Disputationes metaphysicae

1. We can speak of accidents in two ways: in one way in the abstract, or of the accidental form alone; in another way in the concrete, or of the composite of such a form and the subject. And according to this twofold consideration the material cause of an accident can be sought in two ways, namely either as composing it, or as sustaining it or its union.

There is a material cause of accidents

2. First, then, it is certain in general that there is a material cause of accidents. This is evident first from Aristotle, Metaphysics XII, text 13, where, resolving the question which he had proposed in Book III, text 15, he says that the principles of all genera are the same according to proportion; for (as the Commentator expounds), although the potency to substantial being is one thing and the potency to accidental being another, they nevertheless agree proportionally in the notion of material cause. Whence this causality is demonstrated by the same way and proportion as the causality of prime matter; indeed, as better known to us, it was known first, and through proportion to it one came to the knowledge of prime matter, as we saw above. For we experience that in the same subject a change comes about from one accident into another, as from hot into cold; from which we understand that there is a subject which underlies each accident, and that we call the material cause of the accident. For truly it is a cause, since the accident depends on it; and in so far as it is a subject it does not participate another genus of causality, as is self-evident and will be more evident from what is to be said. Next, because this transmutation does not come about in all accidents, a universal reason is to be added, which is to be taken from the nature of accidental entity; for accidental entity cannot subsist in itself, but needs a subject in which it is sustained; and therefore it needs a material cause as necessary from the nature of the thing in order that it can be. Which reason proves not only that there can be a material cause of accidents, but also that all accidents by their nature necessarily postulate this cause; because the being of an accident is to be in, as we shall declare afterwards in its place; but in the very notion of inhering the subject is included, and consequently the material cause.

3. A difference to be noted between substance and accident.—From which is gathered a difference between substance and accident, that substance, even created, does not universally require a material cause, as was shown above, but every accident requires it. And the reason is that the notion of created substance or form, from this precise and common notion, does not require matter, since by virtue of those notions it is not repugnant that it be a subsisting and simple thing, but it is required from the peculiar notion of such substance, namely corporeal, or of such form, namely material. But an accident from the precise and common notion of accident postulates a material cause, because it expresses an entity so diminished that by its nature it is unfit to subsist, and so needing some sustaining subject. Whence it comes about that this material causality extends itself also to incorporeal things, for spiritual accidents too need a material cause, the name material being extended beyond that from which it was taken. For matter properly and rigorously so called is corporeal matter, and from it the denomination material was taken; yet thence it is extended to every cause which has the same or a proportional reason of causing, even if according to its entity it is spiritual and incorporeal; and in this way spiritual accidents, although in themselves they are indivisible and incapable of quantitative extension, nevertheless have a material cause. Indeed, according to the principles of divine theology, even supernatural accidents need a material cause, for, however much they are beings of the most perfect order, nevertheless, by the very fact that they are accidents, they need a subject by which they are supported. It is to be noticed finally, however, that in this conclusion the discussion is of proper accidental entity, for an accidental mode which of itself does not have a proper entity, but is intrinsically identified with some accidental entity of which it is the mode, does not always have a proper material cause, but the entity itself which it proximately modifies suffices, whether it is conjoined as to a subject or in another way, which cannot be declared in particular except by explaining the various genera of these accidental modes, which we shall do in the course of this matter. And therefore I omit the special difficulties which occurred here about relation as relation, and about transient action as such, and about place or other forms denominating extrinsically, for they will be treated more conveniently in their proper places.

The accident in the concrete is composed of matter, not in the abstract

4. I say, secondly: accidental entity taken in the abstract does not have a material cause of which it is intrinsically composed, but in this way there is given a material cause of the accident in the concrete, or of the accidental composite. Soncinas posits this conclusion, especially as regards the former part, Metaphysics XII, q. 26, and Javellus, q. 8, and they indicate that some thought the opposite on account of Aristotle there, text 26, saying that in every genus there is a proper potency and act. The conclusion, however, is most certain, speaking of proper and real matter, because the whole accidental entity is a certain form; therefore it does not need intrinsic and real composition from proper matter and form. The antecedent is declared, because the whole accidental entity is in the subject as a form; whence those who feign in the accident the said composition from matter must necessarily confess that that part which they call the matter of the other, formal, part is with respect to the subject act and form, at least partial. But hence the first consequence is proved, because form as form does not postulate composition from potency and act really distinct, as is evident in substantial forms and was proved above in special of the rational soul. Nor in an accidental form can a proper reason be thought out on account of which it requires that composition; for, although such a form consists of genus and difference, which are compared after the manner of metaphysical matter and form, nevertheless they are neither distinguished in the thing, nor per se require principles or foundations really distinct, as was proved above. Nor yet do these accidental forms on account of their imperfection postulate that composition from potency and act really distinct, because an imperfect thing, if it is partial and incomplete or the form of another, can be really simple, indeed even indivisible, as the point; for simplicity does not always import or require great perfection, but is then only a sign of greater perfection when other things are equal; therefore no probable reason can be thought out for attributing this composition to accidents.

5. Add moreover that it cannot be understood of what kind that matter is of which the accidental form is intrinsically composed; for either it is such that the same in number is successively under diverse accidental forms, or it is always transmuted or perishes with the form itself. The first cannot be said, otherwise not only would cold come about from hot, but also cold from heat, and hatred from love, and so of the others, which is openly false. Likewise, because heat is active according to its whole entity; therefore it introduces heat into the subject according to its whole entity, as regards that degree which it introduces; therefore it expels the opposite degree of cold similarly as regards its whole entity; it does not, therefore, expel only the formal part from the material in order to introduce into it another opposite formal part, but simply expels the whole form, or the whole contrary degree, in order to introduce its own. Just as in a purely privative change, as, for example, in the ceasing of light, the formal part of light does not perish and the potential remain, but absolutely the whole light. But if the transmutation of an accident always comes about in the whole entity of the form, then that matter of which accidents are feigned to consist serves nothing for the transmutations of accidents, nor yet serves in order that they inform substance; for the notion of matter of itself rather impedes information, because matter as such is not actuating act, as we said above. Likewise it does not serve for action; rather it can impede the form from being active according to its whole self, for matter according to itself is not active; since, therefore, many accidental forms are active according to their whole entity, they are not intrinsically composed of matter and form. Finally, if the accident so consists of matter and form, the form too of the accident itself will consist of matter and form. And so one will proceed to infinity; if, therefore, one must stop at some form, as truly one must, let us stop at the first, which is the accident itself, which is only a form whose matter is the subject which it informs. The first sequel is evident, because there is no greater reason of one form than of another, because each is an imperfect and incomplete entity and the form of another, and in each a generic and specific notion can be conceived; the reason is therefore the same.

6. And from these the other part of the conclusion is easily evident, because the accidental composite intrinsically consists of subject and accident, and in that composition the accident has the notion of form; therefore the subject has the notion of material cause. Whence it comes about that this causality with respect to the composite is to be explained in these accidental composites by the same proportion by which we declared it in substantial ones. For the composite itself is the effect of such a cause, since it consists of it and depends on it. But the reason or principle of causing is the first potency or entity through which the subject receives the accident, of which potency and entity we shall speak professedly in the following sections. But the causality in the thing is nothing other than the union of the accidental form to the subject, for by means of it it comes about that from subject and accident one composite coalesces. For we are speaking of the composite and its causality in completed being; for of causality in becoming it will be said immediately. Nor is it necessary in the subject of the accident to feign a distinct mode of union besides the accident itself as united to the subject, because, when the accident comes about in the subject, two changes do not come about in the subject itself, one through the information of the accident, another through a peculiar mode of union identified with the subject itself; and on account of the other reasons made above, which here have the same or greater force. And so this whole causality with respect to the accidental composite is evident.

7. An objection is met.—You will say: this accidental composite is one per accidens; therefore with respect to it true material causality cannot intervene; otherwise every composite per accidens would arise from causality of this kind; which is evidently false in a heap of stones, or also in a house, in so far as it consists of foundation, walls and roof. The answer is, from what was said above of unity, that in beings which are one per accidens there is a breadth, and some have greater unity than others. The composite, then, of subject and accident is one per accidens, because it consists of things of diverse predicaments and of act and potency not per se ordered, but accidentally. Nevertheless the unity which it has is not only metaphorical or apparent, but true and physical, because it is through a true and real union of one to the other, and therefore such a composite truly arises through the real causality of the components, both among themselves and with respect to the composite. But a heap of stones is so one per accidens that it does not have true and physical unity, but only metaphorical or apparent (so to speak); and therefore, just as it does not arise from a true union of the composing parts, so it is not necessary that true material causality intervene there, but only according to proportion, in so far as in site and order one part is conjoined to another. But in artificial composition there is wont to intervene a certain greater conjunction and subordination of parts, yet not true and physical union; and so neither true material causality; which is understood by comparing the integrating parts of the artefact among themselves, for, if the whole artefact is compared to its proper artificial form, which is figure, with respect to it there is a more proper material causality, in so far as figure is compared to its subject as a true accident really united.

The accident in the abstract is educed and sustained by matter

8. A difference among accidents as regards becoming.—I say, thirdly: the accident as regards its accidental entity precisely and abstractly taken has a material cause, not of which it is composed, but by which it is sustained in its being; whence that is the material cause of the accident not only as regards union but also as regards its entity, which it causes in its genus by means of the union; nor yet is it cause only in completed being, but also in becoming. This whole assertion follows from the preceding by a sufficient division, for from the first assertion it is evident that accidents need a material cause on account of the diminished entity which they have; and in the second it was proved that accidental entity does not need this cause in order that it be intrinsically composed of it; therefore in order that it be sustained by it. Indeed even those who feign a material cause intrinsically composing accidents do not exclude a material cause sustaining the whole accident itself composed of intrinsic matter and form; which is a new argument that that intrinsic composition of the accident from matter and form is falsely feigned. Again, from the same diminished and imperfect entity of the accident it is evident that it depends on its material cause not only in union but in its entity, because it can in no way naturally subsist in itself. Likewise, because the accident depends no less on its material cause than the material substantial form on matter; but this depends not only in union but also in entity; therefore. Finally hence it is also concluded that it depends not only in completed being but also in becoming, both because becoming is proportioned to being itself, and also because the action through which the accident naturally comes about is also a certain accident necessarily depending on the subject in which or from which it comes about. This, however, is to be understood with proportion, for some accidents come about through proper action, but others only through resultance or consequence upon the effecting of other things; each accident, therefore, in the way in which it comes about, depends on some subject in becoming, and so has a material cause of its effecting in the way in which it can naturally come about. But what this causality is it is not necessary to declare again; for it is altogether the same as in substantial causality, proportion being kept.

9. How material cause is said of the substantial and the accidental.—But someone can ask whether material cause is said univocally of that which is of substance and of the material cause of the accident. And the reason for doubt can be that the material cause of the accident in itself is either more perfect or equally perfect with the material cause of substance, for it is either an integral substance, or a form, or at least matter itself; therefore also in the notion of material cause it is either more perfect or at least equally perfect, because in this causality the cause offers itself and its being; therefore, if in itself it is equally perfect, it will also be so in the notion of cause. But on the contrary is the fact that the being which results from this causality is not being simply, but in a certain respect, namely accidental being. Likewise the production or generation of an accident is only production and generation in a certain respect. Likewise the union of the accidental form with the subject is only in a certain respect, as being accidental; but actual material causality consists in the actual union itself, or uniting, in so far as it depends on the subject; therefore this causality with respect to the accident is only in a certain respect. And so it must be said that material cause formally, in the notion of cause, is said analogically of these causes and more principally of the cause of substance; but materially the thing which causes accidents can be either equally or more perfect. But this is not enough for it to be more perfect in the notion of cause, even if through itself it enters the composition of the whole accidental composite, because the notion of cause is not to be taken thence, but from the actual causality which it exhibits and from the formal being which arises thence.

1. Of this causality formally taken nothing else remains for us to say; but of the foundation of such causality and of the potency through which it causes it is necessary to say some things. For, since material causality consists in reception, two things are required on the side of the cause, namely the thing which receives and the potency through which it receives, which can be distinguished either in reality or by reason. But we suppose, as self-evident from what has been said, that substance is as it were the first foundation, or the first thing which materially causes accidents, because the whole order of accidents is imperfect and insufficient to subsist in itself; and therefore the first foundation on which accidents rest cannot be some accident, but must be substance. We inquire, then, through what potency substance materially causes accidents: whether through an accidental potency really or from the nature of the thing distinct from it, or through itself, or through a potency distinct by reason only.

The former opinion is treated

2. For some authors think that no accident is received in substance except by means of an accidental potency pertaining to the same predicament. So think Soncinas, Metaphysics XII, q. 26, and Javellus, q. 8, who say that there is in substance a potency receptive of quantity, which is reduced to the predicament of quantity, and another receptive of quality, pertaining to the predicament of quality; or rather Soncinas says that in the surface itself there is something potential of the genus of colour for receiving colour, whatever that may be (he says), say transparency or something of this kind. Their foundation is a certain saying of Aristotle, Metaphysics XII, text 26, that the principles of all genera are the same. Which the Commentator expounds of identity according to analogy, for any thing whatever of some predicament has those three principles, matter, form and privation; yet in all predicaments they are not the same, but proportional. Hence, then, they gather that, as in each predicament there is a proper form and a proper privation, so also there is a proper potency constituting the proximate material principle of that genus. Whence it is rightly concluded that substance as such cannot be the proximate material principle of any accident.

3. And hence was taken that axiom: Potency and act are in the same genus, which is received by many as a first principle in metaphysics on account of the said testimony of Aristotle, to which they add another of the Commentator, Physics V, comm. 9, that the potency to each predicament is in that genus of predicament in which the act is; and De Anima I, comm. 6, that potency and act are differences which happen to all predicaments, and he speaks of receptive potency, for he treats of the soul in so far as it is act and of the potency which corresponds. St. Thomas often uses the same principle, signally I, q. 77, a. 1, where he says: Since potency and act divide being and any genus of being, it is necessary that potency and act be referred to the same genus; and therefore, if the act is not in the genus of substance, the potency which is said to that act cannot be in the genus of substance. In which words both that principle and the intended conclusion and the reason of the conclusion seem to be contained. But the reason is that potencies are specified through acts; therefore the potency to receive an accidental form takes its species from the act to which it is ordered; therefore that potency cannot be substance. For by a similar reason we proved above that the potency of matter is not an accident but substance; and by a proportional discourse it can be concluded that the potency to receive quality is in the genus of quality. From which reason some extend that principle to active and receptive potency; whence generally they infer that the potency to accidental act is an accident and is referred to the same genus.

Substance through itself is the immediate material cause of accidents

4. But this opinion, as regards the present matter, cannot be defended, unless perhaps there is equivocation in the sense of the words. I say, then, that substance through itself, without the addition of some thing really distinct or of some mode diverse from the nature of the thing, can be a material cause immediately receiving in itself some accident. The former part is proved, because, if substance receives quantity, for example, by means of some distinct thing which is the potency to receive quantity, I ask whether that thing is substance or accident. It cannot be substance, both because otherwise it would not be a thing beyond the whole substance of the thing; and also because then substance would already be posited as through itself receptive of an accident. If it is an accident, then it is in some proximate subject; I ask, then, whether that is an accidental potency really distinct, or the substance itself; if this latter is said, we have the intent. But if the former is said, of that accident the question will again return, and so we shall proceed to infinity, unless we finally stop at the substance itself. And so it is truly necessary, for, although substance can be united to some accident by means of another, as we shall say afterwards, nevertheless, comparing substance to the whole collection of accidents, it cannot be united to it by means of some thing which is not either substance or accident; therefore it is necessary that some substance and some accident be immediately united, that is, by means of no thing distinct from the extremes.¹ Finally the reason a priori can be taken from this, that the accident is added to created substance to perfect it and to supply that which such a substance cannot have through itself; therefore it is necessary that in the entity of such a substance there be intimately included the capacity to receive accidents; therefore this capacity of substance which is receptive of accidents, as such, cannot be a thing distinct from the substance itself; whence as regards this part the conclusion posited seems evident.

