed is the cause of that union. This is because a human action cannot terminate intrinsically in the rational soul, which is spiritual; it therefore terminates only in what belongs to the side of matter, namely, the dispositions.

Cajetan, however, ST I, q. 118, a. 2,⁷ allows more than a merely dispositive reaching: he allows an action that terminates per se in the union of the soul with the body. This union does not belong to the side of the soul, for in that respect the soul is infused by God when it is created in the body; rather, it belongs to the side of matter, insofar as the action not only produces dispositions but also makes matter subject to the form. It does not reach the form’s very act of being, but its being-in or communication to matter, insofar as matter, in a corporeal and material way, is subject to and united with the form. The action terminates in the soul insofar as the soul eminently is a corporeal form, although it is spiritual in itself. In this way, the proper and formal sense in which a human being generates a human being is preserved, as is the claim that the human form is the formal terminus of generation insofar as it informs and is communicated to matter.

To the argument from reason, we reply that generation, as an action distinct from alteration, proceeds from a substance through accidents insofar as they have the character of instruments of the substance, as we said in Physics q. 12⁸ and as is drawn from St. Thomas, SCG III, ch. 69, and ST I, q. 115, a. 1, ad 5, where he says: “A body acts both toward an accidental form and toward a substantial form. For an active quality, such as heat, although an accident, nevertheless acts by the power of a substantial form, as its instrument. Therefore it can act toward a substantial form, just as natural heat, insofar as it is an instrument of the soul, acts toward the generation of flesh; but toward an accident it acts by its own power. Nor is it contrary to the nature of an accident to exceed its subject in acting; what is contrary to it is to exceed its subject in being.” Thus St. Thomas. He acknowledges that an accident has sufficient motion to reach a substance precisely by being the power of a substance, rooted in that substance, and producing as something belonging to it and as its instrument. Otherwise it would produce only by its own power, if it operated precisely insofar as it is a quality and not as something belonging to a substance. What this motion adds to the power itself, making it an instrument of a substance, we explained in the cited q. 12, a. 3; see also St. Thomas, ST I, q. 118, a. 1, ad 2, where he says: “That active power which is in the seed, derived from the soul of the generator, is, as it were, a certain motion of the generator’s soul itself; it is not the soul or a part of the soul except in power, just as in a saw or axe there is not the form of a bed, but a certain motion toward that form. Therefore this active power need not have an organ actually; rather, it is founded in the spirit enclosed in the seed.” He teaches the same in De anima, a. 11, ad 2.⁹ St. Thomas thus acknowledges that this power has no other force than the motion of the generator, which is nothing other than the issuing forth of that power from the generator itself; once the power has issued forth from the generator, it receives no further motion in it.

If you object that in instruments the same action that reaches its proper terminus, when elevated, reaches the principal agent’s terminus, then similarly the generator’s instrumental power reaches by the same action of alteration its proper terminus, a quality, and by that same action as elevated reaches the substantial form as generation. We reply that this no longer concerns the view we are opposing, which says that the generated thing itself results once alteration is posited. The objection instead concerns true efficient causality that reaches the generated thing instrumentally through alteration. The truth, however, is that alteration is not the very instrumental action which, through elevation by a higher agent, reaches the principal effect. It is a prior action with its own terminus, a disposition; it is received in the thing to be corrupted and is ordered to the generative action as a principal action, which follows and inheres in the thing generated. The generator’s power therefore acts in a certain order through two ordered actions: first, through alteration, toward a disposition, which is its proper terminus; second, through substantial generation, in which it acts through a certain motion of the generating substance. In this latter action the power has the character of an instrument. Although it first acts as a principal cause to produce its proper effect, the disposition, it later reaches the generated substance instrumentally as a power of the generating substance. Nor must the action that first produces a disposition always be the same action as the one that introduces the principal form in instruments; the actions can be distinct, especially when the prior disposition must be corrupted through the production of the principal form.

Second difficulty.

Concerning the second difficulty, note that generation has several formal aspects or respects. It has the character of change, conversion, eduction or union, production, and finally corruption, which follows from it.

It has the character of change in relation to its subject, matter, precisely insofar as it reduces matter’s potentiality to act. It has the character of conversion also in relation to matter, with reference to the forms: matter leaves one form and receives another, and thus turns one into the other. It has the character of eduction in relation to the form, insofar as the form comes to be and exists dependently on matter and through its transformation. It has the character of union insofar as it brings both matter and form into relation and changes them toward the sharing of the same unity in the composite. It has the character of production in relation to the whole composite, which it newly brings into being, or also in relation to the form which it draws out. Finally, it has the character of corruption in relation to the prior composite, which it destroys. It need not destroy the form, as is clear in the corruption of a human being; it suffices that it remove the form from matter and corrupt the composite.

All these formal aspects belong to one and the same action. This is clear because that action proceeds from one power and tends toward one singular terminus. Every action existing as an individual, however, regards a terminus from which, a terminus toward which, and a subject; therefore it grounds all these formal aspects or respects, which are found in matter, in form, in the termini from which and toward which, and in their relation to one another.

In which of these formal aspects generation consists more essentially and properly, we shall say in the following article, treating the formal terminus of generation; for this resolution depends on determining what the formal terminus of generation is. Since generation is an action and change, it is clear that it should be taken more formally by its order to the terminus toward which than by its formal aspect and respect to the terminus from which.

It only remains to note how generation is called conversion; this will become clear by explaining what conversion requires.

Five things are required for conversion. First, the converted terminus, which is the terminus from which, must cease to be, for if it remains, it is not turned into another. Second, the terminus toward which, or converting terminus, must begin anew, either absolutely in its being or at least in some new mode of being, just as Christ is in the Eucharist in a different way from how he is in heaven. Third, there must be some connection or dependence between the converted and converting termini, insofar as one succeeds the other; thus at least in their succession they are connected. Fourth, conversion must be between positive termini, one of which is corrupted and the other generated; the former must not be corrupted absolutely, as though by annihilation, but must cease by passing into that into which it is converted. Fifth, something common to both termini, the converted and the converting, must remain, either as a subject, as in generation, or as an extrinsic accident, as in transubstantiation. It may seem probable that God could absolutely effect a conversion without this condition—for example, if he converted the whole substance of the bread and its accidents into the substance and accidents of Christ or an angel—but then it would not have the character of conversion so properly.

Hence it is clear that conversion has a different formal aspect from motion, although both concern positive termini in order to establish a range and a distance to be overcome by motion. Conversion, however, does not regard positive termini insofar as they establish a range and distance to be traversed by motion, since conversion can be preserved without motion, as in transubstantiation. Rather, it regards them insofar as something does not come to be from nothing, but something is presupposed to be transferred and changed into another.

Conversion is either substantial or accidental. Accidental conversion occurs when a transition is made from one accident to another, as when something white becomes black; this is always joined with motion. Substantial conversion occurs when a transition is made from one substantial form to another; it always has joined to it two changes, one generative and the other corruptive.

Again, conversion is either formal or total. Formal conversion occurs when, while some subject remains, a transition is made from one form to another. Total conversion occurs when an entire entity or substance passes into another with no common subject remaining, as in transubstantiation in the Eucharist. This cannot occur naturally, because no natural action operates except by presupposing a subject or matter, and does not destroy it. On this see St. Thomas, ST III, q. 75, a. 8, where he identifies the modes of speaking about these conversions.

From these points we conclude that generation is conversion. Although generation has privation as its formal terminus from which, this antecedent privation is naturally joined to some positive form; for this reason, the generation of one thing is always the corruption of another. The form that is corrupted is not annihilated but ceases by passing into another. Therefore a conversion truly and properly occurs in substantial generation. The formal aspect of conversion differs from that of generation because generation has privation as its terminus from which, while conversion has a form as something to be changed into another that succeeds it. Thus there is one action but two changes, as was said,¹⁰ because two forms are changed: one passes from nonbeing to being and comes to be anew; the other is corrupted, passing from being to nonbeing. The action, however, is one, because one causality flows from one agent and regards two termini, one from which and the other toward which; between them there is established one distance to be traversed by motion and action. In the generation and corruption of a human being, however, there is no conversion into the substance of the rational form or from it, since it does not cease to be; rather, the conversion is into the form insofar as it informs, or from it insofar as it ceases to inform.

We distinguish in generation between the adequate or total term and the formal or specified term. The first is usually called the term as that which is produced; the second, the term as that by which.

In the adequate term, or term as that which, we consider all the parts, the very integral nature that they constitute, subsistence by which such a nature subsists, and existence by which it exists. For a nature is said to subsist in a subsisting supposit as parts subsist in the whole—not because the nature or parts become supposits or persons in themselves, but because they are made determinate and affected by the very subsistence and personality in which they are, just as the parts of a line are terminated by a point, not because they themselves become a point, either per se or per accidens, but because they are affected and terminated by a single point. Just as a body is affected by whiteness without becoming whiteness, so the parts are brought together, terminated by that point; and the parts of a nature and the nature itself are not made another supposit or person in themselves through subsistence and supposit, but by one and the same subsistence they are made supposited and determinate, that is, subsisting.

Hence this sophism is invalid: Nature subsists through another, that is, through a person, whereas a supposit subsists through itself; therefore nature and supposit are distinct subsistents. The antecedent is answered by distinguishing: nature subsists through another which is the principle of subsisting and is communicated to it so that it may subsist—I grant; through another which is in itself a subsisting thing as that which—I deny. To the consequent, therefore there is one subsisting thing and another as that which—I deny the consequent; one as that by which and the other as that which—let it pass. But this is a distinction in the account of being, not two different subsistents, just as a white thing and whiteness do not make two white things as that which, but one as that by which and another as that which. For whiteness is called white as that by which, that is, the principle and form of the white thing, although body and whiteness are two entities.

The formal term is that by which something is constituted as through actuality and specification. But that by which a substance is constituted in its species when generated is either a partial form or the total form. The total form is the integral nature, consisting of form and matter united, as distinguished from the supposit or person; it is signified in the manner of a form, by which something is signified as the principle through which it is such—just as humanity is that by which a human being is human. A partial form is the principle distinguished from matter which, united to matter, composes the nature, from which the supposit or term of the nature results, unless divine assumption prevents this.

We therefore inquire here first about the total term: whether it is the composite itself as nature, or also the supposit, which is its term; and second about the formal term: whether it is the form itself or its union in matter.

On this matter there are various opinions of authors; see the Conimbricenses, On Generation, book 1, chapter 4, question 15, and the Carmelite Course, disputation 2, question 3. Regarding the total term, some have said that an action terminates in the composite, distinct from the action that terminates in the form, since they are distinct things. Others say that generation terminates intrinsically in the form, but extrinsically and secondarily in the whole composite, as though by a resultant, not as an essential term. Finally, others posit the composite itself, which is the nature, as the adequate term, but exclude the supposit or subsistence itself.

Authors are also divided concerning the formal term. Some say that only the form is the formal term, even if it is not itself produced and only the union is. Others say that union alone is per se the formal term of generation, not the form, because a union is newly produced in every generation, whereas a form is not always produced, as when a human being is generated. Something newly made must be assigned as the formal and specifying term of an action, since if an action makes nothing new, it is not an action. Finally, others say that the form is the formal term when it is drawn out or produced through generation; when it is not produced but united, union is the formal term. See the Conimbricenses in the place cited above. Finally, some say that generation agrees with creation in producing the whole, but differs precisely in being productive of a union.

I say, first: The total and adequate term of substantial generation is the composite or whole itself, not only insofar as it means nature, but also insofar as it means supposit, though subsistence does not function in this whole as a constituent, but as the terminus of the constituted nature. Nevertheless, it is truly attained intrinsically by generation, not extrinsically.

This conclusion is explicit in St. Thomas, who continually teaches that becoming itself, like being itself, belongs only to a subsisting thing or hypostasis, as is clear in ST III, q. 35, a. 1, where he says: “Birth can be attributed to something in two ways: in one way as to a subject, in another as to a term. It is attributed as to a subject to that which is born; and this is properly the hypostasis, not the nature. For since being born is a kind of generation, just as something is generated in order to be, so something is born in order to be. But being belongs properly to a subsisting thing; for a form that does not subsist is said to be only because something is by it, whereas a person and hypostasis are signified in the manner of a subsisting thing.” He teaches the same concerning creation and any other becoming that is toward a subsisting thing, ST I, q. 45, a. 4. One may also see the Philosopher, Metaphysics VII, text 27¹, where he says that “neither the species comes to be, nor anything that should be called the form which is in a sensible thing; neither is there generation of it, nor of what its being was.” St. Thomas, lecture 7², says: “Since generation is of that which comes to be, it is clear that generation is not of the form, but of the composite. Nor again is the what-it-was-to-be of the thing generated, except accidentally; rather, the form and what-it-was-to-be is what comes to be in another, that is, in matter, not per se.” So St. Thomas.

