Development of the Human Soul

Chapter 3

Origin of the notion of first matter

747. Let me begin by examining the conditions of the ens called 'body'. We shall do this principally by reminding readers of what has been said in Anthropology, where the subject is dealt with in detail.

First, however, we should note that body has to be considered as it is directly presented to us. This alone is the source of the meaning of body. If, then, we want to argue that what we perceive presupposes some preceding power or entity as its cause, we must remember that we have reserved the phrase corporeal principle for the immediate principle of body, which is not present in perception but seems to hide itself behind the scene.(10) The ontological notions we are seeking have to be drawn from the body which we can perceive, not from this hidden being.

748. In Anthropology, I distinguished the sensiferous entity, the proximate cause of corporeal sense-experiences, from what is felt, that is, the sensible element (cf. 61), which is the extended, proper term of feeling. I also included under the word sensiferous both the power directly producing the felt element in the fundamental feeling, and the power which, operating in the fundamental feeling and causing it to change, occasions sensation. Now, however, we have to take our analysis further and distinguish these two powers (which are reduced to the same activity working in two ways, as we shall see). For one, I shall retain the word sensiferous; the other I shall call external force. The former is the power underlying the felt element in the fundamental feeling; the latter is the power altering the fundamental feeling itself by occasioning in it a passing sensation.

749. Having stated how I shall use these words in the future, let me say that perception of body furnishes three strictly connected entities: 1. something felt as extended; 2. an activity, which I call 'sensiferous', directly sharing in the soul with the production of the felt, extended element; and 3. a foreign force which violently changes what is felt as extended.

750. The concept of 'felt, extended element' united with the concept of sensiferous is properly speaking the concept of corporeity; the concept of agent that changes what is felt is the concept of materiality.

751. The felt, extended element is perceived as a kind of property of what is sensiferous, with which it forms our very own body. However, we do not call it 'body' until we know it as solid. This does not occur until we add to the subjective experience of what is felt as extended the data of extrasubjective experience through which we perceive the limits of our own body by means of surface sensations.(11) But in every extrasubjective experience, we perceive (in addition to our body) some foreign force, that is, matter. In other words, we perceive an impulse which changes our bodily feeling in such a way that we perceive an agent extraneous to our feeling in the very place where the new sensation arises. The only known property, however, of this extraneous agent is found in its power of changing what is felt.

752. Again, we soon notice that the sensiferous element, the direct cause of the felt element in us, has the power to change violently some other part of the sensiferous element and thus some other part of what is felt by us. We conclude from this that our very own body is material, that is, it has the same property of acting violently as the foreign force.

753. However, even this does not seem a rigorous demonstration of the identity of the foreign force and the sensiferous element. We could in fact conceive two different entities (the sensiferous and the foreign force) in the same place, and still grant to the first the production of what is felt and to the second the violent change in the sensiferous. Creative wisdom would, in this hypothesis, have posited a wonderful harmony of operation as both entities reveal themselves simultaneously in the same place according to certain laws. However, although the sensiferous entity in producing what is felt reveals itself as acting on the sentient principle, which is the soul, its action is considerably different from that exercised on itself as agent which makes it act on the soul in a different way. It would seem, therefore, that we have here a series of four terms: the soul, which in its own way is passive; the felt element, which is produced in the soul; the sensiferous element, which produces the felt element; a foreign force which changes the sensiferous. This foreign force reveals itself sometimes in a place common both to what is felt and to the sensiferous element, and sometimes in a different place. From these four elements, we certainly draw every concept of body and matter that human beings have.

Let us see, therefore, if there is some identity of substance between the sensiferous element and the foreign force. The identity of the place they occupy would seem to give us a positive answer; the difference in their effects a negative one.

754. We begin by noting carefully the difference between soul and sensiferous element. This will enable us to proceed in an orderly fashion and eliminate difficulties that could confuse the argument or distract the attention of the reader.

First, the action of the soul moving its own body must be direct, at least on some part of its body. There has to be some place in our body where the first movement is communicated. In fact, even if we suppose that we move our hand as a result of movements in the nerves which stretch throughout it, and that the movement impressed on these nerves is communicated longitudinally, we still have to call upon one or more nerve extremities to which motion is first communicated by the soul itself.

755. Second, keep in mind that the soul's action on the body does not have what is felt as its direct term, but the sensiferous element, that is, the force which produces what is felt. What is felt remains itself unchanged if the power or force directly producing it does not change or move. What is felt is passive, and supposes a sensiferous element which produces the felt element with an immanent or passing action.