5. But in the other part, about a mode distinct from the nature of the thing, first of all we are not treating of the actual mode of union, of which it was said above, but of a mode (so to speak) potential, or of some potency distinct from the nature of the thing from substance as a mode and not as a thing altogether diverse. And so the discourse made can almost be applied; for that potency too modally distinct will be a true accident, for if it were substance, it would falsely be said to be distinct from the nature of the thing from the whole substance of the thing; therefore through itself it is in its own way in the substance and depends on it in the genus of material cause; therefore it is received by it immediately through its proper substantial entity. Next, this distinction from the nature of the thing, real distinction being excluded, is feigned in the present case, for this capacity of receiving the first accident (so to speak) is so intimate to created substance that it is inseparable from it, even through the absolute power of God; for, by the very fact that the substance of an angel, for example, is essentially such, through itself it is capable of the intellective power; and although we grant that God can separate the intellect of the angel from its substance, we necessarily understand that that substance always remains capable of intellect, and however bare God preserves that substance, it is impossible that it not remain capable of its natural intellective faculty; and in the same way we understand substance composed of matter and form to be compared to quantity, for through itself it is capable of it nor can it be deprived of this capacity, even if every thing or mode which is separable from such a substance is separated from it; therefore a distinction from the nature of the thing between such capacity and substance is falsely feigned.

6. Cajetan restricts the opinion opposed to ours.—Cajetan’s limitation is disproved.—Whence Cajetan, I, q. 54, a. 3, while in part he adheres to the former opinion cited, limits it to those accidents which are acquired by means of some action and passion; for those which are congenital to substance do not need a mediating potency, but substance itself through itself is capable of them; and in this way he avoids the process to infinity. But the reason of this distinction and limitation, which is gathered from it in the same I, q. 77, a. 1, is that the potency congenital to substance is essentially a potency principally ordered to this, that it receive act; but that it is the act of substance it has only from the common notion of accident; and therefore it does not require another potency by means of which it inheres in substance; but other accidents are primarily and per se acts and therefore require proper potencies by means of which they inhere in substance. But from this doctrine I first of all gather that by virtue of the material causality of the accident as such a mediating potency is not per se required, but substance through itself is sufficient for this causality. This is evident, because for receiving those accidents which are essentially receptive potencies another potency is not required; because these potencies do not actuate substance according to some special notion of act but on account of the common notion of accident; therefore by virtue of the causality of the accident as such such a potency is not required, but, if in some it is required, it will be on account of some special reasons. Next, this is falsely limited to those accidents which are primarily and per se instituted to be receptive potencies; for quantity does not require in substance a mediating potency through which it is received, as was proved, because substance through itself is capable of quantity, and it is superfluous and plainly absurd to feign another mediating potency distinct from the nature of the thing; and yet quantity is not primarily and per se instituted to be a receptive potency, as they themselves too confess, otherwise quantity would essentially be quality. Whence quantity is primarily and per se instituted to extend the parts of substance, so that they cannot naturally penetrate one another in place. But thence it consequently has that it is a medium for receiving certain other accidents; therefore not only those accidents which are primarily and per se instituted to be receptive potencies, but also others which for whatever reason have an immediate relationship to substance, do not require a mediating potency in order to be received or materially caused by it.

7. Indeed I add that perhaps no purely receptive accidental potency is found really distinct from substance, as can briefly be shown by induction. For in corporeal inanimate substances there is no potency receptive of accidents besides quantity, as has partly been shown and will partly be more evident from what follows; but quantity, as I said, is not primarily and per se a receptive potency, but is a form giving to material substance this corporeal bulk and extension, by reason of which it is apt to occupy place. But in living things as such we do not recognize any purely passive potencies, for all which belong to living things as they are living are in some way active; which can also be considered in angelic substances; therefore precisely for receiving accidents it is not necessary to feign distinct potencies in substance, unless the necessity arises from elsewhere.

8. From which it is further concluded that that limitation or distinction of congenital or transmutable accidents is neither formal nor universally true. The first is evident, because, if substance through itself can be capable of an accident as such, it will also be able to be capable of change to such an accident, if perhaps it is separable. But if it is inseparable, that is per accidens and something material with respect to the causality of substance. The second is evident, because quantity, according to the common opinion, is an accident which is transmuted and acquired through proper motion; and nevertheless it does not require in substance a potency distinct from it. Likewise, local presence, or where, is an accidental mode which sometimes affects immediately the substance itself, as is more clearly evident in spiritual substance, and is in its own way true in material, as we shall say below in its place; and yet that accident can be acquired and lost through proper change. Likewise, if it is true that the relation of likeness or of specific identity is something distinct from the nature of the thing from the subject and foundation, such an accident does not require in substance a special potency, and yet it is not congenital, but can be lost or newly result. It remains, therefore, that we say absolutely that for the material causality of substance about an accident, whether it is in it after the manner of passive or active potency, or after the manner of simple form or disposition or quantity or another mode of accident, whether congenital or adventitious, per se and by virtue of these general notions precisely taken a special potency distinct from the nature of the thing from it is not necessary on the side of the substance.

The former opinion is disproved

9. An induction proving that a potency of the same category does not correspond to every act.—And hence I infer that an accident does not always require in substance a receptive potency properly pertaining to its predicament; indeed that this rarely happens, except in some accidents on account of peculiar reasons. This plainly is inferred from the preceding assertion. And it is declared more fully by induction, for in spiritual substance there are only accidents pertaining to the intellect and will and those which regard place. I speak naturally, so as to omit those things which can come about through divine grace or power. Although, if some gift of grace can be placed in spiritual substance which is not in the intellect nor in the will, as truly it can, that does not suppose in the substance a potency of the same genus, for that gift is a quality, but the obediential capacity is not a quality but the very substance of the soul, as is evident from theology. The accidents, then, which pertain to local motion or presence do not suppose in the substance a potency pertaining to the predicament of where or of action or passion; for how can such a potency be conceived or on what foundation be feigned? since the notion of potency, if it is proper, pertains to quality; but if it is taken broadly, it is as it were transcendent and a certain notion intimately included in various things of diverse predicaments, and so it comes about in the case proposed, for spiritual substance through itself is capable of such presence. But the intellect and will without any doubt do not suppose in the substance another potency of the genus of quality, as was proved. But the acts of these potencies are in the substance by means of the potencies themselves, although of the mode there is a controversy to be treated below, sect. 4; yet this comes from the proper notion found in such acts, as we shall say in the same place. And still the case is under judgement whether such acts are of the same predicament with the potencies themselves; for some place them only in the genus of action. And although it is true that they are qualities and suppose a potency which is a quality, nevertheless this does not come from that general reason, but from a peculiar cause and nature.

10. But of the accidents of corporeal substance all confess that among accidents having a proper entity really distinct from substance, the first accident of such substance is quantity, which does not suppose in the substance any potency which pertains to the predicament of quantity, as all the things which we have hitherto said prove a fortiori. But quantity itself is the medium or potency through which this potency receives corporeal qualities and similar accidents; but quantity is not a potency pertaining to the predicament of quality, as is self-evident. Nor yet between the surface, for example, and whiteness can some potency of the genus of quality be feigned to mediate or intervene, through which the surface receives whiteness; which the arguments hitherto made also prove, because such a potency, if in the thing it is not distinct from the surface, cannot be a true quality; but to feign it distinct, either as a thing or as a mode diverse from the nature of the thing, is both superfluous and without foundation; and either one will have to proceed to infinity, or, if one must stop at the intrinsic capacity of the surface by which through itself it is receptive of that potency, it will more truly be said that one must stop at the same intrinsic capacity of the surface by which through itself it is immediately receptive of whiteness, and that unintelligible and in no way necessary potency will be taken out of the middle. So, then, it is evident that the potency through which substance receives an accident does not always pertain to the same predicament with the accident received. And the reason a priori is that from accident and subject it is not necessary that one per se come about, but per accidens, and therefore it is not required that such potency and act pertain to the same genus; whence neither is it necessary that such potency be per se instituted and ordered to such act.

11. How some escape the force of the preceding reasons.—You will say that by these arguments it is rightly proved that the potency receptive of an accident is not always properly and directly in that predicament in which the accident received is, but not proved that it is not placed in it at least reductively, which alone the authors of the former opinion assert; for, since the accident expresses an intrinsic order to the subject in so far as it is capable of the accident itself, it is necessary that the subject according to that capacity be reduced to the predicament of the accident. On account of this evasion I indicated above that in this question there can be equivocation in words, for, if the sense is only that substance or quantity, conceived by us under the formality of the capacity of such an accident, is reduced in a certain way to the predicament of that accident as a certain addition through which such an accident is defined, then the controversy is about our mode of speaking or conceiving; for according to the thing no true potency is added intermediate between substance and quantity, or between quantity and quality, but only a certain denomination or respective conception. But we are speaking of real and true potency, of which St. Thomas speaks when he says that potency and act are reduced to the same genus; otherwise he would not rightly conclude thence that the potencies of the soul are things distinct from the soul, which he intends in those places; and in the same sense speaks Cajetan, who on that account applied the limitations and distinctions cited above. The Commentator likewise seems to speak in the same sense when he says that potency and act are opposite differences dividing the individual predicaments.

The axiom “Act and potency are in the same genus” is declared

12. How, then, is that axiom to be understood: Act and potency are in the same genus? Is it to be rejected altogether, lest it seem to stand in the way of the opinion posited by us and the resolution given? The answer is, first of all, that that axiom is not rightly founded in Aristotle, Metaphysics XII; for there he only asserts that the things of all predicaments have the same principles according to proportion or analogy, but never says that all those principles are placed in the same predicament; indeed, positing examples, he says that in colours white is the principle as form, black as privation, the surface as matter; and in illumination light is the form, darkness the privation, the air the subject; and in healing health is the form, disease the privation, the body the matter; in which examples he never assigns a potency which must be of the same predicament with the form; Aristotle, therefore, did not say that matter and form always pertain to the same genus, although he said that the things of all genera can have in some way a formal and material principle. Whence in the same place he says that the things of all genera have an efficient or moving cause, yet does not say or think that that cause pertains to the same genus with the thing effected. Nor does the rejoinder of Soncinas stand in the way, that the efficient cause is extrinsic and therefore it is not necessary that it be of the same genus; but the material principle is intrinsic, which must be of the same genus. For I answer that the material principle of the accident, if it is compared to the whole composite, is intrinsic to it, yet that composite as such is not properly in one genus, since it is one per accidens and consists of things of diverse genera; but if it is compared to the accidental form, it is not its intrinsic principle, that is, intrinsically composing it, but only after the manner of something added or of the subject to which the accidental form is united. But this principle is not necessarily of the same genus with the form in accidental composition.

13. How Scotus explains the said pronouncement.—What objective potency is in Scotus.—Hence Scotus, In II, dist. 16, q. 1, answers that that axiom, understood of receptive potency and its act, is false, and brings against it the instances indicated by us of substance and accident, of surface and colour, etc. And similarly he teaches that it is false understood of active potency and its act, for there too there are clear instances, especially in potencies which act by transient action, whether they are compared to the action as it is action, because they manifestly pertain to diverse predicaments; or to the thing or form made, for the locally motive potency is a quality, but effects where or local presence, and the augmentative potency is a quality, but acts quantity or substance. He says, then, that that axiom is to be understood of objective potency. Which interpretation many reject, keenly attacking this objective potency. But as regards this I think that these dispute with Scotus about a name and equivocally; for he does not understand by objective potency some true thing which is actually in the nature of things, in which sense only active or passive potency is real potency, as I shall say more fully below in treating of the essence of the creature and declaring the species of quality which is potency; but by objective potency Scotus understands the thing in the possible state before it actually is, in which way we say that a thing is in potency before it is; and because the thing, as it is possible, is the object of active potency, therefore it is said by Scotus to be in objective potency. And so he says that this potency and act are of the same genus, because the possible thing and the thing in act are of the same genus; indeed he could even say that it is the same thing negatively (as they say), because they are not two things, but the same conceived in diverse states. Wherefore the thing which Scotus intends in that interpretation is true, yet that interpretation is not rightly accommodated to the authors who before Scotus taught that axiom; for Aristotle, as is evident from what has been said, never spoke in that sense, nor Averroes, who in the cited place says that potency and act are opposite differences; and, although at the beginning of Metaphysics IX he enumerates various acceptations of potency, he never made mention of that objective potency.

14. It must be said, then, that that axiom is commonly understood of proper receptive or active potency. But in order that it be true, it is to be understood first of all of potency per se primarily instituted and ordered to such act, not of potency or capacity intrinsically included in and as it were concomitant with some absolute entity. This is declared, for it can be understood in two ways that some power, both active and receptive, is compared to act. In one way, because from its primary notion and essence it is ordered to such act; so matter is potency to form, as was declared above; so gravity is an active power for effecting downward motion or permanence in the downward place itself; so finally the intellect is an active and receptive power of intellection. A potency of this kind, then, is said to be per se primarily instituted for the sake of act, and therefore it takes its species from it; and of it at most that axiom can be verified in the way to be declared immediately. But in another way some entity can have a power or capacity for some action or act, not because it is primarily instituted for its sake, but because either on account of the eminence of its nature, or on account of a natural condition or mode of being which it has as it were concomitantly, or rather connaturally, it has through itself such a power or aptitude. So God has the omnipotence of acting; so also the intellectual creature has both the capacity and the obediential active power for supernatural acts or gifts; so finally material substance is capable of quantity and quantity itself is capable of qualities. And in this latter genus of potency or capacity it is not necessary that the potency or capacity and the act be in the same genus; because, since such a potency is not ordered per se primarily to the act, nor takes its species from it, nor composes with the act itself one per se, there is no reason why such potency and act should be placed in the same genus. Nor did St. Thomas ever speak of this latter genus of potency, but of the former; and of the same is Averroes to be expounded, if it is necessary to defend his sayings. Nor does the reason made to the contrary prove more; whence through these sufficient answer has been given to the foundations of the contrary opinion.

15. How St. Thomas and the Commentator understand the axiom.—But in order that that principle may remain exactly declared, it is necessary to add that it can be understood in two ways that a potency of the former order and its act are of the same genus. First, so that genus is taken broadly for the general notions of substance and accident, so that a potency per se ordered to substantial act is substantial, to accidental accidental; not that rigorously it is necessary that the potency and act be of the same predicament of accident, although in substance this is true, because of substance there is only one predicament. And this exposition pleases many, because it avoids difficulties. But others will have it that also in accidents a potency of this kind and its act pertain rigorously to the same predicament, because otherwise it is not rigorously true that potency and act are of the same genus. But it is difficult to defend this universally, especially in active potencies. Wherefore it can probably be said that accidental passive potency (for of substantial enough has already been said), when from its primary institution by virtue of its essence it is ordered to act, is contained under the same genus and predicament with its act. And of this potency St. Thomas and the Commentator seem to speak in the places cited. But under passive potencies we comprehend the potencies of the soul, which, although they are also active, are nevertheless at the same time passive and in passion and reception or information have their consummated perfection. But explained in this way this assertion can be proved by induction in all these potencies; for their habits and acts are placed rigorously in the same genus; for, although action as action pertains to the predicament of action, nevertheless as a vital act having consummated and perfect being in its genus it is placed in the predicament of quality; but when the potency is compared to the act and is said to pertain to the same genus, it is not to be compared to the act in becoming, but to the perfect and consummated act; for to that it is per se primarily ordered and from it receives its species. And so I find no example in which this rule fails. But the reason can be given, because, when a receptive potency is per se ordered to act and is compared to it as imperfect to perfect in its genus, and in a certain way seems to constitute one per se in that order with its act—as the intellective potency is per se conjoined with the act of understanding, and so of the others—therefore it is necessary that such potency and act be placed under the same genus, so that they may thus also keep a greater proportion among themselves.