From these words it is gathered that if what is generated as the total term and as that which is neither the form alone nor the quiddity or “what” (for this is the total form or nature itself, since a partial form alone is not the quiddity and nature but its principle), it remains that the total term is the supposit itself. Hence it is also clear that those who say Aristotle did not recognize a supposit or person in substances either did not read or did not notice his words. For he says that what comes to be and is generated is not the form or quiddity, but the composite. By “form” he means the partial form, while by “quiddity” or “nature” he means the total form; it remains, then, that by “composite” he means the supposit itself, since this alone is distinguished from nature, or the total form. St. Thomas often observes this passage of the Philosopher to prove that forms do not come to be, but the composite itself, or subsistent thing, as in ST I, q. 65, a. 4, and elsewhere.

The foundation of the conclusion is taken from St. Thomas’s own teaching: generation primarily and per se tends to constitute a thing in being integrally and perfectly. But a thing’s nature does not have its whole being unless it has that being as subsisting and per se, since it is proper to substance to have determinate and subsisting being. Indeed, it is incompatible with a nature to have being unless it either subsists in itself or is united to another subsisting thing, as human nature is in Christ. Therefore, so long as generation does not give such being, subsisting either in itself or in another, it is incomplete and imperfect, and is not considered to give its whole effect. The adequate term, then, is that in which generation comes to rest, where the very generated being is terminated and comes to rest. It comes to rest in what subsists; therefore the subsistent in such a nature is the total term and as that which of generation.

This is confirmed because it belongs to the generator not only to give the form but also what follows upon the form, such as proper attributes. But subsistence is more intimate than attributes, since these are accidents and pertain to the adornment or operation of substance. Subsistence, by contrast, is its intrinsic and substantial terminus; hence the union with the subsistence of Christ was substantial in human nature. Therefore it belongs more to the generator to give subsistence than to give proper attributes. I pass over the fact that, according to St. Thomas, existence belongs properly to the hypostasis or supposit as that which, and to nature as that by which, as he teaches in ST III, q. 17, a. 1, and as we showed in Physics VII, q. 7³. Therefore, if generation tends to give being, its total term and term as that which will be that to which being belongs as that which, namely the subsisting supposit itself.

From this follows the last part of the conclusion: subsistence itself, or the supposit, belongs to the intrinsic term of generation, and is not merely an extrinsic term that results, as the Conimbricenses, question cited above, article 4, conclusion 2, and others seem to hold. For an intrinsic term is one directly and per se attained by an action, not secondarily and mediately, presupposing another primary term. But a subsistent thing cannot be a mediate and secondary term that presupposes another primary thing produced, since complete and integral being is found primarily and per se in the subsistent itself, not prior to subsistence. Therefore the thing as subsistent, and subsistence itself, enter into the intrinsic term of generation as belonging to the integration and completion of the generated thing—not as a constitutive predicate, but as the intrinsic terminus of the generated thing with respect to its being.

I say, second: The formal term of generation is not union, but the form constituting the generated thing. Union, insofar as it means the application and joining of the extremes, is not the term but an application. What results from such union, if taken in the manner of a supposit, is the formal term as the total form.

This conclusion, common among Thomists, is established by St. Thomas himself in ST III, q. 35, cited above⁴, a. 1. After saying that birth and generation are attributed as to a subject to the person itself and not to the nature, he adds that “birth is attributed to nature as to its term; for the term of generation and of every birth is form, and nature is signified in the manner of a form.” Here St. Thomas speaks of the formal term, not the total term, which is the subject, as he had already said: the person. One may see the same in Sentences III, d. 8, q. 1, a. 2⁵, and especially in Sentences I, d. 5, q. 3, a. 1⁶, where he says: “The term of generation in creatures can be taken in two ways, just as the principle can. For the generator itself is called the principle of generation, and what is generated corresponds to this principle as its term. The principle of generation is also called that from which generation begins; in this sense the principle or beginning of generation is the privation of the form to be introduced, and the opposed term is the form introduced through generation.” So St. Thomas.

The foundation is gathered from this: in the adequate and total term of an action, that which functions in the term itself as form is the formal term, since it per se specifies the action and makes the generated thing like the generator. These are the functions of the formal term: to formalize the total term itself, which it does by specifying or constituting it and making the generated thing like the generator. But it is clear that the form of the term is not the union itself, but something united. For union functions as a communication and application by which the extremes are communicated. Therefore the constituting form must be the communicated and united extreme. This is what the generator ultimately intends: it intends to make the generated thing like itself in form, and it ceases once assimilation has been achieved. But it does not cease in the union, since union is an application by which the form is made united. Therefore the united form functions as the formal term more than the union that joins it.

This is confirmed because if this union, by which this form is united, were applied to another form, it would unite that form to matter in the same way. Therefore what is properly distinctive and formally constitutive of this generation is not union for the sake of union, but the united form. Hence even when a form is not produced through generation, but is introduced in order to be united, so that only the union is produced, the union is still not produced as that which formally constitutes, but as that which formally communicates and applies what constitutes as form.

From this it follows that when a formal term is assigned and designated by reason of some formality, if “formal” is taken to mean what is communicated and unites, then union is the formal term; but if it means the formality that terminates and constitutes, making the generated thing like the generator, then the formal term is not union. In speaking of the formal term, one should indicate it chiefly according to how it terminates rather than how it mediates.

It is indeed true that a form cannot constitute formally without connoting and presupposing union as a condition and application; yet the united form itself functions as the constituent. Thus, as we said above, article 3, following Cajetan on ST I, q. 118, a. 2, in human generation, although the form is not produced and the union is, it is not the union alone that is attained by generation, but also the united form itself—not according to the form’s being in itself, but according to its being-in. The union thus functions as condition and the united form as what formally constitutes and terminates.

Arguments are resolved.

First, one argues against the first conclusion: true generation is preserved without the supposit being produced or attained, and likewise without the nature being produced; therefore neither is the supposit the total term of generation nor the nature its formal term.

The antecedent is clear first in generation: the Blessed Virgin generated Christ, which was true generation, since she was truly his mother, and yet she did not attain the supposit, either by producing it—since no created supposit existed in Christ—or by uniting it to the nature, since this union was not made through the Virgin’s action but through God’s immediate assumption. It is also clear because the supposit results once the nature is posited, as a mode or term added to it. Hence, if humanity were now released from the Word, a created subsistence would result anew. Therefore the term of generation is wholly produced by the action, since what remains comes about only by a resultant. The supposit, then, does not belong to the intrinsic term of generation as an action; it results once the term of the action is posited. Finally, St. Thomas in no way attributes the account of term to the supposit itself, but the account of subject of generation; he attributes the account of term to the nature, as is clear in ST III, q. 35, a. 1, because the nature, consisting of the union of matter and form, is a complete and total substance. Therefore by itself it terminates the total action, and to be the total term producible by generation it needs nothing else. Yet because that nature is terminated by the supposit and is in it as in a subject, the supposit is called the subject of generation, not its term: it does not terminate the action, but is subjected to, or underlies, the terminating nature.

As for the second part, the antecedent is proved from divine generation, in which the total term is the proceeding Person, while nature does not have the account of even a formal term; otherwise it would be distinct from the principle from which it proceeds, and there would not be only one nature in the three Persons.

I answer by denying the antecedent. To the first proof, the answer is that some suppose the Blessed Virgin’s action in producing Christ’s humanity and its existence to stop in such a way that she is called Mother of God—that is, of the person subsisting in that humanity—only materially, secondarily, and accidentally. It would be as if God now assumed my humanity after its subsistence had been destroyed: the mother who bore me would be called Mother of God materially and accidentally, because she would be the mother of a human being whose nature had been assumed by God. Thus, by producing humanity existing in itself and terminating the Virgin’s generation, she is called Mother of God because she is mother of the humanity that was assumed by God in another action not belonging to the Virgin. For if the generator’s action does not touch the supposit but stops at the being of the nature, whatever supposit is applied to that nature will be related to it materially; on this account the Blessed Virgin would not be called Mother of God formally and per se.

Nevertheless, according to St. Thomas’s opinion, the Blessed Virgin is most properly and formally the true Mother of God, no less than Peter’s mother is formally the mother of that man. In the generation of human beings, the generator does not produce the form, nor its existence or subsistence; rather, the rational form, subsisting in itself, is created and infused by God. The generator unites matter to that form, and thus the being of the soul, which is made by God, is communicated by the generator to the body. The being in the body and in the whole composite is no other than the being of the soul thus communicated, because according to St. Thomas there is only one being in the composite: it comes from the form as from the principle by which, but belongs to the composite or supposit as that which. Since the rational soul therefore has being that exists per se, or subsists, though communicable to matter, the generation of a human being is said most formally to attain the person, insofar as the generator communicates to the body this very being of the soul that is communicated to the whole composite or person and makes an integral human being. Thus St. Thomas says in ST I–II, q. 4, a. 5, ad 2: “The being of the composite remains in the human soul after the body’s destruction. This is because the being of form and matter is the same, and this same being is the being of the composite.” Likewise in Christ there is only one being, which belongs to the person or supposit and is communicated to the nature, as the same St. Thomas teaches in ST III, q. 17, a. 2. Yet this being of the Word, or subsistence, was communicated in a certain order: first to the soul by a priority of nature, then to the body, because by nature he assumed the soul before the body, and the body through the soul, as St. Thomas teaches in ST III, q. 6, a. 1. Thus, at the very creation of the soul, the assumption of the Word intervened, preventing the soul’s own subsistence and existence and substituting his through assumption. Therefore, at the instant when the generative action of the Blessed Virgin attained the union of the body, formed by the soul which God infused, with that soul, it took up the very being and subsistence that it found in the assumed soul and communicated it to the body. Just as ordinary generative action communicates to the body the soul’s own natural being, and for this reason the mother is said most formally to be the mother of a human being and of the person subsisting in that humanity, so the Virgin’s generation communicated to the body the being and subsistence of the Word that it found in the assumed soul. Thus she is said most formally to be the mother of that human being, or Divine Person, as subsisting in that humanity consisting of body and soul. The Blessed Virgin did not efficiently attain the assumption itself, not even instrumentally, since this was done immediately by God together with the creation of the soul. Rather, through generation she communicated to the body the soul already assumed by God in the order of nature, just as later at the resurrection God again became man by uniting the soul to the body without a new assumption. For the assumption of the soul is virtually the assumption of the body, since the soul is by itself communicable to the body. If you say: if the whole subsistence and being of the Word was bestowed on the soul, and through the soul on the flesh, then when the soul was separated at death the flesh remained without the subsistence of the Word, just as the flesh of a dead human being remains without the subsistence of the soul that is separated. But that is erroneous, since otherwise the Son of God would not have been buried when his body was buried. The answer follows St. Thomas in ST III, q. 50, a. 2, ad 2, where he solves this argument: “The Word of God is said to have been united to the flesh through the soul insofar as the flesh belongs to human nature through the soul, which the Son of God intended to assume; not in the sense that the soul is a medium binding the things united. The flesh has from the soul that it belongs to human nature even after the soul is separated from it, insofar as, by divine ordination, a certain order to the resurrection remains in the dead flesh; therefore the union of the divinity with the flesh is not taken away.” So St. Thomas. His words make clear that Christ’s flesh remained united to the Word, not because it had a distinct subsistence supplied to it apart from the form, nor because the subsistence of the soul was communicated to the body after death, but because the dead flesh still belonged to human nature by reason of its ordering to the resurrection, and whatever belonged to human nature was not abandoned by the Word. Therefore that body remained assumed, not under the form of a soul nor separated from every form, but under the form of a corpse, assumed for a time insofar as it was required for the constitution of a dead human body, which was still ordered to human nature by reason of the resurrection.