756. But the sensiferous element is perceived in three ways:

1. As the direct cause of what is felt. As such, it acts directly on the soul without any violence. Violence is present only when the action on the soul is in opposition to the spontaneous action of the soul itself. The soul concurs in what is felt with the initial spontaneity which I called life instinct.(12)

2. As the recipient changed by the action of the soul. — In fact, when the soul uses the imagination to produce some internal sense-experience or image for itself, it operates on and modifies the sensiferous element so that it will either produce the image or cease to produce one image and produce another in its place. Moreover, in all those actions with which the soul produces new corporeal feelings for itself, or changes them (through the movement of its own body) the soul by changing the sensiferous element, also changes the felt element directly produced in it by the sensiferous element.(13) All this takes place without violence relative to the soul's direct action because the change occurring in the sensiferous element is in conformity with the spontaneous action of the soul, not opposed to it. Now, it is clear that the sensiferous element changed by the soul's direct action is identical with the first sensiferous element because it is precisely that which directly produces the things felt by the soul.

3. As the recipient of an impulse of an external force which changes the soul violently without any initial co-operation from the spontaneity of the soul. The soul, as ceaselessly active, is opposed to whatever does not concur with its action.(14)

757. In these last two cases, we can already see the difference between soul and sensiferous element. The former is active, the latter passive. We can also see the difference between soul and foreign force. Although both have the power to change the sensiferous element, the action of the soul is spontaneous, that of the foreign force violent. This means that in the first case the human soul is conscious of its own operation; in the second, it is conscious of being passive relative to an agent altogether different from itself.

758. If we consider that the sensiferous element, which produces directly what is felt, is changed by two agents (by the soul, and by a force totally foreign to the soul), we come to understand that it is not repugnant for a foreign force to have a spiritual principle. The soul itself is a spiritual principle, but has power to operate in and change the sensiferous element which produces what is felt. The extension of what is felt, which of its nature exists in what is simple,(15) furnishes no obstacle here. However, our knowledge of the soul's operation reaches out not only to the term we see as extended, but also to the principle which we recognise as simple. We know a foreign force only in its term, but do not perceive its principle because we perceive the foreign force only in what is felt, that is, in what is changed by the foreign force. Perceiving this force in its effect, that is, in the change of the sensiferous element, which is the immediate cause of what is felt, we cannot determine the nature of its principle by adhering solely to the perception we have of it. In other words, we cannot affirm that it is spiritual, although we can affirm that such a possibility is not repugnant.

759. For the moment we shall leave aside the problem about the internal constitution of the principle of the force which changes the sensiferous element, the direct cause of what is felt. We shall deal instead with the following question: 'Can we prove the identity between this foreign force and the directly sensiferous force?'

We have already observed that the directly sensiferous element (considered as such and not relative to what it may be in itself) offers exactly the same measure of extension as that of the felt element which it produces in the soul.(16) This proves once more that the sensiferous element, precisely as sensiferous, is not the soul, which is simple. The same argument also proves that any external force which changes what is directly sensiferous must have extension, and an extension identical to that of the direct sensiferous element. It also proves that the external force, precisely as external force, is not spirit. Nevertheless, the identity of the extension is not properly speaking the identity of the force because the identity of the force can be deduced only from the identity of the effect. Here, however, the effect is different. The effect of the direct, sensiferous element is to produce what is felt; the effect of the external force is to change the sensiferous element. We need, therefore, to show that the external force also has the power to produce directly what is felt. Only then can we affirm the identity we are seeking. This path, however, will not take us much further forward.

760. It is indeed true that the sensation which arises when one part of my own body acts on another part is exactly similar to that which is produced when I am acted upon by an external body or foreign force. It is clear that what I call my own body is that where I feel, where there is continuous production of something felt (the fundamental feeling). Consequently there is, in the same place as the (fundamental) felt element, a force which produces the same effect as the external force, whose effect is to change what is directly sensiferous. We can conclude, therefore, for the moment that this force is of the same nature as the external force. As I said, the identical nature of such forces is deduced from the identity of the effects. There is another identical effect in these two forces: both my body and an external body produce equal effects upon a third body. Nevertheless, the doubt already expressed about the identity of the sensiferous element and this foreign, violent force remains. If two different forces, one sensiferous and the other changing what is sensiferous, are simultaneously present in the same place as what is felt, could not the one changing the sensiferous element be identical with the external force and the other not? We have to take some other way, therefore, of showing that the sensiferous force and the force changing the sensiferous element are identical. The only suitable proof is the identity of the space they occupy and the in-existence of the foreign force in what is felt. Let us see if this will help us.