16. But in active potencies, even if they are per se primarily ordered to acting, it does not seem necessary that potency and act be contained rigorously under the same genus. For, if by the act of this potency we understand action as it is action, it is evident that potency and action pertain to diverse predicaments. Nor is it of any moment what some say, that potency and action indeed directly and per se pertain to diverse predicaments, yet through reduction both the potency is placed in the genus of action and the action in the genus of the potency, because they have among themselves a mutual transcendental relationship; but the term of a relationship is reduced to the predicament of the related. This (I say) matters nothing, because this reduction is only according to the extrinsic denomination which the term as term includes; but we are speaking of placing under one genus according to its proper nature and essence. For in this sense it is necessary that the authors speak when they say that potency and act are under the same genus; otherwise they would not rightly conclude thence that matter, for example, is intrinsically substance because it is potency to substance, and that the intellect is a quality because it is potency to accidental and vital act, etc. Active potency, then, compared to its action as it is action, is not constituted under the same genus; but, if by the act of this potency we understand the formal term of its action, it is not necessary that it be placed in the same predicament, as the example adduced above of gravity proves, which can be adduced universally of the locally motive potency, whether it is progressive, or attractive, or expulsive, or impulsive, or impetus itself, which many think is a quality and yet is not ordered to making quality, but motion or where. And the reason can be given, because active potency as such is not ordered to act as imperfect to perfect, nor so as to compose with it something one per se, but as an extrinsic cause to an effect; but it can happen that an active cause is not of the same notion or genus with the effect, but more eminent, and therefore it is not necessary that it be placed in the same predicament with its act. Although it seems necessary, if the most proper act of such a potency is accidental, that the potency itself too be accidental, because substance as such is not per se primarily ordered to accidental act; such potency, therefore, will be an accident, although it is placed under a nobler genus of accident.

17. An objection is dissolved.—Notable.—You will say that sometimes an accidental potency is per se primarily ordered to producing substance, as the nutritive and generative potency. I answer, first, that it has not yet been explored nor treated by us how accidents attain the production of substance; for, if they only attain it by disposing matter, the difficulty ceases; but if they also immediately effect and introduce substantial form, it must be said that they do not attain substance except instrumentally. But they do not attain instrumental action except by a previous other action connatural and most proper, which is always accidental; and with respect to that it is to be verified that such potency and act are of the same genus, for the other instrumental action, although perhaps it is more principally intended by nature, is nevertheless with respect to such a potency not so proper and accommodated that the nature of such potency or quality is commensurated to it. Indeed hence it may be gathered in passing that, outside the locomotive potencies, every other potency per se primarily ordered to acting is placed in the same predicament with its proper act or the term of its action; for such potency is always a quality and effects nothing except by some previous proper action tending to quality, for, as I said, although it effects instrumentally substance or also quantity, it always effects this by some previous proper action tending to quality; but to the other predicaments besides where there is no per se action, but they always result from the term of another action. And so it comes about that every accidental active potency besides the motive is ordered to effecting some quality through a most proper action, although perhaps by means of it it can be ordered to things of other predicaments, at least as an instrument. And let these be said in explanation of that axiom: Potency and act are under the same genus.

1. Since it has been said that the primary material cause of the accident is substance, for the perfect exposition of this cause it is necessary to declare which substance can exercise this causality. I suppose, however, that there is no question here of uncreated substance, which is evidently not capable of accident, and we shall have to run briefly through all created ones. Among which some are simple, others composite; of which, and of the parts composing them, there can be controversy. In order, then, that we may treat those things which have doubt, let us briefly premise those which are certain.

2. Simple subsisting substances are through themselves material causes.—First, then, it is certain that simple substances subsisting per se are sufficient for receiving or materially causing accidents proportioned to themselves. This is evident in all created spiritual substances, for of these is the discussion. For every created substance, because it is potential and imperfect, is capable of accidents, and to sustain them it suffices for it to have per se subsistence, if otherwise there is capacity. But when we say that these substances are per se sufficient for this, we do not exclude that they can materially cause one accident by means of another, as we shall say in the following section; but with respect to the collection of all their accidents we say that they per se suffice and do not need another aid besides their substance and proper subsistence.

3. A subsisting substantial form is a sufficient matter of accidents.—Hence, secondly, it is also certain that a subsisting form, even if it is an incomplete substance and the act of a body, is a sufficient material cause of some accidents which are proportioned to it. This is evident in the rational soul, not only separated from the body but also conjoined; and the reason is almost the same as of angelic substances. For that the substance of the soul is incomplete does not prevent it from being able to sustain some accidents, since it can be per se and does not depend on the subject itself. From which, an argument being taken from the contrary, it is evident and also certain that substantial forms which cannot naturally subsist are unfit to cause accidents materially by themselves alone, because what does not subsist in itself cannot sustain another; but these forms are not capable of proper subsistence, even partial, as we shall say afterwards. But whether together with matter they underlie accidents we shall see a little later. Someone could only doubt about some relations, for example of union or of likeness, etc., which seem to be subjected in these forms. Nevertheless it is more probable that these relations do not add a thing distinct from the substance or from the substantial modes of the form. Likewise it is probable that the entity of such a form, as sustained in its own way in matter, is capable of some accidental form or mode, in the way in which we shall explain of accidents themselves in the following section.

4. Integral parts are sufficient receivers of accidents.—Hence too it is evident in passing what is to be said of the integral parts of substance; for there is no doubt that in the way in which they are and subsist they can concur materially to the being of accidents; for they can receive and sustain them in themselves, as is evident by induction. And indeed, if these parts are actually divided from the whole and are only called parts on account of their relationship to it, it is evident that in the thing they are true subsisting substances, and therefore can sustain accidents, as almost all think of blood. But if they are properly continuous with other parts, they are not properly said to subsist in themselves but in the whole; and by this reason the whole is sometimes wont to be denominated from the accidents which are in them, as a man is called curly; nevertheless the whole material causality which intervenes there is exercised through that part in which the accident inheres; and the same will endure if such a part according to its whole substance is preserved separated.

Whether quantity is in matter

5. There remains, then, only the question of prime matter and of the integral substance composed of matter and form; for of matter the question is whether through itself it can materially and immediately cause some accidental form; which almost coincides with the common question whether and how matter can be the subject of accidents. Which, in order that it may be treated more briefly and distinctly, is wholly to be reduced to quantity; for now we are not treating of relations or accidental modes, of which we shall speak afterwards in passing, because they have almost nothing of doubt, but we are treating of proper accidental forms really distinct from substance, among which quantity obtains the first place, and the others are in by means of it, as we shall say in the following section. Whence, in whatever subject quantity is, there will be the other corporeal qualities.

The opinion denying that quantity is in matter

6. Testimonies of Aristotle for the reported opinion.—There are, then, in this matter two opposite opinions, very common. The first is of those saying that matter through itself does not have entity sufficient to cause materially any accident, but needs first conjunction to substantial form, so that from both there results a composite which can receive accidents. This is the opinion of St. Thomas, I, q. 76, a. 6, and sole question De spiritualibus creaturis, a. 3, ad 18; and of Albert, Summa de homine, II p., question Whether nutrition comes about from the like, a. 1; Durandus, In I, dist. 8, II p., q. 4; Capreolus, In II, dist. 13, q. 1, concls. 2 and 3, and dist. 18, q. 1, concl. 6; Cajetan, De ente et essentia, c. 7, q. 16; Soncinas, Metaphysics VIII, qq. 7, 15, 17 and 18; Ferrariensis, Contra Gentiles IV, c. 81, qq. 2 and 3; Soto, Physics I, q. 7; Astudillo, De generatione I. And it is attributed to Aristotle, because, De generatione I, text 23, he said that generation comes about from matter, nothing sensible remaining; from which place and from those things which Aristotle subjoins, text 24, all the authors of this opinion take that in substantial transmutation no accident remains in prime matter. But if it happens so, it happens surely on this account, that matter does not suffice to sustain accidents, but only the composite; and therefore they perish when the composite is corrupted, which could in no way happen if they inhered in prime matter. Secondly, he confirms this, that Aristotle, Physics I, texts 81 and 82, says that prime matter regards per se primarily substantial form. Thirdly, Book V, text 8, and De generatione I, text 24, he constitutes a difference between generation and alteration or augmentation, that the subject of generation is matter alone, which he says is matter simply, but the subject of alteration and augmentation he says is integral substance, which he calls matter in a certain respect. Fourthly, Metaphysics VII, text 8, he says that matter is neither what, nor quantity, nor quality, nor anything of this kind. Fifthly, Metaphysics VII, text 4, and Metaphysics XII, text 43, he says that substance is prior in nature to accident. Sixthly, in the Categories, chapter on Substance, he says that, first substances being destroyed, it is impossible for anything to remain; but first substances are integral substances, simple or composite.

7. Several reasons are adduced for this opinion. The first, because matter is pure potency, so that it does not even have being except as it begs it from the form; therefore of itself it is powerless to sustain accidents, unless it is first at least in nature conjoined to the form and receives being from it. The consequence is proved, both because the being in a certain respect which the accident gives supposes being simply; and also because nothing can sustain another unless it first subsists in itself; but nothing subsists in itself except what has actual being and simply. The second reason, which St. Thomas uses, because matter is potency to all acts in a certain order; therefore it regards substantial form as its first act, to which it is per se primarily ordered; but accidents as secondary acts following the first. The antecedent is proved, because matter cannot regard equally primarily acts so diverse; otherwise it would also take diverse species from them and would at the same time be substantial and accidental potency. But the consequence is proved, both because a substantial potency must primarily regard substantial act, since it is per se primarily ordered to it and takes its species from it; therefore it must also receive it first; and also because accidental form is compared to substantial as second act to first; but second act always supposes first.

8. The third reason is, for if any accident were in prime matter, it would most of all be quantity; but not this; therefore. The major is received by all and is evident from what was said at the beginning. The minor is proved, because quantity is a property of corporeal substance necessarily accompanying it; but it cannot be a property following matter as such, but form; therefore it cannot be received in matter according to itself, but as informed by form, or in the composite. The minor is proved, because a property emanates actively from the essence whose property it is; but quantity cannot emanate from the essence of matter as such, because this emanation is some efficiency; but matter according to itself has no efficiency, as is evident from Aristotle, De generatione I, text 55, and Book II, text 53; quantity, therefore, does not emanate from matter, but from corporeal substance by reason of the substantial form as it is the form of corporeity. Which has also an excellent proportion, both because accidental form, since it is informing act, must be a participation of substantial form rather than of matter; and also because substantial form, as it is the form of corporeity, has no other property which follows upon it besides quantity. And it is confirmed, because, if quantity were in matter before the substantial form, the substantial form would be received in matter by means of quantity; for corporeal qualities are in substance by means of quantity for this reason, that they suppose it in the substance. But the consequent is false, both because otherwise quantity would be a more intimate and more proper act of matter than substantial form; and also because one per se could not come about from matter and substantial form; for they would be united by means of an accident; whence rather one per se would have to come about from matter and quantity; for potency rather makes one per se with its first and immediate act than with the secondary which it mediately receives; nor can it be understood that the composition of a being per se is founded on a being per accidens. And finally because otherwise not only matter but also quantity would be the material principle of substantial generation. Secondly the same reason is confirmed, because, if quantity were in matter alone, it would be ingenerable and incorruptible, as matter itself is, which is repugnant to Aristotle positing a per se motion to quantity. But the sequel is evident, because quantity could not be corrupted at the corruption of the subject, because matter is incorruptible; nor yet could it be corrupted by a contrary, because it truly does not have one, as is evident from Aristotle in the Categories; nor yet does it depend on another cause through whose absence it could naturally cease to be; in no way, therefore, could quantity be corrupted, and consequently neither generated.

9. Let the fourth reason be that it is not repugnant that quantity and all corporeal accidents be received in the whole composite by means of the form; and this is more consonant with the natures of things; therefore. The major is declared, because it is not repugnant that one accident be received in substance by means of another, as is evident of corporeal quality and of quantity, and among qualities themselves this order is sometimes found, as will be evident in the following section; therefore much more can it be found between substantial and accidental act. But the minor is proved, because the potency to receive an accident is only in a certain respect; but the potency of matter to receive substantial form is potency simply; therefore it is most consonant with the natures of things that this potency of matter first be reduced to act simply, which leaves only potency in a certain respect, and by means of it receive accidents by which the composite is actuated as regards the potency in a certain respect which remains in it. So, then, it seems sufficiently proved that matter alone cannot be the material cause of any accidental entity.

The opinion affirming that quantity is in matter

10. The second opinion is that prime matter by virtue of its entity is a sufficient material cause of accidental forms proportioned to itself; first indeed and immediately of quantity, and by means of it of the others; this opinion Averroes taught, in the book De substantia orbis, and Physics I, comm. 63, and in the Epitome of the Metaphysics, tract. II, last chapter, who says that there are in matter coeval indeterminate dimensions, and in the thing itself ingenerable and incorruptible, and only accidentally mutable. But by indeterminate dimensions he understands nothing other than quantity itself, which, as far as depends on the side of matter, postulates neither a certain density, nor rarity, nor a definite term of magnitude or smallness, nor any peculiar figure; and therefore, just as matter is said to be of itself formless, so quantity, as coeval, is said to be indeterminate, although in the thing itself it always has some term, according to the exigency of the form or the action of the agent; and according to this variety of terms, figures or dispositions it is accidentally changed, although in its entity it always perseveres the same. Simplicius too held this opinion, as regards the inherence of quantity in matter, Physics I, text 69, and attributes it to Aristotle and Plato; Philoponus too holds it, De generatione I, texts 33 and 40, where he says that matter affected by dimensions is the subject of generation. And Ammonius, on the Categories, chapter on Quantity, says that matter first receives bulk through quantity; St. Thomas, In IV, dist. 12, q. 1, a. 2, quaestiuncula 4, reports and follows the opinion of the Commentator as it has been reported by us; but in Opusculum 32, which is De natura materiae et dimensionibus interminatis, c. 4, although he reports the opinion of the Commentator in the same way, he nevertheless reproves it. Finally, all the authors who hold that the same corporeal accidents in number remain in the generated and the corrupted also hold that quantity and the material dispositions are subjected in prime matter, as Gregory, In II, dist. 12, q. 2, a. 2; and Aureolus, in Capreolus, In II, dist. 13, q. 1, argument against concl. 3; Marsilius, De generatione I, q. 7; Paul of Venice, Summa de generatione, c. 54; Giles, Metaphysics VII, q. 4; Niphus, Metaphysics VIII, disp. IV; Zimara, theorem 46.

11. Places of Aristotle for the immediately preceding opinion.—And Aristotle favours this opinion in many places, for Metaphysics VII, text 8, he indicates that quantity is first in matter; and in Physics III he thinks that quantity is a property of matter itself; and De generatione II, text 6, he thinks that the dispositions to substantial forms, and the alteration which comes about to them, are proximately concerned with matter; and De generatione I and Book II, text 27, he says that the accidents in which the thing generated agrees with the corrupted remain the same. Plato too can be adduced for this opinion, who in the Timaeus called matter the great and the small, because of itself it has quantity, yet indifferent to greatness or smallness. The reasons for this opinion are partly metaphysical, partly physical; yet from both the integral discourse must be put together; for the metaphysical reasons seem to prove that it is not repugnant on the side of matter, or that there is in it a sufficient foundation of entity to sustain accidents materially; but the physical reasons show that this is more consonant both with the end or function to which matter was instituted and with the sensible effects which we experience.

12. First, then, it is proved that this causality can belong to matter, because matter has a proper actual entity with its proper existence, as was said above, and also a proper partial subsistence, as will be shown below; therefore on this side it has sufficient entity to sustain some accident. The consequence is evident, because what subsists in itself, although otherwise it is a partial entity, can sustain accidents proportioned to itself, as we were saying a little before of the rational soul. It will perhaps be said that matter depends in its being on form, and on this side is of an inferior condition than is the rational soul compared to matter. But this does not stand in the way, even if we admit that dependence, which some deny; because that dependence of matter on form is not as on a true and proper cause of matter itself, but as on a certain condition naturally necessary in order that matter be preserved in being; but this genus of dependence, which is extrinsic to the entity of matter, that is, supervening and not intrinsically composing it, can in no way prevent the entity of matter according to itself from being sufficient to sustain accidents in the genus of material cause; for the dependence of one cause on another extrinsic one in its being in no way prevents it from being in its genus sufficient to cause a proportioned effect. And there is an excellent example ad hominem and very accommodated; for the substantial composite depends on its natural dispositions, for, they being taken away, it is dissolved; and yet this does not prevent the composite itself according to itself from being the material cause of other accidents. Indeed, what is more, the composite itself is also the material cause of those very dispositions, although otherwise it depends on them; what wonder, then, that matter, although it depends on form, can be the material cause of accidents? There is added that, although matter depends on form, it can be the material cause of the same form; therefore, although it depends on form, it will be able to be the material cause of quantity. The consequence is evident, because there seems to be a greater repugnance between those two relationships of dependence and causality with respect to the same than with respect to diverse things.