To the second proof the answer is that the supposit does not result as an attribute, but as a term of the nature, absolutely required for its existence. Hence, just as existence does not result but is attained by the action, so too subsistence, which precedes it. Even if existence were prior, it would still be attained intrinsically by the action, because before subsistence existence itself is not terminated and complete, and therefore neither is the action that constitutes the produced thing in the state of a whole. The whole itself, then, is attained by the action. What results, by contrast, are accidents, which belong to the whole neither as parts nor as total modes or terms, as subsistence does.

To the third objection it is said that St. Thomas attributes the account of term to the nature and the account of subject to the hypostasis or supposit, because the supposit supports and underlies the nature. Thus by the term taken absolutely he means the formal term as what is specified and toward which the action tends; by the subject he means the total term, since the supposit is not the subject from which generation proceeds—that is prime matter—but what is born through generation.

To the second part of the argument the answer is that divinity is not a term produced or proceeding, but communicated; thus it is the formal term of the generation of the Word, for it is that in which he is made like his principle. That generation, insofar as it is assimilative, communicates the Father’s nature; accordingly, nature as nature is its communicated, not produced, formal term. In the procession of the Holy Spirit, however, nature as nature is not even a communicated formal term, but is identical. Infinite love is the formal term, while the produced term is the subsisting Person, who is also called notional Love.

Second, one argues to prove that union, not form, is the formal term: what is always produced anew is union, whereas form is not always produced, as in the generation of human beings. But the formal term must be produced anew, since what is not produced does not terminate the action, not receiving being; a new action must give new being. Indeed, when a form is drawn out, it is produced only as drawn out and consequently as united to a subject; this distinguishes such production from creative production. Therefore the specific formal account of generation is the term as united, since it is precisely through this that it is ultimately distinguished formally from creation. Finally, we see the species of an action vary solely from a change in union: when a rational soul is united through generation or reunited through resurrection, the variation is not in the form but in its different union. Therefore a different union will be the different specifying account and formal term, since this is what specifies.

To the first part of the argument I answer that the formal term need not be produced anew in its own entity; it suffices that it be produced in its participation, through which it specifies. For the proper function of the formal term is to specify and formalize what is produced. It does not per se contribute to this that the entity of the specifying form be made anew; it is enough that the form itself be newly communicated to what it specifies, and thus that communication or union be made anew. Yet that union is not the formal term—that is, what formalizes and specifies—but what applies and unites. Therefore the formal account of the term is one thing, and the account of what is newly produced in the thing generated is another: the total term is produced anew, and being and production belong to it as that which. But the form, to which being belongs as that by which, need not be produced; it suffices that it be communicated and thus specify and formalize. Union itself is not the formal term, that is, the form that gives specification, but the application of the formal term. This teaching follows from St. Thomas, On the Power of God, q. 3, a. 9, ad 6, 20, and 21⁷, and is noted by Cajetan on ST I, q. 118, a. 2⁸.

To the second part of the argument the answer is that generation is not distinguished specifically from creation because the form is produced as united when it is drawn out. For in creation too, since the whole itself is produced, the parts are produced as united. But creation consists in producing the whole while presupposing nothing from the parts, making them all anew from nothing, both matter and form. This is why it differs from drawing out, which produces the whole while presupposing one part, namely matter; from its transformation the form is drawn out, and, applied to matter, it constitutes the whole. Thus, through reduction, the whole is not so much made as composed, whereas in creation it is made absolutely. Therefore generation and creation are not formally distinguished by reason of union, but by reason of the formal term: in creation it is the whole being made from nothing; in generation it is the form constituting such a being from a presupposed subject. Thus in creation too matter belongs to the formal term, since it belongs to the account of the whole being.

To the last part of the argument the answer is to deny that a different union alone constitutes a different formal term in a substantial action such as resurrection and generation; in both, union is produced. The formal difference between these actions therefore cannot be taken from union alone, but from the form itself, as it stands under a different account and mode of communicating itself to matter. The transformation required for the generation of a human being, which communicates the soul to the body, differs from that required for resurrection, which unites the soul to the body without such formation and dispositions, presupposing that the prior union has been corrupted; thus it regards the form as reunited, not merely as united. Likewise, Adam’s formation from earth was an action distinct from generation, not because the union was different as the formal term, since union was produced in both, but because the very form was communicated under a different mode of transformation, thereby grounding a different formality or relation for terminating the action, insofar as it produces different changes in matter in order to generate, resurrect, or form from earth. The formal term is taken from the form together with its relation to the process and the transformations by which it comes to be; these too are produced through the action as leading to the term. Whether in an accidental action, for example intensification, only union is produced anew or some formal perfection is also produced and added to the quality will be examined below, question 4⁹.

Threefold subject or threefold account of subject can be distinguished in generation. For there is the subject of change; the subject of production, which can rather be called the object, because it is that toward which generation tends; and finally the subject of denomination, namely, the thing denominated generated. In generation, then, matter is changed from privation to form, but it is not denominated produced or generated. Rather, the form that is drawn out is called produced, or the composite that newly receives being. The supposit itself is denominated generated, insofar as it regards the generator as what is generated.

Among these subjects we inquire which of them is the subject of inherence, in which generation inheres. The difficulty arises from the difference between alteration and generation: alteration, both on its own side and on the side of its term, which is quality, presupposes as its subject a complete substance in act, capable of accidents; but generative action presupposes only prime matter, which is not capable of an accident before it has substantial form. Yet this form is produced through generation itself, and so is not presupposed to it as a subject. On the other hand, prime matter is the subject of change, because it alone, and not the whole composite, is changed from one form to another; substantial form is received in it and is immediately united to it. Therefore generation must be in matter, since an action is in the subject in which its term is; action or change is not received apart from its term. The authorities of St. Thomas and the Philosopher to be cited below also support this.

I say, first: The subject of change in substantial generation is prime matter alone; but the subject of inherence is neither prime matter alone nor prime matter insofar as it is subject to the form of corporeity, but the whole composite, which is generated through that action.

There can be no doubt about the first part of the conclusion. St. Thomas speaks in this sense when he assigns prime matter, and not substance in act, as the subject of generation. For he expressly speaks of generation as change and of the subject of change, as is clear at the end of On Generation and Corruption I, lecture 10,¹ where he says: “He compares the aforesaid changes according to their subject, which is being only in potency, and says that prime matter is the most proper subject capable of generation and corruption.” He speaks in the same way in Summa Theologiae I, q. 45, a. 1, ad 2, where he speaks only of change, and more clearly in On the Power of God, q. 3, a. 3, ad 4,² where he says that “in generation there is both a change and a relation by which the generated thing is related to the generator. Therefore, by reason of the change, the generated thing itself is not its subject, but its matter; by reason of the relation, however, the generated thing itself is the subject. In creation there is a relation but no change, and therefore the case is not similar.” In the immediately preceding reply to objection 3 he had said that the relation of creation, insofar as it is an accident, inheres in a subject and is posterior to it. It will be proved below, q. 9,³ that, generally speaking of every accident, the subject of inherence as that which is the composite.

The reason for this first part is that the subject of change or motion is the subject of the term or terms of the motion, between which the motion takes place. But it is clear that the terms between which generation takes place, insofar as it is change, are form and privation. Both have prime matter as their subject. For matter is deprived of substantial form, and it is also immediately informed by substantial form. Therefore matter is the subject of this change, which is generation. Thus Physics I⁴ assigns three principles, namely matter, form, and privation, for the natural thing in process of becoming, or for generation itself. Matter is a principle of generation only as subject of this change, because the subject of change must be a principle of the mobile thing not only in its completed state, but also in its becoming and in generation itself. In this it is distinguished from creation, which proceeds through the change of some subject. Therefore matter must be a principle of generation as its subject, not the composite itself, since the latter is what is caused, not a principle.

The second part of the conclusion, namely, that prime matter, insofar as it underlies the form of corporeity, is not the subject in which generation itself inheres, is manifest if we presuppose what will be explained more fully in the books On the Soul⁵: in every substantial composite there is only one substantial form, which gives all specific and generic grades. It is not that one form gives the grade of corporeity, another of life, and another of sensation. St. Thomas treats this especially well in On Generation and Corruption I, at the end of lecture 10,⁶ and we shall prove it in On the Soul, q. 1.⁷ Given this, it rightly follows that the subject of generation is not prime matter insofar as it underlies the form of corporeity. For no substantial form accompanies matter in such a way that matter is never stripped of it. Rather, precisely when one substantial form is corrupted, all its grades are corrupted, since all of them are one and the same entity of the form. Therefore, when the form is corrupted, matter does not remain under any form or grade of corporeity to receive a newly generated form; it is only bare matter that receives it. The form gives matter every grade, not only the first and most remote, such as the grade of corporeity, but also the ultimate and specific grade; thus it removes every grade that the corrupted form had provided.

Regarding the third part of the conclusion, namely, that the subject of inherence is the whole composite, generation is taken not as the preceding alteration—which plainly is received in the antecedent composite that is corrupted—but as that substantial action distinct from alteration, as we now presuppose from what was said above, article 3. On this point the difficulty is greater, even among Thomists. For several think that its subject of inherence is prime matter itself, as Cajetan seems to hold in Summa Theologiae III, q. 25, a. 1,⁸ and others cited and followed here by the Carmelite Course, disputation 2, q. 5, § 2. Others, with Master Báñez, On Generation and Corruption I, ch. 4, q. 11, say that the whole composite is the subject of inherence with respect to generation itself.

We therefore say that, given two principles—the first, which we admitted and proved above,⁹ that generation is an action distinct from alteration and is not a mere, bare result; the second, which will be proved and admitted below,¹⁰ namely, that prime matter is not immediately and per se capable of the inherence of an accident, such that the accident itself is sustained in being through matter—it must be said that generation, insofar as it is an action in the category of action, cannot have prime matter alone as its subject of inherence.

Hence the Carmelite Course, in the place cited above,¹¹ § 4, n. 61, admits that substantial generation, taken as an instantaneous change apart from alteration, is not an accident but something substantial, as a mode. Rubio¹² and others, however, admit that some accident, if incomplete and as it were in passage, can be in matter and not in the whole.

Our view, which we shall establish below, affirms that no accident can be subject to inherence in matter as a subject which; it must be in the whole composite. But this is either the generator, or that which is corrupted, or that which is newly generated. The generator is not the subject of generation, since generation is not an immanent action, unless perhaps one says that the agent itself is the subject of a transitive action. It remains to inquire about the subject of generation insofar as it is a passion, since on every account a passion is not in the agent. Thus it remains to explain whether matter or rather the composite itself is the subject of this generation, taken passively. Then a difficulty remains for the opinion that an action is subjectively in the patient and not in the agent: how does generation inhere in the agent, if on this view generation is in the patient? Another subject must therefore be assigned. It cannot be the thing that is corrupted, because at the instant when it is true to say “now there is generation,” it is true to say “now the corrupted thing is not,” since it ceases at its first nonbeing. Therefore the generation that first exists at that instant cannot inhere in the corrupted substance itself. It remains, then, that it inheres only in the generated substance.

How the term of generation can be the subject in which it inheres is explained by the fact that the subject changed through generation itself is prime matter, which is a part composing the term, namely, the whole. Since an action inheres only through the term produced or attained by the action, with which the action is identified, and since the total term itself is composed of matter and form, or has matter as one of its parts, the subject and term coincide. For the term is a substance and thus has no other subject in which the action might inhere than that which is the total term, with which the action itself is identified. The subject of accidents, however, must always be distinguished from the term itself when an accident is produced, because by such an action an actual subject is not produced but presupposed. But through substantial generation an actual subject is produced, namely the composite. Although prime matter is presupposed, and is also a principle for receiving accidents, it is not the principle which receives them, but the principle by which—that is, the account through which—the composite itself, as the subject which, is able to receive accidents. Nor is matter itself the principle that sustains accidents in being, since the principle that sustains them must be presupposed to have existence that it can provide to the accidents. Prime matter has existence only through form, as we showed in Physics III,¹³ and above, article 1.¹⁴ Matter is nevertheless the subject with respect to substantial form, because form is not sustained in matter presupposing existence; rather, it is received so that from it and matter a composite that has being may be constituted. St. Thomas distinguishes subject from matter in this way at the beginning of Opusculum 31.¹⁵ Since generation, insofar as it is an action, is an accident, its subject of inherence and support must therefore be the composite, and not prime matter alone, although matter is the principle by which it is received and is also the subject of change, as was said.

