CHAPTER IV.

CONCERNING MATTER-AN IMPERFECT DESCRIPTION OF IT-ITS NATURE, AND THE NECESSITY OF ITS EXISTENCE, TRACED OUT AND PROVED— FIRST BY ABSTRACTION-THEN BY ANALOGY-ILLUSTRATIONS FROM MYTHOLOGY.

MATTER is that elementary constituent in composite substances, which appertains in common to them all, without distinguishing them from one another. But it is fitting to be more explicit.

Every thing generated or made, whether by nature or art, is generated or made out of something else; and this something else is called its subject or matter. Such is iron to the saw; such is timber to the boat.

Now this subject or matter of a thing, being necessarily previous to that thing's existence, is necessarily different from it, and not the same. Thus iron, as iron, is not a saw; and timber, as timber, is not a boat. Hence then one character of every subject or matter, that is, the character of negation or privation.

Again, though the subject or matter of a thing be not that thing, yet were it incapable of becoming so, it could not be called its subject or matter. Thus iron is the subject or matter of a saw, because, though not a saw, it may still become a saw. On the contrary, timber is not the subject or matter of a saw, because it not only (as timber) is no saw, but can never be made one, from its very nature and properties. Hence, then, besides privation, another character of every subject or matter, and that is the character of aptitude or capacity.

Again, when one thing is the subject or matter of many things, it implies a privation of them all, and a capacity to them all. Thus iron, being the subject or matter of the saw,

4 If we compare the beginning of this chapter with the beginning of the following, it will appear that, though matter and form are the elements, or inherent parts of every composite substance, yet they essentially differ, inasmuch as matter being common, form peculiar, form gives every such substance its character, while matter gives it

none.

Thus Philoponus: Kar' avrò yàp [Td εἶδος scil.] χαρακτηρίζονται τὰ πράγματα, κατὰ δὲ τὴν ὕλην οὐδὲν ἀλλήλων διαφέ povo: "By form, things are characterized; by matter, they differ not one from another." Com. in Physic. Arist. p. 55. D. And soon after, Διότι αὐτὸ χαρακτηριστικόν ἐστι τῆς ἑκάστου ουσίας· ἡ γὰρ ὕλη, κοινή:

"This [that is, the form] is characteristic of every being's essence; for as to the matter, it is common" [and runs through all.]

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Ammonius says expressly, 'H uèv yàp ὕλη κοινωνίας ἐστὶν αἰτία τοῖς πράγμασι, Tò dè eldos diapopas: “ Matter, with regard to things, is the cause of their general community, or common nature; form, the cause of their peculiar difference." Ammon. in Cat. p. 25. Β.

Privation and capacity are essential to every thing which bears the name of matter; and this is the meaning of the following passage: èσTì dè TÒ ÚTOKEίμEVOV ἀριθμῷ μὲν ἓν, εἴδει δὲ δύο: “ the subject or matter is one numerically, but in cha

the axe, and the chisel, implies privation and capacity with respect to all three.

Again, we can change a saw into a chisel, but not into a boat; we can change a boat into a box, but not into a saw. The reason is, there can be no change or mutation of one thing into another, where the two changing beings do not participate the same matter. But even here, were the boat to moulder and turn to earth, and that earth by natural process to metallize and become iron, through such progression as this we might suppose even the boat to become a saw. Hence therefore it is, that all change is by immediate or mediate participation of the same matter.

Having advanced thus far, we must be careful to remember, first, that every subject or matter implies, as such, privation and capacity; and next, that all change or mutation of beings into one another, is by means of their participating the same common matter. This we have chosen to illustrate from works of art, as falling more easily under human cognizance and observation. It is however no less certain as to the productions of nature, though the superior subtlety in these renders examples more difficult.

The question then is, whether in the world which we inhabit, it be not admitted from experience, as well as from the confession of all philosophers, that substances of every kind, whether natural or artificial, either immediately or mediately pass one into another; that we suppose at present no realizings of nonentity, but that reciprocal deaths, dissolutions, and diges

racter it is two;" that is to say, two, as it
has a capacity to become a thing, and yet
is under a privation, till it actually become
so. Aristot. Physic. 1. i. p. 17. And soon
after, he says: tepov yàp тd åvoрúпР каl
τῷ ἀμούσῳ εἶναι, καὶ τῷ ἀσχηματίστω καὶ
χαλκῷ: “ it is a different thing to be a
man, and to be void of the musical art; it
is a different thing to be void of figure, and
to be brass.” As much as if he had said,
that the man,
before he became a musical
artist, had both a capacity for that cha-
racter, and a privation of it; the brass a
similar capacity and privation, before it
was cast into a statue.

