Disputationes metaphysicae

1. We have explained the nature of matter and in passing touched upon all its causes, namely the efficient, which is form or the composite, and in some way the formal, which is also form, of which we are to say more below. But it has no material cause besides itself or its integrating parts, since it is simple and the first subject. It remains, then, that we declare its causality (which in this section is chiefly intended). But four things can be desired in this causality, as in the others: first, what matter causes; second, by what it causes, or what is on its side the principal and proximate reason of causing; third, what is the necessary condition; fourth, what the causality itself is through which the cause in act is constituted.

Various opinions

2. About the first part, some say that the proper and only effect of matter is the composite itself, which can be taken from the definition of matter, namely, the first subject from which something comes about, etc. For properly only the composite comes about. Likewise matter is an intrinsic cause; but it is compared only to the composite as an intrinsic cause. Likewise matter is not the cause of form; therefore of the composite alone; the antecedent is evident, because matter is not the principle of form; for Aristotle says, Physics I, that one principle is not from another. Finally, because matter has a single causality; therefore also a single caused thing or adequate effect. So thinks Major, In II, dist. 12, q. 2, citing Avicenna, Metaphysics VI, tract. 2, c. 4. Likewise Albert, Physics II, tract. 2, c. 1. Who nevertheless seems to speak equivocally; for he says that matter is not the cause of form except per accidens, because form does not come about but the composite; whence he does not seem to deny that form, in the way in which it comes about, is caused by matter.

3. But others will have it that form too is a proper effect of matter, not every form, however, but that which is educed from the potency of matter. Which opinion seems common. For no one whom I have seen excludes the composite from the causality of matter. For, although Averroes and others say that matter is not of the essence of the composite, which we shall dispute below in its proper place, they nevertheless do not deny that matter is the cause of the composite, nor can they deny it, since it is evident that it consists of it. This second opinion, therefore, does not differ as regards this from the first, but adds the causality of matter into the form which is educed from its potency. And it is proved as regards this part, because a form of this kind depends on matter; therefore it is its effect. Likewise this form is educed from the potency of matter; therefore matter conduces in its genus to its eduction; therefore it is its cause. From which reasons it seems conversely to be concluded that matter is not the cause of the rational form, because this neither depends on matter nor is educed from its potency.

4. But Fonseca judges this opinion too insufficient, Metaphysics V, c. 2, q. 1, sect. 2, whom the Coimbrans imitate, Physics II, c. 7, q. 8, a. 1; and therefore he adds that matter is the cause of every form, even rational, namely as informing, and he says this is the general causality of matter. Which opinion seems to be convinced by this reason alone, that, although the substance or existence of a form sometimes does not depend on matter, nevertheless the information of a form always depends on matter as on its proper potency and subject; therefore form as informing depends on matter as on its material cause; it is therefore its effect. This can be confirmed, because the soul depends on matter as on the term of its being, to which it has an essential relationship, as St. Thomas speaks, question De anima, a. 1, ad 12. The rational soul also has in a certain way to depend on matter as regards the beginning of its being, because naturally being is not due to it except in such matter, on which it depends in union; therefore.

5. Besides these we can also add that matter is the material cause of generation itself, which is distinct from the nature of the thing from the form and from the composite. And it is proved, because matter is the principle of generation, on the testimony of Aristotle, and is a per se principle and one on which generation essentially depends; it is therefore a true and proper cause of generation, for it flows into it most properly in its own way.

6. How many and what are the effects of matter.—From these, then, there seem to be gathered four effects of matter distinct from the nature of the thing, namely the composite, the form which is material, the union of the form with matter, and the generation of the whole composite. For that all these are caused by matter seems sufficiently proved. But that all of them are distinct, at least from the nature of the thing, can easily be shown. For form is distinguished from the composite as part from whole. But union is distinguished from form, at least as a mode distinct from the nature of the thing and separable from it, as is evident in the rational soul, and the same could happen in other forms, at least by absolute power, as has been done in the quantity of the Eucharist, of which more below in treating of the formal cause. But generation differs from all the aforesaid as becoming from the thing made; whence in the thing itself it is separable from them, for, generation being completed and the action of the agent ceasing, the form remains united to matter and constituting the composite in completed being. Nor does it matter that, generation ceasing, there remains in its place the conservation by which the effect is preserved at least by the first cause; both because this is as it were per accidens to the proper notion and distinction of generation; for, although per impossibile we understood that the thing generated does not depend in being preserved on another cause, but only in becoming on the generator, union, form and composite would remain when generation ceases. And also because, although after generation, which is from the proximate cause, there succeeds conservation, which is from the first cause alone, nevertheless the union of form with matter perseveres the same in number, as the form too is the same in number and the composite the same; and this is enough for generation to be understood to be a mode distinct from the nature of the thing from all of them; those four, therefore, which we have shown are caused by matter, are distinct from the nature of the thing.

