Cosmology

Fr. Maxell Lowell C. Aranilla, PhD

Professor

The divisions of philosophy

How philosophy is to be divided into sub-disciplines has seemed to fascinate
philosophers throughout its history. Four different approaches to the divisioning of philosophy
are given as diagrams below:
In general, the following non-technical definitions will apply: Ontology: The philosophic
science of the nature of being "in general"; Epistemology: The philosophic science dealing with
the problem of knowledge; Psychology: Really "rational" or "philosophical" psychology, dealing
with man as a "being"; Theodicy: The philosophic science of God, First Cause, Creator -
sometimes "natural theology"; Logic: The philosophic science of correct thinking; Ethics: The
philosophic science dealing with human acts - sometimes "moral philosophy"; Politics: The
philosophic science of man's social end, including the form of state organization; Axiology: The
philosophic science which studies the general nature of "value"; Aesthetics: The philosophic
science which studies art, beauty, artistic value

The Aristotelian Division

Implicit in the writings of Aristotle.

Propaedeutic or Introductory Logic

Physics
Speculative Philosophy Mathematics
Metaphysics
Ethics
Practical Philosophy Politics
Poetical Philosophy Art

The Thomistic Division

Implicit in the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas.

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Propaedeutic Logic

Speculative Philosophy
Philosophy of Art
Practical Philosophy
Philosophy of Morals
Cosmology
Philosophy of Nature
Psychology
Philosophy of Mathematics
Philosophy of Being Ontology
Natural Theology
Ethics
Political Philosophy

Social
Medical
Scientific

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 Special
Legal
Business
Politics
Aesthetics
Philosophy of Law
Philosophy of History As applied to Disciplines and
Philosophy of Science
Knowledge Philosophy of Religion
Philosophy of Mathematics
Philosophy of Education
Philosophical Consulting As applied to Institutions and for
Institutions
Applied Philosophy Individuals Philosophical Counseling
for Individuals

Introduction to cosmology
I. NAME
The Greek noun kosmos means “order” or “good arrangement.” The alert minds of the
ancient Greeks were quick to see in this word a suitable expression for the order, beauty, and
regularity which they observed in the world around them. For this reason, kosmos soon came to
mean “the world,” that is, the bodily universe.
The Greek work logos means “word” or “speech.” Fundamentally, it means the word,
speech, or expression which takes place within the mind in the act of knowing. It means thought
or knowledge, and, in special, reasoned knowledge. And it has come to have the technical
meaning of sustained and connected reasoning; that is, it has come to signify science.
From kosmos, the bodily world, and logos, science, we have the term cosmology. This name,
therefore, by reason of its structure, means “the science of the bodily world.”

II. DEFINITION

Cosmology is the philosophical science of natural bodily being.

a. Cosmology is a science. The term science, taken absolutely, without the article, is a literal
synonym for knowledge. It is a direct derivative from the Latin scientia, “knowledge,” and
this word comes, in its turn, from the verb scire, “to know.”
Any branch or department of such knowledge, which has its own clear-cut limits or
determinate scope; which sets forth its data in an orderly, systematic, and complete manner;
which justifies each point in its orderly development by assigning causes or reasons, is
called a science. Cosmology meets the requirements here indicated, and is therefore rightly
called a science.
Cosmology is a speculative or theoretical science. That is, it is a science which aims, first
of all, at knowing truth, possessing it, enriching the mind with it, contemplating it. On this
score, cosmology is contrasted with practical or normative sciences, which have as their
first purpose the manifesting of truth to be acted upon.
b. Cosmology is a philosophical science. In other words, it is a department of philosophy.
Now, philosophy is the science of all things knowable by the human mind, considered in
their deepest reasons and causes.
Cosmology pursues an ultimate quest; it seeks to know the last how’s and why’s, the
deepest causes and reasons that can discovered for the data with which it deals.

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c. Cosmology is the philosophical science of natural bodily being. A natural bodily being, or a
natural body, or a physical body, is a body that exists or can exist (that is, it is thought of as
existing) in the world of realities around us. It is a body that can be sensed.
The bodily objects we see around us are natural or physical bodies. Even such as are
artificial are only combinations or modifications of natural bodily substances, and are, at
least equivalently for our present consideration, to be classed as natural or physical bodies.
The material universe itself, viewed as a single bodily thing, is a natural or physical body.

Cosmology deals with the world of natural bodies and employs reason to interpret the
deepest-lying facts discoverable in the actual experience of men with the material universe in
which they live and of which they are a part.

III. OBJECT
A science has two-fold object, one material, one formal. The material object of a science
is what is usually called its “subject matter”; it is the thing with which the science deals; it is the
field in which the science works. The formal object of a science is the precise end and aim
which the science has in dealing with its material object. The material object of cosmology is the
bodily world, or simply bodies. The formal object of cosmology is discerned in the fact that
cosmology studies bodies as such (not this or that special kind of bodies) and seeks the ultimate
explanation of them.
Our definition of cosmology indicates the material object of this science in the phrase,
“the science of natural bodily being.” It indicates the formal object of cosmology in the phrase,
“the philosophical science.”

IV. IMPORTANCE
Cosmology is a most interesting study, and it answers our natural desire to know all that
can be known about the universe in which we live. Cosmology is the science of that bodily
world which is the proximate object of the human mind; as such, this science is of basic
importance to students of all branches of philosophy. Cosmology brings a crowning perfection
to the physical sciences, which, without the ultimate interpretation of philosophy, must ever be
partial, piece-meal, and fragmentary. Cosmology is of inestimable value to the student of
theodicy or natural theology. It shows, on the one hand, that God is not to be identified with the
bodily world, and, on the other hand, it indicates the existence and boundless perfections of God
as manifested in the being, the order, the harmony, and the government of the material world.

Cosmology of the early greek naturalists

I. THE IONIANS
General Notions
As Greece is a mountainous and rather barren country, its inhabitants have been obliged
from remote times to seek new lands that would offer them work and prosperity. At the
beginning of the sixth century before Christ, we find one winding series of coastal colonies,
extending from the coast of Asia Minor to Africa, to Spain and to southern Italy. Here the
Greeks were so numerous that they outnumbered the inhabitants of Greece properly so called,
and hence the name Magna Graecia was given to this far-flung territory. The colonies, favored
by democratic liberties and economic well-being, and moreover having contact with a greatly
advanced civilization, had an opportunity to develop their natural sense of culture.
Among the Grecian stocks which have contributed greatly to the formation of philosophy
is the Ionian strain, which was spread through Asia Minor, the islands of the Aegean Sea (Ionia),
and southern Italy and Sicily. It is among the Ionian colonies of Asia Minor that the story of
philosophy takes its beginning, because it was in the flourishing city of Miletus that the first
three Western philosophers were born and lived: Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes.

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 The problem which claims the attention of the thinkers of Miletus is for the most part
cosmological. Nature, as presented to our senses, is a continuous "becoming" -- a passage from
one state to another, from birth to death. However, this transition is not arbitrary; it happens
according to a fixed law: everything repeats itself or flows in cycles -- day, night, the seasons,
etc.
What is that first principle whence things draw their origin at birth, and whereto are all
things resolved in death? This is the problem of the Ionians: the search for this principle which is
the first reason for all succession in the world of nature. It is the principle which the Ionians
believed they could discover in a natural element; by means of this element they attempted to
explain nature through nature. The principle which they assign becomes conceived of as divine.
Thus, the Ionian thinkers are pantheists in so far as they do not distinguish God from nature.

Thales
Thales was born at Miletus about the year 624 B.C., and lived until about 546.
Mathematician, astronomer, businessman -- to him are attributed many voyages and many
discoveries. The more probable of these is that he was the first to foretell an eclipse.
For Thales the principle of things is water, which should not be considered exclusively in
a materialistic and empirical sense. Indeed, it is considered that which has neither beginning nor
end -- and active, living, divine force. It seems that Thales was induced to proffer water as the
first principle by the observation that all living things are sustained by moisture and perish
without it.
Further, Thales affirms that the world is "full of gods." It is not easy to see how this
second affirmation agrees with the first. It may be that he was induced by the popular belief in
polytheism to admit the multiplicity of gods.

Anaximander
Anaximander was born at Miletus about the year 611 B.C., and died about 547. Probably
a disciple of Thales, he also was a mathematician and astronomer, philosopher and poet. He
was the author of a poem entitled Peri physeos, of which only a fragment is extant.
For Anaximander the first principle of all things is the "indeterminate" -- apeiron. There
are no historical data to enlighten us as to what Anaximander may have meant by the
"indeterminate"; perhaps it was the Chaos or Space of which physicists speak today. Whatever
may be the answer to this question, it is necessary to keep in mind that the problem consists in
the search for a metaphysical principle which would give an account of the entire empirical
world, and hence the apeiron is not to be confused with any empirical element.
All things originate from the Unlimited, because movement causes within that
mysterious element certain quakes or shocks which in turn bring about a separation of the
qualities contained in the Unlimited.
The first animals were fish, which sprang from the original humidity of the earth. Fish
came to shore, lost their scales, assumed another form and thus gave origin to the various
species of animals. Man thus traces his origin from the animals. Because of this, Anaximander
has come to be considered the first evolutionist philosopher.

Anaximenes
Anaximenes also was born at Miletus toward the end of the sixth century B.C., and died
about 524 B.C. Probably a disciple of Anaximander, he composed a treatise of unknown title.
For Anaximenes, the first principle from which everything is generated is aid. Air, through the
two opposite processes of condensation and rarefaction, which are due to heat and cold, has
generated fire, wind, clouds, water, heaven and earth.
Thus Anaximenes, like Thales and Anaximander, reduces the multiplicity of nature to a
single principle, animated (hylozoism) and divine, which would be the reason for all empirical
becoming.

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With Anaximenes the School of Miletus closes, for the turn of events in this city ranked as one
of the principal causes of the Graeco-Persian wars and Miletus was destroyed in 494 B.C. Its
inhabitants were dispersed throughout the Greek world, and one of them was to reach Elea, a
city of southern Italy, and there found the school which was to be called Eleatic, after the city
of its origin.

II. THE PYTHAGOREANS

Pythagoras, founder of the Pythagorean School, was born at Samos about 570 B.C. His
life is surrounded by legend. Many voyages -- one of them to Egypt -- are attributed to him. It is
certain that at about the age of forty years he came to Italy in Magna Graecia, and in Croton, the
Doric colony, founded a school with scientific, religious, and political leanings.
To this school were admitted youths of both sexes of the high aristocracy who were
divided into various sections according to the grade of initiation to learning. The political aims
of the school raised up much opposition, and in a popular uprising in 497 the school was given
to the flames. Pythagoras seems to have removed himself to Metapontum before this uprising
and died there either in the same or the following year. Pythagoras left no writings, and the
doctrine which is known under his name must be attributed to him and to his disciples,
especially to Philolaus, who lived until the time of Socrates.
The Pythagoreans cultivated the mathematical sciences and the study of mathematics led
them to the observation that everything could be represented through a number. The number
appears not as an abstraction, but as a real being, the generator of all things: they concluded that
the number should be retained as the essence, the principle of reality.
This passing from the abstract order of number to the actual order of being today seems
simpleminded and silly. It was not, however, so considered by the Pythagoreans, for they were
the first to observe that number applied not only to the motions of the heavens and the
succession of time, but also to the harmony of sounds (the height of the sound is in inverse
proportion to the length of the string). It was easy for the cultivators of mathematics to bow
down before the number and consider it as a divine reality.
Through a long theory on numbers the Pythagoreans attempted to explain the multiple
and the notion of becoming. Numbers are divided into even and odd; the even numbers
unlimited, the odd ones limited. Since everything is a number, the constitutive elements of things
are the evens and the odds, the unlimited and the limited, the worse and the better. This radical
opposition would give the explanation of all the world of multiplicity, even its moral aspects:
justice is represented by the square (even multiplied by even); love, friendship, because they
indicate perfect harmony, were identified with the number eight; health with the number seven.
Even and odd number originated from the "One." It is from the One that all the other
numbers, which are the constitutives of multiplicity, proceed. Multiplicity hence is reduced to
unity, and it is in unity that all differences and contrasts are annulled, and the harmony of the
multiple ends in silence.
The perfect and sacred number for the Pythagoreans is ten, which results from the
principal combinations: 1, 2, 3, 4 -- these are identified as the point, line, surface and volume,
and when added, they result in the number ten. For the Pythagoreans there are ten heavens. To
make up this number, they add to the traditional nine a tenth, which they call "antiterra." The
heavens all revolve around one central point which is called "Fire."
For the Pythagoreans the soul is harmony. Descended to earth through some mysterious
fault (Orphic-Dionysian doctrine), it passed through various bodies (even those of animals) by
successive births (metempsychosis) to reestablish primitive harmony and to return to the place
where it lived in happiness.
Pythagoreanism indicates progress over the Ionic School. It is elevated from a natural
element found in the Ionic School to a conceptual one, such as number. The Pythagoreans also
affirmed the sphericity of the earth and of the other heavenly bodies, and the revolution of the

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heavenly bodies around a central Fire. The concept of the soul and of its purification induced the
Pythagoreans to ascetical practices although, of course, these were not shorn of superstitions.

III. HERACLITUS
Heraclitus, called the Obscure because of his manner of expressing his thoughts in a
paradoxical and enigmatic form, was born in Ephesus, an Ionic colony in Asia Minor. Of royal
or noble stock, he lived alone and deprecated vulgar knowledge and vulgar methods. He lived
between the fifth and sixth centuries B.C., but the exact dates of his birth and death are not
known. He wrote one works, Peri physeos, in verse, of which only large fragments are extant.
The preceding thinkers of Ionia and of Italy had sought to reach a principle distinct from
becoming and from multiplicity, a principle which at the same time would be the ultimate reason
for that same becoming and multiplicity. For Heraclitus this search for a principle distinct from
becoming is vain, for becoming is itself the first principle of reality, the essence of things.
Everything that exists, including man himself, exists because it is in a continuous process of
passage from one state to another. If this passage should cease, reality would be annulled. "All
things flow, everything runs, as the waters of a river, which seem to be the same but in reality
are never the same, as they are in a state of continuous flow." This is the central point of the
doctrine of Heraclitus.
This process of becoming finds its origin in Fire, an animated and primordial element,
not to be confused with empirical fire. Because of its unstable nature Fire most closely
corresponds to becoming. The process which this primordial element underlies is the so-called
stairway down and the stairway upward. Thus, Fire is changed into water and this latter into
earth (descending steps). Through the Great Year (of unknown duration) the earth will be
transformed into water and the water into Fire (ascending stairway).
The laws of becoming are antitheses, the passage from one state to its contrary (the law
of contraries). "Struggle is the rule of the world, and war is the common mother and mistress of
all things." We would not wake up if first we did not sleep, and vice versa; the same is true of
everything else that exists. Construction and destruction, destruction and construction -- this is
the law which extends to every sphere of life and of nature. Just as the same universe (cosmos)
arose from the primordial Fire, so must it return to it again. Thus the root of Heraclitus' teaching
is found in the double process of life and death, of death and life, which forever is developed and
developing.
Since for Heraclitus everything originates from Fire, the human soul is a small particle of
this Fire, and in the universal palingenesis (rebirth) will return to Fire. Nature is animated
because the first principle, Fire, is animated (hylozoism).

IV. THE ELEATIC SCHOOL

General Notions
The Eleatic School resumed discussion of the problem of being and becoming and
attacked the opposition between sense knowledge and intellectual knowledge. The problem can
be summed up: Reality in a logical manner appears to us under two different aspects --
accordingly as it is presented to our senses, or as it is presented to our mind.
Our senses perceive the multiplicity, the becoming, while our mind perceives the unity.
Now the characteristics of unity are opposed to those of multiplicity. To which of the two must
our consent be given for the ultimate reality? Heraclitus had answered that the only reality is
becoming; the Eleatics say the opposite, that unity alone is being and that multiplicity is non-
being, an illusion, considered both from the viewpoint of logic and metaphysics.

Xenophanes
The founder of the Eleatic School is Xenophanes, who was born at Colophon in Asia
Minor about 580 B.C., and died at the age of more than ninety years. From his youth he was a
soldier and had taken part in the defense of the Greek Ionian colonies against the Persian

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invasion. When these fell to the Persians, Xenophanes, in order not to submit to the conqueror,
took up the life of a minstrel and went about singing the stories of the gods and heroes in the
public squares. Finally he stopped in the Ionic colony of Elea in southern Italy, whence his
school took its name.
Xenophanes, author of a poem of which only a few fragments remain, was a poet-
philosopher who sought to draw the attention of men away from course anthropomorphism to
the highest concept of divinity. "There is one God, sovereign alike over gods and men, unlike
man either in appearance or in thought."
To represent the gods as men is to alter their nature in order to make them similar to us.
These errors are due to the imaginations of men. If oxen or horses had a way of representing the
gods, they would picture them as oxen or horses. Negroes represent their gods with black face
and flat nose. But the "Optimus" is one, and bears resemblance to no one. "He sees all things
entirely, hears all things entirely, and thinks all things entirely." Still it seems that Xenophanes
confused God with space and with the universe taken it its totality.

Parmenides
The most noted thinker of the Eleatic School is Parmenides (picture), who was born at
Elea about 540 B.C. He was called "the Great" by Plato. He was author of a poem about nature
which he divides into two parts: Voices of Truth and Voices of Opinion. A few fragments
remain.
Xenophanes' criticism of popular religion and anthropomorphism was taken up and
transferred by Parmenides to cosmic nature. Here also we find ourselves face to face with Unity,
which is the totality of reality.
There is an extant fragment of Parmenides which summarizes his theory of knowledge.
"Nothing can be but what can be thought." This statement indicates that Parmenides is the first
philosopher to affirm the identity of being and intelligibility. According to his thought, however,
intelligibility seems to mean a clear representation of the imagination.
Of far greater interest were Parmenides' metaphysical speculations, which upset Greek
thought and influenced the subsequent development of metaphysics. The principle of
Parmenides is: "Being is. Non-being is not." Let us try to grasp what this statement involves, for
it is more difficult than it may seem at first glance.
Let us consider the first part of the principle: Being is. We know that Parmenides'
predecessors, such men as Thales, Anaximander, Anaximenes, and Pythagoras, posed the
question of what is the ultimate element or the source of the becoming and multiplicity of
beings. Their answers varied and included water, fire, number, and other elements. Commenting
on these solutions, Parmenides said that there can be doubt about what they meant by water, fire,
and the life; but regardless of what they meant, each element they chose was being. Therefore:
Being is. Whatever is not being does not exist and cannot be conceived. Thus he concludes:
Being is. Non-being is not.
From this principle Parmenides drew some very interesting conclusions:
(a) Being is one. Indeed, each being should distinguish itself from every other being. Now such
a distinction should proceed either from being or from non-being. But neither is possible. The
distinction cannot come from being because the second being, in so far as it is being, agrees with
the first and cannot be distinguished from it. Moreover, such a distinction cannot come from
nonbeing, for non-being does not exist and cannot be conceived. From nothing comes nothing.
Therefore, being is one.
(b) Becoming is also impossible. Nothing can become what it already is. For example, white
cannot become white, for it is already white. But every becoming is nothing other than
becoming a being. Thus, being becomes being by becoming, which is utterly inconceivable.
Therefore, being is one and exists in its absolute immutability. Birth and death are illusions.
The One of Parmenides is not born; it is eternal, immutable, and always itself. Moreover,
it is limited, since in Greek philosophy the unlimited is a sign of imperfection, and it is

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conceived as a finite sphere. It is the same One as that of Xenophanes but it is divested of all
divine and religious attributes and reduced to one pure metaphysical and logical principle.
If the One is being and becoming is non-being, what then is all the cosmic becoming,
including the life of man? Is it all a dream, an illusion? Parmenides leaves the problem unsolved.
If he had solved it in conformity with his principles, the answer would have had to be
affirmative and the life of the universe would appear a complete mystery.

Zeno
Zeno, chosen disciple of Parmenides, was born in Elea about the year 500 B.C. He is
called by Aristotle the first dialectician because he assumed the task of proving with arguments
(Sophistic) how much of paradox there was in the doctrine of his master.
Parmenides had reduced becoming to non-being and to illusion. Zeno attempted to prove
just what exactly is becoming. To understand the arguments of Zeno it is necessary to remember
that becoming signifies movement. If the movement were not real but illusory, it would follow
that becoming also has no other consistency save that of illusion. This is the task which Zeno
assumed.
His argument are four, but they follow the same pattern; for they all begin with the
supposition that space (the line) is composed of infinite parts, and that it is impossible to cross
these infinite parts of which space is composed. As a consequence, all that to us seems to move
does not move in reality, for movement is an illusion.
Take, for example, the so-called argument of Achilles. The hero of the winged foot can
never overtake the turtle -- symbol of slowness -- because the hero gives the turtle the handicap
of space. Let us supposed that this interval between Achilles and the turtle is twenty feet, and
while the hero runs twenty feet, the turtle advances one foot. Achilles cannot reach his running
mate, because while he runs twenty feet the animal moves one foot, and while runs a foot, his
rival will run onetwentieth of a foot, and successively, while Achilles run one-twentieth of a
foot, the animal will have traveled one-twentieth of a twentieth of a foot, and so on, ad
infinitum.
The same is to be said of the arrow which will never reach its target. Before striking the
target, the arrow must traverse half the distance, and before it reaches half this space it must
traverse one-half of this half, ad infinitum. Thus the arrow remains ever at the same place, no
matter how much it may seem to be displaced. Such Sophistic arguments, as Aristotle noted
well, are based on a false prejudgment that space is made up of an infinite number of parts.

Melissus
Among the Eleatics must be numbered Melissus, who was born at Samos and lived
during the fifth century B.C. He accepts and defends Parmenides' doctrine of being, but unlike
his master, he maintains that being is infinite, because it cannot be limited, neither by another
being, in so far as being is one, nor by non-being, which does not exist. In agreement with
Parmenides he maintains that change and motion do not exist in nature, for both imply an absurd
transition from being to non-being.
The Eleatic School had the merit of calling the attention of philosophers to the concept of
being and becoming, of motion, of time, of space, and of continuity. Its importance is such that
all succeeding thought represented a victory over the one-sided and apparently contradictory
conceptions held by Parmenides (unchanging being) and Heraclitus (successive becoming).

IV. THE PLURALISTS

General Notions
The Pluralists are those philosophers who, putting to themselves the problem of being
(Parmenidean) and of becoming (Heraclitean), attempt a reconciliation between the two factions
by having recourse to more primordial elements. They accept on the one side the being of
Parmenides, but they break it up into various parts, so that the root of things would be found in

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various elements. The composition and decomposition of these original elements would give the
explanation of the becoming of Heraclitus.
Thus, the Pluralists believe that they have overcome the opposition between being and
non-being. The chief philosophers of this group are Empedocles of Agrigentum, Anaxagoras of
Clazomenae, and Democritus of Abdera.

Empedocles
Empedocles lived from approximately 490 to 430 B.C. Of Doric origin, he was a
physician, naturalist, poet, philosopher, and wonder-worker. He wrote two books, Physics and
Purifications, of which large fragments remain. It is said that the people revered him as a worker
of wonders and that he died on an exploration of Mount Etna in Sicily.
Like Parmenides, Empedocles admits that being is not born nor does it die, because it is
eternal. Unlike Parmenides, he says that being quadruple: land, water, air, and fire. These four
elements are the roots of things, the latter being only different combinations of these elements.
To explain the process of these combinations, Empedocles has recourse to two forces, primitive
and fundamental -- love and strife.
From the beginning, since elements were regulated by love, they were an indistinct
whole and formed the sphere. In the process of time, strife, which circulated about the sphere,
penetrated and divided the elements. Thus they came to form the stars (zone of fire), ether (air),
the oceans, and the earth; and from the earth came forth all things, including plants and men. An
alternating balance of hate and of love destroys men until, by a natural reaction of love, hatred
will be banished and everything will return to form once more the ancient sphere, to begin again
a new period of hate and love similar to the first.
That part of Empedocles' theory dealing with the four elements endured longest, and fell
into decline only with the advent of modern chemistry.