13. From which finally the reason made is strengthened; for prime matter has in itself sufficient existing and subsisting entity by which it sustains in itself material substantial forms; therefore also so that it sustain or materially cause quantity. The consequence is proved, both because to sustain substantial form seems no less, indeed more; nor is subsistence and existence or actual entity less necessary for that; and also because, just as matter is said to depend on form, so it can be said to depend on quantity; therefore, just as this does not prevent matter from sustaining form, so neither will it prevent it from sustaining quantity. The consequence holds from parity of reason; and the antecedent is proved, because, just as matter cannot be preserved without form, so neither without quantity, so much so that even in order to the absolute power of God matter without form can more easily be understood than without quantity, as I shall show below.

14. An objection is dissolved.—You will say that matter cannot at the same time be the material cause of the substantial form and of quantity; indeed, by the very fact that it is substantial potency to form, it is improportioned to be at the same time the potency or material cause of quantity. But this introduces no difficulty, because it often happens that one cause has several effects, of which one is nobler than another; as the same form is the principle of the dispositions or properties which emanate from it and at the same time is the principle of generating its like, and in the genus of formal cause is at the same time the cause of its composite. So, then, it will not be repugnant that matter be at the same time the cause of quantity as of a property connatural to itself and of form as of the principal act to which by its nature it is ordered. And this happens more easily when effects of this kind are ordered among themselves, as in the present case are quantity and form; for quantity is as it were a certain disposition of matter, through which it becomes an apt subject of alteration and of the dispositions by which it is accommodated to receive substantial form. Whence all the authors, even those who defend the former opinion, confess that matter is the material cause of form and of quantity, although some say that with respect to form it is the total cause in its genus, but with respect to quantity only partial, because the whole composite is the total cause. But others, even according to the former opinion, concede that matter is the total cause in its genus both of quantity and of form, yet in this order, that prior in nature it is the cause of form rather than of quantity; it is not, therefore, inconvenient that the same matter be the material cause of both. And, as regards order, it seems more consonant that, although according to the order of perfection and end matter receives form before quantity, nevertheless in the order of execution and generation it receives quantity before form. For the order of execution is wont to be opposite to the order of intention. Which in the present case too is necessary, since matter is prepared and adapted to form through quantity. And therefore also it does not stand in the way that matter is substantial potency; for, just as substance can be capable of an accident not through an accidental potency but through itself, because concomitantly it has that capacity by virtue of its entity, so a substantial potency, which is such because it is per se primarily instituted to receive substantial act, can concomitantly have through itself the capacity to receive an accidental property or disposition consonant with its nature and accommodated to the end to which it is instituted.

15. From these, then, it seems sufficiently demonstrated that on the side of matter there is no repugnance or any improportion preventing it from being a sufficient material cause of quantity. But that it is so the example of the human body first of all seems to convince, in which I suppose there is no other substantial form besides the rational soul, which I shall show generally in the following disputation, and was proved in part in the preceding one. I suppose next that the soul of man is spiritual and altogether indivisible. Hence, then, the reason is concluded, for the quantity of the human body cannot be in it by reason of the whole composite of matter and form; therefore it is in matter alone, for it is evident that it is not in the form alone. The antecedent is proved, because an accident which is in the whole composite attains by its union at the same time the form and the matter after the manner of one; but quantity can in no way attain the rational soul, since this is spiritual; therefore it cannot be in the whole human composite, but in matter alone.

16. Quantity can be received in no spirit.—It will perhaps be said that it is not repugnant that a material accident attain by its union an immaterial form as informing matter; for the immaterial form attains by its union matter itself; why, then, could a material accident not attain such a form? Likewise in the union of the incarnate Word we see that a gross and material body has a union terminated at the supreme spiritual supposit, such as is the Word of God; what wonder, then, that quantity terminates its union at the lowest spirit as united to the body? But nevertheless this cannot be said, because quantity is united to its subject as its form and act, and therefore it can be united only to a thing which is capable of its formal effect; but the rational soul is in no way capable of the formal effect of quantity, because it is not capable of quantitative extension, even while it informs the body; it can in no way, therefore, receive quantity in itself, either totally or partially; nor yet can the union of quantity be terminated at it, because that union is nothing but information; but information cannot be terminated except at a thing capable of the formal effect. Whence there is no proportion in the examples adduced, as is evident from what has been said.

17. It can be answered otherwise that by this argument indeed it is convinced that the quantity of man is received inhesively in matter alone, yet it is not proved that in such matter there is not supposed the information of the human form giving being to matter and constituting the composite which is said to receive and cause quantity, although it does not receive it primarily and according to its whole self, but by reason of the other part. But first of all from this answer I take it that matter alone is the subject in which the quantity of man inheres, and consequently that it alone is the material cause of quantity; for that is the material cause at which the union or inherence of the form which is materially caused is terminated; but the union and inherence of the quantity of the human body is terminated at matter alone, as the argument made proves and is conceded in the answer; therefore matter through its entity is sufficient to cause quantity materially; whence it consequently comes about that in any thing whatever it has the same sufficiency and power, as far as depends on itself. And this can be further confirmed and declared, for, since in man there are matter and soul, between matter and soul there is an immediate substantial union, and between quantity and matter there is also an immediate union, although accidental; but between quantity and soul there is no immediate union by which they are united among themselves, but only per accidens are they united in one third, namely matter; therefore matter alone is that which exercises the function of material cause with respect to quantity, because this is exercised through their immediate union, as was declared above.

18. But although this seems enough for what we now intend, hence nevertheless it can further be concluded that it is said without cause or foundation that the union of matter to the soul is prior in nature to the union of the same matter to quantity—prior (I say) in the order of generation; for of the order of perfection and end it is most true, yet matters nothing to the present point. But that the other priority is none is proved, because first of all the soul does not give to matter its intrinsic and proper being, but supposes it in order to be able to be united to matter, as has often been said; therefore on this side the union of matter to the soul is not supposed by necessary order of nature. Again, neither under some other notion is the union to the soul the cause of the union to quantity; therefore in no way is it prior in nature. The antecedent is evident, because it is not a cause in the genus of material cause; for it has been shown that matter through its entity alone materially causes or receives quantity. Nor yet is it a cause in the genus of efficient cause, because neither does one union come about from the other, as seems self-evident, nor yet is the soul itself which is united the efficient principle of the quantity of its body, because there is no indication nor sufficient reason of this efficiency, as I shall show more generally below; and specially an incorporeal form seems very improportioned to be per se the effective principle of corporeal bulk and quantity. In no way, therefore, does the union of matter to the soul precede the union of matter to quantity. Indeed this seems to be supposed in the order of nature in the genus of material cause, at least as a condition necessary on the side of matter in order that matter can be an apt subject, both for the action by which the soul is united to matter, and also in order that the soul itself can inform and take the place of the form of corporeity, informing matter in a certain way extensively, while it itself remains unextended in itself.

19. And hence it further comes about that the union of matter to quantity is also prior in nature, as it is said, in the consequence of subsisting; for first of all it is beyond controversy that the union of matter to the soul cannot naturally be or be preserved without the union to quantity, not only because the soul cannot naturally be in matter lacking all quantity, which is most evident; but also because, this union of this matter to this soul persevering, this quantity cannot be varied in this matter; for quantity cannot be expelled directly by another quantity, because all are similar, nor does one quantity have another contrary or so repugnant that it expels it from the same subject; therefore, the same matter remaining and the same total or partial composite through the union to the same soul, quantity cannot be varied. But conversely, even if the soul recedes and another form comes, the same quantity can persevere in matter; therefore the union to quantity is simply prior in the consequence of subsisting, and so matter alone will be the proper material cause of quantity. The consequence is clear from what has been said, nor is there any controversy about it. But the antecedent can be proved a priori from what has been said, because the union to quantity in no genus of cause depends on the soul or on its information, and from elsewhere the soul can be directly expelled from matter through the introduction of another repugnant form and through the change of the other dispositions which such a form necessarily postulates in the matter which it informs; therefore no reason can be given why, the soul receding from matter, quantity recedes or its union with matter is dissolved; for one thing is only corrupted at the ceasing of another when it depends on it. And although it can be said that quantity mediately depends on the soul in so far as matter depends on it, nevertheless this dependence is sufficiently supplied by the subsequent form, which, by informing and actuating with its proper being the same matter in number, sufficiently terminates its dependence on form; there is, therefore, no cause on account of which, the soul receding, the quantity of the human body recedes. Which reason proves in the same way of all the accidents which are in the body by means of quantity and do not depend effectively on the soul.

20. But a posteriori the same can be proved; for we experience in the corpse of a man immediately after his death that the same corporeal accidents remain which were in the living man, except those faculties which are proper to living things and on that account depend effectively on the soul. To which experience it is commonly wont to be answered that those accidents seem the same, yet are not, but similar in species, degree and mode, yet diverse in number. Which answer could indeed be admitted if both there intervened a reason which efficaciously compelled us to correct sense, and a sufficient cause of such accidents could be given; but neither intervenes here. The first has been sufficiently shown by the metaphysical reason by which we tacitly overthrew the foundations of the contrary opinion, which we shall satisfy more distinctly below. But the second is proved, because, if the accidents which are in the corpse in the instant of death are distinct in number from those which were in the man, some efficient cause will be necessary which produces them anew in that instant; but this often intervenes not at all; therefore. The minor is first proved by some of quantity itself, because it cannot come about from another quantity, since quantity is not active; nor yet from quality, because quantity is prior to corporeal quality; whence it cannot come about from it; nor yet from the substantial form, both because this is not immediately active, and also because there is no substantial form common to all corporeal things, whereas quantity is common to all. There is added that, if quantity came about anew in the matter of the corpse, it would come about in it as prior in nature non-quantified and indivisible, which involves a repugnance. But these reasons are not efficacious; for it can be answered that quantity is produced, or rather co-produced, by the extrinsic agent inducing the form, but proximately is from the form itself introduced through natural resultance; for in this way it is not inconvenient that the form immediately effect some accident, as from the form of water there emanates the intension of cold when it brings itself back to its pristine coldness. Nor for this would it be necessary that all bodies have some common substantial form, but the agreement of all forms in the common notion of substantial form could suffice. Nor yet is it inconvenient that quantity be co-produced in matter and from matter prior in nature non-quantified; for in every opinion it is necessary to confess that quantity was sometime produced or co-produced; and in whatever way it was made in a mode consonant with its nature, it is necessary that it was made in matter and from matter; therefore it was made from matter as prior in nature of itself not actually quantified, but quantified in potency, and of itself actually indivisible quantitatively, but divisible in potency. This, therefore, does not include a repugnance, because that quantitative indivisibility is not understood to precede in matter actually and as it were positively, but only as it were negatively, namely, because matter of itself does not actually have that divisibility unless it is conferred through quantity; but it has the aptitude, because it has an entity apt for such a form, for which it is necessary that matter itself of itself have a certain entitative divisibility, which I shall explain below in treating of quantity. In the same way, then, quantity could result from the form of the corpse and come about from matter without repugnance. Of quantity, therefore, the assumed proposition cannot, as I think, be efficaciously proved, unless it is supposed from elsewhere that natural agents can act nothing except in a quantitatively extended and divisible subject; of which reason we shall speak a little below.

21. The minor proposition assumed above, then, is chiefly proved of qualities, which often have no efficient cause from which they come about, if the same in number do not remain; for they do not come about through natural resultance from the form of the corpse, because they are not connatural to it, indeed they are foreign and extraneous; whence it comes about that in a short time they are little by little lost, as is evident of heat and similar ones. Nor yet do they come about from an extrinsic agent, because sometimes there is no surrounding or proximate agent which could induce so much heat or such a temperament as remains for some time in the corpse of a man, especially when the death is violent through suffocation, cutting of the throat, etc.; in which genus of death scarcely is a particular cause found which could induce the form of the corpse; and we sometimes have recourse to universal causes which effect it on account of a universal reason, namely, lest matter remain without form; but of similar qualities, since they are not per se necessary for the introduction of such a form, to which they are not connatural, there is no reason why they should come about from universal causes per se and by proper action; but proper and particular causes are often none, as is evident by induction and experience. Nor finally can it be said that such heat and other qualities come about in that instant from the vital spirits which remain for some time, or from the humours, especially blood; because first of all even of blood and spirits it is doubtful whether they are informed by the same soul, or at least whether their forms, which are as it were partial, depend on the conjunction to the soul so that they perish at once when it recedes; whence many think that blood, as soon as it flows from the veins and is separated from the rest of the blood which remains in the body, changes its substantial form, even if it retains for some time heat and similar accidents. Next, the time for which such spirits or humours can endure is very short; but similar accidents remain longer. And finally not only in man or other animals, but also in other things similar accidents remain, as we reported above from Aristotle, even if they are not intrinsic and connatural to the thing generated so that they could emanate from its form; as, for example, if from moist vapour, not supremely cold but having some heat, water comes about through condensation, it does not always come about supremely cold and pure, but retains the same heat; yet there is not a new extrinsic cause from which it comes about, but the same heat remains, because it cannot so quickly be expelled by the form of water.

22. And hence is also taken an excellent and general argument, because these qualities, intensible and remissible and having a contrary, if they do not emanate from the intrinsic form but come about through extrinsic alteration, do not come about suddenly in an intense degree, but little by little, because both the intrinsic form and the other surrounding bodies resist; but we see these qualities remain in the instant of death in great intension; therefore it is not likely that then they suddenly come about per se through the action of an extrinsic agent; since, therefore, they do not come about through intrinsic emanation from the form of the corpse, it is a sign that they do not then come about, but the same in number remain. Some say that no efficient cause of these qualities is necessary, because by natural sequel they succeed to similar qualities perishing. But in these words a repugnance is involved; for what is signified by the name of natural sequel? Either the necessary succession of one after another, or the natural emanation of one from another. If this latter is signified, that very emanation is a certain efficiency; and therefore a repugnance is involved; and moreover it has been shown that there is no principle or form from which such emanation would be. But if the former is said, the reason of that necessary succession must first of all be given; for that a similar quality preceded is not a sufficient reason why a similar one necessarily succeeds, if the subject is altogether changed and that which succeeds to the prior subject does not seek a similar quality. And moreover every necessary succession requires an efficient cause; for what succeeds to another comes about anew; therefore it comes about from something; therefore either through intrinsic resultance or extrinsic efficiency, nor can natural sequel be understood otherwise. Since, therefore, sometimes and often such an intrinsic or extrinsic cause does not intervene, it is a sign that there is not there natural sequel, but the duration of the same disposition or quality in number. But if the same quality remains, then also the quantity; for, since such quality is in by means of quantity, the same quality could not remain if the quantity were changed.

23. Besides these physical arguments, which have been taken peculiarly from the human body, although some can be extended to other things, there are others common to all generable things, which are taken from the mode and order of natural generation. First, then, matter of itself is a sufficient subject of natural generation in so far as it can be through the action of a corporeal and natural agent; and from elsewhere it is of itself indifferent to any form whatever which can be induced through generation; but from each condition it can be understood that matter has of itself coeval quantity, and does not change or in any way acquire it through generation. From the former indeed, because, in order that matter be an apt subject with respect to a corporeal and extended agent, it is necessary that it itself be pre-understood as corporeal and extended, because a corporeal agent prerequires an extended and corporeal patient and its local and quantitative application; indeed even contact, as the philosophers commonly say. Nor is it enough that in the whole time of the alteration previous to generation the alteration comes about about a quantified subject, but it is also necessary that the same happen in the instant intrinsic to generation, in which there is a new action proceeding also from a corporeal and quantified agent; therefore the subject which is supposed to the action is also supposed corporeal and quantified; it does not, therefore, become quantified through that action, neither immediately nor mediately; for a condition necessary on the side of the subject in order that it can exercise the function of subject cannot be made by an agent necessarily supposing a subject already apt in order that it can act.

