Lecture 6 — Matter as potency

However, we must determine when each thing is in a state of potency and when it is not, for a thing is not potential at just any time at all. For example, in the process of generation, is earth potentially a man? Or is it not, but rather when it has become seed? But perhaps even this is not true in an unqualified sense.

Therefore, in like manner, it is not everything which will be healed by the art of medicine or by chance, but there is something which is capable of being healed, and this is what is potentially healthy.

And the intelligible expression of what comes to exist actually after existing potentially as a result of intellect is that it is something which, when willed, comes to be if no external impediment hinders it.

And in the other case—namely, in that of the thing which gets well by itself—health exists potentially when nothing within the thing hinders it.

The same is true of those things that are potentially a house; for if there is nothing in the matter that prevents them from becoming a house, and if there is nothing which must be added or taken away or changed, this is potentially a house.

The same is true of all other things that have an external principle of generation.

And in the case of those things that have their principle of change within themselves, a thing will also be potentially any of those things that it will be of itself if nothing external hinders this. For example, seed is not yet such, because it must be present in some other thing and be changed.

But when it is already such as a result of its own principle, it is now this thing potentially; but in the other state, it needs another principle. For example, earth is not yet a statue potentially, but when changed it becomes bronze.

Now, it seems that the thing of which we are speaking is not a “that,” but a “that-en.” For example, a chest is not wood but “wooden’; and wood is not earth but “earthen.” And the same thing would be true if earth were not something else, but a “that-en.” And that other thing is always potentially (in an unqualified sense) the thing which follows it, as a chest is not earth or earthen, but wooden.

For this is potentially a chest and the matter of a chest, and wood in an unqualified sense is the matter of a chest in an unqualified sense, but this wood is the matter of this chest. And if there is some first thing which is not said to be “that-en” as regards something else, this is prime matter.

For example, if earth is of air, and air is not fire, but of fire, then fire is prime matter, and is a particular thing. For a universal and a subject differ in this respect, that a subject is a particular thing.

For example, the subject of modifications is man, body, and animal, but the modification is musical and white. And when music comes to a subject, the subject is not called music, but musical; and a man is not called whiteness, but white; and he is not called walking or motion but what walks or is moved, like a “that-en.”

Therefore, whatever is predicated in this way has substance as its ultimate subject, whereas what is not predicated in this way, but rather, what is a certain form and a particular thing, has matter and material substance as its ultimate subject.

Therefore, the term “that-en” rightly happens to be predicated of matter and the modifying attributes; for both are indeterminate. It has been stated, then, when a thing is said to exist potentially, and when it is not.

1832. Having shown what act is, here the Philosopher intends to show both when and in virtue of what sort of disposition a thing is said to be in a state of potency for act. In regard to this, he does two things.

First [1832], he states what he intends to do. He says that it is necessary to determine when a thing is in potency and when it is not. For it is not at just any time and when disposed in just any way that a thing can be said to be in potency, even to what comes from it; for it could never be said that earth is potentially a man, since obviously it is not; but it is rather said to be potentially a man when the seed has already been generated from a preceding matter. And perhaps it never is potentially a man, as will be shown below.

Potency proximate to act

1833. Therefore, in like manner (1049a3). Second, he answers the question which was raised, and in regard to this, he does two things.

First, he explains the sort of disposition which matter must have in order to be said to be in potency to act.

Second (1049a18; [1839]), he shows that it is only what is in matter that gets its name from matter disposed in some particular way, at now, it seems that the thing.

In regard to the first, it must be understood, as he said above in book 7 [1411], that the effects of certain arts may also come about without art. For while a house is not produced without art, health may be produced without the art of medicine, through the operation of nature alone. And even though what comes to be by nature may not be fortuitous or a result of chance (since nature is an efficient cause in the proper sense, whereas fortune or chance is an efficient cause in an accidental sense), nevertheless, because the one who is healed by nature is healed without the application of any art, he is said to be healed by chance. For nothing prevents an effect which is not fortuitous in itself from being said to be fortuitous in relation to someone who does not consider the proper cause of such an effect.

1834. Hence he says that it is not just anyone at all or anyone disposed in any way at all who is healed by medicine or by chance, but it is someone having the capability by reason of a definite disposition who is healed either by nature or by art. For to all active principles there correspond definite passive principles. And it is the thing having this capability, which nature or art can bring to a state of actual health by a single action, that is potentially healthy.

1835. And in order that this kind of capability or potency may be more fully known, he adds its definition with reference both to the operation of art and to that of nature. Hence he says that the capable or potential is what comes to exist actually from existing potentially as a result of intellect or art.