761. The whole action of the sensitive soul, which has the felt element as its formal principle, begins, therefore, in what is felt. The spontaneity with which it collaborates in feeling is spontaneity capable of changing the sensiferous element.(17) Granted that the sensitive soul's action cannot exceed the sensiferous element (because it cannot exceed what is felt, to which the sensiferous element adheres as proximate or formal cause), we have to see if the soul can also change directly the external or foreign force. If the soul, in changing the sensiferous element, also changes the foreign force, we have to say that the sensiferous element and the foreign force are identical, that is, are activities of the same subject. This is precisely what happens: the soul never changes what is felt by it except through movement produced in parts of the body. Movement, however, is a phenomenon pertaining to the foreign force. If, therefore, the effect produced by the soul cannot exceed the sensiferous element, but does nevertheless change the foreign force, we have to say that the foreign force and the sensiferous element are identical. In other words, they pertain to the same substantial subject. This proof is founded on the following principle: 'If the effect of a determined action, limited to one entity, appears also in another entity, we have to say that the two entities are identical in substance.'(18)

762. Another argument based on the same principle can be drawn from this consideration. Although we understand how the external force, in which neither what is felt nor what is sensiferous is found, can produce movement which is only a change of position of the same external force, we do not understand how it can act on the sensiferous element without supposing that what is sensiferous forms one substance with it. In fact, imagining that the foreign force could produce two actions as different as 1. moving another external force (motion) and 2. changing the sensiferous element, would mean confusing in a single concept two concepts of very different forces. In other words, we would change the concept of merely foreign force by making it into two forces, which however must also be excluded according to the principle that forbids unnecessary multiplication of entia. We have to say, therefore, that the external force in these two, very different effects acts upon a single substance, and that the sensiferous element and the external force are consequently identical in nature.

763. A third argument arises from the life of the primal elements for which, I think, I have provided sufficient proof (cf. 500-553). Granted the existence of this life, the root of the difficulty is removed because there is no longer a merely foreign force; every foreign force has become sensiferous. This consequence appears to offer a new proof of our opinion. Even if we suppose the contrary (that a part of matter is not animated), the simple fact of animation, which brute matter receives in the event of our hypothesis, is still sufficient to prove the identity of the sensiferous element and the foreign force. In this case, the same foreign force, which previously furnished no phenomena other than those of relocation of another portion of similar force, now becomes sensiferous itself. That it is the foreign force which becomes sensiferous can be deduced as follows. When, by means of contact, the brute force changes and alters the sensiferous element, the felt element is very quickly extended towards that force. But wherever the felt element is present, there also is the sensiferous element. Hence the phenomena of the sensiferous element also appear where brute force is present. It is true that hoc post hoc, ergo propter hoc [one thing coming after another depends on the other] is not a valid argument, but the demonstration becomes rigorous when this argument is united to the first and we consider that brute force comes under the control of the soul.

764. A fourth argument can be drawn from the nature of contact. If two forces were from the point of view of position simply contiguous, they could not be said to be in contact. The concept of contact presupposes reciprocal action between two forces which, in the case of brute forces, is shown by the phenomenon of cohesion. But if we apply brute force to a nerve, the effect of this cohesion or even impulse is sensation. It is true that the sensation may arise through an intestine movement of the sensory organ. But this in turn could not arise if the movement of brute force had not passed into the sensiferous element which thus produces alteration in what is felt. If the sensiferous element communicates with brute force by way of motion and receives its action, we have to say that the sensiferous element, too, is extended and capable of motion and impulse. But this is precisely the concept of brute or foreign force.

765. These arguments prove the identity of substance between the foreign force (matter), which offers only a concept of inanimate body, and the sensiferous element, whose concept is that of animate body. We have already seen the relationship of identity between what is directly sensiferous and what in the first instance is presented to our experience as pure foreign or brute force. Now we have to see how both the sensiferous element and brute force clothe themselves, as it were, in the felt element which, mingling with the sensiferous element provides the concept of body, and with brute force provides that of matter.

766. Relative to the sensiferous element, it is clear that it appears clothed in sensation because it is the direct, proximate cause of what is felt. It is, therefore, present where the felt is present. The sensiferous element is not divided from what is felt; it is the term of the act of the agent which produces it.

767. It is rather more difficult to understand how this intimate, individual union arises between what is felt and the foreign or brute force. The nexus is never sufficiently considered.

