On matter's double causality and potency, and the eduction of forms from the potency of matter
Article II. On matter's double causality and potency, and the eduction of forms from the potency of matter.
1. First note that matter — the material cause — has a double causality: one toward the composite or mattered thing, another toward the forms that depend on it. Toward the composite its causality lies in constituting that composite as an essential part. Toward the forms that hang on it, its causality lies in concurring passively with the agent to give them being and to keep that being.
2. Second, matter's potency is of two kinds. One is only receptive, not causative; the other is both receptive and causative. Matter has the first kind toward the rational soul alone: it can naturally receive the soul into itself, but it cannot concur as a material cause in giving the soul being. It has the second kind toward every other form, essential or accidental: it can receive them and, by passive concurrence, cooperate with the agent in producing them.
3. Third, those philosophers go wrong who explain eduction by saying the form already exists in act in the matter before generation, only hidden under the confusion of potency, and that generation merely makes it manifest — as if actual being that was concealed simply becomes clear and is led out of matter's darkness into light. That account is bad. If the form already existed in act and united with matter before generation, the composite would already exist before it was generated — which is openly absurd, since matter and form existing in act and united necessarily yield the composite. Someone will object: if the form is not in the matter beforehand, how can it be educed or drawn out of it? Nothing is drawn out of what it is not in. Reply: the form is said to be educed from matter not from matter's substance, but from matter's causative potency. Before generation it does not exist in the substance of matter, yet it truly exists in matter's potency insofar as matter can produce it as a passive principle. To be in matter's causative potency is simply to be producible by matter as a passive principle.
4. Fourth, those also are wholly wrong who say forms exist in matter before generation according to an incomplete, imperfect being — by degrees of their entity — and through generation first attain complete, finished being in matter. That view makes a substantial form vary in intensity like an accident; and it absurdly packs into one and the same matter, all at once, every form that could be educed from it, total or partial — nearly infinite diverse substantial entities in one thing. Someone will object: if the form is nothing at all before generation, then every form comes from nothing and is therefore created. Reply: forms may be said to come from nothing if that means from no pre-existing part of themselves; not if it means from no pre-existing matter, which is the same as creation. Forms come to be from matter: matter concurs as a subjective cause in giving them being.
5. Fifth, it is also a bad account of eduction to say a form is educed from matter's potency merely because matter, before the form arrives, can receive it. If that were enough, every form without exception would be educible from matter's potency, since matter can receive any form — by a natural potency or an obediential one. Natural potency can be brought into act by a natural agent: wood's passive potency for heat is natural because fire can actualize it. Obediential potency cannot be actualized by a natural agent, but only by a superior agent of another order to which the matter is so subject that it must obey: wood or stone's potency for a statue's form is of this kind (art, not nature, actualizes it); so is the soul's potency for supernatural gifts — faith, hope, charity — which no natural power can bring into act, but only the creator's infinite power.
6. With that in place, eduction is easy to state. Nothing is educed from a thing except what was already in it. So only those forms are educed from matter's causative potency that, before they exist, are in that potency — producible by matter's passive concurrence. While they do not yet exist in act they can receive being from matter as a passive, receptive principle; when they begin to exist in act by the agent's active power and matter's passive power, they are rightly said to be educed from matter's causative potency, because they are no longer producible by it. What has once been caused is no longer in the cause's potency; it has been led from potentiality into actuality. A brute's form is truly educed from the causative potency of the seed's matter: before generation it was producible by that matter's passive power; through the generator's action it is produced and set outside that potency, and is producible by it again only if it loses the existence it now has. The human soul is produced in matter, yet it is not educed from matter's causative potency; it is induced into matter. It never lay in that potency, and matter never had a power, by passive concurrence, to give the soul being.
Latin
ART. II. De duplici materiae causalitate & potentia; item de formarum eductione ex potentia materiae. 1. In hoc articulo notandum est primo, Materiam seu causam materialem, duplicem habere causalitatem; unam respectu compositi, seu materiati, alteram respectu formarum ab ea pendentium. Causalitas ejus respectu compositi est in eo posita, quod tanquam pars essentialis constituat compositum: respectu formarum ab ea pendentium, causalitas ejus in eo est posita, quod concursu passivo concurrat cum agente ad tribuendum iis esse, & ad illud ipsum esse conservandum. 2. Secundo notandum est, duplicem esse materiae potentiam, unam receptivam tantum, & non etiam causativam, alteram & receptivam & causativam. Priorem potentiam habet materia respectu solius animae rationalis; habet enim potentiam naturalem recipiendi animam in se, sed non habet potentiam concurrendi in genere causae materialis, ad tribuendum esse animae: posteriorem habet respectu omnium aliarum formarum, tum essentialium, tum accidentalium: non solum enim potest eas recipere in se, sed etiam concursu passivo cooperari cum agente, ad eas producendas. 