Anaxagoras
Anaxagoras, who was of Ionic origin, was born about 500 B.C. Invited by Pericles, he
went to Athens, where he remained about thirty years. Accused of impiety, he was obliged to
leave the city in 431 B.C., and went to Lampsacus, where he founded a school. He died in 428
B.C. Anaxagoras was the first philosopher to enter Athens. He wrote a work entitled Peri
physeos, of which large fragments are extant.
Parmenides' being is constituted, according to Anaxagoras, of an infinite number of
particles, homogeneous but qualitatively different. Aristotle called this agglomerate
"homoeomeries," that is, homogeneous parts. They enter to make part of every becoming, and
the prevalence of a given quality of particles over another is the reason for the qualitative
difference of things. Such particles are endowed with an immanent intelligence, which
Anaxagoras designated with the name "Nous." The "Nous" gathers and distinguishes the
"homoeomeries" of the original Chaos; for this reason the "Nous" is the cause of their
distinctions and groupings.
No matter how often Anaxagoras had admitted that to give a reason for the distinctions
and groupings of an infinite number of particles it was necessary to have recourse to
intelligence, every time he explains becoming he fails to make use of the "Nous" and runs to the
conduct of natural laws. Hence he is reproved by Plato and Aristotle for not having known how
to use his discoveries in the determination of final causes.

The Atomists: Leucippus & Democritus

Leucippus -- probably of Miletus -- and Democritus of Abdera were physicians.
Leucippus was the founder of the Atomist School; but his disciple Democritus, who was born
about 460 B.C., and lived about ninety years, was its greater exponent. A naturalist and an avid
searcher for knowledge, he journeyed into many regions to increase his notions, and many
fragments of his works remain.

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 In Democritus, as in those who preceded him, we assist at the breaking up of the being of
Parmenides into an infinity of particles, each of them indivisible. Democritus called these
particles "atoms." The atoms are material, qualitatively homogeneous, but of different form and
gravity and are endowed with motion "ab aeterno," from higher to lower.
Because atoms are endowed with motion, Democritus admits a second primordial
element, the void, that is, infinite space which surrounds the atoms and gives them the
possibility of movement. The differences in gravity cause the atoms to whirl into motion, thus
giving origin to the formation of things. Every union of atoms indicates a birth, just as every
separation of atoms indicates a death. Thus, from the primitive void have come the stars and the
earth and all beings, including man.
The soul also is formed of light atoms similar to those of fire, and with death it is
resolved into atoms.
Democritus does not deny the gods, but even they, he says, are subject to the universal
mechanism: they arose from the composition of atoms, and will be reduced to their component
parts by decomposition. They live in interastral space, happy and not concerned with the destiny
of men. The wise man does not fear them because they are powerless to do either good or evil.
Democritus admits only sensitive cognition, a product of the motion of atoms, which in a
light form separate themselves from the body, penetrate the empty spaces of our organism and
set in motion the atoms of our sensitive faculties. The movement produces cognition. Indeed, not
everything that comes to us through the senses is really outside the sensitive faculty.
To this end, Democritus distinguishes the objective properties which are real in bodies --
such as form, size, movement, etc.; and the subjective qualities which are due to the reactions of
our faculties -- for example, odor, color, taste, etc. These are in the objects only as a point of
origin; in the subject they exist as specific qualities.
The system of Democritus, the model upon which all the materialistic systems will more
or less be re-formed, presents to us a world regulated by mechanics (motion) and by the natural
laws which act in the picture of cosmic necessity. No rationality is possible in this world of
mechanical forces and hence no finality or purpose.
Thus are formed and are broken up the heavens and earth; thus human generations
succeed one another, without there being a reason for their birth or for their decomposition; they
are unconscious effects of unconscious causes. Life and death have no value, and everything is
swallowed up in the night of atoms, whence everything took its origin. Such a system does not
solve, but aggravates the problem of life, and inclines one to despair without comfort.

Cosmology of Plato
The sensible world is presented to us under a twofold aspect, the first rational, the second
irrational, corresponding respectively to form (essence) and matter. Let us take a tree as an
example. We know that it is a tree because it has the form of a tree. If we prescind from that
form and from any other form whatsoever, what remains? There remains an element without
form and hence unintelligible.
Now if we follow this line of abstraction with reference to all things in the sensible
world, if we thus prescind from all form, we find ourselves confronting a space without form but
filled with formless matter. This is Chaos, Platonic non-being, called such not because it is
nothing, but because there is in it no form (intelligible being). These two aspects of sensible
reality correspond to two metaphysical states, preexistent to the sensible world. Thus there is had
on one hand nonbeing (chaos, unformed matter) and on the other being (Ideas), co-eternal and
opposed to each other. But how are these two opposed worlds united to form this sensible world,
which is presented under the aspect of being and non-being?
To resolve this problem Plato has recourse to Demiurge, a divine artificer, the
intermediary between unformed matter and the world of Ideas. Demiurge first infuses a soul into
matter, by means of which space takes on life and form. Then, with successive infusions of

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souls, it forms the heavens and the earth. Demiurge is directed in its labor according to the order
of the world of Ideas, which are as it were models in ordering the matter.
In this way matter has become a participant in the intelligible world, and through this
participation the world of experience is made up of a combination of rational and irrational
elements, of being and non-being. Matter, in the order given to it by Demiurge, remains always
an opaque, irrational element which tends to resist complete penetration by the form, and hence
is the root of multiplicity of beings and also of their imperfections. (Evil takes its origin from
matter.) The rational element is represented by the form. But how is the form made present in
matter by Demiurge? Plato gives various answers. At times he speaks of the descent of idea into
matter; at other times he speaks of imitation.

Cosmology of Aristotle
Cosmology as a science of nature (it was called physics by Aristotle) is connected with
chemistry, physics and astronomy, sciences which were in a rudimentary state during the time of
Aristotle. As a consequence Aristotle's cosmology is the weakest part of his philosophical
system. We shall limit ourselves to giving a brief summary of this branch of his teaching.
Aristotelian cosmology is based on the principle of the mover and the thing moved. It is
dualistic: God, Pure Act, immovable Mover, who transcends cosmic reality; and cosmic reality,
consisting of the heavens which rotate around the earth.
Every sphere of the heavens is formed of incorruptible matter. God moves the highest
sphere. The form of the sphere is round, and the spheres' movement is circular (the sphere is
considered as the most perfect body).
The earth, which is at the center of the universe (geocentric system), receives its
movement from the heavenly spheres, but it has characteristics opposed to them. It is formed of
the four essences of Empedocles, and its motion is from higher to lower or vice versa.
Movement, which comes from the heavenly bodies, is the proximate cause of all the becoming
in the world.

In the cosmology of Aristotle there are some theoretical points that are worthy of
consideration. Precisely because these points are theoretical, they do not have essential
dependence upon his physics.
Change is the passage from potency to act and is of four kinds:
Substantial (change of the substantial form, birth and death);
Qualitative (change of some quality);
Quantitative (increase or diminution); and
Spacial (change of place and of any of the other species of motion).
Space is defined as the immovable limit of the surrounding body with respect to the body
surrounded. Time is the measure of movement, the aspect of "before" and "after." The so-called
teleology (finality) of nature merits special consideration: nature does, as far as is possible,
always that which is more beautiful. The end of nature is the realization of the form in matter,
the development of potency into act; but this tendency will never be completely realized
because, with the exception of Pure Act (God), the act must exist in potency.

Cosmology of Thomas Aquinas

In determining or defining the relationship of God with the world, Aquinas departs not
only from the doctrine of the Averroist Aristotelians, but also from the teaching of Aristotle
himself.
For Aristotle matter was uncreated and co-eternal with God, limiting the divinity itself
(Greek dualism). Aquinas denies this dualism. The world was produced by God through His
creative act, i.e., the world was produced from nothing.
Besides, all becoming in matter is connected with God, since He is the uncaused Cause
and the immovable Mover of all that takes place in created nature.

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 God has created the world from nothingness through a free act of His will; hence any
necessity in the nature of God is excluded.
Again, we know that Aristotle did not admit providence: the world was in motion toward
God, as toward a point of attraction; but God did not know of this process of change, nor was He
its ordinator.
For Aquinas, on the contrary, God is providence: creation was a knowing act of His will;
God, the cause and mover of all the perfections of beings, is also the intelligent ordinator of
them" all that happens in the world finds its counterpart in the wisdom of God.
Now, how the providence and the wisdom of God are to be reconciled with the liberty of
man is a problem which surpasses our understanding. It is not an absurdity, however, if we keep
in mind that the action of Divine Providence is absolutely distinct and can be reconciled with the
liberty of man without diminishing or minimizing this latter.

Cosmology of St. Augustine

Against the dualism of Plato and against the pantheism of the Stoics and the Neo-
Platonists, for whom the world was a physical derivation or emanation of God, Augustine
affirms that the world was created by God from nothing, through a free act of His will. With
regard to the manner in which creation was effected by God, Augustine is inclined to admit that
the creation of the world was instantaneous, but not entirely as it exists at present.
In the beginning there were created a few species of beings which, by virtue of intrinsic
principles of reproduction, gave origin to the other species down to the present state of the
existing world. Thus, it seems that Augustine is not contrary to a moderate evolution, but that
such a moderate evolution has nothing in common with modern materialistic evolutionist
teaching.
Connected with the creation of the world is the problem of time, for time has its
beginning with creation. But what is time? What is its real nature? Augustine observes that time
is essentially constituted of a past, a present, and a future; without this division it would be
impossible to speak of time. But the past is not existent, for it has passed; nor does the future
exist, for it has yet to come; the present is the moment which joins the past with the future.
Now it would be foolish to deny the reality of time. We speak of time as long or short,
and that which has no reality cannot be either long or short. To solve the difficulty Augustine
has recourse to the intellective memory, which records the past and foresees the future. Thus
both the past and the future are made present to the memory, and here time finds its reality of
length and brevity. For Augustine, then, as the Scholastics were to say later, time is a being of
reason with a foundation in things which through becoming offer to the mind the concept of time
as past, present, and future.

Aristotelian – Thomistic cosmologies

Part One: The Nature of the Bodily World
Introduction
The term cosmology is derived from the classical Greek words cosmos and logos.
Cosmos means order or good arrangement. Logy is from the Greek word logos which signifies
word, or mental expression in the act of knowing. In a special sense it means reasoned
knowledge and has come to mean science or the knowledge of things through their causes. So
the word cosmology signifies the science of the universe, in this case the philosophical study of
the bodily universe or that part of the universe which is lifeless. We can formally define
cosmology as the philosophical science which considers the first principles and causes of
material real being in general.
Bodies
A body, for our purposes here, is a material substance which normally has extension in
space by the three dimensions of length, width, and thickness. We accept at the outset the actual
existence of the bodily world in which we live. All persons of common sense do. Within this

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bodily world we experience, we find a vast complexity of natural bodies, such as rocks, the
moon, and atoms, and artificial bodies, that is, those bodies made through the inventive activity
of human beings. Our study here is concerned only with natural bodies, physical bodies as they
exist or can exist in the material world, and not with artificial bodies.
There are four important characteristics that are intimately tied to the bodily world and
the bodies that make it up:
Composition;
Changeability;
Contingency;
Limitation.
Let's consider each of these characteristics in turn.
Composition
All bodies are compounded or composed. This means that large bodies are made of
smaller bodies, and as we know now from empirical science, their ultimate physical division is
a matter of molecules and atoms and subatomic parts and maybe more. It needs to be noted,
however, that this splitting of bodies into smaller and smaller parts cannot go on forever, it is
not an endless process, it cannot run on to infinity. There is an ultimate basis for material
reality, there is a point where we reach another sort of composition called primal matter and
substantial form, both of which will be explained later. The main point here is that bodies are
necessarily composed. Composition is a necessary property of bodies.
Changeability
Anything put together can be conceivably taken apart. Anything composed can be
decomposed. In a word, anything compounded or composed is subject to change. Now, as we
have seen, bodies are compounded or composed; hence they are subject to change.
Changeability is a property of bodies.
Change is called substantial when one substance ceases to be and another emerges.
Substantial change is an instantaneous thing, which, looked at in one way, is the ceasing of one
substance, and, regarded in another way, is the emergence of a new substance. The ceasing of a
substance is called corruption; the simultaneous emergence of a new substance is called
generation. The generation of one substance is the corruption of another or others, and vice
versa. An example of substantial change is found in the process of nutrition by which lifeless
food becomes living flesh.
Change is called accidental when a substance, remaining itself, undergoes a shift in
accidentals, as when water which is cold becomes hot. The most notable types of accidental
change are change of quantity and change of quality. Change of quantity is either increase or
diminution, as, for example, the change in the weight of a child from seventy to eighty pounds,
or the change made in the contents of the sugar-bowl by taking out a spoonful for your coffee.
Change of quality, called alteration, is a change in almost any accident other than quantity;
such, for instance, is the change from hot to cold, from young to old, from ignorant to learned.
A change from "fat to thin" is at once a change of quantity and in quality. Our chief concern at
this moment is to stress the truth that bodies are properly subject to change.
Contingency
A being which is so perfect that existence is of its very essence is called a necessary
being; it is a thing that must exist and cannot be nonexistent. A non-necessary being is called
contingent. The word "contingent" means "dependent," for a contingent thing depends on its
causes to produce it and maintain it; it has in itself no absolute requirement for existing. A
contingent being can exist, but it does not have to exist, and it would not exist if definite causes,
which are prior to it, did not operate to give it existence.
It is manifest that bodies are contingent. For we see them emerge, and we see them
disappear. Each birth and death, each spring and autumn, each dawn and dusk, is a plain proof
of the contingency of bodies. For a thing which can change has no necessity in its being. And

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 what has no necessity in its being is contingent. Now, we have seen that bodies are changeable;
it follows that they are contingent.
Limitation
A thing which is absolutely unlimited is called infinite. It is such a being as cannot be
increased or decreased in any way; for an increase supposes a point or line or limit where the
addition takes effect, and decrease is always a shrinking in or of lines. Now, it is manifest that
bodies are capable of increase and diminishment, whether literally in point of quantity or
analogously in point of quality. Hence, bodies are not infinite, but finite or limited.
Bodies, too, are capable of undergoing substantial change, and substantial change
(generationcorruption) is a process of loss and gain which, like increase and diminishment, is
incompatible with infinity. Therefore, we conclude that bodies as such are limited. Limitation is
a property of bodies.
To sum up: a body is a material substance, normally extended by three dimensions, and
marked by composition, changeability, contingency, and limitation.
Quantity
Quantity is that property of bodily substance which extends it, spreads out its parts; first,
with reference to the bodily substance itself; second, with reference to the place that the bodily
substance normally occupies.
Quantity therefore is extension. And, as the definition indicates, there are two types of
extension.
The first and essential type is internal extension.
A normal effect of internal extension is external or local extension.
A body must be extended in itself before it can be extended in space, that is before it can
have place. And it is conceivable that a body should have the essential type of extension (that is,
internal extension) without actually occupying space or being localized within external
dimensions. We have no example of such a thing in the natural bodily world, but it is not
inconceivable.
Internal extension is a property of bodies, that is, it is a characteristic which belongs by
natural necessity to bodies. External Extension is a secondary effect of quantity (or of internal
extension).
A body is not to be identified with its extension any more than a man is to be identified
with his size. Just as the man has size, the body has extension; it is not true that the man is his
size, nor is it true that a body is its extension. A body is a substance; quantity or extension is an
accident, albeit a proper accident or property. A bodily substance is in itself independent of
extension or quantity, although extension is a required condition for the normal existence of
bodily substance in this material world.
The effects of quantity in an existing natural body are these:
The external extension and localization of the body;
The impenetrability of the body which renders naturally impossible the
compenetration of bodies;
Divisibility of the body into an indefinite number of parts; and
Measurability of the body, which renders it expressible in units of dimension or
numberings of parts.
Quantity when unbroken is called continuous quantity, and a body of unbroken
quantity is called a continuum, whether this be perfect or imperfect, that is,
whether the continuum has absolute continuity without pores or interstices, or
has, in fact, such "holes" which it surrounds as water surrounds islands.
Quantity that is broken up in pieces (like a pound of sugar, or a heap of bits of
broken glass) is called discrete quantity. Each item of a discrete quantity is a
continuum. A discrete quantity is called contiguous if its parts or items touch one
another (as in a spoonful of salt); it is called separate if the parts do not touch (as
in a dozen eggs spread widely on a table).

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 The basis of quantity in bodies is perfectly continuous matter, at least in its basic physical
parts; and perfectly continuous matter can only exist in virtue of a unifying form or principle
which determines the matter as an existing reality of an essential kind. Our bodily world is a
great contiguous quantity (or contiguum) which is made of substances that are, in their essential
existing elements, true continua.
The extension of the whole bodily universe -- that is, its natural external extension -- fills
up what we think of as a kind of capacity or container, the name of which is real space. The
position of each body in space is called its place. Our mental image of space as a container of
bodies is a mental image and no more; it is an ens rationis; it is logical being, not real being.
For space is only thought of as a container. As a fact, space is the actual extension of existing
bodies in the universe.
In passing, it is to be noted that philosophy has no quarrel with science on the question of
space or that of place. But some scientists, misunderstanding their own field, propound
philosophies of space which are in conflict with sound reason. But with physics or mathematics
as such, philosophy cannot come into contact or conflict. Albert Einstein's theory of relativity
of space or the curvedness of space does not concern us. This is not properly a theory of space
but of distance and measurement, that is, of partial space and its interpretation in terms of
numbering.
Since real space is the actual extension of existing bodies, and since bodies are limited,
as we have learned, it follows that real space is limited. The universe may be expanding, it may
be contracting, it may be doing neither. But whatever it is doing, at any given instant, it has its
definite limits. The fact that man has no instruments to enable him to tell just where these limits
lie, does not change the basic fact that the limits are there. Real space is finite.
In addition to real space we may mention ideal space (or the idea of space) which is the
mind's concept of all possible space. So also we may mention imaginary space which is the
envisioning by fancy or imagination of the visible reaches of space stretching on and on into the
void. Ideal and imaginary space are indefinite; real space is definitely limited.
Bodies with quantity are subject to change. Change is movement or motion, for change is
a transit, a going-over, a movement from one state of being to another. Now, movement or
motion is a matter of now this -- then that; it is a matter of before and after. And motion or
change, under the aspect of before-and-after, is the basis of real time. Time in itself is described
as a continuous and numerable series of motions under the aspect of before-and-after.
Man conceives of time as a measure, just as he conceives of space as a container. But just
as space in its reality is the real extension of bodies, so time in its reality is the continuous
numberable succession of bodily movements. Time as a measure is logical being, not real
being. It serves man's uses to note some regular and reliable movement (of sun, of stars, of
moon) and to use this as a standard of comparison with other and less regular motions.
Thus, we have solar time, sidereal time, lunar time. And man's inventiveness -- which is
to say, his mind or intellect at grips with material problems -- has enabled him to devise
mechanical instruments with regular movements that can be recorded, and to indicate these
recordings as intervals of solar time, sidereal time, or lunar time. Thus, we have chronometers,
watches, clocks.
Besides real time, we have ideal time which is the mind's concept of all possible
numerable and continuous movement; and we have imaginary time which is the fanciful
envisioning of real time indefinitely extended. Real time is necessarily finite, for it is finite
motion in a finite world of finite bodies. Ideal time and imaginary time are indefinite or
potentially infinite, but never actually infinite. Thoughtless people sometimes confuse ideal or
imaginary time with eternity. But eternity is, strictly speaking, the opposite of time. It is an
endless now; it has nothing of before and after which is of the essence of time. Eternity in its
strict meaning belongs only to the Infinite Being, to God.

Activity of bodies

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 Activity is a doing, an operating, or at least a cooperating, a responding. All bodily
substances are active if it were only in holding their parts together by cohesion, or in responding
to the thing called gravitation, which is really the effect of the activity of body on body.
Bodily activity is immanent or vital when its chief effect is in the agent, that is, in the
thing which is active. Growing, for example, is first of all in the growing body. A tree's growth
has an outer effect; the tree casts a larger shade as it grows taller and fuller; it may so grow as to
block the view from a window; but the main effect of growing is in the growing tree. Such
activity is therefore called immanent, that is, indwelling.
Non-immanent activity is called transient, that is, passing over and having its effect
outside the agent. The activity of the growing tree in blocking the window, or in throwing the
shadow, is transient. Growth is immanent; these outer and alien consequences of growth are
transient. Truly immanent activity is always "life-activity" or, as it is usually called, "vital"
activity.
Transient activity is called mechanical when it consists of local movement. Such is the
activity of the rolling stone, the turning wheel, the expanding balloon, the rising steam, the drive
of the tennis-racquet against the ball. Transient activity is called physical when it consists of
change or motion in quality. Such is the activity of a light which continuously sends out its rays,
the activity of a sounding body, the activity of an electrical charge. It will be noticed that
physical activity is normally accompanied by mechanical activity, for some local movement is to
be discerned in every qualitative change or movement; but physical activity as such doe not
consist of these local movements. The man who says that heat is movement (meaning local or
mechanical movement) is not thinking clearly or thinking well; he should say that head is
produced by mechanical movement and is accompanied by mechanical movement; he has no
right to assert that heat is mechanical movement.
Transient activity is called chemical when it affects a body in its substantial being, and
usually changes it into another substance or other substances. Such is the activity which resolves
water into hydrogen and oxygen. Chemical activity is usually accompanied by both mechanical
and physical activity.
Bodily activity is something which the bodily substance does; it is not what the bodily
substance is. Each body is equipped by its nature with certain powers for activity. No body is
immediately active, but it is active mediately, that is through the medium or real powers which it
possesses. These powers, in themselves, are accidentals of the bodily substance; they are among
its qualities.
A false cosmology called mechanistic materialism teaches that the world consists of
matter and motion. But this theory is so much a simplification that it is a falsification.
It does not explain the origin of motion which is never self-generating;
It does not explain the transference of motion;
It does not explain the conserving of motion.
Another false cosmology called energeticism explains the bodily world as a complexity
of kinetic and potential energies which act according to the laws of conservation, intensity, and
entropy. Now these "laws" may be at work in the world but they do not explain the world.
Energy requires a source, a sustaining power, a transferring power. To speak of energies, and
waves of power, and electrical charges, and so on, without reference to actual substantial bodies
exercising such powers by true bodily activity, is like speaking of the tides while denying the
existence of the ocean. The truth is that bodily activity exists as the product of bodily substance
equipped with powers for exercising such activity.

Constitution of bodies
The question here raised is that of the ultimate constitution of bodily substance. We seek
to know what makes a body a body, and what makes any body an existing reality of the essential
or specific kind that it actually is. Thus, our investigation probes far more deeply into reality
than that of the physicist and the chemist who wish to know the proximate constitution of the

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bodies they handle in their laboratories. Ours is a philosophical inquiry; theirs is an experimental
investigation. The physicist who explains to us that a body is made up of atoms and atomic
parts, leaves us, philosophically speaking, exactly where we were before he explained. For the
smallest atomic part is a body. And our inquiry is, "What makes a body a body?" To tell us that
a body is made of smaller bodies is to tell us precisely nothing; our inquiry is about the smallest
body as well as about the largest.
The theories about the constitution of bodies may be reduced to four: Monism; Atomism;
Dynamism; Hylomorphism.

Monism
The term "monism" is derived from the Greek monos which means "alone" or "single,"
and refers to the theory that this bodily world is all one kind of reality; that there are no
substantial or essential differences among bodies.
Monism is of two types: Materialistic monism: makes the world a vast lump of
homogeneous matter of which all bodies -- lifeless, living, plants, animals, men, earth, air, stars,
-- are different shapings, like differently shaped biscuits from one pan of dough. Idealistic
monism: denies the reality of bodily substances as our senses present them to knowledge, and
makes them various "appearances" or "expressions" of thought, of will, of "the unconscious," of
"the Absolute," of "the Unknowable." Both types of monism are pantheistic, for if only one
reality exists, this must be self-existent reality, and self-existent reality is Infinite Being or God.
Monism is inept and inadmissible. It is inept inasmuch as it offers itself as a philosophy
of bodies and then refuses to explain bodies. For it is no explanation of the essence of bodies to
say that there is only one body, or that bodies are only apparent.
Monism is inadmissible because it involves self-contradiction and thus conflicts with
reason, and because it disagrees with normal sense experience which is the basis of all certitude.
Both types of monism involve self-contradiction. Materialistic monism makes bodily substance
self-existent and hence infinite, whereas bodily substance is necessarily limited; thus monism
preaches "a finite infinity" or "an infinite finiteness." Idealistic monism says there are no bodies,
and then tries to explain them as bodily expressions of something else. Both types of monism are
manifestly in conflict with normal sense experience that we are living in an actual universe of
different bodies.