For the intelligible expression, or definition, of the “capable” is this: it is something which the artist immediately brings to act when he wills it if no external impediment hinders it. And the patient is then said to be potentially healthy, because he becomes healthy by a single action of art. However, in the case of those who are healed by nature, each is said to be potentially healthy when there is nothing hindering health which has to be removed or changed before the healing power within the patient produces its effect in the act of healing.

1836. Now, what we have said about the act of healing, which is brought about by the art of healing, can also be said about the other activities produced by the other arts. For matter is potentially a house when none of the things present in the matter prevent the house from being brought into being immediately by a single action, and when there is nothing that should be added or taken away or changed before the matter is formed into a house, as clay must be changed before bricks are made from it; and as something must be taken away from trees by hewing them and something added by joining them so that a house may be brought into being. Clay and trees, then, are not potentially houses, but bricks and wood already prepared are.

1837. And the same holds true in the case of other things whether their principle of perfection is outside of them, as in the case of artificial things, or within them, as in the case of natural things. And they are always in potency to act when they can be brought to act by their proper efficient principle without any external thing hindering them. However, seed is not such, for an animal must be produced from it through many changes, but when by its proper active principle (that is, something in a state of act) it can already become such, it is then already in potency.

1838. But those things that have to be changed before they are immediately capable of being brought to act require a different efficient principle, namely, the one preparing the matter, which is sometimes different from the one finishing it off, which induces the final form. For example, it is obvious that earth is not yet potentially a statue, for it is not brought to act by a single action or by a single agent, but first it is changed by nature and becomes bronze, and afterward, it becomes a statue by art.

1839. Now, it seems that (1049a18). Here he shows that a compound derives its name from such matter which is in potency to act, and in regard to this, he does three things.

First, he shows how a compound derives its name from matter, saying that what is produced from matter is not called a “that,” but a “that-en” (ecininum). This expression is not used in the Latin, but it is used according to the custom of the Greeks to designate what comes from something else as from matter, as if to say that matter is not predicated abstractly of what comes from it, but derivatively, as a chest is not wood but “wooden,” and as wood is not earth but “earthen.” And, again, if earth should have another matter prior to it, earth would not be that matter but that-en, that is, it will not be predicated of earth abstractly but derivatively.

1840. Yet such predication is made because what is potential in a definite way is always predicated of the thing which immediately comes after it. For example, earth, which cannot be said to be potentially a chest, is not predicated of a chest either abstractly or derivatively; for a chest is neither earth nor earthen, but wooden, because wood is potentially a chest and the matter of a chest. Wood in general is the matter of a chest in general, and this particular wood is the matter of this particular chest.

1841. But, if there is some first thing which is not referred to something else as a that-en, that is, something which does not have something else predicated of it derivatively in the above way, this will be first matter. For example, if air is the matter of earth, as some have said (988b22), air will be predicated derivatively of earth, so that earth will be said to be airy. And similarly, air will be said to be of fire, and not fire, if fire is its matter. But if fire does not get its name from any prior matter, it will be first matter, according to the position of Heraclitus (988b26). But here it is necessary to add “if it is something subsistent” in order to distinguish it from a universal, for a universal is predicated of other things, but other things are not predicated of it—yet it is not matter, since it is not something subsistent. For a universal and a subject differ in that a subject is a particular thing whereas a universal is not.

1842. For example (1049a29). Second, he gives an example of derivative predication, saying that, just as the subject of modifications—for example, man, body, or animal—has modifications predicated of it derivatively, in a similar fashion, matter is predicated derivatively of that which comes from matter. Now, the modification is musical and white, but the subject to which music accrues is not called music in the abstract, but is called musical derivatively, and man is not called whiteness, but white. Nor again is man called walking or motion in the abstract, but what walks or is moved like a that-en, that is, what gets a derivative name.

1843. Therefore, whatever is predicated (1049a34). Third, he compares both methods of giving names to things. He says that all those names which are predicated derivatively in this way, as the accidents mentioned, have substance as the ultimate subject which sustains them; but, in all those cases in which the predicate is not derivative, but is a form or a particular thing, such as wood or earth, the ultimate subject sustaining the rest is matter or material substance. And it is only fitting that the term “that-en” happens to be predicated, that is, derivatively, of matter and the modifying attributes, that is, accidents, for both are indeterminate. For an accident is both made determinate and defined by means of its subject, and matter by means of that to which it is in potency.

Lastly, he summarizes his remarks, and this part is evident.