its principiant. By the word origin he indicates its genus; in finite being, the origin is the imparted motion that originates the new substantial composite. The additional words, of a living entity, limits it to its specific meaning. The living principiant, in the instance of finite beings, is the efficient cause. But the most important part for our consideration just now, is the concluding phrase. In generation there must be a physical conjunction of some sort between the generator and the generated; which physical conjunction is effected in the Matter. That the offspring must be born in identity of species with its parent, has been already exposed. There remains one more thing to subjoin. The action of the efficient cause and the passive receiving of the Matter, or rather, that which is passively received in the Matter,-are one and the same act under different respects. For the action of the efficient cause is received in the Matter; and the motive action in the Matter is imparted by the efficient cause. As the former, the action regards the active potentiality of the agent; as the latter, the same action is considered in relation to the passive potentiality of the Material Cause. Just as a blow of the fist is given by one and received by another; but entitatively it is the same act in both. Here is perceived the physical conjunction necessary to generation.

iii. In the last place, we are to consider the term of generation; which is proximately and formally the eduction of the substantial form out of the potentiality of Matter, principally and, as it were, intentionally, because such is its final cause,-the production of the composite. The former will engage our attention in the next Chapter. Touching the latter, there is only this to be observed. As soon as the new form has informed the Matter, it either modifies or at the least gives a new entitative act to quantity, and assumes the qualities proportioned to its own specific nature. We have a striking illustration of this in the transformations of a caterpillar into a butterfly, or in that of an egg into a chicken.

Now we are in a condition to declare the Minor. Matter contributes an entity to passive generation, that is really distinct from the generating motion; forasmuch as the Subject of motion and the motion itself are really distinct. Indeed, they are physically separable. For the Matter existed, before the motion began; and it persists in being, after the motion is ended. It is true, indeed, that the generation of bodily substances must be in some portion of Matter; for this is common to all physical motion. But there is

no necessity why it should be particularly in this portion of Matter more than any other. That it is also intrinsic in the generating motion, is also plain; for the whole is Matter in motion, or motion in Matter, indifferently. Finally, there can be no doubt that the Matter is purely receptive of generation; for, as Subject, it is a merely passive potentiality.

II. THE SECOND MEMBER, viz. that passive generation is caused by Matter as a passage to the effect, rather than an effect itself, is thus declared. The end of generation is the production of the complete composite. Generation is a motion; and motion essentially regards its term of rest. A thing moves, whether in the spiritual or material order, in order to find its appointed end or place of quiet. Therefore, generation is not a true effect; because it is a mere passage to the composite. The appetition of matter is not for motion in and for itself; but as the necessary means to an end, to wit, its own specific at once and individual determination in the production of a complete corporal substance. Wherefore, Matter contributes its entity to generation and unites itself causally to the motion, in order to find its ordered rest in its own completion. But, where one thing is wholly on account of another; there, in intention, there is only one.

PROPOSITION CXLVII.

The substantial form, if educed from the potentiality of Matter, is an effect of the Material Cause.

PROLEGOMENON.

The parenthesis, if educed from the potentiality of Matter, has been inserted in the Enunciation, in order to exclude all question touching the human soul, which, though essentially the substantial form of the human body and, for that reason, an incomplete substance, is immediately created by God. With this solitary exception, all forms of living material substances are evolved from the potentiality of Matter.

THE PROPOSITION IS THUS DECLARED:-(i) The form is educed from the potentiality of the Matter; in other words, the entity of Matter is necessary to the existence of the form. Therefore, Matter conduces in its way to the eduction of the form. If so, it causes the form. (ii) It sustains the form in being. The form

so far depends upon it, that it cannot,- at least, naturally,-exist without it. Therefore, as its necessary subject, Matter is the Material Cause of the form. (iii) These arguments receive confirmation from a fact to which the Angelic Doctor calls attention. For he remarks that The causality of the generator . . . extends itself to the form which is reduced from potentiality to act1.' For the causality of the generator is exclusively received in the Matter. Therefore, if it extends to the form educed, it does so in and through the Matter.

PROPOSITION CXLVIII.

The information of Matter by the substantial form is an effect of the Material Cause.