Atomism
We mean here the atomist philosophy. It does not mean the atomic theory which is
generally accepted among empirical scientists. With the atomic theory we have no concern and
certainly no quarrel. The case is otherwise with the atomist philosophy. The atomic theory is like
an explanation of a log as a thing made up of grains of wood, a perfectly sound doctrine as far as
it goes. The atomist philosophy is like an explanation of a log in terms of its grains alone,
denying all reference to a tree; and this is an utterly unsound theory.
Atomist philosophy has two notable forms: Mechanistic atomism: says that the bodily
world is made up of minimum-particles (or atoms) of homogeneous matter, which have different
shapes and sizes, and are kept in motion by some outside force. Dynamistic atomism: says that
the minimum-particles of homogeneous matter are endowed with their own power of motion.
Both forms of atomism explain bodies as the clusterings of differently shaped, differently
sized, and variously moved atoms. There is, therefore, no real difference among bodies, and no
individual body is truly a substantial unity. Most atomists hold that the atom-clusters called
bodies are the result of chance meeting of these minimum-particles of matter.
We reject the atomist theory as inadequate. It proposes itself as a philosophy of bodies,
and ends precisely where it starts -- with bodies. To say that bodies are clusters of smaller bodies
is still to leave bodies unexplained. Further, the atomist theory unwarrantedly rejects the notion
of true substantial unity, and therewith it upsets the possibility of achieving certitude. For, if we
cannot trust our knowledge of the substantial character of individual bodies, we cannot trust our

18
knowledge at all, and must lapse into the insane position of the skeptic. Finally, atomism is
unacceptable because it ignorantly proposes chance as a cause. Chance is never a cause. Chance
is a circumstance which belongs to an unpredictable effect.

Dynamism
The term "dynamism" is derived from the Greek dynamis which means "force" or
"power," and refers to the theory that what we call substantial bodies are collections of points of
force which have no extension (that is, no quantity), and which attract one another up to a certain
distance and then hold one another off. Thus, though unextended, they constitute extended
matter by marking, so to speak, extended intervals. The power-points are changeless; hence,
there is no such thing as substantial change in the world, or even substantial difference of bodies.
It will be noticed that dynamism, like atomism, is radically monistic. All three of the
doctrines so far considered have this in common; they reduce the world to a single thing which is
either a mass of homogeneous particles, or a series of expressions of a single non-bodily
substance, or a complexity of indestructible power-points which are all of the same nature.
We reject dynamism as self-contradictory and inadequate. If dynamism recognizes the
actual extension of bodies, it does so by the self-contradictory process of adding a series of zeros
and reaching a positive sum. For unextended power-point plus unextended power-point results in
inextension, not actual extension. Even if the points are separated by intervals of distance, there
is pure vacancy between and among them, and the result of their addition must still be zero.
Thus the form of dynamism which affirms the actual extension of bodies also denies the actual
extension of bodies.
If we consider the form of dynamism which frankly denies the actuality of bodies and
makes the universe a dream-world of mere appearances, we find that the theory cannot explain
the appearances or interpret the dream. For unextended power-points in motion are invisible and
cannot create the illusion of a visible world. Indeed, no illusion of a solid universe could be
excited in a mind which had no experience of real solidity to begin with.
Dynamism cannot explain what we call solidity, it cannot explain substance, it cannot
explain the organic unity of a living body. It invokes the activity of power-points across a void, a
thing which philosophy finds, at best, a very dubious possibility, and which science has never
discovered in any experiment.
The electrical theory of matter and even the electrical theory of life are dynamistic.
While that extremely mysterious thing called electricity is everywhere at work in the world, it is
a thing which affects bodies but does not wholly constitute bodies. Too many inadequate
scientists like to talk in abstract terms of what is really concrete; they say that protons and
electrons are "charges" of electricity (that is, "points of power"). What they mean, of course, is
that protons and electrons are particles of bodily substance charged with electricity.

Part Two: The Theory of Hylemorphism

The term "hylemorphism" is made up of two Greek words, hyle "matter" and morphe
"form," and refers to the theory on the ultimate constitution of bodies as proposed by the
Perennial Philosophy, that is, those who are within the tradition of Aristotle, Aquinas, and other
commonsense philosophical realists. This theory holds that a body is composed of primal matter
and substantial form. It is the theory first explained by Aristotle, four centuries before the birth
of Christ, and it can be said that it stands miles above any alternative theory proposed since. For
it meets the full problem it seeks to solve, and it offers a full solution.
The theory of hylemorphism is not revealed truth; it is not a theory that can claim divine
authority. But it is a theory which, despite difficulties, has weathered the intellectual and
experimental storms of nearly twenty-five hundred years, and is still the only rounded
explanation of the nature of bodies that we possess. It has thus a sound claim upon the attention
of our minds. It has a very strong case.

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 Yet there has been, among those not in the philosophical tradition of Aristotle, a marked
tendency to condemn this theory without investigating it, and even some of those in the
Aristotelian tradition have learned to speak of it with something of a cold and aloof manner.
Even men who, in most of their philosophical work, merit our respect, stoop to the indecency
and the dishonesty of condemning or ridiculing hylemorphism without having the slightest
conception of what the theory actually teaches, or rather, with a totally wrong conception of
what it teaches.

The first two facts

Now, there are two facts about any actual bodily substance that a philosophy of bodies
must face and explain: First: the bodily substance is a body. But it is more than that, for it is
quite impossible for a body to exist without a specific determinant. We cannot say that a bodily
substance actually exists as a body and nothing more; that it is no kind of bodily substance, but
just pure body. Second: it must be said about an actual body that it is a determinate specific or
essential kind of body. In a word, some substantial principle must explain the bodiliness of a
body; and some substantial principle, fused into substantial unity with the first, must explain the
existing specific character of a body.
Hylemorphism calls the first of these principles primal matter or prime matter and the
second of these principles substantial form.
Let us envision the favorite figure of of the old-fashioned novelist. Let us contemplate
"the solitary horseman" riding between rows of trees along a rocky road. We shall not pause
upon the romantic suggestions of the picture. We shall coldly reduce it to its elements for
purposes of philosophical illustration. We shall consider these four things: the man, the horse,
the trees, the rocks. Here we have four examples of bodily substance. And the first truth about
them is that they are all bodies, one as much as another, one as truly and completely as another.
Yet, since we are not monists, we face the further fact that, although all these bodies are
bodies, they are essentially or specifically different kinds of bodies. Each is a bodily substance;
there is no mere accidental in their true bodiliness. Nor is there any mere accidental in their
difference as bodily substances. For a substance that is living, like the tree, is substantially
different from the substance which lacks life, like the rock. And a substance that has sentiency,
like the horse, is substantially different from a non-sentient substance, like the tree. And, finally,
a substance which has understanding and will (that is, rational life), is substantially different
from a substance which lacks these perfections; so that the man and the horse are different by no
mere accidental difference, but by a substantial difference.
The four bodies are all bodily substance, yet the four bodies differ from one another as
substances. There must be, therefore, a dual substantial principle, or, more accurately, two
substantially fused substantial principles in each of these bodies. For the four things are in
agreement, they are at one as bodily substances, and, at the same time, they are not the same
substance at all, but are substantially different.
There must be a substantial principle in each of the four which is the basis of its
bodiliness; and, there must be a substantial principle in each of the four which is the
substantial determinant of the kind of substance that it is.
The first of these principles is prime matter; the second is substantial form.

Prime matter
Prime matter is the substantial principle found in all bodies. It is common to all bodies. It
is the common substrate of all bodies. In point of prime matter, all bodies are at one. So far,
monism is right; but monism goes calamitously wrong when it stops here. Prime matter is
wholly without determinateness in itself. It cannot exist itself, for, as we have noticed, it is
impossible for an existing body to be just a body and no more, that is, just a body, and not any
kind of body.

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 Prime matter is substantial, but it is an incomplete substance; it requires another
substantial thing to exist with it, or rather to give it existence in a determinate body. And this
other substantial principle (unless it be a spiritual principle) requires prime matter to determine
and make exist as a body; this other substantial is also an incomplete substance. Each leans on
each, although the one (prime matter) is the determinable element, and the other (the substantial
form) is the determining element.
Prime matter is called pure potentiality, that is, pure capacity for existence as a body. It is
a capacity which must be filled up, determined, made into the only existible body (that is a
specific kind of existing body) by a substantial principle other than itself. And, since the result of
the union of this determining principle with prime matter is a single bodily substance, the union
itself must be a substantial union, the substantial fusing of two substantial principles into an
actuality which is a third thing, and not prime matter alone, not substantial form alone, but an
existing body of a specific kind. This, of course, is perfectly in accord with our common sense,
critically examined and expanded.
Prime matter then cannot exist itself, unformed. It does exist, but not alone. It exists as
the common substrate of all existing bodies. It is that which makes any body a body; not
actively, but by passively receiving the impress and union of the substantial form. For the whole
character of prime matter is its passivity, its inertness, its indifference (or lack of tendency) to
become this kind of body rather than another, in a word, its potentiality.

Substantial form
Substantial form, however, is active, determining. It makes the body actual (that is, an
existing body) in a definite specific kind of actual bodiliness. The result of the substantial union
of substantial form with prime matter is called second matter; and, of course, second matter
means an existing bodily substance. Substantial form is the root and source of bodily actuality,
of substantial determinateness, of activity. Prime matter is wholly potential, indeterminate,
inactive or inert.
The theory of hylemorphism is not a mere clever invention. It is an explanation based
upon the facts of a case. And the test of its value is the fact that it stands up. It has faced many
difficulties. There are cases that seem to upset it. But careful investigation has always justified it.
The progress of experimental science, the splitting of the atom, the place and apparent
power of one electron more or less in the constitution of a definite substance, -- each of these
facts, and others of like character, have seemed to some philosophers and to many scientists to
be in conflict with the theory of hylemorphism. But it is not so.
There is no value in an argument of this sort: "If I knock out an electron of an atom of
substanceA and find that I now have substance-B, it seems that these were basically one
substance to start with." The answer is that it seems nothing of the sort.
The difference is not a mere difference of accidental character because a number of like
particles is an accidental thing in itself. For, although substances act upon one another through
powers which are in themselves accidental, the activity is truly of substance upon substance.
And if an electron more, or an electron less, should induce change, this may well be a substantial
change. It may well be a change of structure unsuited to the enduring of a certain substantial
form, which disappears in consequence; and the new structure receives simultaneously that
substantial which it is suited to support. You change the substance of coal into a variety of
substances loosely called "ashes and smoke" by applying the substance of fire. Yet this
substantial change is affected by powers and capacities of the substances concerned, and these
capacities and powers are, in themselves, as accidental as a mere numerical sum or numerical
arrangement of electrons. The splitting of the atom, or the discovery of the character and
function of electrons, is no more a new difficulty to the philosopher of bodily actuality than is
the shoveling of coal on the furnace fire.
Indeed, if we shortsightedly declare that true substantial change does not occur, that all
substances are the same determinate substance, we still must identify that substance as bodily

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(that is, as having prime matter) and as determinate in its kind of bodiliness (that is, as having
substantial form). So hylemorphism stands in any case.
But to make all substances one substance is to fall into a self-contradictory theory called
monism. It is to destroy the value of the theory itself which is proposed as true and certain, for if
monism were true, human certitude would be bankrupt. By their fruits you shall know them; a
theory which leads logically to skepticism or to monism or to both, is a theory that bears the evil
fruits of falsity. The fact that there is an apparent difficulty on the side of sanity is surely no
excuse for going insane. It is rather a strong challenge to the champions of sanity to study its
resources more completely and apply its powers more thoroughly and astutely.
For, argue as you will, experiment as you choose, the fact remains and will ever remain
that any bodily substance is bodily and is a certain specific kind. Any body has, of plain
necessity, matter and form. If you consider the terms old-fashioned, you are privileged to invent
more pleasing ones. But you cannot change facts by changing names.
There are persons indeed who say that there is no substantial change. Yet these persons
would have a hard time proving their assertion, and the proof lies with them because they make
the claim in the face of common human experience and of common human certitude. They have
to prove a universal negative experimentally; any logician will be pleased to point out to them
the difficulties of their situation.

Substantial change
The change from a living body to a corpse is indubitably a substantial change. For
everything by which we identify the organic unity and the substantial character of the living
body is not only changed by the thing called death, but all the processes once in possession and
in operation are actually reversed. Instead of organic unity, we have (immediately upon death) a
strong tendency to disunity and diversity; instead of a unified drive or tendency to vital function,
we have the tendency to rest and equilibrium. In a word, by all the tests which distinguish one
kind of body from another, the corpse is a radically different kind of thing from the living body.
Substantial change is a fact. Another interesting example of substantial change is the change of
bread and butter into the living flesh of the diner.
Now, if substantial change is a fact, it is an inexplicable fact unless two things are
acknowledged:
The substances concerned (the substance changed, and the substance which is the result
of change); and some substantial actuality which supports the change.
When food is digested, it is not a mere preliminary process which annihilates the food, a
meaningless process which is unaccountably accompanied by the creation of blood cells. The
ceasing of the food to be food is the emerging of the blood cells which came from the change of
food. There is no annihilation (an abrupt and complete cessation of being) and a simultaneous
creation (an abrupt and entire production out of nothing of a new being wholly unrelated to the
other).
No, there is a substantial change of food into blood. Now, a change is a transit, a going-
over. And a going-over requires a support which does not go over, but which is determined in
bodily being first by one determinant, and, this giving way, by a new determinant which
instantly takes the place of that which gives away. The support of substantial change is itself a
substantial thing, and a substantial element of each of the two substantial bodily beings in turn.
This support of substantial change is called prime matter; the substantial determinant which
makes it one kind of body, and then the new substantial determinant which makes it another
substantial body, is called, each in its turn, substantial form. Again, you may not like the terms
matter and form, but you cannot deny the facts for which they stand. Substantial change is
inexplicable without hylemorphism, although, as we say, you might like it under a more modern
name, such as precipitation, or galvanization, or the etiology of substantial emergence.
We have said that there are four theories which propose themselves as fundamental
philosophies of bodies, although three of them are not fundamental at all. All philosophies of

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bodies must, in last analysis, be resolved into one or other of these four forms. Now, we have
found that three of these four theories are unacceptable, for they conflict with experience and are
in themselves selfcontradictory. Therefore, by exclusion, we prove the one acceptable theory to
be the true theory. This is the theory of hylemorphism.
We stand, therefore, by the theory of hylemorphism. We defend it, not as partisans
"taking sides," but as philosophers, lovers of wisdom, seekers of truth. We refuse to leave what
is manifestly reasonable, although sometimes difficult of application, in favor of what is
manifestly unreasonable and often impossible of application. Hence our acceptance of
hylemorphism is right and reasonable; it is worlds away from the stubborn business of taking
sides in a free debate. In a word, we accept hylemorphism on evidence. Most of those who reject
it do so by reason of mood, or temperament, or prejudice, or the desire to keep pace with the
current scientistic fashion. It is not difficult to decide which of the parties stands on the more
solid ground.

Part Three: The Origin and Development of the Bodily World

First beginning of bodies
That bodies come from other bodies by a process of substantial change called generation
is a matter of common knowledge and common experience. That the egg comes from the hen,
the fruit from the tree, and that, subsequently, a hen comes from an egg, and a tree from the seed
of its fruit, are matters that need no proof beyond the mere mention of the known fact. Nor do
we need to prove that coal has a vegetal origin, or that water can become hydrogen and oxygen.
Our present concern is not, therefore, the origin of bodies by substantial generation, whether this
be vital or non-vital. Nor are we concerned with the interesting game of guessing which came
first, the hen or the egg. We are interested solely in the fact that there necessarily was a first
coming of bodies, and we seek to know by what means this first coming was effected.
Before we take up the question directly, we must reply to the mistaken persons who deny
our assertion that a first coming of bodies is a necessity. These people say that bodily substance
is eternal, that it had no beginning, that it always was and always will be. Some of the defenders
of the eternity of matter declare that matter is self-existent and self-sufficient; that it needs no
power other than itself to account for its present multiplicity and diversity, or for its marvelous
arrangement in various individual bodies, notably in living bodies. This is the doctrine of
atheistic materialism.
Other defenders of the eternity of matter acknowledge some existing power outside of
matter, some God in fact, who arranges and manages the material world, and gets it on in a
seemly sort of development. This is the doctrine of theistic materialism.
There is yet another type of materialism in connection with the existence and
development of matter (for the term materialism is very wide in scope and very vague in its
general meaning). This is agnostic materialism which artfully dodges the issue of God's
existence, neither affirming nor denying it. Agnostic materialism simply regards matter (that is,
bodily substance) as eternal, and suggests that it exists by chance, or by some unknown law of
its being, or by the operation of an infinite series of causes which make it evolve in a certain
way, -- an infinite series of chickenand-egg activity, so to speak, in which neither the chicken
nor the egg came first.
Now, the point to dwell upon is this: all types of materialism of this cosmological sort
stress the assertion that matter is unproduced. There are philosophers who contend that matter
has been created from eternity, but these are not the materialists of whom we are now speaking.
The materialists do not admit that matter was ever created, even from eternity; they claim that
matter is unproduced, not created at all, not caused; it's just here.
Yet it is an accepted truth that anything which exists must have an explanation of its
existence. If the explanation is in the existing thing itself, then that thing must be so perfect that
it requires existence; existence is of its essence; it is necessary being, and, by that fact, it is
infinite being, changeless being, simple or uncomposed being. If the explanation of an existing

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thing is not to be found in itself, it must necessarily be found in its causes. Now, the materialists
who affirm the eternity of matter deny that it has any causes. Therefore, they hold that matter is
in itself necessary, infinite, changeless, uncomposed. But we have seen that matter is precisely
the opposite of all this. We have seen that bodies are not necessary but contingent, not infinite
but finite or limited, not changeless but changeable and indeed constantly changing, not simple
but composed or compounded.
Thus, we reject the materialistic theory of the eternity of matter because it is in conflict
with plain facts. Further, it contradicts itself; for to speak of unproduced matter is simply to
speak of an unproduced production.
Another preliminary problem must be disposed of here. It is raised by the materialistic
pantheists who identify God and the bodily universe. Like the materialist defenders of the
eternity of matter, these pantheists propound a flatly self-contradictory doctrine. For to conceive
of God is inevitably to conceive of the Necessary Being, and, by that token, of the Being that is
Infinite, Changeless, Simple. But, as we have repeatedly seen, the world is contingent, finite,
changeable, and composed. We need not labor the point further; pantheism falls with the
materialistic theory of the eternity of unproduced matter.
There is only one other conceivable explanation of the world. It is the explanation which
acknowledges the world as caused, as produced, and this means that it had an absolute and a
First Cause, a First Producer, who brought it into being without using any materials at all, who
in fact created it. This theory is called creationism (not to be confused with theological or
religious Creationism), and it is the true explanation of the first origin of the world.
This fact is already proved by exclusion. For if three possibilities can be considered, and
two of them are found to be illusory and no possibilities at all, the third must stand. And stand it
does, not only because all other explanations fail, but because it actually meets the facts in the
case and actually explains them to the satisfaction of both reason and experience.
We assert then that the first origin of bodies is found in the act of creation by which God
or Uncaused Cause or First Cause produced them out of nothing. Creation is defined as the
producing of a thing in its entirety out of nothing. Such a producing is an act of infinite power,
and is proper to God alone, and indeed so proper to God that no creature could serve him, even
as an instrumental cause, in the activity of creating. The boundless power of God which can call
up being and set it in existence can also endow bodily being with the tendency and power to
develop, to reproduce, to carry on substantial change. We are, as we have said, familiar with this
productive process; our only problem was the finding of the first origin of the world. This first
origin is creation.

The age of the world

We have noticed that there are philosophers who think that the world was created from
eternity. These persons hold rightly that matter was produced. But they assert that God, who
exists eternally and certainly can act eternally (and, indeed, does act eternally) has created from
eternity, so that the world, while produced, had no beginning in time, but only a beginning in its
nature.
Now, it is true that God acts from eternity, or act eternally. With God, the Infinite Being,
"to will is to accomplish," and no delay (as we should phrase it) in the creatural effect can have
any influence upon the eternal decree which destined the effect or set it in being. But it must be
remembered, too, that creation does involve the creature as well as the creator. The question is
not, "Can God create from eternity?" for he is unlimited in power. The question is, "Can a
creature receive eternal existence, in the sense of beginningless creation?"
There is no question of limitation in God; there is great question of capacity in the
creature. To say that you cannot take the Atlantic ocean into a teacup is not to say anything
about the limits of the ocean; it is to state the limitations of the teacup. Similarly, to state that
creation from eternity is impossible is not to limit the limitless God, or say that here is a thing he

24
cannot do. It is merely to say that a creature, -- and, in our case, a bodily creature, -- has not the
capacity for receiving eternal or beginningless creation.
We may not declare that creation (in effect) from eternity is absolutely impossible. But it
surely looks impossible. God's decree to create is as eternal as God; but it seems that this decree,
as regards bodies at least, is an eternal decree to create in time. And the reasons that make the
creation of the world from eternity look impossible are briefly these:
Bodies are changeable and indeed they are undergoing constant accidental change, and
they also undergo substantial change. They experience a series of changes, movements,
events. But such a series is actually the essential basis of time. Such a series is
necessarily a series with a beginning as an event or first time-element. It cannot be an
infinite series, since an infinite series of finite things is impossible.
The existence and the record or history of bodies is a matter measurable by a series of
instants or moments, and these are normally the marks of time. Tracing back the record
by moments, we are compelled to find a first moment, that is a first point of time.

It appears then that bodies were created in time and not from eternity.
As to the actual age of the world in terms of years since the creation, we can only guess.
Empirical scientists seem to prefer guessing in millions and billions of years. Mark Twain said a
sagacious thing, and not merely flip thing, when he declared that some scientists delight in
furnishing us "with a spoonful of fact and a carload of conjecture." The actual age of the
universe may never be finally determined, but if it is it has no bearing on the philosophical
issues involved with creation. We will merely accept what science has learned provided, of
course, the evidence is clear and forthcoming.

Development of the world

It is known that his earth of ours, which is a very small part of what is called the cosmos
or the world, was not always as it is now. It has gone through a series of changes; it has
undergone a development. Time was when the earth could not support life; later, plant life
appeared, later still came animal life. It is likely that our solar system, and the countless other
solar systems of the cosmos or universe of bodies, have also developed and undergone notable
changes since the day of the first creation.
The part of cosmology which studies world-development is called cosmogony. Our
special sciences of geology, zoology, botany, biology, and others, investigate the development
of the earth and of living things on the earth. These special sciences, of course, are not
philosophy, nor has philosophy any direct concern with their findings. Indirectly, however, the
findings must fall under the light of philosophical truths.
The theory that the world was slowly developed out of a mass of primordial matter
created for the purpose of such development, and guided and supported in the development by
God, seems very likely true. We may call the development of the world a process of inorganic
evolution, that is, a development of lifeless bodies by graded stages. As to the development of
life on earth by a process of organic evolution, there is as yet no certainty and perhaps certainty
in the matter is unattainable. Philosophy has no quarrel with the evolutionary hypothesis in
general.
But it needs to be remembered: any process of world-development, or of earth-
development, or of the development of plant-life and animal-life, absolutely requires a first
Creator or First Cause who endowed matter with the fitness for development, and with powers
for development, and who supports the developing creatures in existence and concurs with their
developing activity.

Part Four: The Fact of Finality in the Bodily World

finality

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 Finality is final tendency or teleological tendency; it is tendency towards an end, a
purpose, a goal.
That bodies exercise such tendency is manifest. Bodies tend to hold on to existence, each
in its own nature and order, and existence is surrendered only to compelling forces of destruction
which come from other bodies. Among living bodies, the tendency to grow, to attain a rounded
maturity and fruitfulness, is evident to anyone who ever planted a garden or noticed the
development of animals or of children. No one denies that things in this bodily world tend to
proper and proportionate ends. But some persons deny that this tendency is the manifestation of
a purpose, of a design; they deny that this tendency is something intended by the Creator, and
that it points on to an ultimate end. Against these we assert the theory of full finality, of end
intended, of an ultimate end of the world. (When? Who knows!)