I say, second: Creation and generation differ both on the side of the formal term and on the side of the mode of production. This applies to both complete and adequate creation, which is simply called creation, and inadequate and incomplete creation, which is called “concreation,” such as the production of prime matter or the production through creation of a form dependent on matter. Nevertheless, in the total term taken materially, generation and complete creation agree.

This conclusion is drawn from the teaching of St. Thomas in Summa Theologiae I, q. 45, aa. 2–4, and On the Power of God, q. 3, aa. 1–2.¹⁶

For its explanation, note two things. First, although creation is one and indivisible action that attains the whole and produces its parts, not everything is denominated created in the same way. The whole itself is properly called created as a subsisting thing having being as that which; the parts are called created as principles constituting the whole and having being not as that which, but as that by which. Hence arises the distinction between creation that is adequate and complete, and creation that is not. The first is said with respect to the whole attained by creation, as an absolute, subsisting thing having being. The second is said with respect to the parts, which are attained as having being in and with another, on which they depend and to which they are subordinate in order to be; therefore they are said to be “concreated.” This is St. Thomas’s teaching: in many places he teaches that only subsisting things, or the whole and composite itself, are properly created, while matter and form are not properly created or made but “concreated.” This is clear in Summa Theologiae I, q. 45, a. 4; q. 44, a. 2; q. 7, a. 2, ad 3; and On the Power of God, q. 3, a. 1, ad 12.¹⁷

The second point we presuppose is that creation and substantial generation agree in producing the whole composite, that is, in making a subsisting and complete thing to which being belongs per se. They differ, however, because generation presupposes the things of which this whole is to be composed, either all of them or at least prime matter. The generation of a human being neither makes matter nor form, but joins the two; other generations at least presuppose prime matter, though they draw out and produce the form. Creation, by contrast, produces the whole composite in such a way that it presupposes none of the things of which the composite consists, whether parts or whole, but makes whatever entity there is in the thing. Creation therefore has such power that by virtue of its formal account it attains in the created thing every account of being, whether matter or form, potency or act. Generation must therefore presuppose creation; things could not have begun first through motion.

Some ancient philosophers, and Aristotle himself, were mistaken on this point. Thinking that there was no way to produce things other than through motion and generation, they fell into the difficulty of the eternity of the world, finding no beginning at which things were first produced, if all were produced through motion. For in this way something was always presupposed from which change or motion would proceed. If something were produced without presupposing anything else from which it came to be, it would be produced without change, because it would come from nothing, not from a subject. Therefore, to avoid positing an infinite regress and an eternity of generations in motions, one must arrive at the production of matter not from another subject but from nothing, and consequently through creation. Since matter does not exist alone and without form, but under and dependent on form, as it did in fact exist when God created heaven and earth in the beginning, creation is always of subsisting things and composites, while the part is “concreated.”

From these points the stated conclusion can be established, and the difference between creation and generation explained both on the side of the formal term and on the side of the mode of proceeding. On the side of the formal term, generation has only the specifying form as its formal term, whether as drawn out or as united. Creation, however, has as its formal term the whole account of being found in the composite, whether on the side of form or of matter; thus the adequate and formal terms coincide in creation. Hence St. Thomas, explaining the axiom from the Book of Causes, “The first of created things is being,” says in Summa Theologiae I, q. 45, a. 4, ad 1, that “being” does not signify a created substance, but the proper account of the object of creation. For something is said to be created because it is a being, not because it is this being, since creation is the emanation of the whole of being from universal being. Therefore the formal account or term of creation is not the form that informs and gives species to a nature, but the whole account of being found in such a thing. In this way generation and creation differ greatly on the side of the formal term, since what is total in generation is formal in creation.

Generation and creation also differ by their distinct modes of proceeding, both on the side of the term toward which and on the side of the term from which. On the side of the term toward which, creation makes the whole itself by producing everything in it; generation makes the whole by uniting its parts, not by producing them—or at least not all of them—since it presupposes matter. On the side of the term from which, creation proceeds from pure negation, or from nothing, because it presupposes no subject; generation, however, proceeds from privation, because it presupposes a subject lacking the form.

Whether creation is of the same character in simple and composite things

From these points it follows that creation is of the same character whether it produces a simple entity, such as an angel, or a composite one, such as heaven or earth.

Father Vazquez, Summa Theologiae I, part 2, disputation 174, ch. 4, n. 17, and others who follow him hold the opposite. He says, first, that creation is not only of things that subsist simply and totally; it suffices that it produce something which by its nature can subsist and not inhere in another, but depend on another, as a rational soul does.

Second, he adds that in every composite thing there are separate productions of each part and another production of the whole, since the whole is formed from the composition of its parts. A composite, insofar as it is distinguished from its parts, cannot be created, however, because its being comes from something, namely, the parts, which are prior by nature; therefore it is not from nothing, as creation requires. For creation does not require that nothing precede in time, as is clear if things were created from eternity: they would truly be made through creation, yet nothing would have preceded them in time.

Third, he adds that matter is made by true and proper creation, since it comes from nothing. Although it depends on form, it does not depend on it according to its entity; otherwise, if the form changed, matter would change in being and entity. Indeed, any agent introducing a form into matter would make matter exist, because one who produces the form not only makes it be, but also makes that which has being through it; for producing a form and producing its formal effect are the same. Furthermore, if God preserves matter through form as a principle, and matter comes from form, then matter would not be created by God whenever it is produced as conjoined to form. Thus no composite except a human being would be made through creation: every other thing is properly produced according to its first form, which is not drawn out of matter; according to the account of the composite it comes from its parts, not from nothing; and according to matter it comes from form, since it is made dependent on form. Finally, he compares the creation of matter with the creation of a rational soul, because the former naturally occurs with conjunction to form and the latter naturally with infusion into matter, although by absolute power each could be made separately.

Nevertheless, one must say that in the creation by which composite things are created there are not several actions by which each part is created partially, and another action that produces the whole from the parts. Rather, by one action the whole and its parts are produced. Thus creation of a simple, total thing and of a composite thing are of the same character, because in both what is intended is being insofar as it is being; the fact that one is composed of parts and the other is not is material to the case.

Hence St. Thomas consistently excludes matter, form, and parts from the proper account of creation, saying that they are only “concreated,” while the whole subsisting thing is properly created. This can be seen in On the Power of God, q. 3, a. 1, ad 12,¹⁸ and Summa Theologiae I, q. 7, a. 2, ad 3, where he expressly affirms that matter and form are not properly made or created, but “concreated.” In particular, regarding matter—which Vazquez says is created while the composite is not—St. Thomas directly opposes him. In Summa Theologiae I, q. 44, a. 2, he presents the argument that matter is not created because it does not have being in act, whereas through creation only a being in act is made. He replies that the argument proves not that matter alone is not created, but that matter is created only under form, since even that which belongs to the side of potency in a creature is from God. Again, in q. 45, a. 4, he presents the opposite argument: what is presupposed in a second emanation is properly produced by the first; matter is presupposed in generation; therefore matter is properly created and not the composite. This is certainly Vazquez’s foundation. St. Thomas replies with the same solution as before: “That reasoning does not prove that matter alone is created, but that matter exists only through creation; for creation is the production of the whole of being, not of matter alone.” St. Thomas therefore holds that the being of the whole, as distinguished from the account of matter taken partially, terminates creation. It is false, then, to say that the composite cannot be created and that only the part which is not from something else, such as matter, can be.

The basis of this, which also reveals the error in the opposing view, is that two things enter into creation. One is on the side of the mode of production: the thing is made not from something presupposed, but from nothing. The other is on the side of the term produced: the whole account of being, or the whole and integral being of some thing, is produced. Creation therefore necessarily requires that the being of the thing not come about through the transformation of one part and the joining of the parts into one; that properly belongs to generation. Creation does not, however, exclude making something from its parts by providing the whole with all its constituents and parts, even though it presupposes none of them as something to be transformed in order to arrive at the whole.

Vazquez’s foundation is highly equivocal and defective at this point, because he confuses coming to be from something merely as a constitutive part with coming to be from something as a principle of transformation, which is the principle of the very process of coming to be. That something comes to be as constituted from something—as from a part or constitutive predicate—does not prevent it from coming to be simply from nothing, provided that it presupposes no principle through whose transformation it comes to be. This alone is opposed to creation insofar as creation is from nothing.

The reason is clear: in creation, being from nothing pertains to the term from which; in a composite, however, consisting of parts and being from them as constituents pertains only to the term toward which, since the parts belong to what constitutes that term. Therefore being from something as a constitutive part is not opposed to being simply from nothing as from the term from which, and consequently it is not opposed to creation. For creation is preserved precisely in being from nothing as from the term from which, and thus in not presupposing anything as a subject to be transformed. If the subject itself is made as a constitutive part of the whole, then the whole itself is made more than the part, since the whole is made not by presupposing the part as something to be transformed into the whole, but without such a transformation. If, however, the part is not presupposed so that the whole may be made through its transformation, but the part is simply made as constituting the whole, then the part is made for the sake of the whole and as something less than the whole. Therefore the whole is regarded primarily and the part less primarily. Hence through creation the composite itself is made directly, not the part, which is matter; matter is “concreated” as secondary to the creation of the whole, to which being directly belongs as to a subsisting thing, as that which, and consequently creation as that which, because creation directly regards being. Thus coming to be from something as a constitutive part belonging to the being of a thing neither removes creation nor constitutes generation. Rather, generation is constituted by coming to be from something as a presupposed principle through whose transformation the thing itself comes to be, because generation is a transformation.

You may object that St. Thomas says in Sentences II, dist. 1, q. 1, a. 3,¹⁹ that “being is through creation, while other perfections are added through informing; and in composites this is especially the being of the first part, namely matter.” Therefore St. Thomas presupposes that creation terminates first and directly in matter and that being belongs to matter. We reply that the being of this first part, namely matter, is the being of potency. It is said especially to be through creation insofar as it does not presuppose a subject from which it is made, not insofar as it has being absolutely and simply. For matter has being only dependently on form, and for this reason is said to be “concreated,” as is clear from St. Thomas’s passages: namely, by reason of the being it has through form, not absolutely in itself.

The objections raised by Father Vazquez are answered as follows. Regarding his claim that the composite comes from something, namely its parts, and thus does not come from nothing, we have already answered that it does not come from something as a principle of transformation, but from something as an intrinsic constituent. This does not remove creation or prevent the composite from coming from nothing as from the term from which, since a constituent part pertains only to the side of the term toward which.

Regarding the objections he brings to prove that matter is created first and per se, we reply that matter comes from nothing not as having being, but as a part in potency to the form of a thing that has being. It is not incongruous that matter be changed in its actual being, just as it is changed in being informed by passing from privation to act and from one form to another, and consequently from one being to another. This is not corruption except per accidens and with respect to succession in being, not with respect to total cessation, because the very entity of matter is capable of existing through any form it can receive. Thus existing now under one form and now under another is not a total cessation and loss of being, but a transformation of being: it leaves one inadequate mode of existing and acquires another within the range of the forms from which it receives being. It is as if my humanity were now assumed by a divine person: it would receive another being and subsistence, but would not be corrupted, because it would put off its own being in such a way that another was substituted in its place. In a word, to lose being adequately and totally is to be corrupted; to lose being inadequately, with another’s substitution and succession, is neither to cease nor to be corrupted. Likewise, a generator that introduces a form into matter is not said to produce or generate matter, although it makes matter exist. It does not make matter with respect to its potential entity, which is matter’s proper entity, nor does it draw matter out of some subject, as generation requires. Rather, by drawing out the form from matter, it transforms matter’s being. Thus it does not make matter exist absolutely, since matter’s entity is not limited to the being of one form but is capable of having being under any form. Therefore an agent that transforms forms in matter does not give matter being absolutely, but transforms it from one form to another. This is like something located in a place: however much the surfaces change, it is said to remain in the same place because it has the same effect of existing in a place, arising successively from different surfaces, one of which is substituted for another in locating it. An animal is likewise said to have the same body although different parts succeed one another, because they succeed under the same form, disposition, and order. Similarly, although different inadequate modes of being from different forms succeed one another in matter, they succeed in an order that preserves the same potential entity of matter, which is capable of all forms. Therefore the entity of matter remains the same under the succession of different existences and beings of forms. A generator of such forms, although it communicates to matter the formal effect and being of the form, is not said to corrupt or generate matter, because it does not give being first and adequately, but preserves matter’s entity through the succession of different beings. Conversely, one who successively adgenerates different parts of matter to an animal, although materially providing a different body, is not said to generate it, but to preserve it under the same body. Nor, because matter is made by God under a form, is it said to be made from that form as from a subject; rather, it is made dependently on the form as on an act. Therefore the creation of matter cannot in any way be assimilated to the creation of a rational soul. A soul is made as having being in itself and subsisting independently of matter, although communicable to matter; it is communicable, not supposital. Matter, however, is not made as having being independently of form, but as receiving being from form.