This Proposition has been expressly added, although its truth is too self-evident to need any proof or even declaration; because it includes the human soul within its periphery. For, though the soul is not educed out of the potentiality of Matter like other living forms of corporal substance; nevertheless, its actual information of the body depends upon the Matter. And let not this statement be unjustly denounced as a mere subtlety. For, by virtue of such information, it is enabled to exercise those lower faculties of sense, feeling, passion, which otherwise would remain according to the order of nature in pure potentiality. A man cannot naturally see without eyes, nor hear without ears, nor feel without a body. But this information essentially depends on the Matter, as co-partner of the information. Therefore, the Matter causes the information after its own manner as material cause, that is to say, passively. Besides all this, there is a certain sense in which the human soul may be truly said to depend metaphysically on the body. For it was intentionally created to inform the body; so that its raison d'être is naturally due to that body. Once more: It is an incomplete substance, till it is completed by union with the body that it was created to inform. So then, the information of the Subject by the form is something really distinct from the form,-a real substantial mode of that form; and

'Causalitas generantis vel alterantis non sic se extendit ad omne illud quod in re invenitur, sed ad formam quae de potentia in actum educitur.' 2 d. i, Q. 1, a. 2,

c., v. m.

Matter intrinsically contributes, as a receptive potentiality, to that information. Consequently, the information is one of its effects. If this is verified in the instance of the human soul, which is a spiritual substance; à fortiori does it hold good in the case of all the other living forms, which are wholly dependent on Matter.

PROPOSITION CXLIX.

The composite is an effect of the Material Cause.

This Proposition needs no declaration; since Primordial Matter has its place among the causes, primarily because of its passive influx into the substantial composite, as one of the intrinsic constituents of the essence of this latter.

PROPOSITION CL.

The integral composite is the adequate and, in order of intention, primary effect; the information of Matter by the substantial form, the proximate and, as it were, formal effect, of the Material Cause. Passive generation and the educing of the form are prerequisites, though in a different order, of the proximate as well as of the primary and adequate effect.

I. THE FIRST MEMBER of this Proposition, in which it is asserted, that the integral composite is the adequate and, in order of intention, primary effect of the Material Cause, is thus proved. (i) It is the adequate effect. That is the adequate effect of any cause, and consequently of the Material Cause in particular, which includes all the other partial effects in its own nature. But the integral composite is thus inclusive. For the passive generation and the educing of the form from the potentiality of the Matter are the composite in its course of being produced,-in other words, on the road to its production, (in fieri),—while the union of the form with the Matter formally constitutes it in its complete entity outside its causes, (in facto esse). In fact, this latter and the composite are scarcely more than different concepts of one and the same effect of material causality; unless, indeed, the union should be considered as a motion of which the composite is the term. (ii) The integral

composite is the primary effect in order of intention. By order of intention is here understood that which nature may be said to mean or aim at in its generating changes. This, in ultimate analysis, resolves itself into the intention of the Creator Who has imposed such order in the things of nature. This second Proposition is self-evident. Who of sane mind could ever be persuaded that Matter was principally created for the sake of the mere generating motion, or for the educing of forms in themselves impervious to sense, or even for the mere uniting of form and Matter apart from its result? Who would fail to discern that it was primarily created as a cause for the production of those multiform bodies, whose existence, in the established order is either a necessity, or advantage, or delight to man? But, if proof were needed, the statement might be proved from Aristotle's definition of the Material Cause, viz. that it is that out of which a thing is made. For the only thing, properly speaking, which is made out of Matter, is the composite substance. Further: It is only in regard of the composite that the Material Cause exercises its proper causality; forasmuch as it truly becomes a constituent part of it.

II. THE SECOND MEMBER, which affirms that the information of Matter by the substantial form is the proximate and, as it were, formal effect of the Material Cause, is thus declared. That it is the proximate effect, is at once seen; for it is only by the information. of the Matter that the composite is produced. That it is, as it were, the formal effect of the Material Cause, needs demonstration. Wherefore, that is the formal effect of the Material Cause, which answers exactly to the tendency of its nature. But its information, or actuation by the form, answers exactly to the tendency of its nature; for Matter, as being a pure subjective potentiality, has essentially an inclination for its actuation and consequent completeness. Indeed, without such actuation it is unable to exist. As, then, it desires existence; it desires to that end union with its form.

III. THE THIRD MEMBER wherein it is declared that generation and the educing of the form are prerequisites of the proximate as well as of the adequate effect, is thus declared. In order that the composite may be constituted by the information of the Matter, it is necessary that there should be a form capable of informing. If that form has not been created for the purpose, it must be educed out of the potentiality of Matter. But, again, according to the established