The union comes about first because the soul, in changing the sensiferous element, does so precisely where the sensiferous element is, that is, in the same place as that occupied by what is felt.(19) This identity of place makes the sensiferous element necessarily appear clothed with extension itself and with the qualities of what is felt. For the same reason, the foreign, brute force which produces sensations is individually united with what is felt, and clothes itself with what is felt. When the change in what is felt comes from a principle foreign to the soul, this force is felt only at the same place occupied by the felt element, which it changes. It is through the place itself where the force acts that what is felt unites itself with the force. This is why we attributed colour, taste and all second qualities to external matter. These are, in fact, our own sensations, or better, they are our felt element. When the foreign force reveals itself in this felt element, we make a single thing of it and of what is felt because we perceive the two entities with the same act and in an identical extension.

When exterior bodies cease to act on our bodies, we can imagine them only in the way they have appeared when we perceived them. Our perception of them is our one, original and direct way of knowing them. As a result, even when they are separated from our senses, we furnish them with the sensible qualities with which we have clothed them in our act of perception. Our memory of them is only the memory of our perception.

768. When external bodies have been cut off and separated from our felt element and are no longer in act in it, we consider them as agents in potency. But how do we imagine them as separate from us? What is the meaning of the phrase, 'separated from what is felt'?

It means 'existing in a place different from that in which our felt element exists'. This happens as a result of movement, as I have shown in Ideology and Anthropology. Nevertheless, although we think of external bodies as existing in a space other than that of our felt element, we imagine that they have taken our felt element with them. As I said, when we first perceive them, they occupy the same place as the felt element, and we have perceived their force and the felt element in a single act of perception.

It is, however, contradictory to consider them in potency to acting upon us, yet clothed and accompanied by what is felt. This explains why philosophers, by reasoning, rightly strip material-bodies of sensible qualities in act, and grant them only sensible qualities in potency. In other words, philosophers conceive bodies as agents suitable for modifying our feeling and producing sensations, but not as possessing any yellow or green colour, any sweet or sharp taste, any acute or dull sound, and so on. It is, nevertheless, extremely difficult to carry out this separation mentally. Potency is not determined or known except in the act which it produces. Consequently if we want to form some determined concept of material potency, we always have to refer it to sensation, or to what is felt. But we cannot make this reference unless we think of potency as joined to what is felt in the act of modifying it. We think of it in the same way as we first perceived and knew it. This, however, requires potency to be in act, individually united to what is felt through identity of place. In this way, bodies are always clothed or accompanied by colours, sounds, tastes and other ways of being felt, even when, for example, we imagine them closed in a dark cupboard and giving us no sensation. It is difficult even for philosophers to free themselves from an image of this kind.

Later, reflection makes us realise that these qualities cannot be joined to bodies which are separated from what we feel. At this point, our reason conceives them as divided from what is felt and we finally form the concept of inanimate, brute-matter, devoid of what is felt.(20)

769. We can go further. The felt element, although the opposite of what is sentient, is found in the sentient principle; otherwise it would not be felt. But the external, corporeal force, which modifies what is felt, is neither felt nor sentient when separated from what is felt and merely in potency to act. It remains a mere potency. Now, if we observe people carefully when they reason about bodies, we can easily see that they use two concepts of bodies alternatively without realising that they do so. Sometimes they speak of matter as inanimate — totally separate from sensation; sometimes they attribute sensible qualities to body as though it were felt in act, without realising that the felt element is in the sentient, and that if we attribute what is felt to an ens, we also have to posit in the ens a sentient principle.

770. Mere potency is a concept that includes relationship only with the act or effect that it produces; this is a relationship external to potency which does not, therefore, include of itself the act of its own subsistence. At the same time, according to the principle of cognition nothing can be conceived by the intellect except through the act by which it subsists. On the one hand, therefore, the understanding has to conceive a potency capable of modifying what is felt; on the other, it cannot attribute to potency either the act according to which the felt element subsists (because potency is separate from this act) or the act according to which the sentient element subsists (because potency is totally foreign to sentient activity). The understanding has, therefore, to suppose in the potency for modifying what is felt, an act proper to the potency. Otherwise this potency could not be conceived by the understanding. This act, however, is unknown and is not the term of any perception. If it were, we would have a concept not of potency, but of some act. In other words, the act is merely supposed in virtue of the law of the intellect, although this supposition is not without reason nor merely subjective. Indeed, it comes about by logical necessity, that is, through the principle of cognition, as I said.(21) This act of subsistence remains totally unknown except for the fact that it exists. The act thus conceived through supposition is material substance, whose existence is certainly posited by logical necessity although nature hides it from us. At the same time, we determine it through its relationship in such a way that it cannot be confused with any other entity. We know that such a substance, or act of subsistence, is the subject of the potency which, as sensiferous, changes what is felt, and which, as a foreign force, changes the sensiferous element. The sensiferous element and the foreign force are potencies which converge in the same substance, as I have shown.

