Development Of The Human Soul

Appendix 3. (fn. 36).

The confusion between the concept of matter and that of reality proved an obstacle to perfecting the theory of the human intellect which abstracts from the reality of matter, but not from matter. If this had been seen, unequivocal language would have been used to separate ideal, which pertains to the intellect, from real, which pertains to sense. The Scholastics maintained: 'Everything is understood to the extent that it is abstracted from matter. The forms present in matter are individual forms, which are not apprehended by the intellect as such' (St. Thomas, S.T., I, q. 50, art. 2). This affirmation is true if we understand matter as reality, subsistence, but not if we are speaking about matter. In fact, it is not matter alone, but form also that is realised. Moreover, the intellect does not even apprehend the realised form (he means the individual forms which, as he says, the intellect does not apprehend).

It is false to say that realised forms are not apprehended because they are united to matter; lack of apprehension occurs solely because they are realised, are subsistent. On the other hand, both matter and form are apprehended by the intellect as long as they are ideal, not real. Form and matter, for example, are present in the concept of human being, and the intellect certainly intuits that concept. Some Scholastics denied this, however, and claimed that the species, or idea, embraces form alone. In saying this, they are in harmony with the teaching which takes matter for reality, and makes matter the principle of individuation. But this is truly absurd and these Scholastics tried to avoid the absurdity by making a distinction between common or intelligible matter, and particular matter. This implies the recognition of the reality of matter on the one hand, and on the other the essence or idea of matter. They should, therefore, have kept the word 'matter' to express 'essence'. This would have contributed to the perfection of philosophical language.

The obstacle was their reverence for Aristotle. Instead, they added confusion to confusion by giving 'matter' two meanings, one of which expressed the essence of matter, the other the realisation of the essence of matter. This led to equivocation in their teaching, and generated subtle and interminable questions. As St. Thomas says: 'According to some, the species of the natural thing (the idea) is the form alone; matter is a part of the species.' This is what they should have said if they understood matter as the principle of individuation. 'But according to this, matter would not be found in the definitions of natural things.' St. Thomas clearly recognises the absurdity. 'So we have to say instead that matter is twofold, namely, common (ideal matter) and signed or individual (real matter). It is common as flesh and bone, but individual as THIS (the pronoun indicates reality) flesh and THIS bone. The intellect abstracts, therefore, the species of the natural thing from the sensible, individual matter, not from the sensible common matter just as it abstracts the species of human being from this flesh and blood which do not pertain to the notion of species, but are parts of the individual, as we find in VII Metaph. (text 34-35), and so can be considered without them. But the species "human being" cannot be abstracted through the intellect from individual flesh and bone' (S.T., I, 85, q. 1, art. 1, ad 2). Note that even here, by calling the second kind of matter individual matter, individuation is taken for granted although its cause is being sought.