The ultimate end of the world

By the word "end," in its present use, we mean no simple termination, no finishing and
nothing more. We mean purpose, goal, end-in-view. The phrase "the ultimate end of the world"
means the final purpose for which the world is made and for which it exists and towards the
fulfillment of which it constantly tends. That there is such an end can be shown by establishing
the fact of design or plan in the world of bodies; for design or plan is a rational means of
reaching an end, a purpose, and, in last analysis, an ultimate purpose or end.
In this world, natural bodies exhibit a true intrinsic finality, for they cling to their being
and their nature, and they manifest activity that is consistent, constant, uniformly proportionate
to the active nature of the body in each case. The intrinsic finality or tendency of bodies is for
what is good for them: self-preservation, quest of food, permanence of their kind through
generation or reproduction.
In a secondary way, bodies tend towards what is good for other bodies, as by the
abundance of fruits and seeds, few of which can cause reproduction but which serve as food for
plants, animals, and men, and which impress reasoning creatures (that is, in the bodily world,
human beings) with the great generosity of the Giver of good gifts. Now, this intrinsic finality of
bodies is certainly the result of a plan, and of a plan which comes of intelligence, and ultimately
of Supreme Intelligence.
The finality of natural bodies, and their magnificent structure which fits them admirably
for their connatural activities, are incontrovertible evidence of design and of ultimate
intelligence, and so of Ultimate End. Nor can imperfections in bodies be alleged as an argument
against design or finality. For imperfections cannot be recognized as such unless by a mind
which has the grasp of a standard, by a mind which knows what perfection in the case means;
for an imperfection is a falling short of a recognized perfection, that is, of a recognized design,
plan, and purpose. You cannot know what imperfect eyesight is unless you have knowledge of
what perfect eyesight is. Imperfections are a proof of perfection, that is of the standard. When a
person objects that such or such a body falls short of perfection, he acknowledges the existence
of the standard of perfection and the normal tendency of a body to attain it.
There is, then, in this world of bodies a finality, a drive towards a certain perfection, a
tendency towards a goal or end. Now, ends are often like steps in a stairway, one is subordinate
to another. But none of the steps has any meaning at all except in view of the last step. It is the
ultimate end which gives meaning to all subordinate ends. Wherever there is a series of
connected ends, there is an ultimate end.
The ultimate end of the world must be the end established by the creator; it must be the
creator's purpose in creating. And since end means good, the ultimate end must be the ultimate
good, the complete fulfillment of every tendency to good. It must be the Limitless and
Necessary Good Itself. In a word, it must be God.
Notice another conclusive argument for the truth that God is the ultimate end of all
creatures. God is infinite wisdom; he therefore acts for a most worthy end. But before creation
(to speak in imperfect human terms) there is no actuality except God alone; there is nothing that

26
could serve as an end except God himself. Therefore, God creates all creatures for himself; God
is their ultimate end.

Nature
The nature of a thing means its working essence. But in our present use of this term we
mean general nature, we mean all bodily substances (since cosmology speaks only of bodies)
inasmuch as these produce or undergo effect. We mean the active world around us: the air, the
clouds, the running streams, the minerals, the growing plants, the singing birds, the thinking
men. We mean all bodily substances as active.
Each natural body has its normal structure and its normal type of activity. All bodies, --
man (in his moral or responsible conduct) excepted, -- act as they do by necessity. Observing
bodies and their structure and activity, we notice their constancy and consistency. We find that
water runs downhill, that bodies tend towards the center of the earth, that plants tend to grow to
maturity and fruitfulness, that fire burns dry wood, that water is H2O. Such facts and
occurrences are not random or occasional, but invariable when bodies are left in their normal
condition. We make a record of our constant experience of what bodies are and of what they
normally do. We set down such records in physical and chemical formulas. We call them
physical laws. What we really mean in calling our record of constant experience by the name of
law is this: the Creator, in creating bodies, has manifestly imposed upon them, with their
physical structure, a definite range of activity; he has given to natural bodies the law of their
being and their doing.
The constant mode of action of the universe in its larger parts (interplanetary attraction,
coherency of solar systems, activities in interstellar space such as cosmic radiation) is expressed
in formulas called cosmic laws. The constant mode of being and of action of earthly bodies is
expressed in formulas called physical laws. Both cosmic laws and physical laws are called
natural laws or laws of nature. We must be very careful to make a clean distinction between
natural laws and the natural law; for the natural law (always with an article) means the eternal
law for human conduct inasmuch as this is knowable to sound human reason. In a word, the
natural law is the naturally knowable moral law. On the other hand, natural laws (or laws of
nature) are cosmic laws and physical laws which necessitate (inasmuch as they are ordinances of
the Creator) the activity of bodies as such, but have no concern with the free-will acts of man.
The harmony of nature so charmed the ancient Greeks that some of them, -- notably the
Pythagoreans, -- considered it the very essential of bodily reality, and so declared that the one
suitable name for the bodily world is cosmos or "the beautiful" or "the well-ordered." This
harmony is noticed in individual natures too, in the complexity and balance of their parts, in their
remarkable fitness for their proper activities. But it is in the larger sense that we consider the
harmony of nature; we take it as a suitable arrangement of bodies in the material world for their
seemly mutual activities in view of their common ultimate end. This world-harmony we call the
order of nature. The working out of the order of nature, or the actual exercise of natural laws, we
call the course of nature.

Readings
Philosophy of nature
The philosophy of nature, variously referred to as natural philosophy, cosmology, and the
science of nature, is the discipline that treats of the world of nature or the physical universe in its
most general aspects. Traditionally it considers such topics as the definition of matter, nature,
motion, infinity, time, life, soul, and similar concepts, and speculates about the elements and
component parts of the universe. In the present day, philosophers of nature are faced with two
major problems. One is how to distinguish their discipline from metaphysics; the other is to
preserve it from being displaced by modern sciences, such as physics, chemistry, biology, and
psychology.

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 While recognizing alternative views of the philosophy of nature, this article devotes
major attention to that first propounded by Aristotle in his Physics, and subsequently clarified
and enriched by Greek, Arab, and Latin commentators, especially St. albert the great and St.
Thomas Aquinas.
Scope of the Philosophy of Nature
Aristotle characterized his study of nature as being both scientific, in contrast to Plato's
"likely story," and natural, in contrast to being mathematical or metaphysical. The first claim he
justified by delineating the subject of the science, its concern with causes and principles, and its
scientific order of development. The second he showed by differentiating the natural from other
scientific approaches, particularly the mathematical. This article follows his order in establishing
these foundations and in proceeding from them to outline the scope of the entire discipline.
Subject of the Science. The claim that the philosophy of nature is scientific can be
approached in several stages. First, the subjects considered in the philosophy of nature are said
to be known in terms of a universal sensible matter (see sciences, classification of). The
corresponding universal knowledge is abstract, although not in the way in which mathematical
knowledge is abstract. Mathematics, in its abstractions, leaves behind the sensible, physical
world, while natural science does not. It merely abstracts the universal, or the type, from the
individuals that impress themselves upon man's senses; in this respect, physical science stays
within the sensible world, although considering only what is general within it. abstraction from
individual to common sensible matter thus constitutes the special intellectual light under which
the philosophy of nature views its subject.
Second, this subject itself may be defined in a general way as mobile being, where
mobile means capable of being changed in any way. It is by their mobile character that things in
the physical world first come to be understood. Water, copper, maple trees, cows, even men are
initially known by their behavior, their weight, their combustibility or lack of it, their growth, or
other such activities. Thus, it is appropriate to characterize physical reality as mobile.
On the other hand, to consider the subject of the philosophy of nature to be "being" as
mobile, one would have to presuppose a metaphysics. Until proof is given that there exists at
least one immobile being—such as a Prime Mover or a spiritual human soul—reason, unaided
by faith, can make no real distinction between being and the mobile. This is why, in the
language of Cardinal cajetan, the philosopher of nature has to consider mobile being as an
unsegregated whole (totum incomplexum ). In the same vein, Cajetan urges that it would be
inappropriate for the philosopher of nature to consider his subject matter to be corporeal reality.
That every mobile being is a body has to be itself established in the philosophy of nature.
Scientific Character. These considerations raise the question whether there can be a
scientific knowledge of a subject such as mobile being. If science (scientia) is defined in
Aristotle's sense, it is certain knowledge of things through their proper causes (Anal. post. 71b
8–12). To fulfill this definition, natural philosophy must initially seek the primary causes or first
principles of this subject. Such an objective governs the initial development of natural
philosophy, as pursued in the Aristotelian tradition.
An orderly search for these principles is guided in that tradition by the methodological
conviction that the mind's natural tendency is to go from the known to the unknown. This
explains why, though God is the most universal cause of all reality, man's knowledge of nature,
as reached by unaided reason, does not logically begin with Him or with any other metaphysical
subject. The search for first principles must stay within the proper order of nature. This again
explains why, for Aristotelian Thomists, the study of metaphysics is postponed until after that of
the philosophy of nature. Another application is that within the level of physical knowledge,
what is best known to man are physical things as grasped in a universal and vague mode; only
from such considerations does the mind advance toward notions that are more particular and
distinct.
Order of Invention. This way of stating the progress of the mind from the known to the
unknown is based on the fact that man has an imperfect knowledge of a thing before such

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knowledge grows more complete. To know a thing imperfectly is to recognize its common
features without being able to differentiate it from other things. A genus, which includes its
species in a universal and indistinct manner, is more intelligible to man than a species itself. The
mind is able to recognize an entity such as a circle or a man (vague knowledge) before it can
give a scientific definition of either (distinct knowledge). As indicated by his speech, a child first
tends to regard all women as "mother" and all men as "father"; then, as his knowledge increases,
he is able to put a differential (hence distinct) structure into such notions.
The movement of the mind from general aspects of things toward their more particular
features is a progress from what is most intelligible to man toward what is most intelligible in
itself. The more generic man's considerations, the more remote these are from the world of
actual being, which is the source of objective intelligibility; again, the more specific these
become, the closer man gets to actuality, even though this more actual entitative level is less
intelligible for him. This is why, though modern science analyzes nature in a highly specific and
detailed way, it is frequently uncertain and hypothetical in its conclusions. In very detailed areas
of science, e.g., quantum theory, notions become so hazy that the physicist no longer knows
what his mathematics represents and hence no longer knows what he is studying.
Order in Natural Science. The methodological approach just outlined has two important
consequences, one concerning the order of the subjective parts of the science of nature, and the
other concerning the level at which the mind should search for the first principles of physical
things.
Subjective Parts. In the study of any type of mobile or material being, its most generic
level should be examined first: this most generic level is mobile being without regard to its
types, such as water, iron, maple tree, dog, or man. Such a procedure avoids repeating the
analysis of mobile being in general whenever an analysis of a particular type of mobile being is
begun. The subject of this basic study, entitled the Physics by Aristotle, is mobile being in
general (ens mobile simpliciter ). After this, the philosophy of nature considers the first and most
common type of mobile being, bodies undergoing local motion; this formed the subject of
Aristotle's On the Heavens, whose content may be best described as cosmology, the science of
the universe at large. In the progress to the even more particular, the next study is that of
qualitative change, exemplified in On Generation and Corruption, Aristotle's rudimentary work
on chemistry. Finally come the biological works, beginning with a study such as that outlined in
Aristotle's On the Soul.
This sequence of books is mentioned here not to defend the content of Aristotle's
cosmology or chemistry, but only to illustrate a formal order for treating the various materials
concerning natural things. This issue must be reopened in discussing the relation between
philosophy and science. The contents of the Physics alone are often described today as the
philosophy of nature; although this restriction is not quite accurate, it can be used until further
precisions are made.

Principles of the Philosophy of Nature. The proper order of invention thus requires a search at
the universal level of mobile being for those first principles which, when discovered, assure that
the philosophy of nature is scientific in the sense of the Posterior Analytics. The result of this
search leads to the recognition that in all motion there are three factors: (1) a subject or matter;
(2) a new qualification of this subject, called form; and (3) the previous lack or privation of this
form in the subject able to possess it (see matter and form). Moreover—and now at a level only
slightly less general than before—two kinds of change are recognized: on the one hand,
substantial change, e.g., the burning of wood, whose subject is called primary matter and whose
form is called substantial form; on the other, accidental change, e.g., the splitting of wood,
whose matter is called secondary matter and whose form is known as accidental form. Primary
matter, substantial form, and the previous privation of such form are the three first principles of
all mobile being. The recognition that such principles exist in the world of nature is the clear
assurance that a science of the natural world is possible.

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 Nature and the Natural. Aristotle is furthermore at pains to distinguish the meaning of
the term "nature." If the philosophy of nature is a natural science, then he must show that the
subject as well as the middle terms for demonstrating about that subject are both natural. He
does this by first defining nature.
Art. nature has several opposite poles to which, in different contexts, it can be contrasted.
First of all, there is art [see art (philosophy)]. In all types of art, but especially in mechanical art,
man obviously does something to the given world. He finds iron ready-made but shapes it into a
fence. He obtains wool from sheep but sews it into a garment. He cuts wood from a forest but
arranges it into a house. All such products of art can undergo changes as in the rusting of the
fence, the tearing of the garment, and the burning or collapsing of the house. But second thought
shows that the changes take place not because of the artistic form but because of the natural
matter. The fence rusts because it is iron, the garment tears because it is wool, and the house
burns or collapses because it is wooden. Thus, what is by nature has a principle of motion within
itself; what is by art, to the extent that it is art, has its principle extrinsic to it and in human
reason.
Chance. Another opposite to nature is chance—an interference between two lines of
natural causality not determined, by the nature of either, to interfere with one another. Such
happens when, say, a cosmic ray strikes a gene and results in the production of abnormal
offspring. "Nature is the first principle of motion and of rest in that in which it is [by contrast to
art] primarily and essentially and not accidentally [by contrast to chance]" (St. Thomas, In 2
phys. 1.5). In a briefer but less rigorous wording, nature is an intrinsic principle of motion.
Mathematical Physics and the Physical. But though the phenomena of art and chance
may aid in the defining of nature, the most important modern opposite of the natural or physical
is the mathematical, especially the kind of mathematical knowledge called mathematical
physics. In listing Aristotle's major works in natural science, no mention was made of
mathematical physics. The reason is that this is not a natural or physical science in its internal
structure, as Aristotle explains in Book 2 of his Physics. It does not have a strictly physical
subject, like water or sheep, but a mixed subject, e.g., sensible lines in optics, where the physical
or sensible is compounded with the quantified or mathematical. Moreover, it is only the
mathematical component of the mixed subject that the mathematical physicist explains.
Evidence for this can be found in the fact that the middle term in a mathematico-physical
argument, hence the causal knowledge employed in such an argument, is mathematical (cf. 193b
23–194a 18).
Physical Subjects. The philosophy of nature, by contrast, is strictly physical or natural. It
studies the mobile world as known through the principles of motion. Whereas the mathematical
physicist may measure motion to determine its velocity or acceleration, the philosopher of nature
tackles the more fundamental question of what motion is. In a similar fashion, the mathematical
physicist measures time, but to define time is a problem in the philosophy of nature. Unlike
mathematical physics, which has a mixed subject—materially physical and formally
mathematical (St. Thomas, In Boeth. de Trin. 5.3 ad 6)—the subject of a genuine philosophy of
nature is strictly physical or natural; it is the mobile as such.
Middle Terms. Unlike the mathematical physicist, whose mathematical reasons show
only "that" something is so without giving the physical "why" (cf. Summa Theologiae 2a2ae, 9.2
ad 3), the philosopher of nature uses middle terms that are physical. These middle terms
ultimately represent one or other of the four causes (see causality). The determination that there
are such causes in every mobile being is made in the latter part of Book 2 of the Physics (198a
14–200b 9). Therefore, in their middle terms as well as in their subjects, mathematical physics
and the philosophy of nature are distinct sciences.
Physical Interpretation. Mathematical physics is said, in the language of St. Thomas, to
be terminally physical (In 2 phys. 3.8), or, in the language of 20th-century philosophers of
science, to require physical interpretation. This problem of terminating or interpreting
mathematical physics means finding, if possible, a physical reason or model for the facts that

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mathematical physics knows in only their mathematical reasons. Such interpretation or
termination, for Thomists, is external to mathematical physics; it is a function of the philosophy
of nature, where the physical causes of material things are properly sought.
Unity of the Philosophy of Nature. Having established in Book 1 of the Physics that the
philosophy of nature is a science and in Book 2 that it is a natural or physical science, Aristotle
turns in Book 3 to a definition of motion, the fundamental property of mobile being; Book 3
looks, later on, at a possible intrinsic characteristic of motion, that of infinity. Having shown that
motion is not infinite but finite and hence measurable, Aristotle turns in Book 4 to the extrinsic
measures of motion, place, the measure of mobile being, and time, the measure of motion.
Motion is divided in Book 5 into its subjective parts and in Book 6 into its quantitative or
integral parts. Books 7 and 8 are devoted to the Prime Mover and associated problems (see
motion, first cause of).
Relation to Metaphysics. In a work devoted to the consideration of the universal causes
and principles of mobile being, it is relevant to raise the issue of the universal efficient cause of
motion. This is the point where, if the proper order of invention is followed, the philosopher
discovers that being need not be necessarily mobile and material. It is this so-called common
being, i.e., being as common to both material and immaterial things, that becomes the subject of
metaphysics.
Relation to Modern Science. To the extent that physics and chemistry are mathematical,
they are grouped by Aristotelian-Thomists with the mathematical physics described earlier;
similarly, to the extent that biology invokes mathematics, as in the study of genetics, it is treated
likewise. However, to that extent that modern sciences are not mathematical but physical—as in
parts of chemistry, much of biology, and many notions of modern cosmology—these sciences
are regarded as natural and physical. For those who subscribe to the Aristotelian-Thomistic view
on the order of learning, i.e., that the mind moves from the universal level to the specific level in
its understanding of nature, such sciences become parts of a single physical science that begins
at the general level of what is now called the philosophy of nature and reaches to the more
specific levels of modern science.

Disputed Questions. Yet these are disputed points even for Thomists. Many agree that the
modern sciences in which mathematics predominates are affiliated with the "mixed sciences" of
Aristotle and the medievals. But there is great controversy as to the place of the natural sciences
in the Thomistic hierarchy of knowledge. Among those who maintain that there is a philosophy
of nature distinct from metaphysics, one group envisions a continuation between the philosophy
of nature and such sciences, while another maintains that these sciences are themselves,
formally distinct from the philosophy of nature. While there is common agreement about where
the philosophy of nature begins, there is no consensus about where it ends when compared to
modern science. (see philosophy and science.)
Psychology and the Philosophy of Nature. For Thomists who reject the view that the
philosophy of nature is an applied metaphysics, psychology is considered to be a part of the
philosophy of nature. This is in accord with the analyses of St. Thomas in various of his
commentaries on Aristotle's texts. What is called philosophical psychology is not about the soul
only, as the etymology of psychology (from Gr. ψ[symbol omitted]χή, meaning soul) might
suggest. It is about the composite, with the soul or form being the principle of the science rather
than the subject.
According to Aristotle's ordering, the study of mobile being in general becomes more
and more specific until it extends to that type of mobile being that is animate. But the study of
the living has no first principles of its own; the principles of living things are still the matter and
form discovered in Book 1 of the Physics. In any living thing there is simply a special type of
form, called a soul, producing a special kind of effect in primary matter, rendering the matter
not only corporeal but animated in this or that specific way. The study of the animate world

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 thus is a subjective part of the scientific knowledge developed in the more general philosophy
of nature.
In the light of the foregoing, it is incorrect to think of the philosophy of nature and
philosophical psychology as two coordinate branches, or integral parts, of the science of
material things. This misconception is likely to occur when the philosophy of nature is
considered in the spirit of Christian wolff and labeled cosmology. On the other hand, writers
who reject the Wolffian usage often employ the expression philosophy of nature to designate
the philosophical study not simply of the inorganic world but of what all mobile beings, lifeless
and living, have in common. Such a study should be more accurately labeled the general
philosophy of nature; in this understanding, it would be appropriate to regard philosophical
psychology as a proper subjective part.

Method in the Philosophy of Nature

By contrast to mathematical physics, which abstracts from nature only those features that
can assume quantitative form, the philosophy of nature methodologically takes the whole of
experience into account. One of the reasons alleged by modern scholars for Aristotle's failure to
construct a better mathematical physics was his over-empirical temper; this possibly prevented
him from abstracting from the medium through which a body, say a falling body, actually
moved. At any rate, the philosophy of nature is through and through an empirical science; its
conclusions must be "terminated" as St. Thomas said, or tested, as we would say in a later age,
in sense experience. Because it depends so much on experience, St. Thomas locates the
philosophy of nature after mathematics and mathematical physics in the order of learning.
Mode of Discourse. In regard to other aspects of method, the philosophy of nature,
always remaining close to experience, progresses from universal truths—such as those involving
mobile being in general—to more particular truths. This progress is called by St. Thomas "the
method of concretion" and is further described as "the application of common principles to
determinate [types of] mobile beings" (In lib. de sensu 1.2). In this descending movement, the
philosophy of nature is far from a deductive science of a mathematical or rationalistic type. It
does not predict, except in the trivial sense that if x is a mobile being, x will have for its first
principles primary matter, substantial form, and privation, etc. In progressing by the method of
concretion, the philosopher of nature must discover, through experience rather than by
deduction, what exists in the mobile world; the application of common principles discovered in
earlier experience can then be offered in explanation of what later and more refined experience
reveals.
Aquinas contrasts the methods of mathematics with the more discursive method of the
philosophy of nature. In mathematics, the mind considers, for instance, the essence of an object
such as a triangle; without reverting to experience, it deduces the properties, e.g., the sum of its
interior angles. But in the philosophy of nature the mind does not study one thing such as a
triangle; in response to experience, it goes from one thing, an effect, to another, e.g., the
extrinsic causes. Thus the philosophy of nature proceeds discursively or rationabiliter, whereas
mathematics is said to proceed "in the mode of learning," or disciplinabiliter (In Boeth. de Trin.
6.1).
Use of Induction. As another aspect of its experiential character, the philosophy of
nature establishes its principles by induction (In 8 phys. 3.4). Even in the Physics, abstract as it
is in contrast to the study of later "concretions," the method is predominantly an inductive
examination of the world revealed through sense experience. Such inductions require a pre-
inductive dialectic that is not part of the philosophical science of nature. It prepares for
induction, and it is this postdialectical induction that gives the philosophy of nature its
experiential mood. There are far more inductions in the Physics and in On the Soul than there are
causal demonstrations. Moreover, when such demonstrations are made, as in the case of the two
definitions of motion or two definitions of the soul, the premises themselves are the fruits of
induction. Most of the demonstrations are from effect to cause (demonstratio quia ), not from

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cause to effect (demonstratio propter quid ). Since the latter type of demonstration is known as
deduction, and since such demonstrations are not especially characteristic of the philosophy of
nature, it would be an error to regard the philosophy of nature as a deductive science. Its method
of proceeding discursively (rationabiliter ) actually involves something quite different.
Recent Views of Natural Philosophy
The Aristotelian view of the philosophy of nature was commonly accepted until the
beginnings of the Renaissance. Then, as modern philosophy and modern science began long
periods of development, natural philosophy suffered a steady decline under successive attacks
from mechanism, empiricism, and positivism. The 19th and 20th centuries, however, have
witnessed a renewal of interest in this discipline. While differing in many respects from the
traditional expositions by scholastics, these new philosophies show some sympathy and accord
with the basic theses that had earlier been developed.
Philosophies of Matter. Original philosophies of nature, for example, were developed by
the idealistic and romantic philosophers of the 19th century (see G. Hennemann,
Naturphilosophie im 19. Jahrhundert, Munich 1959). These are important in themselves as well
as for their historical bearing. Out of the Hegelian movement came marxism, with a philosophy
centering on the world of matter. This was given a more or less systematic form in the 20th
century, not only by Lenin but by the more recent work of Soviet philosophers. Somewhat as in
the strict Aristotelian scheme, Soviet philosophers hold to a general and philosophical study of
matter with its opposing principles of thesis and antithesis. Since, among Soviet thinkers, there
is only one matter and one view of it, scientific findings are said to verify and reflect the results
of the prior and more general analysis by philosophers (see hegelianism and neo-hegelianism;
materialism, dialectical and historical).
Notion of Nature. In the West, Aristotle's insistence that mathematical physics does not
function as a fully natural science was matched by similar insights of thinkers like Charles S.
peirce, Alfred North whitehead, Henri bergson, Pierre teilhard de chardin, and, more remotely,
such 20th-century naturalists as Samuel alexander, Roy Wood Sellars, and John dewey (see
naturalism). All of these writers had some more or less explicit notion of nature—Peirce's
"particular character"; Whitehead's "organism"; Bergson's "élan vital "; and Teilhard's "psychic."
If their language seems too biological and even, as in the last case, psychological, it
should be remembered that the term "nature" itself had biological connotations in both its Greek
and Latin origins. Softer and analogical meanings can be given to the similar terms of modern
philosophers; one need not take as univocal, in all their occurrences, words like "organism,"
"vital elan," and "psychic." Even with these qualifications, however, much work remains before
20th-century philosophers of nature can be brought into harmony with each other, into
agreement with the valid insights of past thinkers, and above all into accord with reality as
experienced.
Duality and Directionality. Again, the 20th-century philosophers of nature named above
attest more or less to a dualistic character of natural things like that explained through primary
matter and its form. The naturalists even speak of "levels" of process and "the emergence of
novelty," both of which give evidence that in all natural things there is a substratum,
differentiated in various ways by what has been called form. But the same thinkers are inclined
to take "levels" and "novelty" as something given, rather than to try to explain the given, as do
Aristotle, Whitehead, Bergson, Peirce, Teilhard, and the Soviet philosophers.
Finally, all of the 20th-century philosophers of nature named above, including the Soviet
theorists and Western naturalists, see directionality in the cosmos. These insights are intimations
of the causality of the end (see final causality; teleology). Whitehead is explicit in regard to the
causality of purpose and, contrary to Hume, insists on man's power to grasp efficient causality.
Thus, though in different terms and a different context, such a philosopher as Whitehead
recognized all four of the physical causes in a more or less conscious way.
Since 19th-century efforts to construct a priori philosophies of nature, such as idealism,
or to deny the philosophy of nature, as with positivism, important 20th-century Western

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philosophers seem to have rediscovered the need for a realistic evaluation of nature, one that
considers mobile being at a level more general than the specialized natural sciences and at a
level more natural than mathematical physics.