To the initial difficulty, offered to prove that the subject of generation with respect to inherence is not the generated thing, we reply from what has been said that the subject of change and the subject of inherence are not the same under the same formal aspect and account. A thing is the subject of change insofar as it is in potency to some form; it is the subject of inherence not only insofar as it receives, but insofar as it is in act, giving and sustaining being to the inhering form. Thus, by reason of matter, substance is in potency to substantial forms; by reason of the whole, it has existence, which matter itself does not have except as it is in the whole. Hence matter by itself is the subject of change, but is the subject of inherence only through the whole, in which alone existence and the capacity to sustain in being are found, as we shall explain below, q. 9.²⁰ But the thing that is corrupted cannot be the subject, because it ceases to be; therefore the subject is the thing that is generated.

But you will object: The subject of a form drawn out or united is matter, not the composite, not only with respect to change but also with respect to informing. Therefore matter is likewise the subject of drawing out, or of generation.

The antecedent is certain, because what can be informed by substantial form is nothing but prime matter; and that is called the subject of a form which can be informed by it. The inference follows because an action is identified with its term; therefore what is the subject of the term, or form, will be the subject of the action directed to it.

This is confirmed because in other motions the action is in the subject where the term is, since the subject in which change inheres must be common to both terms of the change. Therefore, since the subject of both terms, or of the form generated, is prime matter—for it receives both forms—matter too must be the subject of generation with respect to inherence.

Finally, the authorities of St. Thomas support this: On Generation and Corruption I, lecture 10,²¹ Metaphysics VIII, lecture 1,²² Summa Theologiae I, q. 45, a. 2, ad 2, On the Power of God, q. 3, a. 3, ad 4,²³ and Sentences II, dist. 12, q. 1, a. 1, ad 2.²⁴ In these places he consistently assigns prime matter as the proper subject capable of generation and corruption.

We reply by denying the inference with respect to the subject of inherence. To the proof, we answer that an action is identified with the form; I distinguish: inadequately, as with its formal term, I grant; adequately and as with its total term, I deny.

The argument can therefore be turned back against itself. Generation is identified with its total term; the total term is the composite; therefore generation is in the composite, not in matter alone. Thus the subject of inherence is not the subject of the form with which generation is identified only as with its formal term. Rather, the subject of generation with respect to sustaining it in being is the whole itself, to which the function of sustaining directly belongs; prime matter, however, is the subject by which it receives, not the subject which sustains.

To the confirmation, we reply that in other changes the subject that is changed is the composite itself, or a complete being in act, because those changes are toward accidents. Therefore the subject of inherence and the subject of change are the same. The case is different in substantial generation, which is toward substantial form, where the subject of inherence and the subject of change cannot be assigned under the same formal aspect. The subject of inherence is the whole itself, insofar as it takes on subsisting and sustaining being; the subject of change is matter by reason of its potentiality, which is changed toward form. The subject of inherence need not be common to both forms or terms. It suffices that a subject common to the change remain, even though the action inheres in the composite in which that subject of change is found. For prime matter is not sufficient to sustain accidents except dependently on the whole as the subject which; to inhere in it means this, as we shall explain more fully in q. 9.²⁵

To the authorities of St. Thomas we reply that they speak of the subject of generation insofar as it is a change, not of the subject of inherence to the exclusion of the composite. Indeed, in the cited place, On the Power of God, q. 3, a. 3, ad 4,²⁶ he expressly teaches that generation, according to its account as change, is in prime matter, but according to its relation is in the composite, as we cited above.²⁷

To be reduced all the way to prime matter is the same as prime matter’s being stripped of every form, substantial as well as accidental, when generation occurs. We inquire whether every form, substantial and accidental, is removed from matter when some new form is introduced. The question is also put in other words: do the very same accidents that were in what is corrupted remain in what is generated? We are not now treating the reduction of every substantial form; rather, we presuppose that matter is entirely stripped of substantial form when generation occurs, since there are not several substantial forms in a composite, as we shall show in On the Soul q. 1.¹ Hence, when one substantial form is excluded so that another may be introduced, matter is stripped of every preceding substantial form.

The difficulty, then, concerns the reduction of every accidental form.

On the one hand, it seems that not all accidents can be corrupted, but that they must remain at the instant of generation. For at that instant there must be dispositions that render matter disposed and determined toward this form rather than another; otherwise matter would remain indifferent and undetermined toward that form. Likewise, at that instant there must remain accidents that function as the power of the generator, if the generator is not joined to the thing generated. For at that instant generation must proceed efficiently from something. It cannot proceed from the generator, because, as we presuppose, the generator is not there; nor can it proceed from a power of the generator, or of heaven, or of another agent left there, because this power was subject in the thing that is corrupted. Therefore, if all accidents cease at that instant, that power too perishes. There is also a special reason concerning certain accidents that cannot be entirely removed from matter, for example quantity, which follows matter itself as quality follows form, and through quantity matter is divided and individuated. But at the instant of generation matter is presupposed to be individual and separated from other matter, and therefore to have quantity by which this division is made. This is especially pressing in a human being, in whom quantity can have no subject other than matter, because the form is spiritual. Therefore the quantity of matter is not emptied when a human being is produced, and consequently it does not seem that the other accidents that have their subject in substance through quantity are removed either. Finally, there is a difficulty concerning certain accidents that seem to belong to the generated thing only if they remain in the matter itself. For we see the same scar, the same black color, the same marks, and so on, remain in a corpse. Sometimes heat also remains within the entrails of a dead animal, which cannot be generated by what corrupts it, especially when it is suffocated by water, since water cannot generate heat. Similarly, if an animal is thrown upward and dies in the air while the impulse continues, that new impulse cannot be generated in the corpse, because what generates the corpse cannot produce it, since such a generator has no power of impulse, as it is not living. Therefore these accidents are not drawn out of the matter itself, nor are others like them produced in it, because there is no cause from which they could be produced.

On the other hand, two principles well known from St. Thomas stand in the way: first, accidents have their subject in the whole, and when the whole perishes, the accidents perish. Second, matter receives substantial form before accidental form. Therefore, when substantial form is stripped away, all the accidents previously received are stripped away as well; otherwise some would remain received immediately in matter before substantial form.

Hence this difficulty depends chiefly on another to be treated below, q. 9,² namely, whether the subject of accidents is matter alone or the composite itself. Those who hold that matter is the immediate subject of accidents consequently say that it is not necessary for every accident to be resolved when substantial form is introduced. Father Suárez holds this view in Metaphysics disp. 14, sect. 3, where he cites several earlier authors. Several proponents of it are also listed by the Coimbra commentators, On Generation and Corruption I, ch. 4, q. 18, a. 1, especially among the Nominalists, such as Gabriel,³ Ockham,⁴ and Gregory.⁵ One may also consult Murcia, disp. 1 on On Generation and Corruption, q. 5, and other recent authors.

Nevertheless, St. Thomas’s view is that in substantial generation there is a resolution of the accidents, so that none of what was in the corrupted thing remains in the generated thing; rather, it is produced anew.

This is clear from St. Thomas himself in Summa Theologiae I, q. 76, a. 6, where he says: “It is impossible for any accidental disposition to fall between a body and a soul, or between any substantial form and its matter.” There he proves this by the reasoning that will be adduced shortly. He teaches the same in On Generation and Corruption I, lecture 10,⁶ saying that “the same accident in number does not remain; rather, what was there before is corrupted per accidens by the corruption of its subject, and a similar accident follows upon the newly arriving form.” One may also consult On Spiritual Creatures, a. 3, ad 19,⁷ and On the Soul, a. 9, ad 5.⁸ The Thomists commonly follow this view: Cajetan,⁹ Soncinas,¹⁰ Capreolus,¹¹ Báñez,¹² and others, whom the Coimbra commentators cite and follow in On Generation and Corruption I, ch. 4, q. 18, a. 2; the Carmelites, On Generation and Corruption I, disp. 3, q. 6, § 2; and Fonseca, Metaphysics V, ch. 28, q. 20, sect. 2.

The foundation is the twofold principle indicated above. The first—that the whole itself, not matter alone, is the subject of accidents—is what we must prove below in q. 9.¹³ See there.

The second principle posited by St. Thomas in the passage cited above is that, although matter is receptive of substantial and accidental form, it receives them in a certain order, because the forms themselves are ordered to one another and one essentially presupposes another. Thus the sensitive grade presupposes the vegetative, and an act of intellect presupposes a power. In the same way, accidental being presupposes substantial being as naturally coordinated with and dependent on it; substantial being is given through substantial form.

To understand this at its root, one must distinguish proper accidents from common ones. If they are proper accidents, it is certain that they do not inhere in matter or become united to it except through form, because they belong to matter only as flowing from form. They flow from form only insofar as it is united to matter, for they flow from form only insofar as it has being; and form has being when it is in matter, either because it depends on matter or because it is created in matter. Therefore form must first be in matter and give it being before matter receives accidents flowing from form. Thus the heat in newly produced fire cannot be the same in number as the heat that was in the wood when it was being disposed for fire, because this heat flows from the introduced form of fire.

If the accidents are common, or can be called common because although they flow from form they flow according to a common grade and not according to the ultimate difference—as quantity flows from the grade of corporeity, which is common to all, both elements and mixed bodies—the same reasoning applies to these accidents as to proper ones. For, as St. Thomas observes in Summa Theologiae I, q. 76, a. 6, ad 1, just as there are different grades of one and the same form, so each genus or grade is followed by its own accidents. Therefore these accidents, insofar as they flow from and follow upon form, necessarily presuppose the form in matter so that they may follow upon it; they are not themselves posited in matter before the form on which they follow.

If, however, they are common accidents that in no way flow from form, but belong to something fortuitously and as if not per se connected with it, even such accidents do not remain in that matter or belong to it before the form. First, these accidents do not ultimately determine matter or dispose it for the introduction of a form, since they have no per se connection with the form. Therefore there is no reason to posit them in matter before substantial form, to which matter is immediately ordered, because matter is substantial potency and thus immediately regards substantial act. Hence, if dispositions that are per se required and determine matter are not received in it before form, much less are accidents not per se connected with form. Second, matter’s relation to substantial form is immediate and essential before it regards accidental form, because matter is substantial potency, whose immediate and per se correlate must be substantial act; for potency is named and constituted by its order to act. Therefore matter regards substantial form not only as primary in the order of intention and accidental form in the order of execution, as Father Suárez says in the passage cited above, n. 57, but it regards substantial form as an immediate specifying principle. It must therefore regard that form as touched first not only in intention but also in execution, because what essentially and primarily terminates a relation is attained in execution before what is secondary; an essence is constituted in execution before what is secondary, not only in intention. This is especially so because an accident depends on substance in existing: substance exists per se, whereas an accident exists in and inheres in something else. What is prior in the order of existence is prior in the order of execution, since execution regards the being of what exists. Thus, since substantial form gives matter substantial being, it consequently gives it being in the order and line of existence, which is prior to the order of inherence. Accordingly, in the order of execution too substantial form must be prior to accidental form. Hence, because an accident depends on substance in the order of existence, its dependence greatly resembles dependence on an efficient cause: an efficient cause presupposes being so that an effect may depend on it. Therefore God, through his efficient causality, can supply for an accident’s actual dependence on a sustaining substance, since in this respect an efficient cause can do what a sustainer does. Thus matter, once substantial form is removed, cannot retain accidents, and the same accidents in number do not pass from the corrupted thing to the generated thing by existing immediately in matter.

You will say: The partial being that matter has suffices to sustain accidents. Therefore, even if matter is ordered first and per se to substantial form, it still has enough in itself to sustain accidents, especially those that flow from it, such as quantity or common accidents. Second, it does not follow that accidents are corrupted when form and substantial being change, because another thing equally capable of sustaining such an accident is substituted in its place. For this reason we said above¹⁴ that prime matter does not perish when a new form arrives, even though its being changes, because something else is substituted that provides being to matter just as well.