3. Tertio notandum est, illos Philosophos male explicare eductionem formarum ex potentia materiae, qui dicunt formam actu existere in materia, ante rei generationem, non tamen apparere, sed quasi sub confusione potentiae ejus latitare, per generationem vero manifestam fieri, ita ut illud esse actuale, quod prius erat quasi absconditum, non incipiat simpliciter per generationem, sed per eam incipiat fieri manifestum, & sic e tenebris ac confusione materiae, quasi in lucem educatur. Dico hanc explicationem eductionis malam esse, quia si forma existat actu in materia ante compositi generationem, ipsum compositum existit ante suam generationem; quod aperte absurdum est: ratio consequentiae est, quia ex materia & forma actu existentibus, & unitis, resultat compositum, iisque positis necessario ponitur compositum; ideoque si materia & forma existant unitae, ante generationem compositi, ipsum compositum existit ante suam generationem. Dicet aliquis: si forma non existit in materia ante rei generationem, non potest dici ex materia educi, seu extrahi: nihil enim potest educi, seu extrahi ex eo, in quo non est. Resp. Formam dici ex materia educi, non quod ex materiae substantia, sed quod ex materiae potentia causativa educatur seu extrahatur: quamvis enim forma ante generationem in ipsa materiae substantia non existat, in ejus tamen potentia vere & proprie existere dicitur, quatenus a materia est producibilis; nam esse in materiae potentia causativa, nihil est aliud, nisi a materia tanquam a principio passivo posse produci. 4. Quarto notandum est, illos etiam toto caelo errare, qui dicunt formas, ante generationem, secundum esse inchoatum & imperfectum, h.e. secundum gradus quosdam suae entitatis, existere in materia: per generationem vero incipere esse in materia, secundum esse completum, & consummatum. Dico hujus sententiae Patronos turpiter errare, quia inde sequitur formam substantialem variari, quoad gradus intensionis & remissionis, non minus quam accidentia; quia item absurdum est, in una & eadem materia actu existere omnes formas, quae ex materiae potentia educi possunt, sive sint totales, sive partiales; sic enim in una & eadem re, simul essent pene infinitae entitates substantiales & diversae. Sed objiciet aliquis: si forma ante rei generationem plane nihil sit, sequetur omnes formas fieri ex nihilo, & proinde creari. Resp. Formas omnes posse dici fieri ex nihilo, si fieri ex nihilo accipiatur pro fieri ex nulla sui parte praeexistente, non vero si fieri ex nihilo accipiatur proprie, pro eo quod est fieri ex nulla materia praeexistente, quo sensu idem valet ac creari: fiunt enim formae ex materia, h.e. fiunt materia concurrente in genere causae subjectivae, ad tribuendum iis esse. 5. Quinto notandum est, eos etiam male explicare eductionem formarum ex materiae potentia, qui dicunt formam ideo ex materiae potentia educi, quod materia ante adventum formae habeat potentiam ad eam recipiendam: Si enim haec explicatio esset veritati consentanea, omnes formae, nulla excepta, essent ex materiae potentia educibiles; idque quia materia habet potentiam ad quamlibet formam recipiendam, potentiam (inquam) vel naturalem, vel obedientialem. Potentia autem naturalis est ea, quae educibilis est in actum vi alicujus agentis naturalis, ut potentia passiva ligni ad recipiendum calorem, dicitur naturalis, quia educi potest in actum vi naturalis agentis, ignis videlicet. Potentia materiae obedientialis est, quae in actum educi non potest vi agentis naturalis, sed vi alicujus agentis superioris, atque alterius ordinis, cui ea materia ita subdita est, & subjecta, ut necessario ei obediat: talis est potentia ligni, vel lapidis ad formam statuae; non enim educitur in actum vi alicujus agentis naturalis, sed vi agentis per artem: talis etiam est potentia animae ad recipienda dona supernaturalia, ut fidem, spem, charitatem, non enim ulla vi naturali in actum educi potest, sed infinita vi & virtute creatoris. 6. His positis: facile est explicare eductionem formarum ex materiae potentia; cum enim nihil possit educi ex aliquo, nisi illud quod prius fuit in eo; manifestum est eas solas formas ex potentia causativa materiae educi, quae antequam existant, sunt in potentia causativa materiae, i.e. producibiles sunt per concursum passivum materiae: illae enim formae quamdiu actu non existunt, habent potentiam ad accipiendum esse a materia, tanquam a principio passivo & receptivo; ideoque cum actu existere incipiunt, vi activa agentis, & passiva materiae, recte dicuntur educi ex potentia causativa materiae, quia non amplius sunt in potentia causativa materiae, i.e. non jam sunt a materia producibiles; quod enim semel productum & causatum est, non amplius est in potentia causae, sed eductum est ex statu potentialitatis, in statum actualitatis. Forma igitur bruti vere dicitur educi ex potentia causativa materiae seminis, quia ante generationem bruti, illa forma fuit in potentia causativa materiae seminis, i.e. producibilis erat vi passiva istius materiae; jam vero per actionem generantis, illa forma producta est, & posita extra potentiam causativam materiae; ita ut non amplius sit producibilis vi passiva materiae, nisi amittat eam existentiam, quam nunc habet. Contra vero anima humana, licet producatur in materia: non tamen ex ejus potentia causativa educitur, sed in materiam inducitur, idque quia nunquam fuit in materiae potentia causativa, nec materia unquam habuit potentiam ad tribuendum esse animae, per passivum suum concursum.
About this text
Robert Baron, Philosophia Theologiae Ancillans (Philosophy in Service to Theology): the first exercise, on being and essence, and the second, on the origin of the soul and the spread of sin — newly rendered from Latin. Later exercises are not in this volume.
English follows locked 1658 Oxford Latin. Prima Art. I-XII from IA PDF leaves ~15-53. Secunda Art. I-XV from PDF leaves 56-107 / printed pp.54-105 (tess+pdftotext+DjVu). No modern English copied. Exercitatio Tertia+ remain.
Catalogue & scope
Wing B887. IA bim_early-english-books-1641-1700_philosophia-theologi-an_baron-robert_1658. Exercitatio Prima Art. I-XII; Exercitatio Secunda Art. I-XV (De origine animae & propagatione peccati). Not whole Philosophia (213 pp). Exercitatio Tertia+ remain.
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