Cosmological theories through history

"Cosmos" is just another word for universe, and "cosmology" is the study of the origin,
evolution and fate of the universe. Some of the best minds in history - both philosophers and
scientists - have applied themselves to an understanding of just what the universe is and where it
came from, suggesting in the process a bewildering variety of theories and ideas, from the
Cosmic Egg to the Big Bang and beyond. Here are some of the main ones, in approximate
chronological order:
Brahmanda (Cosmic Egg) Universe - The Hindu Rigveda, written in India around the
15th - 12th Century B.C., describes a cyclical or oscillating universe in which a “cosmic egg”, or
Brahmanda, containing the whole universe (including the Sun, Moon, planets and all of space)
expands out of a single concentrated point called a Bindu before subsequently collapsing again.
The universe cycles infinitely between expansion and total collapse.
Anaxagorian Universe - The 5th Century B.C. Greek philosopher Anaxagoras believed
that the original state of the cosmos was a primordial mixture of all its ingredients which existed
in infinitesimally small fragments of themselves. This mixture was not entirely uniform, and
some ingredients were present in higher concentrations than others, as well as varying from
place to place. At some point in time, this mixture was set in motion by the action of “nous”
(mind), and the whirling motion shifted and separated out the ingredients, ultimately producing
the cosmos of separate material objects, all with different properties, that we see today.
Atomist Universe - Later in the 5th Century B.C., the Greek philosophers Leucippus and
Democritus founded the school of Atomism, which held that the universe was composed of very
small, indivisible and indestructible building blocks known as atoms (from the Greek “atomos”,
meaning “uncuttable”). All of reality and all the objects in the universe are composed of
different arrangements of these eternal atoms and an infinite void, in which they form different
combinations and shapes.
Aristotelian Universe - The Greek philosopher Aristotle, in the 4th Century B.C.,
established a geocentric universe in which the fixed, spherical Earth is at the center, surrounded
by concentric celestial spheres of planets and stars. Although he believed the universe to be
finite in size, he stressed that it exists unchanged and static throughout eternity. Aristotle
definitively established the four classical elements of fire, air, earth and water, which were acted
on by two forces, gravity (the tendency of earth and water to sink) and levity (the tendency of air
and fire to rise). He later added a fifth element, aether, to describe the void that fills the universe
above the terrestrial sphere.
Stoic Universe - The Stoic philosophers of ancient Greece (3rd Century B.C. and after)
believed in a kind of island universe in which a finite cosmos is surrounded by an infinite void
(not dissimilar in principle to a galaxy). They held that the cosmos is in a constant state of flux,
and pulsates in size and periodically passes through upheavals and conflagrations. In the Stoic
view, the universe is like a giant living body, with its leading part being the stars and the Sun,
but in which all parts are interconnected, so that what happens in one place affects what happens
elsewhere. They also held a cyclical view of history, in which the world was once pure fire and
would become fire again (an idea borrowed from Heraclitus).
Heliocentric Universe - The 3rd Century B.C. Greek astronomer and mathematician
Aristarchus of Samos was the first to present an explicit argument for a heliocentric model of the
Solar System, placing the Sun, not the Earth, at the center of the known universe. He described
the Earth as rotating daily on its axis and revolving annually about the Sun in a circular orbit,
along with a sphere of fixed stars. His ideas were generally rejected in favor of the geocentric
theories of Aristotle and Ptolemy until they were successfully revived nearly 1800 years later by
Copernicus. However, there were exceptions: Seleucus of Seleucia, who lived about a century

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after Aristarchus, supported his theories and used the tides to explain heliocentricity and the
influence of the Moon; the Indian astronomer and mathematician Aryabhata described elliptical
orbits around the Sun at the end of the 5th Century A.D.; as did the Muslim astronomer Ja'far ibn
Muhammad Abu Ma'shar al-Balkhi in the 9th Century.
Ptolemaic Universe - The 2nd Century A.D. Roman-Egyptian mathematician and
astronomer Ptolemy (Claudius Ptolemaeus) described a geocentric model largely based on
Aristotelian ideas, in which the planets and the rest of the universe orbit about a stationary Earth
in circular epicycles. In terms of longevity, it was perhaps the most successful cosmological
model of all time. Modifications to the basic Ptolemaic system were suggested by the Islamic
Maragha School in the 13th, 14th and 15th Centuries including the first accurate lunar model by
Ibn alShatir, and the rejection of a stationary Earth in favor of a rotating Earth by Ali Qushji.
Abrahamic Universe - Several medieval Christian, Muslim and Jewish scholars put
forward the idea of a universe which was finite in time. In the 6th Century A.D., the Christian
philosopher John Philoponus of Alexandria argued against the ancient Greek notion of an
infinite past, and was perhaps the first commentator to argue that the universe is finite in time
and therefore had a beginning. Early Muslim theologians such as Al-Kindi (9th Century) and Al-
Ghazali (11th Century) offered logical arguments supporting a finite universe, as did the 10th
Century Jewish philosopher Saadia Gaon.
Partially Heliocentric Universe - In the 15th and early 16th Century, Somayaji
Nilakantha of the Kerala school of astronomy and mathematics in southern India developed a
computational system for a partially heliocentric planetary model in which Mercury, Venus,
Mars, Jupiter and Saturn orbited the Sun, which in turn orbited the Earth. This was very similar
to the Tychonic system proposed by the Danish nobleman Tycho Brahe later in the 16th Century
as a kind of hybrid of the Ptolemaic and Copernican models.
Copernican Universe - In 1543, the Polish astronomer and polymath Nicolaus
Copernicus adapted the geocentric Maragha model of Ibn al-Shatir to meet the requirements of
the ancient heliocentric universe of Aristarchus. His publication of a scientific theory of
heliocentrism, demonstrating that the motions of celestial objects can be explained without
putting the Earth at rest in the center of the universe, stimulated further scientific investigations
and became a landmark in the history of modern science, sometimes known as the Copernican
Revolution. His Copernican Principle (that the Earth is not in a central, specially favored
position) and its implication that celestial bodies obey physical laws identical to those on Earth,
first established cosmology as a science rather than a branch of metaphysics. In 1576, the
English astronomer Thomas Digges popularized Copernicus’ ideas and also extended them by
positing the existence of a multitude of stars extending to infinity, rather than just Copernicus’
narrow band of fixed stars. The Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno took the Copernican
Principle a stage further in 1584 by suggesting that even the Solar System is not the center of the
universe, but rather a relatively insignificant star system among an infinite multitude of others.
In 1605, Johannes Kepler made further refinements by finally abandoning the classical
assumption of circular orbits in favor of elliptical orbits which could explain the strange apparent
movements of the planets. Galileo's controversial support of Copernicus' heliocentric model in
the early 17th Century was denounced by the Inquisition but nevertheless helped to popularize
the idea.
Cartesian Vortex Universe - In the mid-17th Century, the French philosopher René
Descartes outlined a model of the universe with many of the characteristics of Newton’s later
static, infinite universe. But, according to Descartes, the vacuum of space was not empty at all,
but was filled with matter that swirled around in large and small vortices. His model involved a
system of huge swirling whirlpools of ethereal or fine matter, producing what would later be
called gravitational effects.
Static (or Newtonian) Universe - In 1687, Sir Isaac Newton published his “Principia”,
which described, among other things, a static, steady state, infinite universe which even Einstein,
in the early 20th Century, took as a given (at least until events proved otherwise). In Newton’s

35
universe, matter on the large scale is uniformly distributed, and the universe is gravitationally
balanced but essentially unstable.
Hierarchical Universe and the Nebular Hypothesis - Although still generally based on
a Newtonian static universe, the matter in a hierarchical universe is clustered on even larger
scales of hierarchy, and is endlessly being recycled. It was first proposed in 1734 by the Swedish
scientist and philosopher Emanuel Swedenborg, and developed further (independently) by
Thomas Wright (1750), Immanuel Kant (1755) and Johann Heinrich Lambert (1761), and a
similar model was proposed in 1796 by the Frenchman Pierre-Simon Laplace.
Einsteinian Universe - The model of the universe assumed by Albert Einstein in his
groundbreaking theory of gravity in the early 20th Century was not dissimilar to Newton’s in
that it was a static, dynamically stable universe which was neither expanding or contracting.
However, he had to add in a “cosmological constant” to his general relativity equations to
counteract the dynamical effects of gravity which would otherwise have caused the universe to
collapse in on itself (although he later abandoned that part of his theory when Edwin Hubble
definitively showed in 1929 that the universe was not in fact static).
Big Bang Model of the Universe - After Hubble’s demonstration of the continuously
expanding universe in 1929 (and especially after the discovery of cosmic microwave background
radiation by Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson in 1965), some version of the Big Bang theory has
generally been the mainstream scientific view. The theory describes the universe as originating
in an infinitely tiny, infinitely dense point (or singularity) between 13 and 14 billion years ago,
from where it has been expanding ever since. The essential statement of the theory is usually
attributed to the Belgian Roman Catholic priest and physicist Georges Lemaître in 1927 (even
before Hubble’s corroborating evidence), although a similar theory had been proposed, although
not pursued, 1922 by the Russian Alexander Friedmann in 1922. Friedmann actually developed
two models of an expanding universe based on Einstein’s general relativity equations, one with
positive curvature or spherical space, and one with negative curvature or hyperbolic space.
Oscillating Universe - This was Einstein’s favored model after he rejected his own
original model in the 1930s. The oscillating universe followed from Alexander Friedmann’s
model of an expanding universe based on the general relativity equations for a universe with
positive curvature (spherical space), which results in the universe expanding for a time and then
contracting due to the pull of its gravity, in a perpetual cycle of Big Bang followed by Big
Crunch. Time is thus endless and beginningless, and the beginning-of-time paradox is avoided.
Steady State Universe - This non-standard cosmology (i.e., opposed to the standard Big
Bang model) has occurred in various versions since the Big Bang theory was generally adopted
by the scientific community. A popular variant of the steady state universe was proposed in 1948
by the English astronomer Fred Hoyle and the and Austrians Thomas Gold and Hermann Bondi.
It predicted a universe that expanded but did not change its density, with matter being inserted
into the universe as it expanded in order to maintain a constant density. Despite its drawbacks,
this was quite a popular idea until the discovery of the cosmic microwave background radiation
in 1965 which supported the Big Bang model.
Inflationary (or Inflating) Universe - In 1980, the American physicist Alan Guth
proposed a model of the universe based on the Big Bang, but incorporating a short, early period
of exponential cosmic inflation in order to solve the horizon and flatness problems of the
standard Big Bang model. Another variation of the inflationary universe is the cyclic model
developed by Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok in 2002 using state-of-the-art M-theory,
superstring theory and brane cosmology, which involves an inflationary universe expanding and
contracting in cycles.
Multiverse - The Russian-American physicist Andrei Linde developed the inflationary
universe idea further in 1983 with his chaotic inflation theory (or eternal inflation), which sees
our universe as just one of many “bubbles” that grew as part of a multiverse owing to a vacuum
that had not decayed to its ground state. The American physicists Hugh Everett III and Bryce
DeWitt had initially developed and popularized their “many worlds” formulation of the

36
multiverse in the 1960s and 1970s. Alternative versions have also been developed where our
observable universe is just one tiny organized part of an infinitely big cosmos which is largely in
a state of chaos, or where our organized universe is just one temporary episode in an infinite
sequence of largely chaotic and unorganized arrangements.

The Philosophical System of Thomas Aquinas - A Universe of Individuals

Topics:
A. The Universe a collection of individual things
Let us imagine for one moment that by some great cosmic cataclysm the activity and
movement of the universe were suddenly brought to a stop, and that we were in a position to
dissect at our leisure the reality of which the universe is made up, in the same way that
archaeologists excavate and study the interior of a house in Pompeii. What would a similar
analysis of the world we live in reveal to the mind of a mediaeval schoolman? [1]
We should see in the first place that, in addition to the human race, there are thousands of
other beings in existence, and that each one of these is a concrete individual thing, independent
of and incommunicable to every other in its inmost nature, recalling the first substance of
Aristotle or the monad of Leibnitz. Individuals alone exist. We should find this individuality
realized in each plant and animal in the domain of life, and, as for the inorganic world, in the
particles of the four elements air, water, fire, earth) or else in a compound resulting from their
combination and itself possessing a specific state of being (mixtum). The chemistry of the
Middle Ages was very rudimentary, and contained a mixture of truth and falsehood. On the other
hand, the metaphysics, although closely bound up with this chemistry, is of an independent
development. Indeed, it belongs to the particular sciences to determine what is the primordial
particle of corporeal matter in each case. It matters little to the metaphysician whether this turns
out to be the molecule or the atom (or even the ion or electron). Let us suppose that it is the
atom: then the Schoolmen would say that the atoms of oxygen, chlorine, etc., are the real
individuals of the inorganic world, it is to them that existence primarily belongs, and they alone
possess internal unity.
What is the nature of these individual realities, which make up the universe?
B. Substance and Accidents
Let us examine more attentively any one of the many things which surround us on all
sides, -- a particular oak tree, for instance. This particular individual thing possesses many
characteristics: it has a definite height, a trunk of cylindrical form and of a definite diameter, its
bark is rugged, or 'gnarled' as the poets say, its foliage is of a somber color, it occupies a certain
place in the forest, its leaves exercise a certain action upon the surrounding air, and itself is in
turn influenced by things external to itself by means of the sap and the vitalizing elements which
it contains. All these are so many attributes or determinations of being, or, to use the scholastic
terminology, so many 'categories,' -- quantity, quality, action, passion, time, space, relation.
But all the above categories or classes of reality presuppose a still more more
fundamental one. Can anyone conceive the being 'courageous' without someone who is
courageous? Can one conceive quantity, thickness, growth, and the rest, without something --
our oak tree in the above instance -- to which they belong? Neither the action of growing, nor the
extension which comes from quantity, can be conceived as independent of a subject. This
fundamental subject Aristotle and the Schoolmen after him call the substance. The substance is
reality which is able to exist in and by itself (ens per se stans); it is self-sufficient. It has no need
of any other subject in which to inhere, but it is also the support of all the rest, which therefore
are called accidents, -- id quod accidit alicui rei, that which supervenes on something [2].
Not only is it true that we conceive material realities in terms of substance and accidents,
-- and no philosophy denies the existence in our minds of these two concepts -- but also that
substance and accidents exist independently, and outside our minds. In the order of real
existence, as in the order of our thought, substance and accidents are relative to each other. If we
succeed in proving the external existence of an accident (the thickness of the trunk of the tree,

37
for instance), we thereby demonstrate the existence of the substance (i.e., the tree). If the act of
walking is not an illusion, but something real, the same must be equally true of the substantial
being who walks, and without whom there would be no act of walking.
Locke and many others have criticized the scholastic theory of substance. Their
objections, however, rest on a twofold misconception of what that theory involves. First, it is
supposed that one claims to know wherein one substance differs from another. Now scholastic
philosophy never pretended to know wherein one substance differed from another in the external
world. The concept of substance was arrived at not as the fruit of an intuition, but as the result of
a reasoning process, which does not tell us what is specific in each substance, but only that
substances are. We know that they must exist, but never what they are. Indeed, the idea of
substance is essentially meager in content. We must repeat that we have no right to demand from
a theory explanations which it does not profess to give.
A second misconception, that we can easily dispose of, represents the substance of a
being as something simply underlying its other attributes. To suppose that we imagine
something lying behind or underneath the accidents, as the door underlies the painted color, is
simple to give a false interpretation of the scholastic theory, and of course there is no difficulty
in exposing this conception to ridicule. But the interpretation is erroneous. Substance and
accidents together constitute one and the same concrete existing thing. Indeed, it is the substance
that confers individuality upon the particular determinations or accidents. It is the substance of
the oak tree which constitutes the foundation and source of its individuality, and thus confers this
individuality upon its qualities, its dimensions, and all the series of accidental determinations.
This tout ensemble of substance and accidental determinations, taken all together, exists by
virtue of one existence, that of the concrete oak tree as a whole. This doctrine will be developed
in the next chapter, where we will consider the function of substance in the cycle of cosmic
evolution.
No less than the substance of the individual man or oak tree, the series of determinations
which affect it deserve our careful attention. Are the figure, roughness, strength, etc., distinct
realities existing in one which is more fundamental, and if so in what sense?
To ask this question is tantamount to asking what are these determining or supervening
states, which quality a man or an oak tree as rough, strong, occupying space [3]. Let us review
the chief classes of accidents, namely quantity, action, quality, space and time, relation.
C. Quantity, action, quality
The substantial object which I call Peter, or any particular lion, does not occupy a mere
mathematical point: its body is made up of parts in contact with each other (quantity) and which
also exist outside each other (extension). The internal order which is the result of this
juxtaposition constitutes the internal or private space or place of the body in question. Extension
does not constitute the essence of a material things (as Descartes taught), but it is its primary real
attribute or property (proprium), naturally inseparable from it, and the one concerning which our
senses give us the most exact information (VI, 2).
At the moment when we imagined a sudden petrification as it were of the universe, all
these quantified subjects were engaged in mutual action and reaction. Chemical elements were in
processes of combination or disassociation; external objects were giving rise to visual sensations
in the eyes of animals and men. For, every substance is active -- so much so that its activity
forms a measure of its perfection (agere sequitur esse, activity follows upon existence) -- and if a
being were not endowed with activity, it would a sufficient reason for its existence. The action
performed or undergone is a real modification of being, and cannot be denied unless we fly in
the face of evidence. It is clear, for instance, that the thought of an Edison enriches the reality of
the subject involved. Of course, we do not understand the how, or in what way a being A,
independent of B, can nevertheless produce an effect in B. Once again, we must not demand
from a theory that which it does not pretend to give.
A quality of a being, according to the view of the Schoolmen, modifies it really in some
specific character, and allows us to say of what kind it is (qualis). Rigorously speaking, this is

38
not a definition, as the notion is too elementary to be strictly definable. The natural figure or
shape, for instance a face or a mouth of a certain type, belongs to the group of qualities (figura).
It arises from the disposition or arrangement of quantified parts, but it determines the being
otherwise than in its mere extension.
Beside the figure of a being, the Schoolmen introduce a second group of qualities,
consisting of the intrinsic powers of action, or capacities, -- reservoirs, as it were, from which the
action flows -- for instance, when we say of a man that he is intelligent or strong-willed. They
are known as powers (potentiae) in general, and as 'faculties' in the case of man. Thomas
maintains that every limited being acts by means of principles of action. Only the Infinite Being
acts directly through its substance, because in Him existing and acting are identical.
Finally, experience shows that faculties, by being exercised, acquire a certain real
pliability or facility which predisposes them to act more easily or with more energy. The
professional competency of an artisan, the muscular agility of a baseball player, the clear-
headedness of a mathematician, the moral strength of a temperate or just man, -- are all
dispositions more or less permanent, lasting 'habits,' 'virtues,' which vary in different subjects,
but all of which enrich the being of the one possessing them, since they collaborate with the
power of action regarded as a whole.
D. Space and Time
We can only touch on the question of space, which Aquinas, in common with other
Schoolmen, considers at great length -- not only the internal space proper to each body and
which he identifies with its material enclosure, but space as a whole, the result of the
juxtaposition of all existing bodies. This space is obviously a function of the material things
which actually exist. The 'multitude' of such beings might be without limit, for there is no
contradiction in supposing an indefinite multitude of material things each occupying an internal
space finite in extent. Space as a whole, therefore, being the sum of these individual spaces,
might be indefinite.
In the opinion of Thomas, time is really the same as the continuous movement or change
in which all real beings are involved. But there is, by a mere mental activity, a breaking up, a
numbering of this continuous movement into distinct parts, which in consequence necessarily
appear to be successive. Tempus ets numerus motus secundum prius et posterious [4] is the
pregnant definition which Thomas borrows from Aristotle. Time is the measure of the
(continuous) change, which the mind views as a succession of parts. The present and fleeting
state of a changing being is alone real and existing. In the supposition of a motionless world
which we made above, the present time would be a cross section of the universe, in its actual
state, viewed in relation to the past and to the future. Now, since the multiplicity of beings is not
necessarily limited, we may, by a process similar to our reasoning on space, conclude that time,
the measure of changes which have really taken place or will take place in the future, may also
be without limit in either direction [5].
E. Relations
Passing over the passive, intransitive state (for instance, the state of being sad) which the
Schoolmen regarded as a reality distinct from the subject which it affects, there remains the last
of the categories, namely, relation. By means of this, the millions of beings which make up the
universe, were, at the moment when we have supposed them to be arrested in their course, all
bound up in a close network. By virtue of relations some things are for other things, or stand in a
particular way towards other things (ad alterum). For instance, it is in virtue of a relation that
several men are greater or smaller than others, stronger or weaker, more virtuous or vicious,
jealous of others, well or badly governed, etc. Is the relation 'greater than' distinct from the size
or quantity of the thing in question, the quantity being obviously the foundation of the relation?
Thomas replies in the negative, and he would not have allowed that these relations have a
separate reality of their own. My being greater or smaller than some particular Black African is
not a new reality added to my figure or to my absolute size; otherwise, while retaining

39
continuously the same figure, I should be constantly acquiring or losing realities, every time that
Black Africans increased or diminished their size, which is evidently ridiculous.
Let us continue the investigation of our dead universe. For there are two other static
aspects of the ensemble of things: their hierarchical arrangement and multiplicity on the hand,
and certain attributes known as the 'transcendentals' on the other.
F. Grades of reality and multiplicity in each grade
Although each material thing is itself, it is easy to see that there are many men all
belonging to the same kind, in that these individuals possess a substantial perfection which is
similar. On the other hand, being 'man' and being an 'oak' belong to different grades of reality.
The explanation is that every material substance has within itself a specific principle (we
shall call it later substantial form), and the specific principle of the oak is altogether different
from that of man, that of oxygen from that of hydrogen, and so on. The universe of the
Schoolmen is hierarchically arranged or graded, not merely by quantitative differences
(mechanistic theory) but according to their internal perfection (dynamism). A consequence of
this is that the substantial perfection of man or oak tree does not admit of degrees [6]. One is
either a man or one is not: we cannot be things by halves. Essentia (id est substantia) non
suscipit plus vel minus. -- Essence or substance does not admit of more or less. The substance of
man is the same in kind in all men. From this there will follow certain important social
consequences which we shall take up later.
On the other hand, we see in one and the same substantial order of reality an indefinite
number of distinct individuals. Whether we consider the past or the future, there are millions of
oak trees, millions of men. Are individuals belonging to the same species just doubles or copies
of each other? Have different men or different oak trees exactly the same value as realities? No.
Although their substantial perfections are the same in nature and value, their accidents differ,
and especially their qualities, quantity, and actions. Men or oak trees are born with different
natural aptitudes, and their powers of action differ in intensity. Even two atoms of hydrogen
(supposing the atom to be the chemical unit) occupy different places and have different
surroundings, which is sufficient to differentiate them. Equality of substance, and inequality of
accidents is the law which governs the distinction of individuals possessing the same grade of
being so far as substantial perfections are concerned. We shall see that the existence of men
together in society is simply an application of this principle.
G. Internal unity, truth, goodness
Since every being, which really exists or is capable of existing, is itself an individual, it
possesses internal unity. Ens et unum convertuntur, -- being and unity are mutually convertible
terms. Unity is simply an aspect of being. Parts of a thing, whether they are material or
otherwise, all coalesce and do not exist for themselves, but for the individual whole. We must be
careful here to avoid a wrong interpretation of this doctrine. The unity in question is the unity of
the individual being, as found in nature; thus the unity of a man, an animal, a plant, or an atom.
The unity of such an individual is quite distinct from that of a natural collection (e.g., a
mountain, or a colony in biology), or an artificial one (such as an automobile, or a house). To
these we attribute a nominal unity, for they are in themselves a collection of millions of
individual things, united, in ways more or less intricate, by means of accidental states. A society
of men is a unit of this kind.
Everything can become the object of intelligence, and in this sense, which we have met
above (VI, F), everything is true.
Again, each being aims at some end by means of its activities, and that end is its own
good or perfection. There would be no sufficient reason for a being to act, except for that which
is suitable for itself (bonum sibi). Hence good is called "that which all things desire," bonum est
quod omnia appetunt. Each thing is good in itself, and for itself. St. Augustine remarks that this
is true even of such things as the scorpion, for its poison is harmful only to other beings. This
tendency towards well-being, which is deeply rooted in everything, manifests itself in a way
conformable to the specific nature of each being. It is blind and unconscious in the stone which

40
falls, or in a molecule which is governed by its chemical affinities; it is conscious but
necessitated or 'determined,' as moderns say, in a savage beast in presence of its prey; it may be
conscious and in addition it may be free in the case of man.
Unity, truth, goodness, are called 'transcendental attributes,' because they are not special
to some particular class or category of beings, but are above classes (trans-cendunt) and are
found in all and every being.
H. Scholasticism the sworn enemy of Monism
The individuality of a number of beings involves their being distinct: one substance is
not the other. Since the universe is a collection of individual things, scholasticism is the sworn
enemy of monism, which regards all or several beings as coalescing into one only. For Aquinas,
monism involves a contradiction. For, it must either deny the real diversity of the various
manifestations or form of the One Being, and in that case we must conclude that multiplicity is
not real but an illusion; -- or else it must maintain that such diversity is real, and then it follows
that the idea of unification or identity is absurd.
In other words, the diversity and mutual irreducibility of individual substances are the
only sufficient reason for the diversity manifested in the universe. We shall see later that the
analysis of the data of consciousness furnishes a second argument against monism, so far as
individual human beings are concerned (X, A).
Although this reasoning can be applied to all forms of monism, Thomas Aquinas
combats principally those systems which were current in his day, -- the extreme Metaphysical
Monism of Avicebron, the Materialistic Monism of David of Dinant, and the Modified Monism
or Monopsychism of the Averroists of the West, which maintained that there is only human soul
for all mankind.

