Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Philosophiae Naturalis

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.