771. We can express the principle of substance in a way more helpful to our present discussion by saying: 'A transient act occurring in an ens cannot be conceived without another, physically anterior, stable act. This stable act is the substance through which the transient act exists.' The stable act in an ens is also called first act; it is the act through which the whole ens (the full essence) subsists. The transient act is called second act. We know the transient act by perceiving the passive effect it produces in us. Thus what we experience as felt in us is some passivity of our own, some mode of our own which is imposed on us. What is felt, therefore, presupposes the act which produces or imposes this passivity, this mode. An act of this kind is the sensiferous element. But the sensiferous, as such, expresses a transient act. At the same time, the act of the foreign force changing the sensiferous element, and the act changing the foreign force, are also transient. These three acts cannot be conceived, therefore, unless we presuppose a first act as substance. Our previous arguments have, however, shown that all three of these acts pertain to one and the same substance, the substance of bodies.

772. Let me add one comment here. We must not believe that the mind passes from what is felt to the sensiferous element, from the sensiferous to the foreign force, and from this to another foreign force until it finally discovers the substance through reasoning. It embraces contemporaneously all these terms with a totally simple act of perception, and begins to know them and to know body only when it has embraced them all, not before, as I have shown in A New Essay and elsewhere.(22)

773. Material substance, or first act, is therefore something unknown. We know only its second acts (what is felt, the sensiferous element and the foreign force).

774. But because the first act, the material act correctly supposed by the mind, is determined for us only by its second acts, it is thought by us as individually united to these acts. Moreover, because the effect of these second acts are felt elements, whose mode is extension, we unite each of these effects produced in another ens (in the sentient principle or soul) to the second acts and therefore to the material substance which, as a result, is seen by us as extended and furnished with all its sensible qualities.

775. At this point we have to consider carefully the difference between extension and sensations. I have defined extension as 'the mode of bodily feeling'.(23) Observation presents it to us in this way and, as we know, observation allows us to capture the concept at its origin: 'The true nature of the objects of our thought is found only by returning to the first formation of their concepts.' Measured extension, therefore, pertains to feeling, from which it is divided only through abstraction. But what has led us to place such extension amongst the primary qualities of body, that is, amongst those qualities which furnish the essential concept of body?(24)

I have to admit that if we were to strip the concept of body of every felt element, we would necessarily strip it of its extension, which is thought of only as a mode of what is felt, and therefore as felt. But in this case, the concept of body and of matter, as formed by mankind and expressed in the two words, would no longer be available to us despite our intention of always 'speaking about things as they are perceived and expressed by mankind in general.' We must use ordinary words to express things conceived by human common sense founded on perception. Granted this, we cannot use these words to mean something else without falsifying their meaning; we would be introducing endless equivocation and asking unintelligible questions. This is why I have defined body as 'the proximate cause of sensations and the subject of sensible qualities.'(25)

According to this definition, body is sensiferous and, as we have seen, identical with foreign force. But we are forced to attribute extension to the sensiferous element (as the proximate cause of sensations) even if we strip what is sensiferous of its sensible qualities. In fact, we consider the sensiferous as present wherever what is felt is present. What is felt, however, is extended. Consequently, its proximate cause must be 'a power which, relative to its act, is diffused in the same extension as that which is felt (because the active element is present in the same place as the passive element).' This is, in fact, how we have demonstrated the extension of body.(26)

It may be objected that the attribute which pertains to the term of the sensiferous action of body cannot be predicated of body (substance) because 1. the sensiferous element is not properly speaking substance itself but an act of substance which is known as a result of its term, and 2. body is a substantive, that is, a word expressing substance.

We have to consider, however, that if we are to conceive the sensiferous element mentally, we have to take it as substance, although this does not give us licence to add to or subtract from the sensiferous element. What we add is and must be simply the means by which we know what the sensiferous element is; it must be what is sufficient and no more for us to perceive what is sensiferous as ens. We are left, therefore, with the concept of body given to us by perception and named as 'body', that is, entirely enclosed in what is sensiferous. And to the sensiferous element, as we saw, pertains the concept of 'force operating in extension, and therefore extended.'

After this, we may want to ascend higher through reflection. If so, we shall undoubtedly find that the subject-ens of the sensiferous power, considered in itself and not as we perceive it, could be an unextended ens. In this case, we come to see that extension pertains originally to what is felt and to what is sentient, and consequently to what is unextended.(27) Now, however, we are no longer thinking the concept of body, but the concept of something else, which I call corporeal principle.

