Against this theory there is much to be urged, but particularly against this posing of a common Something and a single all-embracing genus.This Something, it may be submitted, is unintelligible to themselves, is indefinable, and does not account either for bodies or for the bodiless.Moreover, no room is left for a differentia by which this Something may be distinguished.Besides, this common Something is either existent or non-existent: if existent, it must be one or other of its [four] species;- if non-existent, the existent is classed under the non-existent.But the objections are countless; we must leave them for the present and consider the several heads of the division.
To the first genus are assigned Substrates, including Matter, to which is given a priority over the others; so that what is ranked as the first principle comes under the same head with things which must be posterior to it since it is their principle.
First, then: the prior is made homogeneous with the subsequent.
Now this is impossible: in this relation the subsequent owes its existence to the prior, whereas among things belonging to one same genus each must have, essentially, the equality implied by the genus; for the very meaning of genus is to be predicated of the species in respect of their essential character.And that Matter is the basic source of all the rest of things, this school, we may suppose, would hardly deny.
Secondly: since they treat the Substrate as one thing, they do not enumerate the Existents; they look instead for principles of the Existents.There is however a difference between speaking of the actual Existents and of their principles.
If Matter is taken to be the only Existent, and all other things as modifications of Matter, it is not legitimate to set up a single genus to embrace both the Existent and the other things; consistency requires that Being [Substance] be distinguished from its modifications and that these modifications be duly classified.
Even the distinction which this theory makes between Substrates and the rest of things is questionable.The Substrate is [necessarily]
one thing and admits of no differentia- except perhaps in so far as it is split up like one mass into its various parts; and yet not even so, since the notion of Being implies continuity: it would be better, therefore, to speak of the Substrate, in the singular.
26.But the error in this theory is fundamental.To set Matter the potential above everything, instead of recognising the primacy of actuality, is in the highest degree perverse.If the potential holds the primacy among the Existents, its actualization becomes impossible;it certainly cannot bring itself into actuality: either the actual exists previously, and so the potential is not the first-principle, or, if the two are to be regarded as existing simultaneously, the first-principles must be attributed to hazard.Besides, if they are simultaneous, why is not actuality given the primacy? Why is the potential more truly real than the actual?
Supposing however that the actual does come later than the potential, how must the theory proceed? Obviously Matter does not produce Form: the unqualified does not produce Quality, nor does actuality take its origin in the potential; for that would mean that the actual was inherent in the potential, which at once becomes a dual thing.
Furthermore, God becomes a secondary to Matter, inasmuch as even he is regarded as a body composed of Matter and Form- though how he acquires the Form is not revealed.If however he be admitted to exist apart from Matter in virtue of his character as a principle and a rational law [logos], God will be bodiless, the Creative Power bodiless.If we are told that he is without Matter but is composite in essence by the fact of being a body, this amounts to introducing another Matter, the Matter of God.
Again, how can Matter be a first-principle, seeing that it is body? Body must necessarily be a plurality, since all bodies are composite of Matter and Quality.If however body in this case is to be understood in some different way, then Matter is identified with body only by an equivocation.
If the possession of three dimensions is given as the characteristic of body, then we are dealing simply with mathematical body.If resistance is added, we are no longer considering a unity:
besides, resistance is a quality or at least derived from Quality.
And whence is this resistance supposed to come? Whence the three dimensions? What is the source of their existence? Matter is not comprised in the concept of the three-dimensional, nor the three-dimensional in the concept of Matter; if Matter partakes thus of extension, it can no longer be a simplex.
Again, whence does Matter derive its unifying power? It is assuredly not the Absolute Unity, but has only that of participation in Unity.
We inevitably conclude that Mass or Extension cannot be ranked as the first of things; Non-Extension and Unity must be prior.We must begin with the One and conclude with the Many, proceed to magnitude from that which is free from magnitude: a One is necessary to the existence of a Many, Non-Magnitude to that of Magnitude.Magnitude is a unity not by being Unity-Absolute, but by participation and in an accidental mode: there must be a primary and absolute preceding the accidental, or the accidental relation is left unexplained.
The manner of this relation demands investigation.Had this been undertaken, the thinkers of this school would probably have lighted upon that Unity which is not accidental but essential and underived.