24. It can be answered that for the action of a corporeal agent it is enough that in the whole time of the preceding alteration it supposes a quantified subject, and in the instant of generation the agent itself induces such a form upon which the quantity of the subject follows. According to which answer it is to be denied that extension or quantitative contact is rigorously a previous condition or one necessarily prerequired for every action of a natural agent, but either prerequired or concomitant; for for accidental action and alteration it is prerequired, because through alteration such a form does not come about upon which quantity follows, but which rather supposes quantity; but for substantial action it will be denied to be a condition prerequired in that very instant, but consequent in the order of nature, because through that action such a form is induced as can bring with it quantity and the corporation of matter. And in this way the argument of the Commentator can be solved, namely that matter has of itself quantity by which it is divided into diverse parts, because it is ordered to be the subject of diverse forms, which it cannot receive except in diverse parts, which diversity of parts it does not have except by means of quantity. For, to omit that it can be answered that for this the entitative distinction of parts which matter has of itself, and not formally through quantity, suffices, it can also be said that matter from the beginning was divided into various parts, because it was founded under diverse forms, and consequently under diverse parts of quantity. But afterwards in the individual generations and corruptions this matter is preserved distinct from others in the whole time of the preceding alteration through the quantity which it has under the form of the thing which is corrupted; but in the instant of generation, through the quantity which in the same instant it obtains by means of the form of the generated.

25. But although this answer is plausible, nevertheless it seems more philosophical and more consonant with corporeal agents that in every action of theirs they suppose a subject quantified and divisible and distinct from others not only entitatively but also quantitatively, and near to them or applied by proper and local application, which does not come about except by means of quantity. And this is most of all confirmed from the other condition of matter, which is indifference to several forms; for, since of itself it is such that it receives a determinate form, it is necessary that it first be accommodated by the agent and proximately disposed to such a form; but this accommodation and disposition does not come about except by previous accidental dispositions, which it is necessary be received in matter, both because they precede the form to which they dispose, and also because physical and natural disposition must be proximately and immediately in that subject which it disposes and prepares; but these dispositions are in the subject by means of quantity; therefore quantity too is in the same matter.

What order the substantial form and the dispositions to it keep in matter

26. The first answer is rejected.—To this reason various answers are given, which it is necessary to propose and examine, so that at the same time this opinion may be confirmed, and, if there is any probable way of defending the former opinion, it may become known. The first answer, then, is that matter is sufficiently adapted and accommodated to form through the dispositions which in time or moment precede the introduction of the substantial form; for, although in that instant in which the form is introduced all the preceding dispositions cease to be, so that in that moment they no longer are, they nevertheless leave matter accommodated and sealed (as they say) so that it is proximately capable of such a form in species and individual rather than of another. But this answer was rejected above in treating of the principle of individuation, because that sealing of matter can be nothing in matter, if matter remains altogether stripped of the prior quantity and of all qualities. But that immediately before such qualities preceded in matter is only an extrinsic denomination, because in matter they leave no thing nor real mode, according to this opinion; but it cannot be understood that matter, which was of itself indifferent, remains disposed through an extrinsic denomination alone.

27. The second answer is disproved.—The second answer is that in the same instant of generation matter is disposed through the ultimate dispositions and through them prepared and accommodated to the form, and nevertheless they are not subjectively in matter, nor are they introduced into it except as already informed by the substantial form; indeed they even follow from the form itself through natural emanation. But the mode in which this can be understood or come about is declared from that principle of Aristotle: Causes are causes of one another in diverse genera. Whence it comes about that the form and the ultimate disposition can be causes of one another; for heat as eight, for example, is the cause of the form of fire in the genus of disposition, which is reduced to the material cause, but the form of fire is the cause of heat as eight in the genus of active or formal principle. Whence it comes about that the heat in its genus is prior in nature to the form, and as such is understood to precede by disposing and adapting matter to the form, although in another genus it is posterior in nature, and as such is understood to follow the form and to be subjected in the whole composite.

28. But against this answer many things occur which (as I think) it is difficult to satisfy. First, I do not understand how some quality is truly preparing and adapting the subject to the form and that it follows effectively the form itself. I say truly preparing and adapting; for, if it were only a disposition adorning and perfecting, it could easily be understood as following the form and also necessary for the natural preservation of the form; but here we are treating of a preparing disposition, which determines and as it were proximately limits the capacity of the subject, and consequently also determines the agent to introducing such a form; therefore it cannot happen that such a form follows effectively from the form introduced. The consequence is proved, because, if the disposition flows immediately from the form, and the form from the agent, then the agent simply begins its action from the introduction of the form, and does not attain the disposition actively except through the form; therefore such disposition in no way determines the agent to such an introduction of the form, but rather by means of the form the agent is determined to effecting such an ultimate disposition. Likewise, that disposition can have no real causality except in so far as it has been made; but it is made by means of the form; therefore it cannot be understood as having real causality about the very action by which the form is made. Moreover, a dispositive cause does not dispose except by informing, as I declared above; whence, although with respect to the term to which it disposes it is said to be reduced to the material cause, nevertheless with respect to the subject which it disposes it is truly a formal cause; if, therefore, these accidents do not inform matter, how do they dispose it? Likewise, if in the genus of material cause that disposition is prior, then in the same genus it is in first, both because its being is to be in, and also because it does not dispose except by inhering and informing; but if it is in prior in nature, in what, I ask, is it? Not in matter, because, if in real duration it is not in matter, it can exercise no genus of causality by means of such inherence; therefore according to no priority of nature or causality can it truly be conceived as so inhering. Nor yet can it inhere in the composite as it exercises such causality, because it prepares for the composite and because it does not dispose the composite but the matter, because it disposes that in which it inheres.

29. Moreover, if the disposition inheres in the composite, it is necessary that the substantial form precede in the genus of material cause and in the genus of preparation and disposition to the accidental form itself; therefore it is impossible that in the same genus the accidental form precede. The consequence is evident, because a circle cannot be committed among causes in the same genus of causality. And the antecedent is proved, because either the accident inheres in the whole composite primarily and per se, and so partially inheres in the substantial form; therefore the substantial form precedes in the genus of material cause; or the accident inheres in matter as first informed by the substantial form, and so the substantial form is at least the medium by which matter receives quantity and the subsequent dispositions; therefore much more can the substantial form be called a disposition of matter to receive quantity and the other dispositions than conversely.

30. To this it is wont to be answered that in the substantial form there are grades, and that, in so far as the form confers the superior and generic grade, it completes the subject of the dispositions of the subsequent grade; and so a circle is not committed in the same genus of cause between the same things according to the same notion; as, for example, the soul, as it gives corporeal being, completes the subject receptive of quantity, in which thereafter the dispositions to the grade of living thing can be received, and so of the subsequent ones. But this answer has never been able to please or satisfy me, both because that distinction of the form according to diverse grades is a distinction of reason through our prescinded or confused concepts; therefore it can contribute nothing to the real causality and inherence of accidents in matter or in the composite; and also because, even if we speak of the form according to the first grade of substantial form giving corporeal being, a determinate form and one distinct from the others is introduced into matter; for a form in common is not introduced; therefore a disposition preparing matter precedes; and moreover because the form which is corrupted is not expelled under the generic grade before the specific; for it is impossible to understand the specific grade without the generic, because this is as it were its foundation; whence, if any order had to intervene, one would have to begin from the inferior grades; therefore neither is the opposite form introduced first according to the generic grade, etc. Finally it is false that the agent first disposes matter to the generic grade; for fire, for example, does not dispose to the form of element except by disposing to the form of fire; and so of the others.

31. A corrupted disposition cannot physically induce the form instrumentally.—Lastly an argument is wont to be made from the notion of efficient cause; for the ultimate disposition effectively attains the eduction or introduction of the form; for the accident by virtue of the substance attains its effecting; therefore the same disposition cannot emanate effectively from the form which it effects. Some answer that not the ultimate disposition, which remains with the form in the instant of generation, but that which immediately before preceded, effectively attains the introduction of the form as its instrument. But this is improbable, because what is not cannot be an instrument of acting; but that disposition in that instant already is not, according to this opinion. But that it immediately preceded is not enough, because it is only an extrinsic denomination; and, although there is natural sequel between that disposition and the form, it is necessary that that very sequel be by virtue of another efficient cause; for that sequel is not the emanation of the form from the disposition, since a thing does not emanate from that which already is not, but is only the necessary and immediate succession after such a disposition, which succession must necessarily be founded in the efficiency of some cause which makes one immediately after the other. A better answer is that no disposition received in the patient effectively attains the introduction of the form; but when it is said that the accident by virtue of the substance effectively attains substance, it is not to be understood of the accident which is received in the patient or the effect, but of the accidental faculty which is in the agent itself, as, for example, of the heat which is in fire, or of the seminal power which is in the seed. But, although we admit this, thence is taken a not light argument; for a natural instrument does not attain the superior action of the principal agent except by a previous proper and connatural action, according to the doctrine of St. Thomas, I, q. 45, a. 5, to be treated below; therefore, if fire through the heat which it has in itself attains the substantial form in the instant of generation, the heat of the same fire in the same instant acts by previous heating; therefore the heat which is received in the patient as the ultimate disposition to the form of fire does not emanate effectively from the very form of the generated thing, but comes about through proper action from the heat which is in the generating fire; otherwise rather the action by which the substantial form is educed would be previous to the emanation of the heat, which is the ultimate disposition, than conversely. Nor can it be said that that ultimate disposition comes about at the same time in two ways, namely directly and immediately from the heat of the fire through a previous action in the genus of material cause, and again from the form of the generated fire through natural emanation, because the same effect cannot naturally come about at the same time from several total causes and actions per se sufficient; and because according to the one previous action that disposition would have to come about in matter, although through the other emanation it is said to come about in the composite.

32. Judgement is passed on the third answer.—The third answer to the principal reason, and more probable, is that in matter no previous disposition is per se required, but only per accidens, to expel the form and the contrary dispositions. Whence the whole alteration which precedes the instant of generation is only ordered to this, that in the instant of generation matter remains without any repugnance to receiving the perfect action of the agent; but in matter so left the agent at once introduces its substantial form without previous disposition, with all the concomitant dispositions. For it is not because matter is of itself indifferent that an ultimate previous disposition is necessary by which it is determined to such a form, because it is indifferent through universality or integral capacity for any form whatever; but the agent from its form is determined to introducing this form in species rather than another; and from the circumstances or the concurrence of the first cause it is determined to introducing this form in number. Which is declared by a like case from accidental action, for wood is of itself indifferent to heat and cold; but if fire is applied, it receives heat rather than cold, not on account of a previous disposition, but on account of the determination and nature of the agent.

33. This answer is indeed plausible; but it seems little consonant with the common doctrine of the philosophers, among whom the distinction of matter into first and proximate, that is, prepared and ultimately disposed to a determinate form, is most received; and conversely the same are wont to say that each form according to its proper species does not regard bare matter only, but matter prepared and accommodated to itself through connatural dispositions. Whence the soul too is defined as the act of a physical, organic body, etc. Next, not all physical effects can be conveniently saved in that way. First, because according to that opinion a perfect agent would always effect from any matter whatever an effect perfectly similar to itself in all the qualities connatural to it; because, if it first altogether strips matter and leaves it without any repugnance and in it first introduces its form perfectly similar to itself in specific nature, it is necessary that upon that form there necessarily follow all the qualities and dispositions connatural to it, because there is nothing which formally resists in matter itself; but we see that it does not so happen in natural generations, but that many things are generated substantially with an admixture of foreign qualities on account of the disposition or impurity of the matter from which they are generated. Secondly, in equivocal agents a sufficient reason cannot be given on account of which they are determined to introducing one substantial form rather than another; as, for example, when the sun generates gold, if in the instant in which it introduces the form of gold it finds matter bare and of itself altogether indifferent, it cannot be determined by it; nor yet is it determined of itself, otherwise it would always induce such a form into indifferent matter. And in the generation of man too this difficulty is excellently declared; for, if in the instant in which the rational soul is induced into the body the whole matter of the body is pre-understood bare of all dispositions, it is equally indifferent according to all its parts that the soul inform them in this or that way and that from it follow these or those dispositions in this or that part of matter; whence, then, is it determined to be united in this part in this way rather than another?

34. I see that it can only be answered that this is the natural succession of things, that after such preceding alteration such a form or union of form follows, even if matter of itself is indifferent and the power of the agent more eminent. But the reason of this necessary succession can only be given either because the agent by its nature is determined to acting in such a way, or because the things themselves are so coordinated of themselves. Nevertheless this answer is only apt for escaping the difficulty, not for declaring the matter and giving its reason. Especially because the whole alteration which precedes, according to this opinion, is per accidens, only for taking away the impediments which are on the side of the patient; therefore the order and succession between that alteration and the following action cannot be per se; nor thence can a sufficient reason of determination be taken. Thirdly, the reason made above urges, at least ad hominem, because fire or the sun introduces the form by means of heat or light as an instrument; therefore it acts by previous heating, etc. But it can similarly be answered that it acts by previous heating not in the same instant, but by previous heating which precedes in the whole time before the instant of generation. Which answer by the same reason does not satisfy, because that heating anterior in duration is only per accidens previous according to this opinion, on account of expelling the repugnant form. Whence, if we feigned that heating is not necessary to corrupt the prior subject, but that it could be corrupted by another way, nevertheless in the instant of generation fire would generate fire by means of its heat; but the order of an instrument in acting by previous proper action is per se and not per accidens; therefore it must not be only in the action which precedes in duration, but also in the very instant of generation.

The present question is divided into four members

35. The foundations of the latter opinion seem truly very urgent, and convince something which pertains most of all to the present question, but persuade something else sufficiently probably; in order that I may declare which, and open my opinion, I distinguish the various questions which are involved here. The first, and chiefly intended at present, is whether by reason of proper subject and material cause matter alone can terminate the dependence of the accidental form, so that proximately and adequately the accident inheres in matter alone, even if otherwise it must be informed by the substantial form as necessary for the being of matter, yet not as concurring at the same time in the notion of subject or material cause to the being of the accidental form. The second question is, if quantity and the other accidents which are in by means of it inhere in matter in the said way, whether thence it follows that quantity is coeval with matter and remains the same in number with the other accidents in the generated and the corrupted. The third question is whether in any genus of cause it can be said that the form is united to matter before the accidents, and how one must speak in the various opinions. The fourth question can be, granted that quantity can inhere in matter alone, whether, when the substantial form is material and extended like matter, then quantity also inheres immediately in the whole composite primarily and per se, so that it proximately attains each essential part of it.

Quantity sometimes inheres in matter alone

36. I say, then, first, that by the reasons made in the latter place it is sufficiently convinced that matter can be, and in fact sometimes is, the proper subject in which alone quantity inheres, although not outside the substantial composite; which is wont to be said by others thus, that matter is the subject of inherence, although the whole composite is the subject of denomination; or otherwise, that the composite is that which receives quantity, but the reason of receiving is matter alone; just as the whole man is denominated intellectual and having or receiving intellect, although the reason of receiving, or the subject of inherence, is the soul alone. And this conclusion is that of the authors of the second opinion and is not contrary to the authors of the first. I except one, Durandus, who expressly declares the contrary sense, only on account of that reason that matter is pure potency and therefore cannot receive accidental act without substantial. Which reason only proves that substantial act is required, or at most prerequired, before accidental act, but not that the substantial act itself must necessarily concur materially to receiving the accident. Nor do I see how Durandus extricates himself from the argument made about the quantity of the human body; for he concedes that the rational soul too concurs proximately and immediately with matter to receiving quantity; yet he denies that it thence follows that the soul participates the formal effect of quantity, because (he says) a form can be received primarily and per se in the composite by reason of each part immediately receiving partially the accidental form, and nevertheless not confer its formal effect except on the other part of the composite. Which truly is a clear repugnance and contradiction in terms, as was declared and proved above in various ways; for to receive an accident materially is the same as to be informed by the accident; therefore, if it partially receives, it is partially informed; but it implies to be informed and not to receive information according to the mode of information, namely either total or partial. And it is confirmed and declared: for the other substantial forms, by the very fact that they are partially informed by quantity, receive its formal effect; therefore, if the rational soul too is partially informed, it will participate the same effect. But if it is said that the other forms participate that effect because they are capable of it, but our soul is incapable, this very answer convinces that the human soul is not capable proximately and immediately of the partial reception of quantity, as the other substantial forms are. This reason, then, seems to convince the assertion posited.