To the first, we reply that matter’s partial being does not suffice to sustain accidents. First, matter does not have partial being; it receives being only from form, because form gives substantial being, and therefore first being, which underlies other things. Otherwise substantial being would not be substantial and would presuppose some prior being in matter. Second, even if matter had partial being, it could sustain accidents only dependently on the whole or composite as the thing existing as a subject. Matter itself is only the principle by which accidents are sustained; the whole is the principle that sustains them as subject. But when the subject-principle is removed or destroyed and no other is substituted to supply its place in every respect, the principle by which it acts or receives does not act or receive. It is false that quantity flows from matter alone, since it flows from the grade of corporeity provided by form. Thus we see quantities vary according to different forms. Otherwise, if the same quantity always inhered in matter, an accident would be more strongly and intimately united to matter than substantial form, which changes, even though matter is essentially prior in its relation to substantial form.

To the second, we say that no equivalent thing is substituted for an accident, because a different subject cannot contain the very same accident in number as another subject. For one natural cause does not wholly contain the effect of another, even with respect to every aspect of individuation. Only the first cause can contain and supply for it wholly, because the second cause is entirely subordinated to the first in every aspect of being. We spoke of this in Physics q. 10,¹⁵ and shall speak of it below, q. 12.¹⁶ For this reason God, by sustaining an accident outside a subject, preserves that same accident in number. Matter, by contrast, is preserved as the same in number under different substituted forms, because each form is related to matter inadequately, and matter is capable of all of them so that it can be preserved by any one. An accident, however, does not regard several subjects, but is sustained and individuated adequately by one.

As for the first point, at the outset, concerning the dispositions that determine matter and effect generation at the final instant, we shall speak in the next article, because this is a special difficulty.

To the second, we reply that quantity does not inhere in or flow from matter, but follows matter only insofar as it is under form and receives from form the grade of corporeity, of which quantity is the proper accident, as St. Thomas teaches in the passage cited above,¹⁷ in Summa Theologiae I, q. 76. Quantity is said to follow matter as quality follows form both because of a similarity and because of generality. The similarity is that matter is purely passive, and quantity likewise is in no way active. The generality is that quantity is as general to matter as the grade of corporeity; no matter is found without corporeity and none without quantity.

As for the claim that matter is individuated through quantity and must be presupposed as an individual at the instant of generation, we reply that matter is not substantially individuated by quantity, but by its own incommunicability. Quantity contributes not so much to the character of individuation as to its multiplication and division. Division occurs through quantity, which functions as a dividing condition and is necessarily required, so that once the division is posited, a different substantial individuality results—not from quantity itself, but from substance or matter under divided quantity, as we shall say below in q. 9,¹⁸ when treating the principle of individuation. It suffices that this quantity, by which matter is individuated and individuates, be present at the instant of generation with priority of formal cause from form and priority of dispositive and material cause from matter. It is not required that it be coeval with matter itself and inhere in it perpetually, as we shall explain more fully there.

Nor is there a special difficulty in the case of a human being, because although its form is spiritual in entity, it is bodily formally and virtually, and functions as that by which it provides a grade of corporeity, from which quantity follows, as do the other bodily accidents. Thus the whole that results is simply bodily—namely, a human being—and is therefore capable of quantity as a subject. The principle by which it receives quantity is matter itself, insofar as it is subject to form and thereby receives the grade of corporeity.

To the third, we reply that those accidents that remain in the generated thing are not the same in number as those in the corrupted thing, but are similar, as St. Thomas expressly teaches in On Generation and Corruption I, lecture 10,¹⁹ because some forms have such a resemblance and affinity that they require similar accidents, especially at the beginning of their generation, when they have not yet attained all their perfection. Among these are the easy transitions from embryo to animal and from animal to corpse. Since these are vital forms tending toward a further form, they require similarity in their accidents.

Sometimes, however, a generator produces an accident similar to one that was in the corrupted thing because of the requirements of the matter from which generation occurs. One should note that although forms being generated, or forms when increase or nutrition newly occurs, do not have their proper accidents or attributes from matter, they do acquire many common accidents from the determination of the matter into which the form is introduced. Common accidents do not flow from form, but are provided by the generator according to the matter and circumstances at hand. This is clear, for example, because the generator provides place and position even when something is generated outside its proper place, as a common and changeable accident. Since the generator acts on the patient in such a way that it is also acted upon by it, as we shall say below in q. 5,²⁰ and since it does not perfectly overcome the patient in every respect, some accidents must be produced in the generated thing by the generator—not absolutely as it is in itself, but as modified and tempered by the patient’s reaction. For the patient determines the generator to produce certain qualities that it would not produce of itself alone. Thus, when water, fire, or iron kills an animal and the form of a corpse is generated by that agent or by heaven as the principal agent, common accidents are produced according to the resistance or requirements of the patient that the generator can satisfy. Hence sometimes heat is produced in the animal’s entrails even though a cold agent introduces the form of the corpse. Although that cold agent per se and directly produces only cold, when it acts upon an animal and is acted upon by its heat, it is imbued with hot qualities and thus also produces some heat together with the form of the corpse. At other times such heat is produced by antiperistasis, the surrounding resistance of a contrary, and by heaven introducing the form of the corpse as a per se cause. We shall explain what antiperistasis is in q. 5.²¹

For the same reason, we see that the nutritive power sometimes generates food with foreign and harmful qualities because the matter acts back upon it and imbues nutrition with its own qualities. Similarly, an animal can be generated with other qualities even though its seed is good, because the blood that is its matter is infected. Thus, one must consider an agent or generator not only according to what it can generate of itself, but also according to what it can generate in keeping with the modification it has from the patient’s resistance or reaction, the power it thereby participates in, and likewise the power it has from heaven and other circumstances. All of these determine it or give it the power to produce certain common accidents according to the requirements of the matter in which it acts. Therefore it can generate a similar color, scar, impulse, or something like that—not by newly imparting an impulse through its own power, but by continuing the impulse. Thus, when a corpse is generated from the body of an animal that was being moved, if the power impressed by what moved it does not find in the corrupting agent a contrary disposition that would extinguish it, that power determines the corrupting agent and communicates to it the power to continue a similar impulse in the corpse. It is no objection that the senses detect no change here. For the senses do not judge an individual change that occurs only through the corruption of a subject when an accident of the same species is substituted for it; they judge a change only when an accident is altered without another similar one being substituted.

But you will still object: St. Thomas says in Summa contra Gentiles IV, ch. 81, “the matter of a human being after his death, which was subject to such a form, remains under the same dimensions it had when it was the matter of an individual.” Therefore matter is not stripped of every accident, at least not of quantity, by which it is sealed and determined to be this individual matter.

This is confirmed because preceding dispositions do not have a contrary by which they are corrupted by subsequent ones, since they are of the same character as the latter; therefore they remain. Nor can one say that they cease when their subject ceases. The objection is that the ultimate disposition, since it is joined to the generated form itself, is not corrupted by the destruction of that form, since it is generated then. A disposition below the ultimate one is compatible with the subject that is corrupted; therefore it does not cease merely because the subject ceases, but through a contrary. But there is no such contrary, because the ultimate disposition is not contrary to the preceding disposition below the ultimate one; it is of the same species, as heat at degree eight is of the same species as heat at degree seven.

We reply that St. Thomas means that matter remains with the same dimensions radically, insofar as matter is the root of those dimensions, not formally, since the same quantity does not remain, nor does it remain under the same form. The order in matter toward the same form nevertheless remains—that is, toward the soul to be restored through divine power at the resurrection—and in this way the same dimension remains radically. St. Thomas confirms this in the same place by saying that corporeity is twofold: one kind is substantial, namely, the character of body in the genus of substance, which is nothing other than the form itself; the other is accidental, namely, the species of quantity, which is a body. Of the latter St. Thomas adds “that although it passes into nothing when a human body is corrupted, this does not prevent the same human being from rising again numerically, because the same corporeity remains while the same human form remains.” St. Thomas therefore holds that the same quantitative dimension does not remain in human matter; rather, the same order toward the human form remains. Hence the same dimensions will be had because the same corporeity will be had. We shall explain the other passages of St. Thomas from Summa Theologiae III, qq. 7 and 9, in the next article.

To the confirmation, we reply that preceding dispositions are not corrupted directly by the ultimate disposition as by a contrary, but indirectly and per accidens, because the ultimate disposition introduces a form incompatible with the preceding one. Consequently, the subject of those preceding dispositions is destroyed, and they cease when the subject in which they were cease. There is no difficulty in something being corrupted per accidens and indirectly by something like it when the foundation on which it rested is destroyed.

Given the opinion explained in the preceding article—that the form is introduced into matter stripped of every form, substantial as well as accidental—two difficulties press in the present article, which must be treated. First, how can the final disposition be caused in the same way as the other preceding dispositions? For the others are introduced in the very subject that is corrupted. But if the final disposition were caused in that subject, it would be corrupted along with it, and thus would not be joined to the substantial form newly generated. If, however, the final disposition is produced in the subject newly generated, then it would not be produced through alteration like the other preceding dispositions, and thus would not be continuous with them. Consequently it would not cause the corruption of the form and the final disposition of matter for the introduction of the form: it does not exist in the subject before the substantial form is generated, and consequently it does not expel the corrupted form or dispose matter itself to receive the new form, since after that form is present such a disposition belongs to the subject. Whatever falls short of such a disposition is compatible with the corrupted form and therefore does not expel it.

The second difficulty is how the final disposition can cause the newly generated form, whether efficiently or materially, if that disposition passes away with the subject that is corrupted, since it does not remain in bare matter alone, given the opinion explained in the preceding article and to be explained below, q. 9,¹ that accidents are not immediately received in prime matter; thus they do not pass from the corrupted thing to the generated thing. It follows that the final disposition cannot materially determine matter, since it neither inheres in nor affects it. Likewise it cannot reach the form itself efficiently, because it follows the form in the subject; therefore it cannot efficiently generate the form. The form would then be generated by an efficient disposition remote from it, one that is less than the final disposition itself. That cannot stand, since the remote disposition is compatible with the corrupted form and does not have the perfect and final power that would be ordered and connected ultimately with the generated form. Therefore it cannot exert efficient influence upon that form.

The difficulty is pressed further: if the final disposition is not effected by the generator in the subject being corrupted, but in the thing itself that is generated, then at the instant of generation the substantial form itself will first be effected, and through it the final disposition will emanate as its accident. Therefore the generator has no efficient power with respect to the substantial form, since the disposition instead emanates from the form itself.

Likewise, at the instant of generation, matter must be presupposed as prepared and disposed so that the form may be introduced. But at that point matter is stripped of every accident and disposition; therefore it is stripped of every formal effect of an accident disposing and determining matter. Hence matter remains neither determined nor disposed, formally or virtually. It is not disposed formally, because no disposing form is then present; nor virtually, because no other form remains in whose power that disposition is contained, except for the merely extrinsic circumstance that immediately beforehand a nonfinal disposition existed, since the final one was not in such a subject. But this does not suffice for matter to be called intrinsically and really determined and disposed.

Finally, there is a general difficulty: how can dispositions act efficiently at that instant? The preceding ones are not then present, but cease to be; the subsequent ones, however, are effected then, and so do not effect generation itself. Even if they exist then, they cannot act efficiently upon the subject in which they exist, as St. Thomas teaches, ST I-II, q. 85, a. 1, ad 4. Nor does the subject itself act through them, since otherwise the same part would act and be acted upon, and would be both mover and moved.

These difficulties press little upon those who hold that accidents are received immediately in matter and consequently that things present in what is corrupted can remain in what is generated. They readily grant that the final disposition is introduced by the generator into matter itself while it is under the corrupted form, and thus that matter is prepared by the final disposition it has before the form; consequently, the final disposition does not flow from the form itself. Many are cited for this opinion by Father Suárez, Disputationes metaphysicae 14, sect. 3. But many others hold that accidents are indeed received in matter alone, though presupposing their prior union with a substantial form, as the Coimbra commentators, De generatione I, ch. 4, q. 4, a. 1, and Suárez considers this probable in the cited place, nos. 37, 40, and 60. Therefore, even on this view, there is still room to say that the final disposition is not present in matter before the substantial form, but flows from the form itself. Hence Suárez himself, De gratia, vol. 3, bk. 8, ch. 13, no. 10, although he says it is more probable that the antecedent disposition does not perish at the instant of generation but remains in the generated thing and is there consummated as a final disposition, nevertheless admits the opposite as probable. He says that on that opinion one must reply either that the final disposition does not prepare matter, but the form is received immediately in matter precisely because matter is stripped of every form, or, if it does prepare matter, that the disposition, insofar as it prepares matter, comes not from the form but from the generator.