Resolution of the question

7. Generation is rather a way to the effects of matter than one of them.—But although these are true in the thing, nevertheless the adequate effect of matter is contained in the composite itself. Which is caused by matter in two ways, namely in becoming and in completed being; in becoming indeed in so far as matter is the cause of generation; for it does not cause it except in so far as it is the way to the composite, or in so far as through it the composite depends in becoming on matter itself. Whence, although generation is caused by matter, it is nevertheless not so much caused as an effect as a way to the effect; and therefore, although it is distinguished from the nature of the thing, it is not judged to increase the number of effects, because where there is one on account of another, there there is only one. As with respect to the efficient cause the action is something distinct from the nature of the thing from the term, as heating from heat, and both are from the agent; for heating flows and comes about from the heater, yet not properly as an effect, but as a way to the effect, and therefore it is not judged to be placed in number with the effect. But in completed being matter is the cause of the composite in so far as it composes it; but it does not compose it except in so far as form is united to matter itself, sustaining the form itself if it is such that it needs that foundation. Therefore in this adequate effect, which is to compose the composite, is included the causality of matter with respect to the form, either as informing or also as existing, according to the exigency of the form. Indeed these effects are so conjoined and as it were ordered to composing one adequate effect that the causality of matter about them does not seem distinct from the nature of the thing, but only by relationship or prescission or the inadequate conception of our intellect, by reason of which we explain this causality by diverse formulas of speaking. For we say that form depends on matter as on the recipient or as on the co-part, but the composite as on the composing part; by which words we explain that the relationship of matter to form is one thing and the relationship of matter to the composite another; yet with this it stands that the mode of causality in which these relationships are founded is in the thing the same. Which we shall show to be so a little below, and consequently we shall also declare, in speaking of actual causality, that the causality of matter with respect to the composite in becoming is more distinguished from the causality of the same composite in completed being than the causality with respect to the composite and to the form differ, each being taken in becoming or each in completed being.

Judgement on the other opinions

8. In execution the prior effect of matter is the material form, in intention the whole composite.—From which finally it is easy to reduce all the opinions adduced to truth. For the first considered the adequate and per se primarily intended effect of matter, and therefore said that it is the composite itself. Yet it did not deny, or could deny, either the twofold notion and as it were state of the same composite, namely in becoming and in completed being, or that matter is in each way its cause, or that it is a true cause of generation and eduction, as universally the mobile is the material cause of motion. Nor does that opinion deny either that matter, by composing the composite, flows in its genus into the form, at least as informing. Indeed it seems it must be said that in the order of nature, and as it were by way of origin, the causality of matter is proximately begun hence, because matter, by receiving the act, composes the composite. But in the order of intention it tends primarily into the composite and is ultimately terminated at it, and therefore that is properly designated and named the effect of matter. As the agent is said properly to effect the composite, although its causality is proximately concerned also with the form, by educing it and uniting it to matter. This understanding being supposed, there seems to be a dissension only about a name, whether matter is to be said to cause form or not, as Major too confesses in the cited place, indicating that in the thing he does not dissent; yet there is no reason why we should hesitate about that expression, because the verb to cause is most ample, which is wont to be attributed not only to the ultimate term of generation or composition, but also to action and to any thing whatever which truly depends on another.

9. Matter can be called the principle of form.—Nor do the arguments of that opinion prove anything else; for the first two only prove that matter is primarily and per se the cause of the composite. But to the third the answer is that the same must be said of principle as of cause; for matter too can be called the principle of form, either because it is educed from its potency, or because it is united to it. But what Aristotle says, that one principle is not from another, is to be understood either as regards composition, because one is not composed of the other, or as regards the effecting simply and primarily intended by nature; for so one principle does not come about from another, but that which consists of them. But the arguments of the other opinions are not to be solved, for they rightly prove some causality of matter into all those things; yet they do not exclude that all that causality is included in the causality of the composite and ordered to it. Someone could only specially doubt about the union of the rational soul, how it depends on matter, since in itself it is spiritual; but of this union, what and of what kind it is, it will be professedly treated below; now it is briefly said that the union, not only from its material (so to speak) entity but from the formal notion of union, has such a mode of being that it depends essentially on the other extreme to which the union comes about, and in that genus and mode in which the union to it comes about. Whence, if it comes about to a subject, it depends on it in the genus of material cause; if to a form, in the genus of formal cause; if to a subsistence, as on a pure term; in which way the union of the humanity, although it is created, depends essentially on the uncreated Word; so, then, the union of the rational soul, although in itself it is spiritual, can depend on matter as on the subject to which that form is united.