37. In what proximate subject immanent acts inhere.—It can only be objected about the immanent acts of sensing and of loving sensibly, which are extended and consequently received immediately in quantity; and yet it is necessary that they immediately inform, at least partially, the soul itself; otherwise how would they constitute the soul living? For a man certainly does not see through the body, but through the soul. But this objection demands a longer disputation, pertaining to the books De Anima; for many on that account think that even the sensitive powers are not really distinguished from the soul, and that the acts of sensing themselves are spiritual and received immediately in the soul alone; for whom it is difficult either to gather the immortality of the soul from operation or to avoid the same following in the souls of brutes. Others say that to know and to love consist chiefly in effecting those acts; and therefore that it is enough that the soul actually and immediately flows into them, although it is not proximately informed by them. Others finally say that efficiency and reception are indeed necessary, but that it is enough that the acts are received in the power and the body, to which the soul is intimately and formally conjoined. And therefore the soul is not so properly said to see as to understand, but it is the whole man who primarily and per se sees, principally indeed through the soul, but instrumentally through the body. But which of these is truer is to be treated in its proper place.

Which accidents of the corrupted remain the same in number in the generated

38. In how many ways an accident can perish.—I say, secondly: although it is probable that naturally the same accidents in number do not remain in the thing generated which were in the corrupted, nevertheless the opposite seems more probable as regards quantity and the dispositions which either are ordered to the form of the generated or are not repugnant, especially when before they inhered in matter alone. Why I add this limitation will be evident from the resolution of the fourth question proposed. Many of the arguments made in the second opinion (as I think) sufficiently prove this conclusion. And it is briefly declared by supposing what Cajetan noted, De ente et essentia, c. 7, q. 17, that an accident can cease in only four ways, namely either at the corruption of the subject, or through the introduction of a contrary, or through the ceasing of the term, or through the absence of another conserving cause. In the present case, then, such accidents cannot cease from the defect of the proper subject in which they inhere; for we suppose that they are inhesively in matter alone, which does not perish. Likewise the second mode of corruption has no place here, because quantity has no contrary; and, although quality has one, we suppose nevertheless that in the case of which we are speaking it is not introduced. Of the third mode too it is evident that it is not to the point, because it is proper to relatives. It remains, then, to speak of the fourth, for, if through the absence of the substantial form all the accidents of the composite perish, and not from defect of the material cause, because we suppose that the form does not per se immediately concur, even partially, to receiving quantity, it is necessary that the form have with respect to the accidents some other genus of causality, by reason of which from the absence of such cause the corruption of such accidents follows. For, if the accidents do not depend on the form in any genus of cause, there is no reason why they should perish when the form recedes. But they can be understood to depend in two ways, namely in the genus of formal or of efficient cause.

39. How accidents depend on the substantial form in the genus of formal cause.—The former dependence cannot be immediate, but mediate; for the substantial form does not inform quantity or other accidents, nor can it be understood in what other way it immediately exercises about them the function of formal cause; therefore accidents cannot depend immediately on the form in that genus of cause. But the mediate dependence is true and easily understood; for, because the accidents proximately depend on matter as on a subject, and matter depends on form in the genus of formal cause, it comes about that at least mediately quantity depends on form in the genus of formal cause. But this dependence is not enough that, the form receding, quantity perishes, because to the form which recedes there succeeds another which preserves the same subject in number. For under this notion quantity depends on form for no other cause except because matter depends; therefore, if about matter that dependence is sufficiently supplied through the subsequent form, much more about quantity. And it is declared by a like case; for, if matter were effectively preserved by one agent, and afterwards ceased to be preserved by it and were preserved by another, nevertheless it would have the same substantial form and the same accidents would remain in it, because to the form and the accidents it is irrelevant that matter be preserved by this or that agent or by this or that action, but per se it is only necessary that the same in number be preserved; the same, therefore, holds in the present case. Indeed, if God by absolute power preserved matter without form, supplying effectively the formal concurrence of the form (which we shall show below can be done), as far as depends on the force of this dependence, all the accidents which inhere in it would remain in matter, because for them it is only required that matter be preserved; but whether this be by this way, that is, by means of the form, or by the sole efficiency of a superior cause, matters little. As in the mystery of the Eucharist the theologians say that, quantity being preserved without substance, the accidents which inhere in it are preserved in it without a new miracle, because, supposing that they inhere, they depend on substance only mediately as on that which sustains quantity; whence, by the very fact that God effectively supplies that material sustentation, the same accidents can inhere and be preserved in quantity. On account of this mediate dependence alone, then, the accidents will not be destroyed when the form recedes.

40. Whether accidents depend on the substantial form in the genus of efficient cause.—Another mode of dependence can be in the genus of efficient cause, which is probable, yet altogether uncertain and hitherto proved by no sufficient reason, as I showed above, and will be more evident from the solutions of the arguments. But now I add that, even that immediate effective dependence being admitted, it does not follow that, the substantial form receding, quantity perishes, on account of the cause indicated a little before, namely, because to the cause which recedes another similar one succeeds, sufficient to preserve the same effect in number without interruption; but when efficient causes so succeed one another the effect is not changed, but the same in number is preserved. This latter proposition is supposed from what is to be said below of the efficient cause. But the former proposition is proved, because, although the substantial form which succeeds to another is diverse in species, nevertheless in the notion of effectively causing quantity there is sufficient power in each. Whence even those who say that quantity is changed confess that from the succeeding form, however imperfect, there emanates quantity altogether similar to the prior and equally perfect; therefore with much greater reason will that form have power to flow into pre-existing quantity and preserve it, nor can a sufficient reason be given why in this effect this is more repugnant than in others. For, although someone could say that that efficiency which is through natural resultance is so intrinsic that it cannot through the succession of a similar or equal cause be continued (so to speak) about the same property or effect, this nevertheless will be said merely gratuitously to escape the force of the reason, both because that emanation, however intrinsic it is called, does not transcend effective causality, and also because, of whatever kind that efficiency is, another similar one succeeds, and no other formal or material connection is adjoined there, nor is the individuation of quantity through this form; nothing, therefore, can prevent the same quantity from being preserved through the influx of a similar form; therefore, whether quantity depends effectively on the substantial form as it is the form of corporeity or not, it cannot be inferred thence that the accidents are changed into other similar ones distinct in number when the form is changed. But if no sufficient cause of corruption is assigned, things are superfluously multiplied and so great a change is introduced where even the senses themselves seem to resist. I omit that this mode of speaking is more favourable (so to speak) for explaining some theological matters, as is the mystery of the Eucharist and the effects which follow from it, and the veneration of relics; for, since we touch the quantity and the extrinsic accidents, greater devotion is won toward the bodies of the Saints if we understand that this same quantity which we touch was in the living body of the same Saint.

The mutual dependence and priority between quantity and the substantial form are explained

41. I say, thirdly: in some genus of cause it is true that the substantial composite and the union of the form with matter are prior in nature to quantity and the other accidents, although in another genus they are posterior. This assertion can first of all be proved by this general reason, that the substantial form requires quantity in matter; and conversely the accidents have some dependence on the composite and on the form; but every dependence brings with it some priority of nature; therefore. The major is evident from what has been said; for at least there must be mediate dependence in so far as matter depends on the composite and on the form. But the mode of declaring and defending this genus of causality in particular can be various, according to the various modes of attributing to the form causality into quantity. Of which that is easier and clearer, and rigorously sufficient, according to which the form is said to suppose quantity as a preparation of matter and its priority to be reduced to the genus of material cause; but quantity to depend on the form only mediately in the genus of formal cause. Whence, just as matter and form depend on each other and are prior and posterior in their genera without repugnance, so similarly quantity and the substantial form can be related; and by the same reason, just as matter, although it depends on the form and under that notion is said to be posterior to it, can nevertheless remain under a distinct form, so the same proportionally holds in quantity.

42. A thing can be prior in nature to that which is posterior in duration.—From which it is also understood in passing that it is not repugnant that the same thing be prior in duration to another and posterior in nature in some genus of cause; I speak of the same thing materially (so to speak) and not formally, in so far as it is the effect of another; for so the matter of this wood, for example, is absolutely prior in duration to the form of the wood, for it was created from the beginning of the world and from then has being; but now, in so far as it depends on this form, it is in nature posterior to it. Similarly, if one light, produced earlier by a preceding luminous body, is preserved by another created afterwards, such light is prior in time to its conserving cause; but as long as it is preserved by it, under this notion it is posterior in nature; and, as it preceded in time, it was not the effect of such cause; and therefore that temporal antecedence is per accidens to the causality or order of nature which afterwards followed; and on that account it is not repugnant that the same thing which now is posterior in nature preceded in time; for per se it is only necessary that the effect, posterior in nature, from the time at which it began to be the effect, or in so far as it is the effect, be not prior in time to its cause, on which it depends through real influx, which I add in order to exclude the final cause. In this way, then, one must philosophize about quantity and the substantial form; for quantity can be called posterior in nature to the substantial form in so far as it depends on it in the way said above, and nevertheless be anterior in time to this or that form. Wherefore that reasoning has no force: the substantial composite is prior in nature to the accidental, and the substantial form to quantity; therefore quantity does not inhere in matter; therefore, this form receding, this quantity perishes. For each inference is denied, because with posteriority of nature there can be priority of time, and because what is prior by one reason can be posterior by another.

43. And this mode is easy, as I said, and rigorously sufficient; but another can be thought out to explain this mutual order between quantity and the form, namely that one with respect to the other is a necessary condition in order that matter can receive them; for matter cannot naturally receive form unless it is extended, nor quantity unless it is terminated by form; and for this cause quantity and form can depend on each other under diverse material notions. For, although the form with respect to matter is a formal cause, nevertheless with respect to quantity it is reduced to the material, according to this mode of speaking, because it is as it were a disposition of matter in order that it can sustain quantity. Nor is it inconvenient that dispositions of diverse notions have among themselves this mutual dependence, both because they are ordered to diverse formal effects which from diverse heads are necessary to the subject, and chiefly because they do not have that mutual order among themselves immediately, but with respect to the subject for whose being they are necessary. An example can be in the heat and dryness of fire; for each quality is a necessary disposition for the preservation of fire; whence heat too can be called a necessary disposition to dryness and dryness to the heat of fire, because that necessity does not arise from the qualities themselves according to themselves, but in so far as each is necessary for the preservation of such a subject. Yet this mutual dependence of quantity and form does not prevent quantity from both being able to inhere in matter and being able to remain when the form is changed, because per se it does not require this or that form, but absolutely substantial form. I add also that in mutual dependence of this kind the priority of nature itself is of a diverse notion in each extreme; for in quantity it is by way of origin and execution and preparation of matter; but in the form by way of perfection, intention and ultimate termination of matter. And by this reason too it is more easily understood that the form can be changed while the same quantity remains in matter. And so this mutual priority could also be explained through the relationship of final and material cause, as is easily evident from what has been said. Finally, it is explained by many through the relationship of material and efficient cause, because quantity is compared materially to the form after the manner of a disposition, but the form to quantity efficiently. But this mode is in itself more difficult on account of the things which I said in arguing for the second opinion; it will, however, be more intelligible if quantity is not posited as a preparing disposition, but only as preserving and cherishing. And, this too being posited, it does not prevent quantity from inhering in matter and being able to remain in it when the form is changed, because quantity can emanate from the form into matter and through various forms the same be preserved, as was explained above. To me, however, the former modes seem more probable and sufficiently to satisfy all difficulties.

It is more probable that quantity always inheres in matter alone

44. I say, fourthly: in substantial composites of matter and extended form it is probable that quantity has a peculiar union with the form, or is received in it immediately partially together with matter; yet the opposite is more probable, that is, that one must philosophize in the same way about all material substances. There is in these forms a special reason for doubting, because these extended forms participate the formal effect of quantity; for they are co-extended, and their parts cannot naturally penetrate one another in place on account of quantity; therefore it seems necessary that quantity be united to them far otherwise than to the rational soul; therefore it is united to them proximately and immediately; but it is united after the manner of an accidental form and by giving its formal effect according to the capacity of the patient; therefore it inheres in them and is received in them partially. And it is confirmed, for from the negation of the formal effect of quantity in the rational soul we inferred the negation of proximate union and partial inherence; therefore from the opposite affirmation the contrary affirmation too is rightly gathered; for negation follows negation because affirmation is required for affirmation. Finally it is confirmed, because a thing can participate the effect of quantity in only two ways, namely, either because it receives quantity or because it is received in quantity, as heat or colour; but the substantial form does not participate the effect of quantity in this latter way, because it itself cannot be received in quantity; therefore it is necessary that it come about in the former way. The major is evident, because, unless quantity and the thing which is quantified (so to speak) are conjoined in one of those two ways, they will not be united per se immediately, but only per accidens, in so far as they are united to the same subject; but this is not enough for one to participate the effect of the other, as is evident in the rational soul and in accidents; for, although whiteness and sweetness are united in the same subject, whiteness does not become sweet nor sweetness white. On account of these reasons, then, it seems probable that it is singular in man that quantity inheres in matter alone; which, although it were true, would not be repugnant to the things which we have hitherto said of the causality of matter with respect to accidents; for it has only been said that matter of itself can through its entity alone exercise this causality without the aid of the form (so to speak) co-receiving the accident; but now we add probably that the composite can primarily and per se and adequately exercise this causality immediately about quantity and mediately about the accidents which are in quantity; whence it is concluded that matter sometimes by itself alone, sometimes together with the form, exercises this causality.

45. But in order to persuade the other part of the assertion, by which we say that the opposite is more probable, it occurs to be asked, according to the said opinion, if quantity is immediately in some material composite, so that it is proximately united to the form and to matter partially, whether in quantity there is one indivisible union to matter and form, or one composed of two partial ones. For that it is indivisible seems to be proved from this, that the thing which is united is indivisible; for we are not now considering in quantity the divisibility of integrating parts, but the indivisibility which it has in the notion of form; for, comparing the whole quantity and its individual parts to the subject, the same entity of quantity which is united to matter is united to the form, and conversely; and in this sense we say that it is indivisible in the notion of form; therefore the union is indivisible, although the thing at which the union is terminated is composite. The consequence is evident, both because the union, since it is a mode of the form which is united, must be proportioned and accommodated; and also because through that union quantity is indivisibly united to the composite and to each part of it. And it is confirmed, for in effective causality, when an effect proceeds from two causes per se, either partial in one order or total in diverse ones, by one indivisible action the effect emanates from each cause; therefore in the genus of material cause quantity, which is adequately in the whole composite and partially in matter and form, depends on each by the same indivisible union.

46. But on the contrary is the fact that that union of quantity to matter can be preserved even if the union to this form is dissolved; therefore it is not one and indivisible union; for what is indivisible cannot partly remain and partly be corrupted; for this conflicts with indivisibility. Whence, when an effect depends on two causes through the same indivisible action, that action cannot be preserved with respect to one cause and cease with respect to the other, for how will what is indivisible be divided? But the first antecedent is proved, because matter of itself is sufficient to sustain quantity, as was shown above; therefore of itself it is a sufficient term of the union of quantity to itself; therefore, although the union to the form is dissolved, if matter remains in the nature of things, the union to it will be preserved; as, for example, if God, the form being taken away, preserved matter supplying effectively the concurrence of the form, without a new miracle the union of quantity to matter would be preserved, on account of the said reason; and yet, the form being taken away, it is necessary that the union to it be taken away; therefore it is necessary that those unions be at least partially distinct. Likewise, in fact in man the union of quantity to matter is preserved without the immediate union of the same quantity to the form; therefore by equal reason in any other body whatever the same union of quantity to matter can remain, the union to the form being dissolved or changed. For neither is it likely that the union of quantity to matter is greater or of another notion in man than in other substances; because it does not have a greater or diverse formal effect in the body of man than in other bodies; therefore it does not inhere in it more or in a diverse way. Finally, otherwise it would be necessary, the form being changed, that the whole union of quantity to its subject be changed, because, if it is indivisible, it cannot be diminished or increased, or be changed in one part and remain in another, but either the whole must remain or the whole be changed; but the whole cannot remain if it is indivisible and terminated in a peculiar way and immediately at the material form; because, if the form which recedes is material, the union to it is already taken away; but if the form which recedes is immaterial, it is necessary that a material form succeed to which quantity is peculiarly united, which could not come about through the increase of the union, if the union is indivisible; therefore it will be through the change of the whole union; therefore, as often as the form is changed, the whole union of quantity must necessarily be changed; therefore also quantity itself, because quantity cannot be changed from subject to subject, nor be preserved the same when the inherence is changed; but we have shown that it is more probable that quantity is not necessarily changed when the form is changed; therefore.