776. So far, we have provided sufficient explanation of body, given through perception, as sensiferous and as foreign force. We saw that this force, which manifests itself either as sensiferous or as foreign, is perceived by us as extended in the term of its operation. We also saw how, through this extension, it is called body (sensiferous) or brute matter (foreign force). Again, we saw how this extended force comes to be clothed with sensible qualities, and properly speaking with what is felt. Finally, we saw how philosophical meditation may rise from body to corporeal principle, the unknown thing which produces the body we perceive. We can now move on to show the origin of the opposite concepts of form and matter, which are not foreign to common sense and which the most ancient philosophers used so extensively and in such general terms in their philosophies.
To do this aptly, we first have to observe the different way in which we clothe body with extension and with what is felt (according to the concept given to us by perception).

777. As we said, measured extension is the mode of what is felt. This mode is always present, although with varying limits of shape and size. Feeling itself, however, varies specifically in another totally different way because colour, for example, is specifically different from taste. Moreover, in the same kind of sensation (in sight, for example), what is felt can frequently vary without any variation in the mode of extension;(28) the same surface can present successively different colours and gradations of colour ad infinitum. If then, we consider measured extension in general, we find something invariable in corporeal sensation. In other words, every corporeal sensation always has some extension. This constancy of extension amid all the variables provided by the other properties or characteristics of what is felt makes us consider extension as something permanent, as a permanent extended element. Since, however, we consider the act according to which anything subsists (that is, substance) as something permanent relative to its accidents, we attribute extension to body as an essential quality preceding all the variable qualities in body.

When we speak about this force, or bodily force — either as the sensiferous element or as foreign force which, as we have seen, are identical — we say that 'an extended force' is permanent and substantial in bodies. At the same time, we must always remember that in calling the extended force the substance of bodies, our mind presupposes the first act necessary to the subsistence of 'this extended force', a subsistence which it identifies with the extended force. The mind has no aim except to perceive this extended force; it does not want to search for what perhaps lies beyond it. The corporeal principle, therefore, is not the corporeal substance spoken about by mankind when it uses the noun body; it is an unknown principle lying beyond this substance.

778. But, before we go further, we have to consider carefully how we form the concept of the various substances we perceive. Because perception is an action exercised in us as beings capable of receiving it, that is, of feeling or understanding it, this action is what we first know about the agent. We fix our mind on this action because prior to it nothing else is perceived. This perceived action thus becomes the base, the first act, of the substance which we think. This in turn means that we elevate this action to an ens by supposing in it the mere act of subsistence, which is substance (the act is certainly not lacking because this action actually subsists). The human concept of substance(29) is, therefore, the first action, the action thought as subsistent and perceived in the sense. This concept, although limited, is true because we do not rise with it to the absolutely first act, which we cannot perceive. We reach first act only relative to ourselves. This first act, which undoubtedly subsists, is what we perceive, and perceive as first act. We describe it, therefore, with a noun, a substantive. In other words, what we perceive is the agent in act. This act can be second act relative to the agent in potency, but relative to ourselves it is first act, and therefore the agent itself to us.Investigation about acts anterior to perceived substances pertains to transcendental philosophy, that is, to theosophy.

779. We come now to the concept of first matter. The sensiferous element and the foreign force appear to us clothed 1. with limited extension; 2. with limits to this extension, that is, shape; and 3. with what we have called secondary sensible qualities. These qualities are never perceived except in a shape; shape is always perceived in extension; limited extension presents itself to us as so indivisible from the sensiferous element and from the foreign force that apart from some kind of extension we cannot in any way perceive or think of them. Extension, therefore, is always and invariably present in direct perception, although shape and other sensible qualities can vary. Consequently, because limited extension (in general) pertains invariably to what we first think and perceive, and substantial essence is precisely 'that which we first think' (cf. 52), I said that the sensiferous element and the extended force are a substantial essence and can conclude that shape and other sensible qualities are accidents. I call the substantial essence 'body'.

Although these accidents are variable, some of them always accompany body. The substantial essence of body never exists on its own. If we want to think it on its own, we have to make it a mental object from which we separate such accidents. The substantial essence of body is separate only in our idea; it is an abstract that can be realised only on condition that it is clothed with certain accidents. We say, therefore, that 'the substantial essence of body possesses its accidents in potency'. This means that 'such an idea, when realised, can and must be clothed with some, not all, of its possible accidents.'

780. However, if body is 'an extended force', its nature cannot be known as it should be unless we know the nature of extension which, through the imagination, can be divided into parts so that the force in one part of an extension is altogether separate from the force in some other part, whether contiguous or not. This means that bodily forces do not act in one another; they act in their own extension without exceeding it in any way. 'The substantial essence of body', therefore, possesses the property of being divisible into parts in such a way that it has no unity per se. Its acting principle is not seen, it is not body and, if it exists, pertains to transcendental philosophy, as we said. Rather, it is action perceived by us in its term, and as such is essentially divisible. This entity, which presents its activity in a single part, in one limited extension, is not identical in number (but only in quality) with the entity which presents its activity in some other part, in some other extension. This is the sum total of all the data from which we can draw our concept of first matter.