Thus too Themistius: Kal To Aéyouer τῆς ὕλης τὸ εἶναι ἐν τῷ δυνάμει· ἡ δὲ δύναμις δηλονότι μετὰ στερήσεως οὐδὲ γὰρ ἔτι δύναμις εἴη, μὴ σὺν αὐτῇ πάντως καὶ τῆς στερήσεως νοουμένης: “We say the essence of matter is in capacity; and capacity is evidently connected with privation; since it would no longer be capacity, could privation in no sense be understood, as existing with it." Themist. in Aristot. Physic. p. 21. edit. Ald.

See p. 263, note i, and note t, p. 269.

This reasoning has reference to what the ancients called Aŋ poσexìs, "the immediate matter," in opposition to "An прúтn, "the remote or primary matter," of which more will be said in the course of this speculation.

It is of the immediate matter we must understand the following passage: 'Evdéχεται δὲ, μιᾶς τῆς ὕλης οὔσης ἕτερα γίγνεσθαι διὰ τὴν κινοῦσαν αἰτίαν οἷον ἐκ ξύλου καὶ κιβωτὸς καὶ κλινή· ἐνίων δὲ ἑτέρα ἡ ὕλη ἐξ ἀνάγκης, ἑτέρων ὄντων. οἷον πρίων οὐκ ἂν γένοιτο ἐκ ξύλου, οὐδ' ἐπὶ τῇ κινούσῃ αἰτίᾳ τοῦτο : "It is possible, that, the matter being one and the same, different things by the efficient cause should be formed out of it ; as, for example, that out of wood should be formed a box and a bed. But then with regard to some things, which are different, the matter is of necessity different also. It is thus, for example, that a saw cannot be made out of wood; nor is this a work in the power of the efficient cause." Arist. Metaph. H. kep. d'. p. 138. edit. Sylb.

tions, support by turns all substances out of each other, so that, as Hamlet says, from the idea of this rotation,

Imperial Cæsar, dead and turn'd to clay,

May stop a hole, to keep the winds away.

The question, in short, is, whether, in this world which we inhabit, there be not an universal mutation of all things into all. If there be, then must there be some one primary matter, common to all things; I say, some one primary matter, and that common to all things, since, without some such matter, such mutation would be wholly impossible.

But if there be some one primary matter, and that common to all things; this matter must imply, not (as particular and subordinate matters do) a particular privation, and a particular capacity, but, on the contrary, universal privation, and universal capacity."

If the notion of such a being appear strange and incomprehensible, we may further prove the necessity of its existence from the following considerations.

Either there is no such general change, as here spoken of, which is contrary to fact, and would destroy the sympathy and

The Peripatetics, according to the erroneous astronomy by them adopted, supposed the fixed stars, the planets, the sun, and the moon, to move all of them round the earth, attached to different spheres, which moved and carried them round, the earth itself being immoveable, and placed in the centre of the universe. This motion, purely and simply local, was the only one they allowed to these celestial bodies, which in essence they held to be perfectly unchangeable. Things on the surface of this earth, (such as plants and animals,) and things between that surface and the moon, (such as clouds, meteors, winds, &c.) these they supposed obnoxious to motions of a more various and complicated character; motions which changed them in their qualities and quantities, and which even led to their generation and dissolution, to life and to death. Hence the whole tribe of these mutable and perishable beings were called sublunary, because the region of their existence was beneath the sphere of the It was here existed those elements which, as Milton tells us,

moon.

goreans, both Plato and Aristotle borrowed much of their philosophy) elegantly calls this imaginary sphere of the moon's orbit, ἰσθμὸς ἀθανασίας καὶ γενήσεως, “ the isthmus of immortality and generation ;" that is, the boundary which lies between things immortal and things transitory. Gale's Opusc, Mythog. p. 516.

The Stoics went further than this isthmus. They did not confine these changes to a part only of the universe; they supposed them to pass through the whole; and to continue without ceasing, till all was at length lost in their ἐκπύρωσις, or "general conflagration;" after which came a new world, and then a new conflagration, and so on periodically. Diog. Laert. vii. 135, 141, 142.

" Τὸ πρῶτον ὑποκείμενον, δυνάμενον ἁπάσας δέχεσθαι τὰς μορφὰς, ἐν στερήσει μév éσtiv àñaσŵy: “The primary subject or matter, having a capacity to admit all forms, exists in a privation of them all." Themist. in Aristot. Physic. p. 21.

Themistius well distinguishes between two words, expressing the same being; I mean, ὑποκείμενον and ὕλη. The first he makes the subject or substratum of something actually existing; the other, that matter which has a capacity of becoming many things, before it actually becomes any one of them.