47. Quantity is not bound to matter and form by a simple union.—On account of these things, then, it seems more probable that quantity is not united to matter and form by one and indivisible union. For neither is it likely that the union of quantity to matter is of a diverse notion in man and in other things; because of the union we can judge only from its term and effect; but this is of the same notion in the matter of man and of other things; if, therefore, that union in man does not express a relationship essentially and indivisibly to two things, neither will it include it in other things. Wherefore, if in other things quantity is united to forms in a peculiar way, this comes about through the increase of the union, namely by adding a peculiar or partial union to the form.

48. The substantial form is not immediately united with quantity.—But from this I further infer the proof of the latter part of the conclusion, namely that it is more probable that even in altogether material things there does not intervene a special partial union between form and quantity. It is proved, first, because in all things quantity is united to matter as to a total and sufficient cause in the genus of cause. The antecedent is proved, because in man quantity is united to matter as to a total cause in that genus, but that union is of the same notion and perfection in other things; therefore. Likewise, because matter of itself is sufficient to be the total cause, and in its genus necessarily and naturally causes as much as it can; therefore in any thing whatever it so causes and is united to quantity after the manner of a sufficient and total cause. Finally, because, when matter is transmuted from the form of man to the form of the corpse, it is not likely that its causality about quantity is diminished, and, as I was saying, that diminution could not sufficiently be understood without the transmutation of quantity itself. But the first consequence is proved, because of one effect there can be given only one total cause in each genus and order; if, therefore, matter is the sufficient and total cause after the manner of the subject of inherence of quantity, it is superfluous to feign that something else concurs proximately in the same genus of cause. Likewise, because the union of quantity to matter is in its species integral and total, as is evident in man; therefore it cannot be conjoined with another partial union to compose one integral union. Finally, because quantity is an intrinsic property of corporeal substance; therefore by its nature it expresses a definite relationship to some subject of inherence connatural and proportioned to itself; therefore either that is always matter, or always the composite; for it cannot be understood that it regards each indifferently and as it were under a disjunction, since its relationship is simple and of one notion and determines a subject or term proportioned to itself. If, therefore, this subject is the whole composite, quantity will be in man in a preternatural way and as it were inadequately; but if the transcendental relationship of quantity is to matter as to the proper and adequate subject of inherence, always and everywhere quantity is in matter alone as in such a subject.

49. How forms inhering in a quantified subject are extended.—And it is confirmed by solving the reason to the contrary; because, in order that a material form be in its own way extended and quantified, it is not necessary that it be subject to quantity, but it is enough that it inhere in a quantified thing, not by inhering in quantity itself, but in the thing primarily and per se quantified through quantity, by adapting and co-extending itself, which is manifest in some accidental forms or modes, as we shall treat in the following section. And it is briefly declared a priori, by supposing that the distinction of parts as regards entity, neither in matter nor in form, comes formally from quantity, but is rather supposed in each entity from its intrinsic nature and grade of perfection, and in matter is as it were the first foundation and aptitude for quantity. Material forms, then, by their nature have it that they consist of entitative parts (in which they differ from the rational soul), which they do not have from quantity, but from their specific and essential notion, because they do not transcend such a grade of perfection and because they are educible from the potency of matter, on which they depend in being and becoming. But from this nature it follows in them that, when they are united to matter, they are co-extended by entitative extension (so to speak), that is, that they are united to one part of matter through one part of themselves and to another through another, etc.; which extension they do not have formally through quantity, but through their entity. Whence, if God preserved a material substance without quantity, the form and matter would remain united with the aforesaid extension or entitative distinction of parts. But from this it further comes about that, when matter is affected by quantity and by reason of it its parts are impenetrable in order to place, the material form which is co-extended to such matter by this very fact participates that condition of quantity, not by reason of itself but by reason of the subject; for, because the parts of the form inseparably adhere to the parts of quantified matter, it is necessary that they be impenetrable among themselves or with another similar form, as are the parts of matter itself; therefore on account of this mode of being of such forms it is not necessary that quantity inhere immediately in such form as in a partial subject. Whence to the argument in form the answer is that to be quantified per accidens is not the formal effect of quantity, but only to be quantified primarily and per se; for motion and time too are quantified per accidens, by reason of the subject or of space; and this will be more evident from the solution of the second confirmation.

50. To the first, then, the answer is that, if the discussion is of the proper and rigorous formal effect of quantity, neither in material forms nor in accidental ones does quantity have this effect; but if any corporeal extension whatever is more broadly called the effect of quantity, then the consequence is denied. For, although from this, that the rational soul does not have extension either per se or per accidens, it is rightly inferred that it is not united immediately to quantity after the manner of a subject, nevertheless that negation is not the adequate reason, and therefore from the opposite affirmation, as regards extension per accidens, it is not rightly inferred that material forms have the aforesaid union to quantity.

51. In order that I may answer the second confirmation, first of all I take from it that the quantification (so to speak) of forms or corporeal qualities does not pertain to the formal effect of quantity, for sometimes this effect or condition results from quantity not as from a form but as from a subject; but quantity does not give its formal effect as it exercises the function of subject, but as it is an inhering form; for by the former reason it rather itself receives a formal effect, while it becomes white, etc. Therefore that whiteness inhering in quantity is in its own way quantified is not through the information or formal causality of quantity, but is a condition and denomination which it participates from its subject, in which, by inhering, it is co-extended to it; for thence it comes about that the parts of the form are so distant among themselves or impenetrable as are the parts of the subject. Hence, then, it is further said that to those two members posited in the argument a third must be added, or rather the second must be subdivided; for a form can be extended to the extension of the subject either because it is received in quantity or because it is received in a thing extended through quantity, as has been declared and will be more evident from what is to be said in the following section.

The arguments of the former opinion are solved

52. What Aristotle thought of this.—It remains that we answer the arguments of the former opinion: and first to Aristotle it is answered generally that, although he often said that substance, or being in act, is the subject of accidents, he never explained that it is primarily and per se the subject by reason of the whole composite. But it can simply be attributed to the composite that it receives accidents, although it receives them not through itself but through a part. Nor yet did he ever say openly that all the accidents perish when the substance is corrupted; rather he often indicates that sometimes the same affection remains in the thing generated which was in the corrupted; although (to confess the truth) he did not say expressly either that it is the same in number, and it can be expounded of the same in species; but he speaks absolutely of identity, as is evident from De generatione I, text 24, and certainly in qualities that is not called the same which is diverse in number, but similar. Next the answer is given to the individual testimonies.

53. The testimonies of Aristotle brought to the contrary are explained.—The first was from De generatione I, where, constituting the difference between generation and alteration, he says that in generation no sensible subject remains, and below he says that there is then substantial generation when nothing sensible remains as a subject. The answer, however, is that by sensible subject Aristotle understands the substantial composite, which is commonly wont to be called sensible substance. Whence it is the same to say sensible subject as sensible supposit; for that is that in which principally the accidents are and of which they are predicated; when, therefore, in the transmutation such a subject remains according to the same name and the same notion, only alteration has come about; but when such a subject does not remain, substantial corruption and generation come about. Some, then, badly expound nothing sensible remaining, that is, no sensible quality or accident remaining, since the same Aristotle expressly added: Nothing sensible remaining as subject, namely integral and complete. But in text 24 Aristotle does not say that in substantial corruption all the accidents are changed, but rather says that, when in the generated and the corrupted the same affection remains integral, as the same coldness or transparency in water and in the air generated from it, it is not to be thought that the cold or the transparent is some common subject whose affections are to be water or to be air; otherwise (he says) only alteration would have come about; for alteration comes about whenever what is transmuted is a passion of that which remains. And so St. Thomas expounds that place. From which exposition it is rather had that substantial transmutation can come about in the subject although the same affection remains.

54. The second testimony, from Physics I, stands in no way; for we confess that matter regards substantial form primarily and per se, because this does not prevent it from receiving quantity and accidents in so far as they dispose to it. To the third, from Physics V, the answer is that the difference between substantial generation and the other accidental motions is that matter, as it is the subject of generation, is not supposed informed by any substantial form; whence both the adequate and the proper and principal subject of generation is matter itself as it is in potency to being simply; but to accidental change there is always supposed a constituted being simply or substantial supposit, which absolutely is denominated the subject which, or the principal subject, of such change; and in the same sense the subject of accidental change is said to be being in act and simply; yet it is not necessary that according to its whole self and primarily and per se it receive such change, but it can receive it through a part. You will say: in the instant in which substantial generation comes about, alteration precedes in matter alone. The answer is that, if the discussion is of the motion of alteration, it does not precede in matter alone in the aforesaid sense, but precedes in the wood, for example, or the water (if generation comes about from it), as in the supposit or principal subject, which alone is of the notion of motion properly so called, although it is in matter as in the proper subject of inherence, which is not repugnant to the notion of motion. But if the discussion is of alteration as regards its ultimate and momentary term, then it is true that in the order of nature it comes about in matter before it is understood substantially informed; yet that termination is not motion properly so called, but a certain instantaneous change, or rather a certain having-been-changed extrinsically terminating motion. I add also that it happens by accident that that change comes about in prime matter, because it is conjoined to substantial generation and the corruption of the prior subject, which in the whole preceding time was moved by that motion.

55. The fourth testimony, from Metaphysics VII, has no difficulty; for matter is said to be of itself neither quale nor quantum in the way it is said to be formless; but it is said to be formless not because it is not formed, but because of itself and in its entity it includes no form; so, then, it is said not to be quale, not because it is affected by no quality, but because of itself it has no quality nor includes it in its entity. You will say: at least it will be called quantum because by its nature it has quantity. I answer, first, that it can be called of itself not quantum, because in its entity it does not include quantity, although it postulates it; but in this way an integral corporeal substance too could be called not quantum. Otherwise, then, matter can be called of itself not quantum because it postulates no certain term of quantity; and therefore of itself it is neither great nor small, etc. Likewise, because, although it is the subject in which quantity inheres, nevertheless, because only the supposit is that which simply is, therefore to it alone are such denominations simply attributed. But if we regard the thing itself only, there is no doubt that, as matter is called corporeal, so it can also be called quantum.

56. To the fifth testimony, from Metaphysics VII and XII, the answer is that substance is prior in nature to accident absolutely and simply, if they too are compared absolutely and simply; but if each substance is compared to its accidents, it is also prior simply and in every genus, either according to the whole or according to a part; but comparing the composite substance to its quantity, it is indeed prior in perfection, and prior in nature in the notion of end, and in its own way also in the genus of formal cause; yet in some genus of cause, namely material, it is not repugnant that some accident be prior in nature to some substance, which in every opinion almost all authors concede; and so we say that by way of generation quantity is in matter prior in nature to form. To the sixth testimony, from the chapter on Substance, the answer is that Aristotle does not say that, this or that substance being destroyed, all the accidents which are in it are destroyed, but that, the first substances being destroyed—which is most true, because, unless another substance succeeded to the corrupted one, the accidents would not remain. Next, even if we speak of a particular substance, it is to be understood that, the substance being altogether destroyed, that is, according to the whole and according to the part, that which is in it cannot remain; for, if the whole substance is destroyed and a part remains, it will not be repugnant that something remain in it; for so, the man being destroyed, the intellect remains in the soul, which remains; since, therefore, matter remains, quantity will be able to be preserved in it.

57. The reasons of the first opinion are solved.—The first.—The second.—The reasons of that opinion have almost been dispatched from the proofs of the second. For to the first it has already often been said that matter has its proper being, which, although in the genus of substance it is incomplete, is nevertheless, in comparison with accident, being simply and partially subsisting per se; and, although it depends on the form in some genus, and therefore in that it can be said that matter is conjoined to the substantial form prior in nature to the accidental, this nevertheless does not prevent matter both from being capable through its entity of sustaining accidents and under another notion and in another genus of cause from being conjoined to them prior in nature. To the second we concede that matter primarily regards substantial form, and therefore in the order of intention or end is first conjoined, yet not in the order of execution; for rather under this notion it is first in nature conjoined to the accidental form as to a medium or disposition to the substantial form. For often a potency which is primarily ordered to some act in execution first receives another by which it is disposed to the other, as sight is primarily ordered to vision, yet first regards light, species, etc.; and universally this order is consonant with nature, that things prior in intention are posterior in execution, and conversely, that those which are more imperfect precede by way of origin. But what is said there, that the accidental form is compared to the substantial as second act to first, is not universally necessary; for quantity does not seem to be compared in this way, but only as a connatural disposition of substance by reason of matter. And similarly extrinsic accidents, which do not emanate from the form nor are received in it, are not compared to it as second acts to the first. But I add next that, even if we gratuitously grant the whole of what is assumed in that argument, nothing is inferred against our opinion; for we have shown that, although we admit that the form is the first act of matter in the order of perfection, intention and first origin, and also in the order of effective causality, nevertheless it is excellently consistent and most true that quantity is received in matter alone as in the proper subject of inherence and material cause, which is chiefly intended by us in this place. But that, that priority of the form notwithstanding, quantity can remain in matter and be prior in time in it to any determinate form besides the first, which was concreated with matter, has been sufficiently probably (as I think) declared by us in the second assertion.

58. The third.—By how many titles connection intervenes between quantity and matter.—Hence the answer is easily given to the third reason, first, by gratuitously conceding that quantity follows actively the substantial form as it is the form of corporeity, and denying the consequence, because (as I have often said) it can emanate from the form into matter, and be preserved in it through the succession of forms. Secondly, it is most likely that quantity is a property following matter, or (what is the same) due to the composite by reason of matter. For first it is an almost common axiom that quantity follows matter and quality form; for by this reason the Doctors distribute the absolute predicaments and assign their sufficiency. Next it is per se consonant with reason that, since matter has a true and real proper essence, although partial, by reason of it it has some property; nor is it necessary that the form from the common notion of substantial form have some certain specific property; but it is enough that some common or generic notion of quality corresponds. Just as from the common notion of immaterial substance there does not follow some specific accidental form, but intellect and will as such follow. Moreover, since man consists of matter and an altogether spiritual form, and nevertheless claims for himself the same quantity as other material things, it is a sign that he postulates it by reason of matter, not by reason of form. Finally the very proportion between quantity and matter sufficiently indicates that quantity follows matter; for quantity per se is not active, as neither is matter. Likewise, it is apt for receiving, either as proximate potency or as a reason and condition well disposing to undergoing and receiving; it is, therefore, sufficiently likely that quantity is due to matter or by reason of matter. Which can also be confirmed from what we proved above, namely that every thing having matter also has quantity, and conversely. But this natural conjunction between matter and quantity can be understood in two ways. First, only by reason of passive potency intrinsically by its nature postulating such an affection. For neither is it necessary that every innate property be due by reason of an active principle, but sometimes the passive suffices; in which way many think that motion is natural to the heaven, and being in the centre natural to earth, and intelligible species natural to the angelic intellect according to receptive, not active, potency. In the second way it can be understood through intrinsic active emanation. And, although the former mode suffices, this latter has no inconvenience, because, although matter is potency to substantial form, nevertheless it has in itself a true actual and entitative essence; what wonder, then, that from it emanates some property proportioned to it? For that matter is not active through proper action is because, since it is pure potency, it neither can make a thing similar to itself, because it would have to create it, nor can it act on a similar potency, because it does not have of itself a proportioned act, except in receptive potency only. But it often happens that a thing which cannot act through proper action on another has intrinsic emanation in itself; as the substance of an angel does not have the power active of a similar substance; yet it has a power from which there emanate in it powers proportioned to itself; and the substantial form, according to the received doctrine, is not immediately active of accidental form, and yet through intrinsic emanation intellect emanates from the soul, and the intension of cold from the form of water when it brings itself back to its pristine coldness. Finally it is very probable that other modes distinct from the nature of the thing emanate actively from the essence of matter, as partial and intrinsic subsistence, local presence and relations, if they are something distinct from the nature of the thing from the foundation.