Notes:
1. We pass the scholastic doctrine concerning the constitution of the heavenly bodies, for the
sake of brevity.
2. "An accident need not be accidental in our use of the word, but it must be incidental to some
being or substance." -- Wicksteed, Ph.H. The reactions between dogma and philosophy,
illustrated from the works of S. Thomas Aquinas. London, 1920, p. 421.
3. It is clear from the above that substance is not quite the same as essence. Substance has its
own essence, and accidents have theirs.
4. De tempore, cap. 2.
5. Concrete space and time just discussed are altogether different from ideal space and time,
which, by a process of abstraction and universalization, are separated from all relation to our
universe and can be applied mentally to an indefinite number of possible worlds.
6. It is based ultimately upon an unchangeable relation with God, whose perfection it imitates.

Philosophy of Nature, Philosophy of the Soul, Metaphysics

Introduction
This part comprises selections that pertain to the second main philosophical discipline in
Augustine’s division, which in the Dialectica Monacensis (selection number 2) comprehends all
“real sciences,” i.e., all disciplines that theoretically study the nature of reality, as opposed to the
self-reflective/regulative study of the operations of reason in logic, and to the prac-
tical/normative considerations in ethics.
Accordingly, the first section contains selections that present the generally presumed
conceptual framework for studying the nature of reality in medieval philosophy, namely,
Aristotelian hylomorphism, and the discussion of some important problems related to this
general framework in connection with natural philosophy. The selections of the second section
deal with the nature of the human soul, an entity of particular importance, not only because it
constitutes our nature, but also because of its peculiar place in the overall scheme of reality,
situated as it is on the (presumed) borderline between material and immaterial reality. The

41
selections of the third section deal with this overall scheme of reality, as it is the proper subject
of the most universal metaphysical considerations. Finally, the selections of the last section deal
specifically with what we can know by natural reason about the origin and end of this reality,
i.e., the existence and nature of God.
The first selection of the first section is the complete text of Aquinas’ De Principiis
Naturae (“On the Principles of Nature”). This short treatise provides an ideal introduction to the
basic concepts and principles of Aristotelian hylomorphist metaphysics and philosophy of
nature. Besides its obvious virtues of succinctness and clarity, what is truly remarkable about
Aquinas’s presentation is that it makes quite clear how the principles and conceptual distinctions
introduced here are generally applicable regardless of our particular scientific, physical
explanations of the phenomena that we think instantiate them. For example, it is always
universally true that a substantial change results in the ceasing to be of one thing and the coming
to be of another, whereas in an accidental change the same thing persists, only in a different state
than it was before the change.
The universal applicability of the conceptual apparatus developed here renders it a
powerful tool in the analysis of all sorts of natural phenomena regardless of our theories
concerning the particular mechanisms that account for those phenomena. For the level of
generality in these considerations concerns any possible natural change and its conditions as
such, abstracting precisely from the particular mechanisms that account for the specific
characteristics of this or that phenomenon. This is the reason why Aquinas’s solution to a
problem of Aristotelian natural philosophy presented in the next selection (concerning the
presence of elements in mixed bodies or what we would call compounds) is equally applicable
whether we take the elements in question to be the four Aristotelian elements or the elements of
the modern Periodic Table. Indeed, this is also why the same conceptual apparatus is equally
applicable to phenomena we still do not understand in detail, such as psychological phenomena.
However, this apparently unlimited universal applicability of these principles invites
their application to phenomena concerning which religious doctrine makes some explicit claims,
such as the creation of the world ex nihilo (from nothing), or the possibility of vari- ous miracles
by divine omnipotence that are apparently excluded by the principles of Aristotelian metaphysics
and natural philosophy. This inevitably leads to the conflicts between Aristotelian philosophy
and religious dogma cataloged in the next selection, which come from De Erroribus
Philosophorum (“The Errors of Philosophers”) dubiously attributed to Aquinas’ student, Giles of
Rome. Whether or not it is the authentic work of Giles, the systematic presentation, useful
summaries of the main doctrinal points criticized, and their reduction to their principles make
this short treatise a particularly useful source for studying the doctrinal conflicts of the period.
The selection in this volume only reproduces the critique of Aristotle, Avicenna, and Averroes
(although the complete work also deals with Algazel, Alkindi, and Maimonides).
However, the most important document of the “official reaction” to these conflicts is still
the text of the 1277 Paris Condemnation, reproduced in part in the next selection. As has already
been indicated in the General Introduction, the sweeping Condemnation primarily targeted the
radical Aristotelianism of the Latin Averroists, but it also touched on some of the theses of
Aquinas, especially those connected to his conception of matter as the principle of individuation.
The relevant theses of the Condemnation are indicated by an ‘A’ added to their number in the
present selection.
By the late medieval period, Aristotelian physics came to be criticized for more than only
theological or arcane metaphysical reasons. The last selection of this section presents Buridan’s
criticism of the Aristotelian principle that motion requires the activity of an actual mover, which
does not appear to be the case in the motion of projectiles (i.e., in cases that we would
characterize in modern physics as inertial motion). Buridan produces a barrage of arguments
against Aristotle’s own solution to the problem (provided in terms of the motion of the
surrounding air), based on keen observation and careful reasoning. Buridan’s own solution, in
terms of the postulation of an impressed force, the so-called impetus, proved to be enormously

42
influential, up until Galileo’s time. Although this seems to be just a par- ticular problem for
Aristotelian physics, Buridan’s solution has far-reaching implications for metaphysics and
natural theology. For if motion can be present without an actual mover (as is clearly the case if
its impetus can move a body long after the mover has let it go), then the existence of motion in
the universe cannot provide evidence for the actual existence and activity of the ultimate source
of this motion. Therefore, Buridan’s impetus theory poses a serious challenge to the Aristotelian
argument for the existence of a prime mover, adapted by many (indeed, practically all)
thirteenth-century theologians and philosophers for pro- ving the existence of God.
The selections of the second section deal with human nature and the human soul. The
brief selections from Augustine are meant to illustrate his Platonic conception of human nature,
according to which a human person is nothing but a soul ruling a human body. That the soul and
body are two distinct entities and a human being is a composite of the two is not something
Augustine feels the need to argue for. As a result, he has to deal with something like the modern,
post-Cartesian “interaction problem,” the problem of how the material body can act on the
immaterial soul (in sense perception), and how the immaterial soul can act on the material body
(in voluntary action). It is quite telling, however, that Augustine only has the first half of this
problem: what he finds problematic is the body’s action on the soul; the soul’s ability to move
the body is not an issue for him. The reason is that he does not have among his assumptions the
idea of the causal closure of a (mechanistic) physical universe usually assumed in post-Cartesian
thought. After all, for him all physical phenomena are just manifestations of God’s continuous
creative and sustaining activity, and so, just as God rules the material world in the macrocosm of
nature, so does the soul rule its body in the microcosm of human nature. Thus, voluntary acts are
just manifestations of the soul’s power to move the body, just as the movement of the heavenly
bodies is a manifestation of God’s power to move the entire universe. But perception poses a
problem precisely because of this conception of causality in terms of ruling or dominance. For
that which is subordinate in this asymmetrical relation cannot affect that which dominates it.
Augustine’s solution in terms of the soul’s attention required by the resistance of the body to its
rule quite elegantly deals with this problem, but his rather skeletal conception leaves a great deal
unanswered. So it is no wonder that after the arrival of Aristotle’s detailed and sophisticated
theory of the soul in general and of the human soul in particular, Augustine’s conception exerted
a somewhat oblique influence within a generally Aristotelian conceptual framework, in the form
of Augustinian theologians’ endorsement of the idea of a plurality of substantial forms in the
same individual (i.e., the doctrine that the same individual substance has several substantial
forms; say, in a human person there would be a form accounting for her corporeal features, such
as being extended in space, another one accounting for her vegetative functions, a vegetative or
nutritive soul, another accounting for her sensitive functions, a sensitive soul, and yet another
accounting for her rationality, a rational soul, although some authors would take only two or
three of these to be really distinct from each other).
In the Aristotelian framework, the soul (in Latin, anima) is simply the principle of life:
that which animates any living – that is, animate – being. So, the soul is that on account of which
a living being is alive. And since for a living being to live is for it to be, absolutely speaking, to
have its substantial being, and since that on account of which something has its substantial being
is its substantial form, it follows that the soul of a living being is its substantial form. Note how
this conception can get around the “interaction problem”: since the soul and body are not two
distinct entities acting on each other, but are rather the essential, integral parts of primary
substances (which are the primary agents in causal relations), the question is not what sort of
causal mechanisms can account for the interaction between body and soul; rather, the question
will be what sort of causal powers living bodies informed by their peculiar substantial forms
must have in order to perform their vital functions. So, plant-souls obviously need to have
powers for nutrition, growth, and self-reproduction, more developed brute animal souls must
have in addition powers of perception, memory, and imagination, and, finally, rational human
souls must possess in addition the rational powers of intellect and will. However, this picture

43
raises a peculiar problem in connection with the rational soul in particular: the nature of the
intellect, which enables human beings informed by this sort of soul to perform the specific
human activity of thinking.
Aristotle, in his De Anima (“On the Soul”), argued that thinking is simply not the kind of
activity that can take place in a material medium: given that the intellect is able to think all
material natures, the intellect itself cannot have a material nature, for otherwise its material
nature would prevent it from thinking any other material nature, in the way any color in the eye
itself would prevent it from seeing any other colors.1
To be sure, medieval philosophers and theologians certainly welcomed this conclusion,
along with the further conclusion that the intellect is therefore immortal, for if the intellect is
immaterial, then it is naturally capable of surviving the death (i.e., the disintegration of the
material organization) of the body. But then the inevitable question is just how this immaterial
intellect is related to the material body, indeed, to the material substantial form of this body, the
rational soul.
The following selections from Averroës and Siger of Brabant, respectively, address this
issue in the manner already indicated in the General Introduction. Accepting Aristotle’s
conclusion about the immateriality of the intellect, Averroës and Siger conclude that it cannot be
a form inherent in matter; so, it must be a subsistent form (a form for which to be is not for it to
inform matter); therefore, it must be a separate substance. Indeed, if the intellect is a form
existing separately from matter, then, given the Aristotelian conception of individuation
(according to which distinct instances of specifically the same form can only be distinct on
account of the distinct parcels of matter they inform), it follows that there can be only one
separate intellect shared by all humans. This conception, of course, raises a host of philosophical
and theological problems, which invited both the official censure of the several condemnations
mentioned in the General Introduction, and the severe philosoph- ical and theological criticisms
of the Averroistic position. One of the main critics was Aquinas, who, in the last question of
selection number 27, provides precisely the sort of argument that Siger at the end of the previous
selection admits he has no answer for.
But Aquinas was also treading a fine line in his own solution to the problem. Rejecting
the Augustinian thesis of the plurality of substantial forms as metaphysically untenable (because,
he argued in accordance with the doctrine of his De Principiis Naturae (“On the Principles of
Nature”), a substantial form makes a thing actually existent absolutely speaking, and so any
other form the thing can have can only be its accident making it actual in some respect), Aquinas
has to say that the intellective soul is both the substantial form of the body and a subsistent
entity, having its own operation in which it does not communicate with the body. But how is this
possible? After all, if the human soul is the form of the body, then it is a material form: for it to
be is for it to inform matter. On the other hand, if it is a subsistent form, then it has to be an
immaterial form: for it to be is not for it to inform matter. Can there possibly be a middle ground
between these apparently diametrically opposed characterizations? The answer is yes, if we
consider that it is quite possible for the soul to have the same act of being that is the being of the
body (and which is the same as the life of a living human being) as long as the soul informs the
body, and to retain this same act of being after its separation from the body, provided we allow
the possibility that the being of the soul is merely contingently, but not necessarily, identical
with the being of the body.
But Aquinas’ arguments from the proper, immaterial operation of the intellective soul are
designed to establish precisely this conclusion, namely, that the existence that the soul has in the
body is also the existence that properly belongs to the soul itself, whence the soul can have this
same act of being after its separation from the body, provided we allow the possibility that the
being of the soul is merely contingently, but not necessarily, identical with the being of the body.
But Aquinas’ arguments from the proper, immaterial operation of the intellective soul are
designed to establish precisely this conclusion, namely, that the existence that the soul has in the

44
body is also the existence that properly belongs to the soul itself, whence the soul can have this
same act of existence whether in or without the body.
1 For a detailed discussion of this argument, along with another argument for the
immateriality of the intellect in Aquinas, see G. Klima, “Aquinas’s Proofs of the
Immateriality of the Intellect from the Universality of Thought,” Proceedings of the
Society for Medieval Logic and Metaphysics,
<http://www.fordham.edu/gsas/phil/klima/SMLM/PSMLM1.pdf>, 1 (2001), pp.
19–28. See also Robert Pasnau’s comments and a rejoinder in the same volume, pp.
29 –36 and pp. 37– 44, respectively.
It is the same position that is defended by John Buridan in the question presented here
from his questions on Aristotle’s De Anima. The important difference between Aquinas’ and
Buridan’s approaches, however, is that Buridan takes this position to be established by faith
alone.2
The selections of the next section present a sampling of general metaphysical considerations,
which prepare the ground for the selections of the last section in this part, which deal with
God’s existence and what is supposed to be knowable about God by reason alone.
The brief selections from Avicenna are those passages that spelled out the most
fundamental idea for practically all medieval thinkers in thirteenth-century metaphysics: the
moderate realist conception of how common natures exist individuated both in the particulars
that instantiate them and in the individual minds that can nevertheless comprehend them in
abstraction from their individuating conditions. Acknowledging the formal unity of these
instances (both in the mind and in the particulars) of the same common nature, without,
however, ascribing independent existence and numerical unity to this nature, is nothing but the
affirmation of the idea of “pervasive formal unity” discussed in the General Introduction.
It is this fundamental idea, among other things, that is articulated in careful detail in
Aquinas’ “metaphysical gem,” his De Ente et Essentia (“On Being and Essence”), reproduced
here in full. Aquinas’ succinct, yet comprehensive, discussion takes us through his entire meta-
physical system. Of particular importance are his discussions of the various sorts of
metaphysical composition in created substances, contrasted with the absolute simplicity of God,
his lucid exposition of Avicenna’s idea of common nature in its absolute consideration and as it
exists in singular substances and singular minds, and, especially, his famous arguments for the
real distinction of essence and existence in creatures and the real identity of the same in God.
The importance of this idea will be evident in connection with the selections of the last
section of this part, dealing with proving the existence of God, and spelling out the infinite
differences between God and His creatures. So, the last selection of this section, presenting
Buridan’s arguments for the real identity of essence and existence also in creatures (an idea
already present in the thirteenth century, in Siger of Brabant, Godfrey of Fontaines, and Henry
of Ghent, among others), quite clearly indicates the sort of metaphysical challenges Aquinas’
conception has to face in a different conceptual framework that would not spell out the dis-
tinction between Creator and creatures in terms of Aquinas’ thesis of the real distinction of
essence and existence in creatures.
The first short selection of the last section, from Augustine’s De Trinitate (“On Trinity”),
illustrates Augustine’s conception of divine simplicity and presents his solution to the problem
of how certain predications can come to be and cease to be true of God without His change
(which is excluded by His simplicity).
2 For an excellent, thorough discussion of the finer details of Buridan’s position see J.
Zupko, “On Buridan’s Alleged Alexandrianism: Heterodoxy and Natural
Philosophy in Fourteenth-Century Paris,” Vivarium 42/1 (2004), pp. 42–57.
The next set of selections presents Anselm’s arguments concerning the existence and
nature of God, from both his Monologion and his Proslogion, along with selections from his
debate with Gaunilo over the latter argument.

45
 Finally, the last set of selections from Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae presents some key
texts from his natural theology concerning the provability of God’s existence (containing his
criticism of Anselm’s approach), his actual proofs of God’s existence, and some of his
considerations concerning how we can meaningfully talk about God, despite despite our
inability to comprehend His essence.
There is a sharp contrast between Aquinas’ and Anselm’s approaches to the same issues,
despite some fundamental agreements between them. Aquinas finds Anselm’s a priori approach
in his Proslogion unpersuasive, because he clearly sees, just as Gaunilo did, that the mere
linguistic understanding of Anselm’s description of God as that than which nothing greater can
be conceived cannot provide a logical short-cut to the requisite conception of God without which
Anselm’s reasoning cannot work.3 Thus, Aquinas opted for his a posteriori approach, which,
however, is very intimately tied to his Aristotelian physical and metaphysical principles that can
be open to attack from many different angles, especially from different conceptual frameworks.
Nevertheless, the fundamental idea of these arguments is still quite appealing to many
philosophers who have seriously engaged with Aquinas’ thought. For if anything and every-
thing in the world depends for its existence on something, and everything in the world is just a
receiver, transformer, and transmitter of the energy needed for its own sustenance and for the
sustenance of those it sustains, then it seems a plausible idea that anything in this world can exist
only if there is a genuine, ultimate source of this energy, which itself does not need any
sustenance, and which, therefore, is not something in this world. Aquinas’ thesis of the real
distinction between the existence and essence of creatures and the identity of the same in God
was devised precisely to provide the metaphysical grounds for this idea, the idea of the radical
dependency of everything in this world for its existence on something that cannot be a thing in
this world.
3 For a detailed analysis of Anselm’s argument and Aquinas’s reaction along these
lines, see G. Klima, “Saint Anselm’s Proof,” in G. Hintikka (ed.), Medieval
Philosophy and Modern Times (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2000),
pp. 69 – 88.

Hylomorphism, Causality, Natural Philosophy

Thomas Aquinas on the Principles of Nature

Chapter 1
Note that something can be, even if it is not, while something [simply] is. That which
[only] can be [but is not] is said to be in potentiality, whereas that which already exists is said to
be in actuality. But there are two kinds of being. There is the essential or substantial being of the
thing, as for a man to be, and this is just to be, without any qualification. The other kind of being
is accidental being, as for a man to be white, and this is [not just to be, but] to be somehow.1
It is with respect to both kinds of being that something is in potentiality. For something is
in potentiality toward being a man, as the sperm and the menstrual blood; and some- thing is in
potentiality toward being white, as a man. Both that which is in potentiality in respect of
substantial being and that which is in potentiality in respect of accidental being can be said to be
matter, as the sperm can be said to be the matter of man and the man the matter of whiteness.
But they differ in that the matter that is in potentiality in respect of substantial being is called
matter from which [something is made – materia ex qua], while that which is in potentiality in
respect of accidental being is called matter of which [something is made – materia in qua].2
The contrast in the Latin is that between esse, to be, absolutely speaking, and esse
aliquid, literally, to be something. But since Aquinas’ point here is the contrast between
the substantial being of a thing on account of which it exists as a substance of some kind
and its accidental being on account of which it is in a way, say, as being of such and such
a shape, size, color, etc., the idea is better brought out in English by contrasting being
absolutely with being somehow.

46
 The literal rendering of the distinction in Latin (between materia ex qua and in
qua, i.e., matter “from which” and “in which” something is made, respectively) would
not be as helpful as the existing English distinction between matter that a thing is “made
from” and matter that it is “made of.” The former member of the existing distinctions in
both languages indicates the transient matter of a thing, that from which it is made
through some substantial transformation of this matter. This is how we say that bread is
made from flour. But we cannot say that the bread is made of flour. The latter
construction indicates the permanent matter of the thing, which is actually present in the
constitution of the thing as long as the thing exists. This is how we say that a statue is
made of bronze ( but, again, a bronze statue is made from tin and copper).
Again, properly speaking, what is in potentiality toward accidental being is called a
subject, while that which is in potentiality toward substantial being is properly called matter.
And it is significant that what is in potentiality toward accidental being is called a subject, for we
say that an accident is in a subject, while of a substantial form we do not say that it is in a
subject.3
So, matter differs from subject in that a subject does not have being from what comes to
it, as it has complete being in itself. For example, a man does not have his being [absolutely
speaking] from his whiteness. Matter, however, does have its being from what comes to it, for
matter in itself does not have complete being, but incomplete [i.e., merely potential] being.
Therefore, form gives being to matter, absolutely speaking, but the subject gives being to the
accident, even if sometimes one term is taken for the other, i.e. “matter” for “subject,” and vice
versa.
Again, just as everything that is in potentiality can be called matter, so everything from
which something has being, whether accidental or substantial being, can be called a form; just as
a man, who is white in potentiality, will be actually white on account of whiteness, and the
sperm, which is a man in potentiality, will be actually a man on account of the soul. And since
form makes something actual, form is also called actuality. That which makes something actual
in accidental being is accidental form, and that which makes something actual in substantial
being is substantial form.
Since generation is motion toward form, to these two kinds of form there correspond two
kinds of generation: to substantial form there corresponds generation absolutely speaking, while
to accidental form there corresponds generation with qualification. For when the substantial
form is introduced, something is said to come to be, without further qualification. But when an
accidental form is introduced, we do not say that something comes to be, without qualification,
but that something comes to be this; just as when a man becomes white, we do not say that he
comes to be, absolutely speaking, but that he comes to be white. And to these two kinds of
generation there correspond two kinds of corruption, namely corruption in an absolute sense, and
corruption with qualification. Generation and corruption absolutely speaking are only in the
category of substance, while those with qualification are in the other categories.
This is an allusion to Aristotle’s doctrine in the Categories, where he
distinguishes substance and accident in terms of not being in or being in a subject.
Aquinas’ point here is that strictly speaking it is only an accident that can be said to be in
a subject, namely, in an actually existing substance that has its actual substantial being
whether it actually has this accident or not. A substantial form, by contrast, cannot exist
in a subject in this strict sense, for what it informs cannot have actual substantial
existence without this form, since it has this actual existence precisely on account of
actually having this form. Accordingly, a substantial form is not an accident, although it
is not a complete substance either: it is a substantial part of a complete substance, along
with the matter of this substance it informs.
Again, this is an allusion to Aristotle’s doctrine of the Categories. Substantial
change takes place only in the category of substance, i.e., with respect to substantial
forms signified by terms falling into the logical category of substance. Accidental

47
 changes take place with respect to accidental forms signified by terms classified under
one or the other of the categories of accidents. In his Physics, Aristotle also argues that
primarily there is accidental change only in the categories of quantity (augmentation or
diminution), quality (alteration), and place (locomotion). All other accidental changes
take place on account of these primary changes: for example, the relational changes of
becoming unequal or dissimilar obviously take place on account of the quantitative or
qualitative change in one or the other of the things that started out as equal or similar.
And since generation is a kind of mutation from non-being into being, and corruption,
conversely, should be from being to non-being, generation starts not from just any kind of non-
being, but from a non-being that is a being in potentiality: for example, a statue is generated
from bronze, which can be a statue, but is not actually a statue.
So, for generation three things are required: a being in potentiality, which is matter, non-
being in actuality, which is privation, and that by which the thing will be actual, namely form.
For example, when, from bronze, a statue is formed, the bronze, which is in poten- tiality toward
the form of the statue, is matter; its shapelessness is called privation; and its shape, on account of
which it is called a statue, is its form, though not its substantial form, for the bronze was already
actual even before the introduction of this form or shape, and its existence does not depend on
this shape, but is an accidental form. For all artificial forms are accidental, because art works
only on what is supplied by nature already in complete existence.