This is that one being, mentioned by Diogenes, whose words we have quoted in the preceding chapter, p. 263, note h.

congeniality of things; or if there be, there must be a matter of the character here established, because without it (as we have said) such change would be impossible.

Add to this, however hard universal privation may appear, yet had the primary matter in its proper nature any one particular attribute, so as to prevent its privation from being unlimited and universal, such attribute would run through all things, and be conspicuous in all. If it were white, all things would be white; if circular, they would be circular; and so as to other attributes, which is contrary to fact. Add to this, that the opposite to such attribute could never have existence, unless it were possible for the same thing to be at once and in the same instance both white and black, circular and rectilinear, &c. since this inseparable attribute would necessarily be everywhere, because the matter, which implies it, is itself everywhere; at least, may be found in all things that are generated and perishable.

Here, then, we have an idea (such as it is) of that singular being, λn πρwτn, the "primary matter;" a being which those philosophers, who are immerged in sensible objects, know not well how to admit, though they cannot well do without it; a being, which flies the perception of every sense, and which is at best even to the intellect but a negative object, no otherwise comprehensible than either by analogy or abstraction.

This argument is taken from Plato. Speaking of the primary matter, he says, Ομοιον γὰρ ὂν τῶν ἐπεισιόντων τινὶ, τὰ τῆς ἐναντίας, τά τε τῆς παράπαν ἄλλης φύσεως, ὁπότ' ἔλθοι, δεχόμενον, κακῶς ἂν ἀφομοιοῖ, Thν avтoû Tapeμpaívwv õpiv: “Were it like any of those things that enter into it, in such case, when it came to receive things of a nature contrary and totally different from itself, it would exhibit them ill, by shewing its own nature along with them at the same time." Plat. Tim. p. 50.

Thus Chalcidius, in commenting the passage here quoted: Si sit aliquid candidum, ut ψιμμύθιον, deinde oporteat hoc transferri in alium colorem, vel diversum, ut ruborem sive pallorem, vel contrarium, ut atrum; tunc candor non patietur introeuntes colores synceros perseverare, sed permixtione sui faciet interpolatos. Chalcid. in Tim. Com. p. 434.

Hence we see the propriety of those descriptions which make the primary matter to be "void of body, of quality, of bulk, of figure,” &c.: ἀσώματος, ἄποιος, ἀμεγέθης, ἀσχημάτιστος, άμορφος, κ. τ. λ.

y So strange a being is it, and so little comprehensible to common ideas, that the Greeks had no name for it in their language, until "An came to be adopted as the proper word, which was at first only assumed by

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way of metaphor, from signifying "timber" or wood," the common materials in many works of art. Hence it was that Ocellus, Timaeus, and Plato employ various words, and all of them after the same metaphorical manner, when they would express the nature of this mysterious being. Ocellus calls it, πανδεχὲς καὶ ἐκμαγεῖον τῆς γενέσεως, "the universal recipient, and impression of things generated," as wax receives impressions from various seals. Timæus uses the word λa in the Doric dialect, and explains it (like Ocellus) by kμayeîov, to which he adds the appellations of μaтéρa кal Tibávav, "mother and nurse." Plato calls it, first, πάσης γενέσεως ὑποδοχὴν, οἷον τιθήνην, "the receptacle of all generation, as its nurse ;” then, παντὸς αἰσθητοῦ μητέρα καὶ vodoxy, "the mother and receptacle of every sensible object." Gale's Opusc. Mytholog. p. 516. 544. Platon. Tim. p. 47. 51. edit. Serr. See Hermes, p. 205, note c.

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Aristotle also observes, consistently with one of the above expressions, μev yap ὑπομένουσα, συναιτία τῇ μορφῇ τῶν γινομένων ἐστὶν, ὥσπερ μήτηρ : " that the matter, by remaining, is in concurrence with the form, a cause of things generated, under the character of a mother." Phys. 1. i. c. 9. p. 22. edit. Sylb.

We gain a glimpse of it by abstraction, when we say that the first matter is not the lineaments and complexion, which make the beautiful face; nor yet the flesh and blood, which make those lineaments, and that complexion; nor yet the liquid and solid aliments, which make that flesh and blood; nor yet the simple bodies of earth and water, which make those various aliments; but something which, being below all these, and supporting them all, is yet different from them all, and essential to their existence.2

We obtain a sight of it by analogy, when we say, that as is the brass to the statue, the marble to the pillar, the timber to the ship, or any one secondary matter to any one peculiar form; so is the first and original matter to all forms in general."