Cursus Philosophicus Thomisticus, Secunda Pars Philosophiae Naturalis

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