The difficulty is therefore reduced to this: does the final disposition proceed from the generated form, as it were efficiently and by emanation, while still preparing and disposing matter; or, if it prepares matter, does it proceed not from the form itself but from the generator? Or finally, does the final disposition in no way prepare matter for the form, but is introduced into bare matter, while the final disposition follows the form as an adornment, not as something preparing and determining matter for that form? If the final disposition does both—determines matter and follows the form—it remains to see how it does so at the instant of generation, and especially whether at that instant the final disposition is the generator’s effective power.

I say, first: whether accidents are received in matter alone or in the whole composite, the final disposition is never simultaneous with the form that is corrupted, but is simultaneous with the form that is generated.

This conclusion must be established as certain in this difficulty. It is proved because the final disposition expels the opposed form from matter. As St. Thomas says, De veritate, q. 28, a. 8, ad ultimum,² the form of water is expelled by heat at its maximum, and so the two are not simultaneous. This is clear because the expulsion occurs through the incompatibility of the final disposition with the corrupted form. All the preceding dispositions tend toward expelling and corrupting the form and are therefore opposed and contrary to it. The final disposition, then, is the one that is ultimately opposed to it and thus incompatible with that form, since no further disposition remains to bring about its expulsion. Therefore the final disposition is not simultaneous with that form, since it is incompatible with it. Hence even if accidents are received in matter alone, because matter cannot have opposed and incompatible forms simultaneously, it cannot simultaneously have the final disposition and the corrupted form. To expel the corrupted form formally, the generated form need not be in matter at the same time as the corrupted form—otherwise there would be two forms in matter—but it suffices for the generated form to be joined to the corrupted one by succession and expulsion, not simultaneity. In the same way, for the final disposition to expel the corrupted form dispositively, it need not exist simultaneously with that form; it suffices that it succeed and expel it, rather than exist alongside it.

That the final disposition is simultaneous with the generated form is affirmed by St. Thomas in the cited q. 28 of De veritate, a. 7, ad 11,³ where he says: “Completed heat is introduced simultaneously with the form of fire.” This follows from what was said: just as that final disposition is incompatible with the corrupted form, so it is compatible and connected with the generated form; therefore it is simultaneous with it. For matter is never found without some substantial form with which the accidental disposition is present.

I say, second: the final disposition is quite compatible with these two features: it prepares matter for the form terminatively—that is, it is given not merely as an adornment, but for preparing matter in relation to the form—and likewise it is caused by the form in the order of formal causality and according to dependence in being.

St. Thomas affirms both points in De veritate, q. 28, a. 8, at the end of the body,⁴ and in Sentences IV, dist. 17, q. 1, a. 4, questions 1 and 2,⁵ and a. 5, question 3,⁶ where he affirms that “the final disposition is an effect of the form in the genus of formal cause, and yet precedes it in the genus of material cause.” One may especially consult St. Thomas in Sentences III, dist. 13, q. 3, a. 1,⁷ where he distinguishes three kinds of disposition: “In one way, something falls between a subject and that perfection as if it were an instrument of the perfection, as transparency disposes for light. In another way, something disposes for a form by preparing matter to receive the form, so that it preexists in matter before the form in the order of coming to be, but not in the order of being, as heat disposes for the form of fire—not because something falls between form and matter, but because matter is made appropriate for the form of fire through the arrival of heat. In a third way, something disposes for a perfection by contributing to the goodness and fittingness of the perfection, as a person’s beauty contributes to royal dignity.” Behold, St. Thomas distinguishes a disposition preparing matter for a form from a disposition adorning it and contributing to its fittingness. He places the final disposition in the first order, as heat is related to the form of fire: it precedes only in the order of coming to be, not in the order of being as a medium existing between matter and form, and consequently it does not exist in matter before the form.

The conclusion is explained by showing that these two features are not incompatible: the disposition can depend on or be caused by the form and can prepare or determine matter for that form consummatively and terminatively, just as the antecedent disposition and alteration prepare and dispose matter for it initially. This is clear because the final disposition—for example, heat at degree eight—is an accident connected with the form of fire and dependent on it in being as its proper attribute, contained in its root. We clearly see, for example, that generated fire has heat at degree eight as its property. Second, heat at degree eight is of the same nature and species as heat at degree six or seven, which disposed the wood for the form of fire before the instant of generation; thus the final disposition is the terminus and completion of the antecedent disposition of heat. St. Thomas openly acknowledges this in De veritate, q. 28, a. 9, ad 10,⁸ where he says that things that come to be instantaneously are said to be coming to be and to have come to be “because, insofar as that instant is the terminus of the prior time in which the thing was coming to be, it claims for itself what belongs to the prior time.” St. Thomas therefore holds that the final disposition, in its completed state, is also the terminus of the antecedent disposition and prior time, and thus claims that description for itself.

Accordingly, in view of these two respects or formal aspects, the final disposition can follow the form and dispose matter in different genera of cause. Because it is an accident incompatible with the preceding form but connected and subordinated to the generated form as its proper accident, it must depend on and follow that form. But because it is the terminus and completion of the preceding alteration by which matter was disposed for the form to be generated, matter is disposed and prepared terminatively and consummatively through that final disposition. Thus the final disposition terminates the generator’s two actions under different formal aspects, namely, alteration and generation: it terminates alteration insofar as it is the completion and terminus of the preceding alteration, and it terminates generation insofar as it is a proper attribute connected with the substantial form and thus follows that form. It is not new for two actions to concur in one effect under different formal aspects, as the sun and a human being concur in generating a human being. Or, if there is only one action, namely generation, it will virtually contain the power of the preceding alteration, in whose place it is substituted as it completes that alteration.

I say, third: the final disposition is not a power that efficiently influences substantial generation or the corruption of the opposed form. This is St. Thomas’s teaching in De veritate, q. 28, a. 8, ad 5, from the points given second,⁹ where he says: “A disposition contributes nothing to a form efficiently, but only materially, insofar as matter is made suitable by the disposition for receiving the form.” He is speaking of the final disposition.

The reason for the conclusion is clear from what was said. Since the final disposition is an accident, it can operate efficiently only as a power received in some subject and as inhering in it. For it is not heat that is said to heat, but something hot, since a form or “that by which” principle, such as heat or the final disposition, cannot operate unless some “that which” principle operates. A “that by which” principle essentially belongs to some agent as that through which it acts; therefore it essentially presupposes a “that which” principle. If, then, the final disposition operates efficiently to bring about generation, it necessarily does so as received in some subject. But it is not received in the corrupted thing, since that ceases to be, nor in any surrounding body, since that body is not disposed and the thing is not generated from it. Therefore it is received in the generated thing, as was shown, since it follows that thing’s form. It cannot, then, reach generation itself efficiently, because it cannot act efficiently upon the subject in which it is received, as St. Thomas says, ST I-II, q. 85, a. 1, ad 4. Even if it could effect something, it could not generate the subject, since if it is received in that subject in order to effect it, it already presupposes that subject to be generated and existing.

If someone says that it at least exerts efficient influence on the corruption of the opposed form, St. Thomas’s teaching in De veritate, q. 28, a. 8, body,¹⁰ stands against this. He shows that grace cannot efficiently bring about the remission of guilt—the corruption of an opposed form—through acts elicited by grace, but does so by informing the subject. By informing it, grace expels the opposed form; it does not do so by efficiently producing the corruption. The reason is that efficient causality is not directly toward corruption; otherwise it would terminate per se and primarily in nonbeing, which is to effect nothing. Rather, it terminates first and per se in some generation or form, and secondarily in the corruption of something else. Therefore, if the final disposition cannot concur efficiently in generation, neither can it influence corruption efficiently.

But from the conclusion there arises a great difficulty: by what power does the generator, when absent, act efficiently upon the generated thing itself? For, as we said, the final disposition does not concur efficiently in generation, while a disposition short of the final one is insufficient to produce the generated form—for example, heat at degree seven is insufficient to produce the form of fire. First, it cannot produce heat at degree eight, since it is inferior to that degree; therefore neither can it produce the form of fire. Second, that antecedent disposition is received in the very thing being corrupted, since it is compatible with that thing’s form; therefore it does not exist at the instant of generation and consequently does not act efficiently. Nor can it be said to remain virtually, or that the antecedent disposition continues with the generated form, as St. Thomas indicates, ST III, q. 7, a. 13, ad 2, saying: “The disposition which precedes naturally by the power of generation follows the perfection which someone has already attained, just as heat, which was a disposition for the form of fire, is an effect flowing from the form of fire.” And in q. 9, a. 3, ad 2, he says: “Matter is disposed through heat to receive the form of fire; when that form arrives, heat does not cease but remains as a certain effect of that form.” Against this it is objected that if so, substantial generation would not resolve all the way to matter, because the antecedent disposition continues with the generated form and thus remains in matter, or at least some power remains in which that disposition is virtually contained—and that power is an accident. Therefore, to this

I say, fourth: the generator’s power, which operates efficiently as something separated and diffused from the generator itself as its instrument, is not the final disposition; rather, it is found with the antecedent dispositions. At the instant of generation it does not operate efficiently as existing in the corrupted subject or in the generated subject, but in a part nearer to the generated thing itself.

This conclusion presupposes that the generator can stand in either of two relations to the matter from which it generates. It may be undistant from the matter and immediate to it through both its supposit and its power, as fire is near the wood it burns. In that case, the generator’s effective power is only in the generating supposit itself, namely, the heat in the fire. At other times the generator is distant from the matter from which it generates and is immediate to it only through its power, as the sun is when it generates a plant, or an animal when it generates another animal through seed. In that case there is also an effective power diffused and separated from the agent itself as its instrument, as St. Thomas says in De potentia, q. 3, a. 11, ad 9,¹¹ and in many other places; we proved this in Physics q. 12. ¹² The conclusion concerns this power, diffused in the generator’s absence or at a distance.

The first part says that this power is not the final disposition but is posited along with the antecedent dispositions. This is clear because the final disposition is an effect connected and attached to the generated form, so that it exists only where the generated form exists, just as heat at degree eight exists only where the form of fire exists. Therefore it operates only when the form of fire exists and does not reach that form itself, or its generation, efficiently.

The second part, that the effective power is not in the corrupted subject when it operates at the instant of generation, is clear because at that instant the subject is not there, since it is being corrupted; therefore neither is the power that inhered in it. What does not exist does not operate efficiently by itself; nor does it operate through some power, since the same difficulty would arise as to what subject that power is in.

The third part, that the power does not exist in the generated thing as its subject, or in its matter, is clear from St. Thomas’s teaching in ST I-II, q. 85, a. 1, ad 4; q. 110, a. 2, ad 1; and Quodlibet X, a. 3, ad 2,¹³ where he holds that a disposition or accident does not act efficiently upon its own subject, but acts formally by actualizing it. Therefore a disposition existing in the generated thing cannot generate it. This is clear in itself, since that would presuppose the thing to exist before its subject and consequently require the disposition to be in another subject. Nor can the disposition be supposed to exist in matter and act efficiently upon matter and from it: since an accident can operate only as a “that by which,” the subject in which it inheres must operate as a “that which.” To say that an accident operates efficiently upon a subject is therefore to say that the subject operates efficiently upon itself. But nothing moves itself efficiently, much less prime matter, which is in no way active but is passive. Therefore an accident existing in prime matter cannot act efficiently upon it.

The fourth part of the conclusion is that, when the generator is distant from the matter it disposes and from which it generates, we must assign a proximate part which, through the power separated from the generator and together with the antecedent dispositions, acts efficiently upon the nearer part, and generation thus occurs. This is clear because nothing acts efficiently upon itself; an agent and a patient, a moving part and a moved part, must be distinguished. Therefore, when the generator itself is not present there to act by itself, one part must act upon another for generation to occur. The Coimbra commentators also noted this well, De generatione I, ch. 5, q. 9, a. 2, § “Quare nostra.”

If you object that the nearer part does not have the final disposition in itself—for example, heat at degree eight—but something below it, since otherwise generated fire would already be in it and it would not merely have a power for generating fire, then such an inferior power cannot efficiently produce the final disposition. We reply that although that power is lower than heat at degree eight and the final disposition in entity and form, virtually it has the power to reach efficiently the substantial form of the generated thing and its final disposition, insofar as it is an instrument of the generator from which that power has been separated.