59. Whether matter is to be said to receive substantial form by means of quantity.—To the first confirmation the sequel is denied, absolutely speaking, although it can be distinguished that matter can be understood to receive substantial form by means of quantity in two ways. First, only as a disposition or necessary condition; and so it is conceded, nor do the reasons and inconveniences which are proposed there proceed against this sense. Secondly, as a potency proximately receptive of substantial form; and in this sense this consequent is rightly disproved in that confirmation; yet we deny that it follows, because it has no necessary connection with the doctrine handed down. But what is to be said of corporeal qualities we shall see in the following section. To the second confirmation I concede the sequel, namely that quantity is incorruptible as regards its entity, although as regards various terms it can begin and cease to be, through the division and conjunction of quantity. But how there is per se motion to quantity cannot be examined here as the difficulty of the matter requires; briefly, however, I say that to the production of quantity there is not per se motion, but to accretion; and that this does not come about because new quantity or a new part of quantity simply begins to be in the nature of things, but because one quantity is adjoined to another, and what was foreign becomes proper through a certain special action per se tending to this.

60. To the fourth it is first said (applying the distinction given) that, if matter's receiving quantity by means of the form is understood only as a necessary condition and principal term of its existence, then the whole reason can be conceded and nothing is inferred against the doctrine given, as will easily be evident to one who considers; but if it is understood by means of the form as a partial subject and proper material cause, then it must be said that sometimes this is manifestly repugnant, as in man; and thence it is sufficiently probably gathered that this is not consonant with the natures of things and with the causality of matter and form in all natural things.

61. The reasons of the latter opinion, in so far as they prove that matter is the proper subject of inherence and the sufficient material cause of quantity and of the accidents which inhere through it, have, as I think, no probable solution. Whence even the Thomists, and specially Astudillo, De generatione I, q. 2, concede this also in the doctrine of St. Thomas, provided it is not denied both that the substantial form simply precedes in matter in nature and that quantity and the accidents altogether depend on it. But in so far as those reasons proceed against this latter part and prove that the same accidents remain in the generated which were in the corrupted, they could perhaps be probably solved; but because to us they seem at least more probably to persuade it, it does not please me to linger in dissolving them.

1. Supernaturally one accident inheres in another as in a subject which.—Otherwise naturally.—We are speaking according to the natures of things; for, some miracle being supposed, there is no doubt that some accident can concur after the manner of subject and material cause to the being of some accident and to its effecting, as the more approved theologians teach of quantity in the consecrated Eucharist. But according to the natures of things two things are certain: the first is that no accident can be the first and (so to speak) fundamental subject of another accident, which is called by some the subject which. This is evident, because no accident can sustain another without each being sustained in another, and in this progress one cannot proceed to infinity; otherwise there would be nothing in which that whole causality would be materially founded. And by the same reason one cannot stop at some accident; otherwise the whole collection of accidents would not be in another but in itself, which is repugnant to the nature of accident; one must necessarily stop, therefore, at the substantial subject or matter. And in this sense it is wont to be said that an accident cannot be the first material cause of an accident, but at most the proximate. And this Aristotle professedly teaches, Metaphysics IV, in the place to be treated immediately.

2. One accident is received in substance by reason of another.—Secondly, it is certain that some accidents are in substance by means of other accidents; this is evident by induction, for the acts of the intellect are in spiritual substance by means of the intellect, and the acts of the will by means of the will, and so proportionally of the other acts or habits of the sensitive powers; and corporeal qualities, by the opinion of all, are in by means of quantity. And a more general reason can be given, because, although all accidents are ordered to substance, they are nevertheless not without order among themselves, and therefore one can regard substance by means of another.

The point of the question

3. The difficulty, then, is how one accident is in substance by means of another, whether only as that by which or also as that which; for the philosophers use these terms. In which an equivocation is to be avoided, so that the point of the controversy may be attained; for in one sense it can be denied that an accident is a subject which, only because it is not the first foundation and as it were base of the whole causality by which another accident is sustained; but according to this sense some accident will be called a subject by which, because it is that by means of which substance receives another accident, whether the posterior truly and properly inheres in the prior accident or not. And this sense cannot fall into doubt, nor is there controversy about it. In another sense an accident can be said to be only a subject by which and not which of another accident, because one accident cannot be even a proximate subject in which another accident truly inheres, although it can be the reason of inhering, that is, a necessary condition or disposition prerequired in the substance in order that another accident can inhere in it, in which way many think that diaphaneity is compared to light. And according to this sense one accident is not truly and properly the material cause of another, except perhaps in that sense in which a dispositive cause is reduced to the material; in which way an accident too can be a material cause of substance; but we are treating of proper material cause, in which an accidental form is proximately in and received. Whence conversely an accident will be called a subject which of another accident if it truly receives it in itself and in itself proximately terminates its union and inherence, even if it is not the first (so to speak) support of both; and in this sense the present question is treated.

Various opinions

4. The first opinion is that no accident is a true subject and material cause of another accident. So holds Gregory, In II, dist. 12, q. 2, a. 2; and he attributes it to Aristotle, Metaphysics IV, texts 13 and 14, where he proves that an accident does not happen to an accident except because both happen to the same thing, and subjoins the cause, because there is no greater reason why one accident should happen to another than conversely. The nominalists seem to suppose the same, who deny that the qualities of the bread inhere in quantity even after the consecration of the bread, whom I cited in tom. III of the Third Part, disp. LVI, sect. 3. To the same opinion can be referred Capreolus, In I, dist. 3, q. 3, a. 2, ad 2 Scoti against concl. 1, where he does not sufficiently explain in what sense he speaks of subject by which and which; nor can this be sufficiently established from the places of St. Thomas which he adduces, as we shall see; but Gregory spoke more clearly, who brings forward reasons of no great weight; for the sum of all is that a form cannot be a principle of undergoing or receiving, otherwise the function of form is confounded with the office of matter; but every accident is a true accidental form; therefore it cannot be a receptive principle of an accident.

5. The second opinion is that one accident can be the proximate subject in which another is received, and consequently can exercise proper material causality about it. Durandus holds and excellently declares this, In I, dist. 8, 2 part., q. 4, n. 15, and St. Thomas and other authors suppose it, who (as I alleged in the said place) say that in the Eucharist after the consecration of the bread the qualities inhere in the separated quantity, not by a new inherence which is conferred on them through consecration, but by the old which they had in the quantity, which before inhered in matter as in a subject, which being taken away, the other accidents remain founded upon the quantity itself, as St. Thomas expressly teaches, III, q. 77, a. 2, second reason. And in the solution ad 2 he declares that one accident per se cannot be the subject of another, because per se it is not; but in so far as it is in another, it can be a subject, because one accident can be received in a subject by means of another; and so he says that the surface is the subject of colour; which would not be absolutely true if the accident were only a medium by which in the former sense declared above. And I-II, q. 7, a. 1, ad 3, and q. 56, a. 1, ad 3, where he repeats the same doctrine, he says that one accident inheres in another, which cannot truly be said of a pure disposition. He has almost similar things In III, dist. 33, q. 2, a. 4, quaestiuncula 1, and excellently in the question De spiritualibus creaturis, a. 11, ad 13, and often elsewhere. And this opinion I judge to be true.

Resolution of the question

6. But in order that we may prove and declare it more fully, I say, first: although not every accident can inhere proximately in another accident, nevertheless this can belong to some accidents. The former part is known, because, since the whole collection of accidents must necessarily inhere in substance, it is necessary that some accident inhere immediately in substance; for between substance and accident a medium cannot be found, although between substance and some accident another accident can intervene, because, just as the general division of being into substance and accident is adequate, so that between the dividing members no medium can fall, so between the first subject of accident, which is substance, and the whole collection of accidents, or between substance and its first accident, no medium can be found. Which St. Thomas rightly noted, I, q. 77, a. 1, ad 5.

7. Spiritual accidents truly inhere in other accidents.—The latter part is proved, first, by induction in corporeal accidents; for all are in substance by means of quantity, as all the philosophers teach; and it seems to be proved by experience, for whiteness is extended in the surface, and heat similarly, when it is diffused through the body, is extended in its quantity. It can be answered that hence it is only gathered that quantity is a disposition necessary in the subject in order that other corporeal accidents can be in it in a connatural way, yet not that quantity itself is the proximate subject in which such accidents truly inhere. As of the substantial form we were saying probably above that it does not enter into matter except as extended through quantity; but, that disposition being supposed, it is conjoined immediately to the entity of matter itself and is co-extended to it; why, then, could the same not be said of whiteness and of heat, etc.? The answer is that the reason is very diverse, for the substantial form, since it is of a superior order, is improportioned to inhere proximately in an accident. Likewise, it is not united after the accidental manner but the substantial, and therefore it must be united immediately to substance; but corporeal quality is an accident and is united after the accidental manner, and therefore of itself it is proportioned so that it can inhere proximately in an accident; therefore, when the quality is such that per se and necessarily it supposes quantity in the substance in order to be received by means of it, it is more likely that it is received immediately in it. And it is confirmed from the mystery of the Eucharist, for in the separated quantity the accidents inhere, as I suppose from theology; therefore by their nature they are apt to inform quantity, because a form cannot exercise its formal effect outside a subject proportioned to itself; therefore before the consecration those qualities inhered in the quantity, because a quality naturally informs a subject proportioned to it, if it is conjoined. Likewise, because a new inherence, made anew and miraculously in those qualities, is superfluously feigned, if according to the nature of the thing it can be understood both to have preceded and always to have remained. And this induction is more evident in certain accidents which are not things altogether distinct from the accidents in which they are founded, but their modes, as is figure with respect to quantity, and motion, and where or local presence with respect to the same, and relation (if it is a distinct mode) with respect to its foundation. Moreover, in spiritual accidents (and the reason is the same of material ones which are proportioned to them) this seems most certain, for first of all it is necessary that operative habits inhere immediately in the powers which they are ordered to help; because these habits give inclination and facility to these powers; but they do not give this facility except formally through themselves; therefore they inform these powers; therefore they are received proximately in them. And by this reason science is received in the intellect, and impressed species in the cognitive power proportioned to them, and so too the theologians say that faith is in the intellect and charity in the will. And the same or greater reason holds of vital acts, which essentially are immanent acts; whence it is necessary that they be received immediately in the proximate principle from which they proceed. But the reason a priori of this part is to be taken from the natural subordination of such accidents, which we investigate from the effects themselves and natural indications, and there is nothing whence it is repugnant to the nature of accident as such.

8. The second conclusion.—I say, secondly: one accident can truly exercise material causality with respect to another proportioned to it. This assertion follows from the former, for a subject receiving a form in itself exercises proper material causality toward it; but one accident is the proximate subject receiving another accident in itself; therefore. Secondly, because the accident which is received in another depends on it in being and becoming; and not as on an efficient, speaking formally and precisely by virtue of reception, which sometimes can in the thing be separated from effecting, as is evident in quantity, which does not make the whiteness which it receives in itself; whence whiteness does not depend on it by means of action, but by means of union and inherence; that dependence, therefore, pertains to material causality. Thirdly, the accident which inheres in another is its form; whence vital acts are called the second acts of the powers, because they ultimately actuate and inform them, and whiteness denominates the surface white as informing it; therefore, conversely, the accident receiving another exercises material causality about it.

9. A small question is treated and resolved.—But someone will ask, when one accident causes another materially, whether it alone proximately concurs in that genus, or also the subject itself or some other accident. Some answer that some accidents are simple, that is, neither formally nor identically composed of various entities, as is whiteness, vision, etc.; but others are composed of various entities, which composition will never be found in accidents which have a proper entity; for, although there can be in them composition of intension or extension, nevertheless this, in order to the subject, is compared after the manner of a simple entity; but in accidents which are modes of things that composition is sometimes found; for example, the local presence of the bread is not only in the quantity but also in the substance of the bread; whence that integral presence is composed of the presence of the substance and the presence of the quantity. Of the former accidents, then, when one is in substance by means of another, they say that material causality is exercised proximately by the accident alone, and conversely that the union or inherence of the accident is terminated per se and immediately at the accident alone, but at the subject of the other accident only remotely and as it were per accidens; for, since such an accident is a simple mode or simple entity, it cannot be united immediately to several things; so Ockham, In IV, q. 4, says that a simple accident cannot be except in an equally simple subject.

10. But when the accident is composite in the way explained, it is adequately in a composite subject; and therefore, although according to one part it is in another accident, according to another it can be immediately in substance; and in this way it is wont to be said that discrete quantity is partially in many subjects, of which in its place. And in this latter part there is no difficulty in the thing, although there can be a question about the name, whether that is to be called one accident or rather two, since in the thing they are so distinct that one can remain without the other; as in fact the presence of the substance of the bread was destroyed and the presence of the quantity remained, and it could have been done in the contrary way too. Whence there is no doubt that those presences are in the thing distinct and of diverse notions. But whether on account of some union they are to be called to compose one matters nothing to the present point, and seems a question of the mode of speaking.

11. But of the former part there is greater doubt, for that principle that an accident simple in its entity cannot be received immediately and adequately in a composite subject is neither certain nor seems necessary. For first of all many think so of all corporeal accidents, that they are primarily and per se in the substantial composite, at least when on each side it is material (which opinion, from this precisely, that the subject is composite and the accidental form simple, does not involve a repugnance); therefore by the same reason it could be in an accidental composite. Likewise, sometimes one and the same accident or accidental mode regards two distinct things, as the mode of union both regards or affects the thing which it unites and the thing to which it unites; therefore similarly one accidental entity can primarily and per se regard two things as composing one adequate subject, for example matter and quantity as they compose this quantified subject. Finally in this no intrinsic repugnance appears. I think, therefore, that from this principle it cannot be generally defined, when one accident is in substance by means of another, whether substance concurs there only remotely or also proximately, nor do I find another general principle from which this could be universally dispatched.

12. Wherefore I judge that one must look to the nature of each accident and to its formal effect; for, if the formal effect of the accident on account of its special nature does not postulate the immediate material concurrence of substance, it is more likely that substance concurs only remotely, and that one accident inheres immediately only in another, and so Durandus absolutely affirms, in the place cited above. And the reason is that, if that proximate cause is sufficient, it will be superfluous to add another. And in this way I think that whiteness and similar qualities inhere in quantity so that their mode of inherence is proximately terminated at the quantity alone. Of which the best sign is that, the matter being taken away and the quantity remaining, the same inherence is preserved. Nor is there any other sign or indication which shows that more is required for the formal effect of these accidents.

13. But if there is some accident which from its special mode of informing requires immediate inherence not only to some faculty but also to the very substance of the thing, it will not be repugnant that it so come about. This I notice specially on account of vital acts, for example of the intellect or will, which some think are so in the faculties that they also attain immediately the very substance of the soul or of the angel, on account of the intrinsic mode of affecting of vital act, and because it is so essentially an immanent act that it immediately affects the whole intrinsic principle immediately flowing into it; but this principle, as these authors consequently think, is not the power alone, but also the very substance of the angel or of the soul. Which opinion by virtue of material causality is not repugnant, yet its truth is to be examined elsewhere. And in the same way what some in theology think is probable, that per se infused habits, as they concur actively together with the powers to eliciting supernatural acts, so also concur materially to receiving them; for this (if from elsewhere it is proved necessary or more connatural to such acts) is not repugnant from this, that the power and the habit are distinct things, because it is enough that they are united and concur after the manner of one integral faculty.

Answer to the arguments

14. Whether accident happens to accident.—The foundation of Gregory has no difficulty; for the proposition of Aristotle, that accident does not happen to accident, is to be understood as of a subject which in the former sense declared above. Which sense St. Thomas indicates there. It could also be said that Aristotle there is not only treating of accidental inherence, but also of accidental predication by which one accident is said altogether per accidens of another, as when the musical is said to be white; for such predication does not arise from this, that one happens to the other, but that both are conjoined in one third. But sometimes an accident can be predicated of an accident not altogether per accidens, as in this proposition: the quantified is in place, or the intellectual understands, the appetitive loves; and in these it is not repugnant that accident be in accident in the way expounded above; and in the same sense it will not be repugnant that accident happen to accident, not merely per accidens, but on account of some per se order which they have among themselves, in which way too the surface is called white, and so of the others. To the reason the answer is that it is not repugnant that a thing which is form with respect to one be receptive potency with respect to another, which is evident in the rational soul and in any accidental passive potency whatever, and is sufficiently clear from what was said in sect. 1; nor does a new difficulty occur here.