Chapter 2
So, there are three principles of nature, namely matter, form, and privation, of which one
is that to which generation proceeds, namely form, and the other two are that from which
generation proceeds. Therefore, matter and privation are the same in their subject, but differ in
their concepts. For the very same thing that is bronze is shapeless before the advent of the form;
but it is for different reasons that it is called bronze and shapeless.
Therefore, privation is called a principle not per se [on its own account] but per accidens
[by coincidence], namely, because it coincides with matter, just as we say that this is per
accidens: the doctor builds a house, for he builds not on account of being a doctor, but as a
builder, who happens to be a doctor.
But there are two kinds of accidents: namely necessary [accident], which is not separated
from its subject, as risibility 5 from man, and not necessary [accident], for example, white- ness,
which can be separated from man.6 Therefore, although privation is a principle per accidens, it
does not follow that it is not required for generation, because matter is never stripped of
privation; for insofar as it is under one form, it has the privation of another and, conversely, as in
fire there is the privation of the form of air.7
“Risible”: capable of laughter. See “John Buridan on the Predicables” (selection
no. 8, n. 1 above).
This is an allusion to Porphyry’s doctrine in his Isagoge, where he distinguishes
inseparable and separable accidents. For although accidents may or may not belong to the
same subject without the corruption of that subject according to Porphyry’s definition,
some accidents are naturally inseparable from their subjects, although their subjects can
be conceived to exist without those accidents (so, in their case the “may” in the
Porphyrian definition should be understood as mere logical possibility, as opposed to
some genuine natural potentiality).
Privation is the logically necessary starting point of any coming-to-be (for if the
thing already had the opposite form, then it could not come to have that form). Yet
privation merely coincides with the principle that renders change naturally possible,
namely, matter. For an amorphous lump of bronze is able to become a statute through its
own change not on account of the fact that it does not have the shape of the statue (for
otherwise everything that does not have that shape, say, an angel or the square root of
two, would have to be able to do so), but on account of its natural ability to take on and

48
 preserve that shape. So, the per se principle of this change (that on account of which it
can occur) is the bronze, which is coincidentally ( per accidens), but logically necessarily
lacking the shape it will take on when it is shaped into a statue.
We should know that even if generation proceeds from non-being, we do not say that its
principle is negation, but that it is privation, for a negation does not determine its subject. For
that it does not see can [truly] be said also of a non-being, as [when we say that] a chimera does
not see, and also of a being that is naturally incapable of having sight, as [when we say that] a
rock does not see. But a privation can be said only of a determinate subject, in which the
opposite habit is naturally apt to occur, for example, only those things can be said to be blind
that are naturally apt to see [but actually lack sight].
And since generation does not proceed from non-being absolutely speaking, but from a
non-being in some subject, and not in just any kind of subject, but in a determinate subject (for it
is not from just any kind of non-being that fire is generated, but from that kind of non-fire in
which the form of fire is apt to come to be), we say that privation is a principle. But it differs
from the others in that the other two are principles both of being and of coming to be. For in
order that a statue is generated there has to be bronze, and in the end there has to be the form of
the statue, and, further, when the statue already exists, these two also have to exist. However,
privation is only the principle of coming to be, but not of being, for while the statue is still
coming to be, it is necessary that the statue does not yet exist. For if it already existed, it would
not be coming to be, for what is still coming to be does not yet exist, apart from processes. But
when the statue already exists, there is no privation of the shape of the statue, for affirmation and
negation cannot stand together, and similarly neither can privation and habit.
Again, privation is a principle per accidens, as was explained above, and the other two
are principles per se. From what has been said it is clear, then, that matter differs from form and
privation in its concept. For matter is that in which form and privation are thought to be, as it is
in the bronze that form and formlessness are thought to be.
Sometimes matter is named with privation, and sometimes without it. For example, the
concept of bronze, when it is the matter of the statue, does not imply privation: for when I call
something bronze, this does not imply that it is shapeless or formless. On the other hand, the
concept of flour does imply the privation of the form of bread, for when I call some- thing flour,
this does signify a shapelessness or formlessness opposite to the form of bread.
And since in the process of generation matter or the subject remains, but privation or
what is composed of matter and privation does not, that matter which does not imply privation in
its concept is permanent, while that matter which does is transient.
We should know that some matter has some form, for example, the bronze, which is
matter in respect of the statue, but bronze itself is composed of matter and form; wherefore
bronze is not called prime matter, for it has matter. But that matter which is thought of without
any kind of form or privation as subject to all forms and privations is called prime matter,
because there is no other matter before it. And this is also called hyle.
Now, since [any] definition and cognition is [obtained] by form, prime matter cannot be
cognized or defined in itself, only by comparison, as when we say that prime matter is that
which is to all forms and privations as bronze is to the form of the statue and to the lack of this
form. And this matter is called prime matter without qualification.
For something can [also] be called prime matter in respect of a genus, as water is the
prime matter of all liquids. But it is not prime matter without qualification, for it is composed of
matter and form, so it has matter prior to it.
We have to know that prime matter, as well as form, is not generated (or corrupted), for
every generation proceeds to something from something. That from which generation proceeds
is matter, and that to which generation proceeds is form. Therefore, if either matter or form were
generated, then matter would have matter and form would have form, and so on, in infinitum.
So, properly speaking, only the composite substance is generated.

49
 We also have to know that matter is said to be numerically one in all things. But some-
thing is said to be numerically one in two ways. First, that is said to be numerically one which
has one determinate form, for example Socrates; but prime matter is not said to be numerically
one in this way, for in itself it does not have any form. Second, a thing can also be said to be
numerically one because it lacks those dispositions which make things numerically different,
and it is in this way that matter is said to be numerically one.
We should know that although matter does not have in its nature some form or privation,
as in the concept of bronze neither shape nor the lack of some shape is included; nevertheless,
matter is never stripped of form or privation, for sometimes it is under one form, while
sometimes it is under another. But it can never exist in itself, because on account of its very
concept it does not have any form, whence it does not have actual existence (since something
can have actual existence only through its form), but it exists only potentially. So nothing in
actual existence can be called prime matter.

Chapter 3
From what has been said it is clear, then, that there are three principles of nature, namely
matter, form, and privation. But these three are insufficient for generation, for nothing drives
itself into actuality, for example a chunk of bronze, which is in potentiality to become a statue,
does not make itself into an actual statue, but it needs an agent that brings out the form of the
statue from potentiality to actuality. And the form would not bring itself from potentiality into
actuality either (and I am speaking here about the form of the thing being generated, which we
call the end of the generation), for the form does not exist until it has come to be, but what is
acting is already existing during the process of generation. So, it is necessary to have another
principle beside matter and form, namely, something that acts, and this is called the efficient or
moving cause, or the agent or the principle of motion. And since, as Aristotle says in the second
book of his Metaphysics, whatever acts does so only intending something, there has to be also a
fourth [principle], namely that which is intended by the agent, and this is called the end.
We have to know, however, that every agent, natural as well as voluntary, intends some
end. But from this it does not follow that all agents recognize this end, or deliberate about the
end. For to recognize the end is necessary only for those agents whose acts are not determined,
but which can have alternatives for [their] action, namely, voluntary agents, who have to
recognize their ends by which they determine their actions. However, the actions of natural
agents are determined, so it is not necessary that they elect the means to an end. And this is what
Avicenna illustrates with his example of the guitar, which need not deliberate the plucking of its
strings, as these are determined for it [by the player], for otherwise there would be delays
between the single sounds, which would result in dissonance.
Now a voluntary agent rather appears to deliberate than a natural agent. So, [since even a
voluntary agent may act without deliberation,] it follows by locus a maiori8 that it is possible for
a natural agent to intend some end without deliberation. And this kind of intending an end is
nothing, but having a natural inclination toward it.
8 Aquinas alludes here to a dialectical topic (a form of probable argument discussed
by Aristotle in his Topics, his logical work on probable reasoning). The locus a maiori
apparentia (the topic from greater appearance) relies on the following maxim (a general
observation that licenses a probable inference): if a thing that is more likely to have an
attribute than another does not have it, then the other does possible for a natural agent to
intend some end without deliberation. And this kind of intend- ing an end is nothing, but
having a natural inclination toward it.
From what has been said, then, it is clear that there are four kinds of causes, namely,
material, efficient, formal, and final. And although the terms “principle” and “cause” can be used
interchangeably, as is stated in the fifth book of the Metaphysics, in the Physics Aristotle
distinguished four causes and three principles. For [there] he took causes to comprise both
extrinsic and intrinsic ones. Now matter and form are said to be intrinsic to the thing, for they are

50
constituent parts of the thing; but the efficient and the final cause are said to be extrinsic, for
they are outside of the thing. But [in this passage of the Physics] he took only the intrinsic causes
to be principles. On the other hand, privation is not counted among the causes, for privation is a
per accidens principle, as we said. So, when we speak about the four causes, we mean the per se
causes, but also per accidens causes are reduced to the per se ones, for whatever is per accidens
is reduced to what is per se.
But even if in the first book of his Physics Aristotle takes intrinsic causes for principles,
nevertheless, as he says in the eleventh book of his Metaphysics, properly speaking the extrinsic
causes are principles and the intrinsic causes that are parts of the thing are elements, and both
can be called causes. But sometimes these terms are used interchangeably. For every cause can
be called a principle and every principle can be called a cause, though the concept of cause
seems to add something to that of principle in its ordinary sense, for whatever is first can be
called a principle,9 whether there results some existence from it or not. For example, a craftsman
can be called the principle of a knife, as from his work there results the being of the knife. But
when something turns from black to white, then we can say that blackness is the principle
[beginning] of this change – and generally speaking everything from which some change begins
can be called a principle – still, from this blackness there did not result the being of whiteness.
But only that first thing is called a cause from which there follows the being of a posterior thing;
so we say that a cause is something from the being of which there follows the being of
something else.
For this reason, that first thing from which the motion starts cannot be called a cause per
se, even if it is a principle, whence privation is counted among principles, but not among causes,
for privation is that from which generation starts. But [privation] can also be called a cause per
accidens, insofar as it coincides with matter, as was explained earlier.
However, only those things are properly called elements that are causes of which the
thing is composed, which are properly material, and not just any material causes, but only those
of which the thing is primarily composed. We do not say, for example, that his limbs are the
elements of a man, for the limbs themselves are also composed of others; but we do say that
earth and water are elements, for these are not composed of other bodies, but it is from them that
all natural bodies are primarily composed. Therefore, Aristotle in the fifth book of the
Metaphysics says that an element is something from which a thing is primarily composed, is in
the thing, and is not divided according to form.
not have it either. The maxim, therefore, licenses the inference from the lack of
an attribute in some- thing that would be more likely to have it, i.e., concerning which
there would be a greater appearance (maior apparentia) that it would have this attribute,
to the lack of the same attribute in something else that is less likely to have it. For
example, if a math teacher assigns a problem to his students that even he cannot solve,
his students can argue that they should not be expected to solve it, relying on this form of
argument. For in this case there is a greater appearance that the teacher should be able to
solve the problem, based on his greater knowledge and experience. But if he cannot solve
it, then the maxim licenses the conclusion that his students (who are less likely to solve a
problem than he is) cannot solve it either. Likewise, if voluntary agents can intend
something without deliberation, then involuntary agents can also intend something
without deliberation.
9 In its ordinary, common, sense, the Latin word principium from which the
English word ‘principle’ derives simply denotes the beginning or first member of any
series of items that earth and water are elements, for these are not composed of other
bodies, but it is from them that all natural bodies are primarily composed. Therefore
Aristotle in the fifth book of the Metaphysics says that an element is something from
which a thing is primarily composed, is in the thing, and is not divided according to
form.

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 The first part of this definition, namely, “something from which a thing is primarily
composed,” is evident from what has been just said. The second part, namely, “is in the thing,” is
put here to distinguish elements from that kind of matter which is totally corrupted in generation.
For example, bread is the matter of blood, but blood is not generated, unless the bread from
which it is generated passes away; so the bread does not remain in the blood, whence bread
cannot be said to be an element of blood. But elements somehow have to remain, since they do
not pass away, as it is said in the book On Coming To Be and Passing Away. The third part,
namely, that an element is not divided according to form, is meant to distinguish an element
from those things that have parts different in form, i.e., in species, as, for example, a hand, the
parts of which are flesh and bones, which are different in species. But an element is not divided
into parts that differ in species, as water, of which every part is water. For it is not required for
something to be an element that it should be indivisible in quantity, but it is sufficient, if it is not
divisible according to species; but if something is indivisible also in this way, then it is also
called an element, as letters are called the elements of expressions. So, it is clear that “principle”
covers more than “cause,” and “cause” more than “element.” And this is what the Commentator
says in commentary on the fifth book of the Metaphysics.

Chapter 4
Having seen that there are four genera of causes, we have to know that it is not
impossible for the same thing to have several causes, as for a statue, the causes of which are both
the bronze and the sculptor, but the sculptor as efficient, while the bronze as its matter. Nor is it
impossible for the same thing to be the cause of contraries. For example, the pilot can be the
cause both of the salvation and of the sinking of the ship, but of the one by his presence, while of
the other by his absence. We also have to know that it is possible that something be both cause
and effect in respect of the same thing, but not in the same way: for walking is the cause of
health as its efficient, but health is the cause of walking as its end: for we take a walk sometimes
for the sake of our health. Again, the body is the matter of the soul, while the soul is the form of
the body. Also, the efficient is said to be the cause of the end, for the end comes to be by the
operation of the agent, but the end is the cause of the efficient, insofar as the agent operates only
for the sake of the end. Whence the efficient is the cause of the thing that is the end, say, health;
but it does not cause the end to be the end; as the doctor causes health, but he does not cause
health to be the end. On the other hand, the end is not the cause of the thing that is the efficient,
but is the cause for the efficient to be efficient: for health does not cause the doctor to be a doctor
(and I am speaking about the health that is produced by the operation of the doctor), but it causes
the doctor to be efficient, so the end is the cause of the causality of the efficient, for it causes the
efficient to be efficient, and similarly, it causes matter to be matter and form to be form, for
matter does not receive form, except for the sake of the end, and form does not perfect matter,
except for the sake of the end. Whence it is said that the end is the cause of all causes, for it is
the cause of the causality of all causes. For matter is said to be the cause of form, insofar as the
form exists only in matter; and similarly, form is the cause of matter, insofar as matter has actual
existence only by the form. For matter and form are correlatives, as is said in the second book of
Physics. They are related to the composite substance, however, as parts and as simple to
composite.
But since every cause insofar as it is a cause is naturally prior to its effect, we should
know that something is called “prior” in two ways, as Aristotle says in the sixteenth book of his
On Animals. And on account of this diversity something can be called both prior and posterior in
respect of the same thing, and both cause and effect. For something is said to be prior to
something else in respect of generation and time, and again, in respect of substance and
completion. Now since the operation of nature proceeds from what is imperfect to what is
perfect and from what is incomplete to what is complete, what is imperfect is prior to what is
perfect in respect of generation and time, but what is perfect is prior in completion. So we can
say that a man is prior to a boy in substance and perfection, but the boy is prior to the man in

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generation and time. But although among generable things that which is imperfect is prior to
what is perfect, and potentiality is prior to act (considering the same thing that is imperfect prior
to becoming perfect, and is in potentiality prior to becoming actual), nevertheless, absolutely
speaking, what is actual and perfect is necessarily prior: for what reduces that which is in
potentiality to actuality is in actuality, and what perfects the imperfect, is itself perfect. Now
matter is prior to form in generation and time: for that to which something is coming is prior to
what is coming to it. Form, however, is prior to matter in perfection, since matter has no
complete existence, except by the form. Similarly, the efficient is prior to the end in generation
and time, for it is from the efficient that motion starts toward the end. But the end is prior to the
efficient, insofar as it is efficient, in substance and completion, for the action of the efficient is
completed only by the end. So these two causes, namely, matter and the efficient, are prior in
generation; but the form and the end are prior in perfection.
And we should note that there are two kinds of necessity: absolute necessity and
conditional necessity. Absolute necessity proceeds from those causes that are prior in generation,
which are matter and the efficient: for example, the necessity of death derives from matter and
the disposition of the contrary components of the body; and this is called absolute, because it
cannot be impeded. And this type of necessity is also called the necessity of matter. Conditional
necessity, on the other hand, proceeds from those causes that are posterior in generation, namely,
form and the end. For example, we say that conception is necessary, if a man is to be generated;
and this is conditional, for it is not absolutely necessary for this woman to conceive, but under
this condition, namely, that if a man is to be generated. And this is called the necessity of the
end.
We should also know that three causes can coincide, namely the form, the end, and the
efficient, as is clear in the generation of fire. For fire generates fire, so fire is the efficient,
insofar as it generates; again, fire is form, insofar as it makes actual that was previously
potential, and again, it is the end, insofar as it is intended by the agent, and insofar as the
operation of the agent is terminated in it. But there are two kinds of ends, namely the end of
generation and the end of the thing generated, as is clear in the generation of a knife. For the
form of the knife is the end of its generation; but cutting, which is the operation of the knife, is
the end of the thing generated, namely of the knife. Now the end of generation sometimes
coincides with two of the above-mentioned causes, namely, when something is generated by
something of the same species, as when man generates man, and an olive tree generates an olive
tree. But this may not be thought to apply to the end of the thing generated.
We should know, however, that the end coincides with the form numerically, for it is
numerically the same item that is the form of the generated thing and that is the end of the
generation. But with the efficient it does not coincide numerically, but can coincide specifically.
For it is impossible for the maker and the thing made to be numerically the same, but they can be
the same specifically. For example, when a man generates a man, then the man generating and
the man generated are numerically different, but are specifically the same. However, matter does
not coincide with the others, because matter, since it is a being in potentiality, is by its very
nature imperfect, while the other causes, since they are actual, are by their nature perfect; but
what is perfect and what is imperfect never coincide.

Chapter 5
Having seen that there are four kinds of causes, namely, efficient, material, formal, and
final, we have to know that each of these kinds is divided in various ways. For some causes are
called prior and some are called posterior, as when we say that the art of medicine and the doctor
are both causes of health, but the art is the prior, while the doctor is the posterior cause; and
similar distinctions apply in the case of the formal cause and the other kinds of causes.
Note here that in our inquiry we always have to go back to the first cause, as when we
ask: Why is he healthy? The answer is: because the doctor cured him. And then, further: How
did he cure him? The answer is: by his knowledge of medicine. And we should know that it is

53
the same thing to say that a cause is posterior and that it is proximate, or that a cause is prior and
that it is remote. So these two divisions of causes, namely, into prior vs. posterior and into
proximate vs. remote, signify the same. But we should know that the more universal cause is
always called the remote cause and the more specific cause is called the proximate cause. For
example, we say that the proximate form of man is what his definition signifies, namely rational,
mortal animal, but his more remote form is animal and the even more remote one is substance.
For all superiors are forms of the inferiors. Similarly, the pro- ximate matter of the statue is
bronze, while the more remote is metal and the even more remote one is body.10
Again, some causes are per se, others are per accidens. A per se cause of a thing is its
cause insofar as it is such, as the builder [insofar as he is a builder] is the cause of the house, or
the wood [insofar as it is wood] is the matter of the bench. A cause per accidens is one that
coincides with the cause per se, as when we say that the doctor is building. For the doctor is a
cause per accidens of the building, because he is building not insofar as he is a doctor, but
insofar as he coincides with the builder. And the situation is similar in all other cases.
Again, some causes are simple, some are composite. Something is called a simple cause,
when it is named only by the name of the per se cause, or only by the name of the per accidens
cause, as when we say that the builder is the cause of the building, and similarly when we say
that the doctor is the cause of the building. But a cause is called composite, when we name it by
the name of both, as when we say that the builder-doctor is the cause of the building.
10 Although Aquinas exemplifies his claim in the case of formal and material causes, the
same type of correlation between priority and universality can be observed in the case of
efficient causes as well: the more remote, that is, prior cause is always more universal
(i.e., acting in virtue of a more universal form, and so affecting a more extensive class of
particulars). Therefore, if there is an absolutely first efficient cause, then it has to be the
most universal cause, i.e., the absolutely universal cause of all beings (other than itself )
as such.

But, according to Avicenna’s exposition, something can also be called a simple cause, if
it is a cause without the addition of anything else, as bronze is the cause of the statue, for the
statue is made of bronze without the addition of any other matter, or when we say that the doctor
causes health, or the fire causes heat. We have a composite cause, however, when several things
need to come together to constitute the cause; for example, one man cannot be the cause of the
movement of a ship [by towing it], but many can, or one stone cannot be the matter of a house,
but many stones can.
Again, some causes are actual causes, others are potential. An actual cause is one that is
actually causing the thing, as the builder when he is actually building, or the bronze, as the statue
is actually being made of it. A potential cause, on the other hand, is what is not actually causing
the thing, but can cause it, as the builder, when he is actually not building. And we should know
that the actual cause and its effect should exist at the same time, so that if one of them exists,
then the other has to exist too.11 For if the builder is actually working, then he has to be building,
and if the act of building actually takes place, then the builder actually has to be working. But
this is not necessary in the case of merely potential causes.
We should know, further, that a universal cause is compared to a universal effect and a
singular cause is compared to a singular effect. For example, we say that a builder is the cause of
a building in general, but also that this builder is the cause of this building in particular.