This is drawn from St. Thomas, ST I, q. 76, a. 4, ad 4, who says: “In a mixture the proper qualities of the elements remain, though in a diminished degree, and in them is the power of the elemental forms.” He therefore holds that the power of the form of the generator can remain virtually even below heat at degree eight. Thus heat below degree eight cannot, as a principal cause, produce anything but heat like itself, not heat at degree eight. But if it is considered not merely as heat but as efficacious heat—that is, as derived from fire as its instrument for producing a substance like itself, and consequently heat at degree eight—it produces that instrumentally, not principally. If, however, in the generator’s absence or after its destruction that weaker and more imperfect power has become too weak, or has issued forth in too diminished a state to produce a substance, then, if it does produce one, it does so by the power of a higher cause, namely, the heavens or the first cause, which supplies what is lacking in the generator’s power. Thus at times some inanimate forms are produced by the heavens, as when a corpse is generated through slaughter or suffocation. Iron does not directly produce the form of a corpse, but the form of iron; yet, by removing vital dispositions—for example, the heat in the blood—it leaves room for the heavens to introduce the form of a corpse. What it means for that power, which is a certain quality, to be the power of a substance, we explained in Physics q. 12,¹⁴ namely, that it is not something added to the quality, but only that the quality is derived from the substance and belongs to it in the order of producing a similar substance.

However, in the generation of living things there is a special difficulty about how the efficient part and the affected part are distinguished. A living thing is not generated successively, part by part, as an inanimate thing is; rather, when the body is organized and fully disposed, the whole generation is completed in an instant. Thus it is not apparent how the form of a living thing and its final disposition proceed from a neighboring part.

The reply follows from St. Thomas’s teaching in ST I, q. 118, a. 1, ad 3, and De potentia, q. 3, a. 11, especially ad 8,¹⁵ where he teaches that the active power of the seed is not in the whole seed, but in the spirits enclosed in it; in that spirit too there is some heat from the power of the heavenly bodies, through whose power these lower things act. These spiritual parts of the seed act upon other parts, which function as matter, and form them. Although the corporeal matter from which animals are generated is changed through the various forms we call embryonic forms up to the introduction of the perfect form, the spiritual part in which the active seminal power resides is not destroyed or changed, as St. Thomas says in that reply ad 8. Thus there is always a distinction between the parts that act efficiently and the parts into which the animal form is introduced. The generated form is not introduced into those more spiritual and frothy parts, since the fetus is not formed from them, but from the more corporeal and denser matter of the seed and blood. Otherwise, as St. Thomas argues there, if those spiritual parts were changed and the fetus were formed from them as matter, the seminal power would be destroyed, and generation could not be brought to completion through the power of the seed. As for what happens to the parts possessing the power of the seed after the animal form has been introduced, St. Thomas replies in the cited q. 118, ad 4, that when the spirit vanishes and the seed is dissolved, the active power that was in the seed ceases to be, since it was an instrumental power that ceases once the effect has been produced. Accordingly, that spiritual part is dissolved and evaporates into some body. In this way the agent part is always distinguished from the part into which the form is introduced. Although that active quality of the seed is formally inferior to the final disposition, it is not inferior virtually, insofar as it is the power of a substance derived from it to act.

From this it is clear how a disposition exerts efficient influence toward the introduction of a form or corruption. The effective power that exerts this influence, as was established, must be in a part or subject distinct from the one being disposed; thus the moving part is always distinguished from the moved part, and the unacceptable consequence that a disposition absent at the final instant could act is avoided, since the acting power then exists in a nearer part. It is likewise clear how matter is said to be disposed, whether by the final or by an antecedent disposition. This is not by an extrinsic denomination, but by a real informing: before the instant of generation, the matter is disposed in a manner of becoming and tending toward the form through the antecedent dispositions, which are received in the whole that is to be corrupted and determine matter for the form to be introduced. At the instant of generation matter is determined in its completed state, consummatively through the final disposition itself. This disposition is not received in matter alone, but in the whole, because it is always connected with the form itself. Yet the disposition has a twofold respect or function, corresponding to two principles: the generated form, which it follows as a proper attribute, and the alteration, which it terminates and completes. It need not prepare and dispose matter according to both respects; it suffices that it dispose matter as the terminus of alteration, not as the form’s property. But because in fact it inheres and exists in the whole itself and in its matter as the principle by which it is received, this suffices for it to be said, by a real and intrinsic denomination, to dispose matter.

As for those passages of St. Thomas in which he seems to say that the heat in the corrupted thing remains in the generated thing, the reply is that he is not speaking of the same heat numerically, but of similar heat. It is therefore said not to cease because similar heat continues it; the same heat does not remain numerically, as St. Thomas expressly says in De generatione I, lect. 10,¹⁶ and in the other places cited in the preceding article. Since, as the same places cited in opposition affirm, the heat arriving through the introduction of the form flows from the form itself, he cannot be speaking of the same heat numerically: the heat that flowed from the introduced form could not be the heat that had previously existed in the subject.

For the difficulties raised at the beginning¹⁷ the reply follows from what was said. To the first we say that the alteration alone which preceded in the corrupted subject does not produce the final disposition unless generation intervenes and assists. Generation produces the substantial form and the final disposition as attached to it and as the terminus of the preceding alteration. In relation to the form it follows, the final disposition is posterior to that form. But insofar as it terminates the preceding alteration and completes it within the same order of accident, it performs the function of a disposition as that alteration’s terminus and completion; insofar as it completes and virtually contains the preceding disposition, it is said virtually to precede it.

To the second difficulty we reply that the final disposition does not efficiently cause the form for which it disposes, nor does it function as the generator’s power. It functions only as a disposition with a twofold respect: first, toward the generated form, as attached to it in the manner of a proper attribute; second, toward the antecedent dispositions, of which it is the completion and terminus. In the first respect it follows the form; in the second it precedes it—not in duration, but by nature and causality, as was said.

To the arguments against this: To the first,¹⁸ concerning efficient causality, we reply that the generator’s effective power belongs not to the formal final disposition, but to the antecedent disposition, insofar as it is the power of the generating substance, regards the substantial form to be produced, and is ordered to that form and consequently to the final disposition that accompanies it. Thus the formal final disposition is the terminus or effect of the generator’s power, not the efficient power of the generated thing. Unless we say that the antecedent disposition below the final one, insofar as it is the power of the generating substance, is also a final disposition—not formally, but virtually, insofar as it contains that disposition virtually, as it does the substantial form.

To the other argument,¹⁹ concerning the preparation of matter, we reply that the final disposition prepares matter consummatively and terminatively, that is, in its completed state. Up to and excluding the instant of generation, it presupposes matter as prepared in the process of coming to be and tending toward the form through the antecedent dispositions. At that instant the form is introduced into matter, concomitantly prepared through that final disposition insofar as the disposition is the terminus and completion of the antecedent dispositions and is coordinated with them. It therefore has the force of those dispositions as their terminus, in which they are consummated; under this aspect it also has the force of material causality and priority with respect to the form, just as the antecedent dispositions had. But the form itself, in its respect and formal causality, is understood to regard matter insofar as it informs matter according to matter’s bare entity—that is, insofar as matter is substantially capable of being informed. For matter is not informed by a substantial form through an accident, but immediately through itself; thus, under this aspect of informing, the form regards only the entity of matter, not accidental dispositions. It regards those dispositions only as determining matter’s indifference toward this form. For that, it suffices that the disposition be there concomitantly at the same instant, while it is said to precede under the respect and order of material causality insofar as it is the terminus and completion of the preceding dispositions, which it virtually contains.

When it is asked how matter remains prepared, virtually or formally, and in what form that preparation is said to remain virtually, the reply is that in the thing itself and at the very instant of generation there is the final disposition attached to the form. As the terminus and completion of the preceding dispositions, it virtually contains them and continues the preparation and determination they gave matter up to that instant, exclusively.

To the final difficulty,²⁰ we reply that the disposition which is the generator’s effective power is not in the subject that is corrupted or in the subject that is generated, since it does not act efficiently upon the subject in which it inheres, as the argument says from St. Thomas. Rather, it is in a nearer part, in which the generator’s power is also found in its absence, as was sufficiently shown above.²¹

Nevertheless, Father Suárez, in that disputation²² Disputationes metaphysicae 14, sect. 3, no. 28, does not rest content with the doctrine presented, and considers the distinction about the mutual priority of disposition and form unsatisfactory. He objects against it that if the disposition truly prepares, rather than merely adorning and perfecting the subject, it must determine and, as it were, limit the subject’s capacity for such a form. Therefore it also determines the agent to introduce such a form; therefore such a form cannot efficiently follow from the form already introduced. The consequence is clear: if the disposition came from the form, and the form is effected by the agent, then the agent cannot be determined by that disposition to produce the form; instead, the agent is determined to produce such a disposition through the form.

This is confirmed because the disposition cannot exercise material causality and have priority of nature either with respect to the action by which the form comes to be or with respect to the matter it disposes. It cannot have priority with respect to the action, because that disposition follows through the form; therefore it cannot have causality and priority with respect to the action by which the form itself comes to be, since when the form comes to be, the disposition does not yet exist or have been made, and so cannot then cause it. Nor can the disposition have this priority with respect to matter, because it cannot dispose matter except by informing it. But at that prior point the disposition cannot inform matter, since before the form, matter is informed by accidents. That accident cannot dispose matter except by informing and inhering in it, since without inherence it does not exist and thus does not dispose matter. If it does not dispose matter at that prior point, in what does the disposition inhere? Not in the form, since it follows the form and thus at that prior point does not yet inhere in it; nor in the composite, since it prepares for the composite and does not dispose the composite itself but matter for it. But what disposes must be that in which it inheres. Therefore it will inhere in matter alone, and so there is no need for it to follow the form: it inheres in matter through the agent.

We reply that the final disposition does not determine the agent to act efficiently, but determines it as its effect. The final disposition is said to determine the agent not as its power for efficient action, but as the terminus of the antecedent disposition, which was a determined power of the agent itself and was separated from it. I add that the agent is not determined to generate through the antecedent dispositions it sends into matter; before sending them, it is determined to generate and, as a necessary means and power for acting, sends out those dispositions. They function as its effects and as a power determined to generate the form. Thus these dispositions proceed from an agent already determined, since they operate through its determined power. It is no objection that the antecedent dispositions do not suffice to determine matter or the agent. They do not suffice to determine it in a completed and consummated state, but they do suffice in a process of tending and beginning; and insofar as they are the power of the generating substance, they also act efficiently.

In reply to the confirmation, we deny the antecedent. To the proof concerning the action, we reply that the disposition does not receive in itself the action by which the form comes to be; rather, it prepares matter in its completed state so that the form, which is the terminus of the action, may be received in it. In this respect it is said to dispose matter for the action at its terminus. Nor is it required for the function of a material cause that it exist beforehand, as is required in an efficient cause; it suffices that it accompany the effect in reality, so that at no duration is there a material cause without existence, as we proved in Physics q. 11.²³

To the proof concerning matter, we reply that the disposition can dispose matter only by inhering and informing it with concomitant inherence and existence found in reality, not by an inherence that formalizes or formally constitutes every priority and causality of matter with respect to form, or of form with respect to matter. Thus, at that priority of nature, or under that formal aspect and conception by which matter is understood substantially to receive form, the dispositions are not understood to inform matter (although in fact they are there); matter alone and the form are understood to constitute the substantial composite. The preparation and determination of matter in relation to such a form is presupposed there only concomitantly or antecedently, not understood formally; rather, this belongs to another priority or posteriority of nature. It is antecedent there by reason of the antecedent dispositions, and concomitant by reason of the final disposition, which in its completed state terminates those dispositions. The answer to the question “Where does the disposition inhere at that prior point?” is therefore clear. At that formal prior point it does not inhere, because that priority is not the formal aspect of inherence but of substantial composition. Concomitantly and in reality, however, it then inheres in the composite as its subject in the sense of that which supports it, and in matter as its subject in the sense of that by which it is received and determined through those dispositions. For it to inhere in the composite, it is not necessary that it be partly in the form and partly in matter; it suffices that it be in matter as the subject in the sense of that by which it is received, and in the whole composite as the subject in the sense of that which supports it, as we shall explain more fully below, q. 9.²⁴