781. Bodily force stripped of every extension is annihilated because it no longer operates in any place.(30) It cannot, therefore, be first matter because first matter is not nothing.(31)

782. Moreover, first matter cannot be mere extension, which is not per se divided. Extension is divided only in the imagination (cf. 563-565); matter is subject to real division.

783. Third, first matter, created by God and really existent, cannot be infinite. This is another proof that it is not extension, which is naturally perceived as immeasurable and thus as infinite. It is also conceived as immobile and without potency to any shape. It is only the mind which designs shapes in pure extension through imaginary signs which are not extension itself.

784. Fourth, first matter has no determined confines. If it did, it would have shape. Nevertheless, it is a real ens conceived by the mind, although stripped through abstraction of its confines. It has limits and shapes in potency.

785. Fifth, first matter has real, substantial parts in potency. In other words, it can be divided into indefinite parts, each of which is equally matter in concept, but different in reality. This is the result of the extended quality which is its mode of being. This mode is in potency to any dimension,(32) shape, form and multiplicity(33) whatsoever.

786. We can conclude, therefore:
1. The concept of first matter, although abstract, presents the mind with a first, indeterminate element of bodies which pertains to their reality but cannot subsist except through the addition of determinations.

787. Note here that abstraction has two functions: a) it makes us think some realisable element, but without its determinations (thetical abstraction); b) it also makes us think some non-realisable quid when it separates things which cannot be totally separated without rendering them inconceivable — like the centre of a circle without its circumference, corporeal force without any generic extension, and so on (hypothetical abstraction).

788. We can, if we wish, reduce the second kind of abstracts to a general formula and define them as: 'Abstracts in which abstraction has removed even the potency of receiving the determinations necessary to become real.' The concept of first matter is not given through the use of the second, but the first abstraction. Hence

789. 2. First matter is an extended force which is in potency,
a) to having a determinate quantity of extension;
b) to having a determinate shape;
c) to being divided into parts, each of which has its own determined quantity and its own shape;
d) to having a determined, sensible element.

790. 3. Again, first matter is the substance of bodies. In this sense, Aristotle was correct to call first matter 'substance'. The determinations of quantity, such as shape, quantitative numerability and sensibility are conditions according to which first matter can possess the act of subsistence. Taken together, these conditions constitute the form of body.

791. These determinations can vary, but some or other of them are necessary and as such form the substantial form of body together with the act of substance. In other words, determined extension or quantity, shape and sensible element are said to be the substantial form of body in so far as they terminate and perfect the act which makes them subsist, that is, the act of material substance from which they receive unity.(34)

792. As variables, however, they constitute accidental forms or accidents. As such, they are not considered in the unity of the substance which makes them subsist, but as separated from one another by abstraction [App., no. 1].

793. 4. The different elements of corporeal nature possess an order, as follows:

1. force, whose essential mode is extensive quantity. Force cannot be considered separate from extensive quantity except through second-level abstraction. Otherwise, it is an absurdity: it is force on the one hand, but on the other lacks its essential constitutive element. As such it is force in potency. But what we conceive is force in act;

2. extensive quantity, which has confines determining a shape. Shape, therefore, is to extension what limits are to what is limited;

3. shape is not presented to us without some felt element. Although we can indeed prescind through abstraction from every felt element, we cannot prescind from what is felt in general. An abstract shape is not a shape with a felt element, but a shape which 'is thought as possible to be felt, without any determination relative to the felt element included in it; shape can in fact include different felt elements.'

794. In thinking of abstract force, therefore, we think of extension, but leave it indeterminate. This is the concept proper to first matter of bodies.

795. In thinking of abstract force, but at a lower level of abstraction where some extension or determined, extensive quantity is present, we think of its shape, but without determining it. This is matter with some dimension (not first matter).

796. Again, in thinking of matter at an even lower level of abstraction, with a determined quantity and shape, we think of what is felt, but leave its quality or sensible qualities without determination.

797. Finally, in thinking of matter together with quantity, shape and determined felt element, we think of formed body, that is, matter together with form, the full species, the universal, but not abstract, idea of body [App., no. 2].

798. The real body is then perceived intellectively when the sensitive perception is united to its corresponding idea, that is, to the full species.