Chapter 6
We should also know that we can speak about the agreements and differences of the prin-
ciples in terms of the agreements and differences of what they are the principles of. For some
things are numerically identical, as Socrates and this man, pointing to Socrates; some things are
numerically different, and specifically the same, as Socrates and Plato, who are both human, but
are numerically distinct. Again, some things differ specifically, but are generically the same, as a

54
man and a donkey, which both belong to the genus of animals; still others are the same only
analogically, as substance and quantity, which do not agree in some genus, but agree only
analogically: for they agree only in that they are beings. But being is not a genus, because it is
not predicated univocally, but analogically.
To understand this better, we have to know that it is in three different ways that some-
thing can be predicated of several things: univocally, equivocally, and analogically. Something
is predicated univocally if it is predicated by the same name and according to the same concept
or definition, as “animal” is predicated of a man and a donkey, because both [man and donkey]
are said to be animals and both are animated sensible substances, which is the definition of
animal. Something is predicated equivocally if it is predicated of several
11 An efficient cause of a thing is its actual cause only as long as it actually generates the
thing, if it is a generative cause, or as long as it actually sustains the actual being of the
thing, if it is a preservative cause. According to the medieval conception, it is in this
latter sense that God, the Creator, is the actual efficient cause of his creatures
continuously sustaining their existence in the ongoing act of continuous creation (creatio
continua), without which creatures would simply fall into nothing, just as the lights go
out if the power is turned off. It is this conception that allows the inference from the
actual existence of creatures to the actual existence of the Creator, i.e., God.

things by the same name, but according to different concepts, as “dog” is predicated both of the
barking animal and of the constellation, which agree only in this name but not in the definition
or signification of this name: for what is signified by a name is its definition, as is stated in the
fourth book of the Metaphysics. Finally, something is predicated analogically if it is predicated
of several things, the concepts of which are different, but are related to the same thing. For
example, “healthy” is said of the body of animals and of urine and of food, but it does not
signify the same in all these cases. For it is said of urine, insofar as it is a sign of health, of the
body, insofar as it is the subject of health, and of food, insofar as it is the cause of health; but all
of these concepts are related to one and the same end, namely, health. For sometimes those that
agree analogically, i.e., proportionally, or in some comparison or similitude, are related to the
same end, as is clear in the previous example, but sometimes they are related to the same agent;
for example, when “medical” is predicated of someone who operates by the knowledge of
medicine, as a doctor, or without it, as a nurse, or when it is said of some medical instrument,
always in relation to the same agent, namely the art of medicine. Again, sometimes they are
related to the same subject, as when “being” is predicated of substance, of quality, of quantity,
and of the other categories. For it is not entirely the same concept according to which a
substance is said to be a being, and a quantity, and the rest, but all these are said to be beings
only in relation to substance, which is the sub- ject of all of them. So “being” is said primarily of
substance, and only secondarily of the rest. Whence “being” is not a genus, for no genus is
predicated primarily and secondarily of its species, but “being” is predicated analogically. And
this is what we said, namely, that substance and quantity differ generically, but they are the same
analogically.

Therefore, of those things that are numerically the same, also the form and matter are
numerically the same, as Tully’s and Cicero’s. Of those things, however, that are specifically the
same, but numerically distinct, also the matter and form are numerically distinct, but specifically
the same, as Socrates’ and Plato’s. Likewise, of those things that are generically the same, also
the principles are generically the same: as the soul and the body of a donkey and of a horse
differ specifically, but are the same generically. Again, in a similar manner, of those that agree
only analogically, also the principles agree only analogically. For matter and form or potentiality
and actuality are the principles both of substance and of the other categories. But the matter of
substance and that of quantity, and similarly their forms, dif- fer generically, and agree only
analogically or proportionally in that the matter of substance is to substance as the matter of

55
quantity is to quantity. But just as substance is the cause of other categories, so the principles of
substance are the principles of the rest.

The Philosophical System of Thomas Aquinas - The Process of Change

Topics:
A. Actuality and Potentiality
Our supposition of a motionless and dead universe is after all only an artifice of our didactic
method. For it is evident that the things which we have described are actors in a cosmic drams:
they are borne on the stream of change, and nothing is motionless.
Molecules or atoms, monocellular beings or organisms, all are subject to the law of change.
Substances, together with their accidents, are constantly becoming. The oak tree develops from
an acorn, it becomes tall and massive, its vital activities are constantly subject to change, and the
tree itself will eventually disappear. So also the lion is born, develops and grows, hunts its prey,
propagates its kind, and finally dies. Again, human life, both in its embryonic and more
developed forms, is a ceaseless process of adaptation. If we wish to understand the full meaning
of reality, we must throw being into the melting pot of change. Thus, the static point of view, or
the world considered in the state of repose, must be supplemented by the dynamic point of view,
or that of the world in the state of becoming. Here we come across a further scholastic notion, --
namely, the celebrated theory of actuality and potentiality, which may well be said to form the
keystone in the vaulting of metaphysics.
This theory results from an analysis of what change in general implies. What is change? It is
a real passage from one state to another. Schoolmen reason thus:
If one being passes from state A to state B, it must possess already in state A the germ of its
future determination in state B.
It has the capacity or potentiality of becoming B, before it actually is B.
To deny this quasi-preexistence, in fact, involves the denial of the reality of change, or
evolution of things.
For, what we call change would then simply be a series of instantaneous appearances and
disappearances of realities, with no internal connection whatever between the members of
the series, each possessing a duration infinitesimally small.

The oak tree must be potentially in the acorn; if it were not there potentially, how could it
ever issue from it? On the other hand, the oak is not potentially in a pebble rolled about by the
sea, although the pebble might outwardly present a close resemblance to an acorn.
Act or actuality (actus) is any present degree of reality. Potency (potentia) is the aptitude or
capacity of reaching that stage of reality. It is imperfection and non-being in a certain sense, but
it is not mere nothing, for it is a non-being in a subject which already exists, and has within itself
the germ of the future actualization [1].
The duality of act and potency affects reality in its inmost depths, and extends to the
composition of substance and accident, matter and form.
B. The becoming of a substance
To say that a concrete substance -- for instance, this oak tree, this man -- is in a process of
becoming means that it is realizing or actualizing its potentialities. A child is already potentially
the powerful athlete he will someday become. If he is destined to become a mathematician, then
already in the cradle he possesses this aptitude or predisposition, whereas another infant is
deprived of it. All increase in quantity, all new qualities, activities exercised and undergone, all
the new relations in which the subject in question will be engaged with surrounding beings, all
its various positions in time and space, were capable of coming to existence, before being in fact.
Substance is related to its accidents like potentiality to actuality.
Viewed in the light of this theory, the doctrine of substance and accident loses its naive
appearance. A growing oak, a living man, a chemical unit, or any one of the millions of
individual beings, is an individual substance which is in a process or state of becoming,

56
inasmuch as its quantity, qualities, activities, and relations are actualizations of the potentialities
of the substance. Leibnitz was in point of fact following this Thomistic doctrine when he said:
"the present is pregnant with the future."
But while Leibnitz taught also the eternity and the immutability of substances, which called
monads, Aquinas and the Schoolmen went further into the heart of things. It is not only the
quantity or quality which changes when, for example, an oak tree grows, or its wood becomes
tougher, it is not merely its place which changes when it is transplanted, or its activities which
develop, -- in all these cases it is the substance, the oak tree, which is so to speak the subject of
these accidental changes. But the very substance of a body may be carried into the maelstrom,
and nature makes us constant witnesses of the spectacle of substantial transformation. The oak
tree dies, and from the gradual process of its decomposition there come into actual existence
chemical bodies of various kinds. Or an electric current passes through water: and behold in the
place of water we find hydrogen and oxygen.
C. Prime Matter and Substantial Form
When one substance changes into another, each has an entirely different specific nature. An
oak never changes into another oak, nor one particle of water into another. But out of a dying
oak tree, or a decomposed particle of water, are born new chemical bodies, with quite different
activities, quantities, relations, and so on. Substances differ not only in degree, but in kind.
Let us look more closely into this phenomenon of basic change from one substance into
another, or into several as in the case of water and the hydrogen and oxygen which succeed it. If
Aquinas had been asked to interpret this phenomenon, he would have said that every substance
that comes into being in this way consists ultimately of two constituent elements or substantial
parts: on the one hand, there be something common to the old state of being and the new -- to
water and hydrogen for instance -- and on the other hand there must be a specific principle
proper to each. Without a common element, found equally in the water and in the hydrogen and
oxygen, the one could not be said to 'change' into the other, for there would be no transposition
of any part of the water into the resulting elements, but rather an annihilation of the water,
followed by a sudden apparition of hydrogen and oxygen. As for the specific principle, this must
exist in each stage of the process as a peculiar and proper factor whereby the water as such
differs from the hydrogen or oxygen as such.
This brings us to the theory of "primary matter" and "substantial form" which is often
misunderstood. It is in reality nothing more than an application of the theory of actuality and
potency to the problem of the transformation of bodies: before the change, hydrogen and oxygen
were in the water potentially. The primary matter is the common, indeterminate element or
substratum, capable of receiving in succession different determinations. The substantial form
determines and specifies this potential element, and constitutes the particular thing in its
individuality and specific kind of existence. It enables it to be itself and not something else. Each
man, lion, oak tree, or chemical unit possesses its form, that is, its principle of specific and
proper reality. And this principle or form of any one thing is not reducible to that which is proper
to another. The form of an oak tree is altogether distinct from that of man, hydrogen, and so on.
D. Role of matter and form - their relation
Each thing that concerns the state of indetermination of a being follows from its prime
matter. This applies especially to quantitative extension; for, to possess quantitative parts,
scattered in space, is to be undetermined.
On the other hand, each thing that contributes to the determination of a being -- its unity, its
existence, its activities -- is in close dependence upon the formal principle. Thus form unifies the
scattered parts, it provides the substance with actual existence and is the basic root of all specific
activity.
It follows from the above that matter and form cannot be found independently of one
another in beings which are purely corporeal. They compenetrate each other like roundness and
a round thing. To speak of a prime matter existing without a form, says Thomas, is to contradict

57
oneself, for such a statement joins existence -- which is determination -- with the notion of prime
matter -- which is that of indetermination [2].
We may now come back to the conception of individual substance from which we started
(VIII, A). A corporeal being consists of two substantial parts -- matter and form -- neither of
which is complete. Only the being resulting from the union of both is a complete or individual
substance, to which belongs the proper perfection of self-sufficiency and of being
incommunicable to any other.
E. Evolution or succession of forms
The material universe presents us with a harmonious evolution. Reality mounts step by step
from one specific nature to another, following a certain definite order. Nature changes water into
hydrogen and oxygen, but it does not change a pebble into a lion; nor 'can one a saw out of
wool.' Things evolve according to certain affinities, and in a certain order, the investigation of
which is the work of the particular sciences, and calls for patient observation. If there are any
leaps in Nature, they are never capricious. Every material substance, at every stage and at every
instant, contains already the germs of what it will be in the future. This is what is meant by the
scholastic formula which states that "primary matter contains potentially, or in promise, the
series of forms with which it will be invested in the course of its evolution." Prime matter is
related to each substantial form, like potentiality to actuality. Hence, to ask, as some do, where
the forms are before their appearance, and after their disappearance, is to reveal a
misunderstanding of the scholastic system.
To sum up. Two kinds of change suffice to explain the material world. We have firstly the
development of substances already constituted; thus, an oak tree is undergoing development or
change in its activities, its quantity, qualities, and relations, but retains throughout the same
substance: the change undergone is called accidental. In the second place, we have the change of
one substance into another or into several, such as the change of an oak tree into a collection of
chemical bodies: this change is called substantial.
Thus, the evolution of the cosmos is explained as being a combinant of fixity and
movement. Beings evolve, but everything is not new: something of the past remains in the
present, and will in turn enter into the constitution of the future. The scholastic theory of the
process of change is a modified one, a via media between the absolute evolution of Heraclitus
and the theory of the fixity of essences which so much attracted Plato.
F. Principle of individuation
The theory of matter and form also explains another scholastic doctrine, that of the principle
of individuation. The problem to be solved is this: How is it possible that there should be so
many distinct individualities possessing the same substantial perfection, of 'of the same kind,' as
we say? Why are there millions upon millions of oak trees, and not only one, corresponding to
one forma querci, one 'oak tree form'? Why should there be millions of human beings instead of
one only? If everything was unique in this way, the universe would still manifest a scale of
perfection, but there would be no two material things of one and the same kind. One thing would
differ from another specifically, as the number 'three' differs from the number 'four.'
The 'monads' of Leibnitz present us with a conception of the world more or less on these
lines. But the thomist solution is more profound. It is summed up in this thesis. Extension --
which pertains to prime matter -- is the principle of individuation.
My body has the limitation of extension, and in consequence there is room for your body,
and for millions of others besides ours. An oak tree has a limited extension in space, and at the
point where it ceases to occupy space there is room for others. In other words, without extension,
or extended matter, there would be nothing which could render possible a multitude of
individuals of the same kind. For, if we consider form alone, there is no reason why there should
be a multiplication of a given form, or why one form should thus limit itself, instead of retaining
and expressing within itself all the realization of which it is capable. Forma irrecepta est
illimitata, -- "A form which is not received in anything, i.e., an isolated form, is not limited or

58
confined." But the case is different if the principle of determination is one which must take on an
extended existence.
There is an importance consequence which follows directly from this doctrine. If there exist
some beings which are not corporeal, and whose principle of reality has nothing to do with
extension and prime matter (pure forms; pure Intelligences, for instance), then no reduplication
or multiplication is possible in that realm of being. Each individual will differ from one another
as the oak-form differs from the beech-form or the hydrogen-form.
The last point explains why the problem of individuation is different from that of
individuality. Each existing being in an individuality, and therefore a Pure Intelligence if such
exists, also God, is an individuality. But individuation means a special restricted kind of
individuality, i.e., a reduplication or multiplicity of identical forms in one group; hence the term
specific groups, species.
G. Causality
The theory of cause is a complement of the theory of actuality and potentiality, for it
explains how the actualizing of a potency takes place in any given being. Causality is fourfold,
because there are four ways of regarding the factors which account for the evolution of
individual substances.
(a). The first and apparent is efficient causality. It is the action by reason of which a being A
which is capable of becoming A' actually becomes A'. This action comes from without. No being
which changes can give to itself, without some foreign influence, this complement of reality by
virtue of which it passes from one state into another. Quidquid movetur ab alio movetur:
whatever changes is changed by something other than itself. For if a thing could change its own
state (whether substantial or accidental), unaided, it would possess before acquiring; it would
already be what it is not yet, which is contradictory and impossible. Water is capable of
changing into oxygen and hydrogen, but without the intervention of an electric current or
something else it would never of itself take on these new determinations. A being which changes
is of course a being which does not exist necessarily in this state of change. Hence the principle:
whatever changes is changed by something other than itself, is an application of this more
general principle: the existence of a nonnecessary being demands an efficient cause (IV, B).
However, this acting cause is itself subject to the process of becoming. The electrical energy
could not manifest itself unless it is affected in its turn by the action of other efficient causes.
The whole process resembles that which happens when a stone is thrown into still water: the
waves spread out from the center, each producing the next in succession. Moreover, there is an
additional complication, for every action of a being A upon another B is followed by a reaction
of B upon A. Nature is an inextricable tissue of efficient causes, developments, passages from
potency to actuality. Newton's Law of Gravitation, the Law of the Equilibrium of Forces, the
Principle of the Conservation of Energy, are all so many formulas which set forth in precise
terms the influence of one being upon another. Actions and reactions establish close connections
between substances which are independent in their individuality.
(b) and (c). In addition to the efficient cause, scholasticism attributes a causal role to matter
and to form, inasmuch as, in giving themselves to each other, these two constitute and explain
the being which results from their combination. A particle of oxygen has for its constituent
causes an undetermined element (primary matter), and a specifying element (substantial form),
just as in turn the oak-substance or marble (secondary matter), together with the cylindrical
shape or the human figure (accidental form), are constituent causes of a particular oak tree as a
whole, or of a particular statue.
(d). Lastly, we have the final cause. The activities which flow from each individual being do
not develop simply at random. Water is not indifferent to boiling at 90 degrees C. or 100 degrees
D.: if it were so, we might expect to find all sorts of capricious jumps in nature. Since the same
activities and transformations are continually recurring, we infer that there is in each being an
inclination to follow a certain path, to obey certain laws. Deus imprimit toti naturae principia
propriorum actuum. -- God has impressed upon every nature the principles of its peculiar

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activities [3]. This inclination, which is rooted in the substantial form, and tends to produce the
appropriate activities, constitutes the internal finality of each being. It is always present, even
when an obstacle prevents its full exercise. Natura non deficit in necessariis. -- Nature does not
fail in necessary things.
In spite of disorders which appear at the surface of the physical world, and in spite of moral
evil, both of which result from the contingent and imperfect character of the world, the internal
finality proper to each being in the universe leads up to another finality, -- which is external. The
courses of the stars, the recurrence of seasons, the harmony of terrestrial phenomena, the march
of civilization, are all indications of a cosmic order which is not the work of any single being --
not even of man -- but which proves to the mind of a Schoolman the existence of a Supreme
Ruler of all, endowed with wisdom. Dante receives his inspiration from scholasticism, when he
concludes the Divine Comedy by singing of the universal attraction of the world ever drawn
towards its goal, which can only be God [4].
This twofold doctrine of internal and external finality furnishes us with a strong teleological
interpretation of the universe.
The hierarchical order that exists between the four causes results from their nature. Finality
attracts (consciously or not) and persuades a being to exercise its activities. Efficient causality
tends towards the end in view, and the result of action is a new union of matter and form. When
an artist undertakes to chisel a statue, it is his purpose which directs the designs, the choice of
the material, the chiseling itself. The first intention of the artist is the last thing to be realized. It
is not otherwise with the aim of nature: in the order of intention the final cause comes first; but
in the order of execution it is the last to be realized.
H. Essence and existence
We have not yet exhausted the analysis of reality. Each individual has been distinguished
into substance and accident, and in every material substance we have found matter and form. In
all these stages we have been studying essence, 'what a thing is.' Essence, however, has
existence, and existence presents us with a quite new aspect of reality. Existence is the supreme
determination of any being (actus primus). Without existence, the several essential elements
which we have been considering would be merely possible; they would resemble the legendary
horse of Roland, which possessed all perfections, but did not exist.
Moreover, these manifold essential elements (matter, form, accidents) do not exist in
separation. They exist, says Aquinas, by virtue of one existence alone. It is the concrete oak tree
which exists, the concrete lion, the actual man, Pasteur or Edison.
They theory of essence and existence completes the analysis of reality. We shall return to it
in another part (XI, B). We must first indicate the place of man in the world which we have been
studying, and expound a body of doctrines sometimes known as the metaphysical side of
scholastic psychology.

Notes:
1. We deliberately abstain from translating potentia by "power," as is sometimes done. "Power
has practically always an active sense which is completely absent from potentia when
contrasted with actus. An example will make our meaning clear. A sculptor is in potentia to
the carving of a statue, but it is equally true that the block of marble is in potentia to
becoming the statue. We should say that the sculptor had the "power" to make the statue, but
we should hardly say that the block of marble had the "power" of becoming the statue.
Hence the objection to the use of the word "power" here. A thing is in potency to that which
will become, whether by its own activity, or the activity of something else.
2. It is important to note that primary matter (material prima) is altogether distinct from matter
as understood by modern science. Matter as now understood signifies a substance of a
particular kind (comprising 'matter' and 'substantial form' of the Schoolmen together with
extension in space, which is an 'accident.'
3. Summa Theol., Ia IIae, q. 93, art. 5.

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4. L'Amor che muove il sol e l'altre stelle.

Five Arguments for God's Existence

by St. Thomas Aquinas

The existence of God can be proved in five ways.

The first and more manifest way is the argument from motion. It is certain, and evident to
our senses, that in the world some things are in motion. Now whatever is moved is moved by
another, for nothing can be moved except it is in potentiality to that towards which it is moved;
whereas a thing moves inasmuch as it is in act. For motion is nothing else than the reduction of
something from potentiality to actuality. But nothing can be reduced from potentiality to
actuality, except by something in the state of actuality. Thus, that which is actually hot, as fire,
makes wood, which is potentially hot, to be actually hot, and thereby moves and changes it. Now
it is not possible that the same thing should be at once in actuality and potentiality in the same
respect, but only in different respects. For what is actually hot cannot simultaneously be
potentially hot; but it is simultaneously potentially cold. It is therefore impossible that in the
same respect and in the same way a thing should be both mover and moved, i.e., that it should
move itself. Therefore, whatever is moved must be moved by another. If that by which it is
moved be itself moved, then this also must needs be moved by another, and that by another
again. But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and,
consequently, no other mover, seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are
moved by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is moved by the hand. Therefore, it
is necessary to arrive at a first mover, moved by no other; and this everyone understands to be
God.
The second way is from the nature of efficient cause. In the world of sensible things, we
find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known (neither is it, indeed, possible)
in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself,
which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all
efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the
intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or one
only. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause
among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate, cause. But if in efficient
causes it is possible to go on to infinity, there will be no first efficient cause, neither will there be
an ultimate effect, nor any intermediate efficient causes; all of which is plainly false. Therefore it
is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name of God.
The third way is taken from possibility and necessity, and runs thus. We find in nature
things that are possible to be and not to be, since they are found to be generated, and to be
corrupted, and consequently, it is possible for them to be and not to be. But it is impossible for
these always to exist, for that which can not-be at some time is not. Therefore, if everything can
not-be, then at one time there was nothing in existence. Now if this were true, even now there
would be nothing in existence, because that which does not exist begins to exist only through
something already existing. Therefore, if at one time nothing was in existence, it would have
been impossible for anything to have begun to exist; and thus, even now nothing would be in
existence -- which is absurd. Therefore, not all beings are merely possible, but there must exist
something the existence of which is necessary. But every necessary thing either has its necessity
caused by another, or not.
Now it is impossible to go on to infinity in necessary things which have their necessity
caused by another, as has been already proved in regard to efficient causes. Therefore, we cannot
but admit the existence of some being having of itself its own necessity, and not receiving it
from another, but rather causing in others their necessity. This all men speak of as God.
The fourth way is taken from the gradation to be found in things. Among beings there are
some more and some less good, true, noble, and the like. But more and less are predicated of

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different things according as they resemble in their different ways something which is the
maximum, as a thing is said to be hotter according as it more nearly resembles that which is
hottest; so that there is something which truest, something best, something noblest, and,
consequently, something which is most being, for those things that are greatest in truth are
greatest in being, as it is written Metaph. ii. Now the maximum in any genus is the cause of all in
that genus, as fire, which is the maximum, of heat, is the cause of all hot things, as is said in the
same book. Therefore, there must also be something which is to all beings the cause of their
being, goodness, and every other perfection; and this we call God.
The fifth way is taken from the governance of the world. We see that things which lack
knowledge, such as natural bodies, act for an end, and this is evident from their acting always, or
nearly always, in the same way, so as to obtain the best result. Hence it is plain that they achieve
their end, not fortuitously, but designedly. Now whatever lacks knowledge cannot move towards
an end, unless it be directed by some being endowed with knowledge and intelligence; as the
arrow is directed by the archer. Therefore, some intelligent being exists by whom all natural
things are directed to their end; and this being we call God.

The Cause of Existing: God by St. Thomas Aquinas

Now, whatever belongs to a being is either caused by the principles of its nature, as the
capability of laughter in man, or it comes to it from some extrinsic principle, as light in the air
from the sun's influence. But it is impossible that the act of existing be caused by a thing's form
or its quiddity [essence] (I say caused as by an efficient cause); for then something would be the
cause of itself and would bring itself into existence -- which is impossible. Everything, then,
which is such that its act of existing is other than its nature must needs have its act of existing
from something else. And since every being which exists through another is reduced, as to its
first cause, to one existing in virtue of itself, there must be some being which is the cause of the
existing of all things because it itself is the act of existing alone. If that were not so, we would
proceed to infinity among causes, since, as we have said, every being which is not the act of
existing alone has a cause of its existence. Evidently, then, an intelligence is form and act of
existing, and it has its act of existing from the First Being which is simply the act of existing.
This is the First Cause, God....
There is a being, God, whose essence is His very act of existing. That explains why we
find some philosophers asserting that God does not have a quiddity or essence, because His
essence is not other than His act of existing. From this it follows that He is not in a genus, for the
quiddity of anything in a genus must be other than its act of existing, since the different beings
within a genus or species have the same generic or specific quiddity or nature, whereas their act
of existing is different.
If we say, moreover, that God is purely and simply the act of existing, we need not fall
into the mistake of those who assert that God is that universal existence whereby each thing
formally exists. The act of existing which is God is such that no addition can be made to it.
Consequently, in virtue of its very purity it is the act of existing distinct from every act of
existing....
Similarly, although God is simply the act of existing, it is not necessary that He lack the
other perfections or excellencies. On the contrary, He possesses all perfections of all genera of
beings; so He is said to be unqualifiedly perfect, as the Philosopher and Commentator [Aristotle]
assert in the fifth book of the Metaphysics. But He possesses these perfections in a more
excellent way than other things, for in Him they are one, while in other things they are
diversified. The reason for this is that all these perfections are His according to His simple act of
existing. So, too, if someone through one quality could perform the operations of all the
qualities, he would in that one quality possess all the qualities. In the same way, God possesses
all perfections to His very act of existing.

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