799. That which is thought prior to its determinations is called the subject of the determinations. First matter, therefore, is the first subject of all the corporeal determinations; extensive quantity is taken as the dialectic subject of shape; and shape is taken as the dialectic subject of the sensible qualities.

800. Note, however, that human reasoning runs along two opposed paths, or better, runs along the same path in two directions, going and coming. In going, it follows its natural, common order by moving analytically from the whole to the parts; in coming, it follows a scientific or learned order by moving synthetically from the parts to the whole. This 'return' of the mind presupposes its prior 'departure'; learned synthesis presupposes normal analysis.

801. When we descend from first matter to real body, we return from the parts to the whole. The spirit, however, before moving in this direction, had to move in the opposite direction (from the whole to the parts). During this process, the order of predicates and subjects is changed. First, we have what is felt, then its shape, then its quantity. Here, we predicate shape of the felt element, and quantity of shape. In other words, we say that shape is a mode of what is felt, and extensive quantity a mode of shape. Matter, however, being the actual proximate cause of what is felt, cannot be predicated. Instead, we have to predicate of it all that has been predicated of the felt element, which is the term of its act, in which it is perceived. Thus, it is always of matter that we predicate shape, quantity and felt element as its effect. Whichever direction is taken by the mind, therefore, matter is always considered as first subject, that is, as substance; it can never be predicated, but only considered as subject.

Notes

(10) NE, vol. 2, 855-857.

(11) AMS , 103-228.

(12) Ibid ., 370-384.

(13) Ibid ., 350-366.

(14) Ibid ., 392-400.

(15) AMS , 94-97.

(16) NE, vol. 2, 841-844.

(17) AMS , 380-400.

(18) Nevertheless, this argument does not exclude the possibility of some harmony, pre-established by God, between the change of the sensiferous element and that of the external force. This mere possibility seems to have no real value, however, in the light of the law of economy according to which the Creator works.

(19) The activity of the soul arises from what is felt , as I have explained in Anthropology .

(20) This concept is not found in babies, who consider all things as animate. I hope to show this clearly in Pedagogia .

(21) NE, vol. 2, 559-866.

(22) Sistema filosofico , 90-98.

(23) NE, vol. 2, 749-753.

(24) Ibid ., 882-900.

(25) Ibid ., 662-669.

(26) Ibid .

(27) AMS , 94-96.

(28) This led certain Scholastics to exclude the concept of matter from the definition of extension. 'Since, therefore, all dimensions are of the same species in any matter whatsoever, matter does not form part of their definition, etc' (St. Thomas Aquinas, In IV Sent ., d. 12, q. 1, art. 1). As far as I can see, the concept of matter does not form part in any way of the concept of unmeasured extension . In the concept of measured extension , however, it is necessary to find something which determines limits. This can only be either real matter or imaginary matter (which forms mathematical bodies). The concept of measured and determined extension does not, however, form part of the concept of matter.

(29) NE , vol. 3, 1213-1244.

(30) St. Thomas says: 'First matter per se is in a place, or is part of what is in a place' (In I Sent ., d. 37, q. 3, art. 1, ad 2).

(31) Hence St. Thomas' statement: 'Although matter, in its potentiality, does not offer any likeness of God, it does retain some likeness to the divine in so far as it has being' (S.T. , I, q. 14, art. 11, ad 4).

(32) Determinate dimension is not an element in the definition of matter, although dimension in general is, because matter is not infinite.

(33) 'Matter is not suitably divided into parts unless it is understood as quantity. If quantity is removed, an indivisible substance remains, as II Phys (text 15) says' (S.T ., I, q. 50, art. 2). But we have to note that material things are necessarily annihilated if quantity in general is removed from them.

(34) 'Modern and ancient writers, when speaking about corporeal matters, posit the form of physical bodies in mechanical principles, namely, in shape, size, texture, the movement of parts. To these, Buffon (Observ. et Expér . sur la product. des animaux , t. 1, c. 3) adds impenetrability, divisibility, communication of movement. These concur in constituting matter, but not its form, that is, they do not make it one rather than another matter' (Baldinotti, Metaph. Gen. , n. 850). None of this is exact because it does not distinguish what pertains 1. to the realisation of matter; 2. to matter itself; 3. to substantial form; and 4. to accidental forms. Quantity, divisibility, situation in space and consequently texture pertain to realisation , not properly speaking to the matter or form of bodies. Impenetrability, extension in general and certain dispositions , that is, an aptitude for receiving substantial and accidental forms, pertain to matter . Determined shape, but not one shape rather than another, and a determined felt element, but not one rather than another, to which the shape refers, pertain to substantial form . The choice of these forms and determined felt elements pertains to the accidental forms .