Cause Principle Unity

Third dialogue
DICSONO. Then, he seems to me to have openly confessed his ignorance;
therefore, I would be of the opinion that it is better to embrace those
philosophical principles which, in this important question, do not plead
ignorance, such as those of Pythagoras, Empedocles and your Nolan,
whose opinions we touched on yesterday.
TEOFILO. This is what the Nolan holds: there is an intellect that gives
being to everything, which the Pythagoreans and the Timaeus call the ‘giver
of forms’; a soul and a formal principle which becomes and informs
everything, that they call ‘fountain of forms’; there is matter, out of which
everything is produced and formed, and which is called by everyone the
‘receptacle of forms’.
DICSONO. This doctrine, from which it seems nothing is lacking,
pleases me much. And, indeed, it is necessary that, just as we can posit a
constant and eternal material principle, we similarly posit a formal principle.
We see that all natural forms cease in matter, then appear again in matter;
therefore, nothing, if not matter, seems in reality to be constant, firm,
eternal and worthy to be considered as principle. Besides, forms do not
exist without matter, in which they are generated and corrupted, and out
of whose bosom they spring and into which they are taken back. Hence,
matter, which always remains fecund and the same, must have the fundamental
prerogative of being recognized as the only substantial principle; as
that which is, and forever remains, and all the forms together are to be taken
merely as varied dispositions of matter, which come and go, cease and
renew themselves, so that none have value as principle. This is why we find
philosophers who, having pondered thoroughly the essence of natural
forms, such as one may see in Aristotle and his kind, have finally concluded
that they are only accidents and particularities of matter, so that, according
to them, it is to matter that we must accord the privilege of being act
and perfection, and not to the things of which we can truly say that they
are neither substance nor nature, but relative to the substance and nature
– that is to say, in their opinion, matter, which for them is a necessary, eternal
and divine principle, as it is to Avicebron, the Moor, who calls it ‘God
who is in everything’.
TEOFILO. Those who have not recognized any other form outside of
accidental form have been led to this error, and this Moor, although he had
accepted the substantial form from the Peripatetic doctrine in which he was
nurtured, judged it corruptible and not merely susceptible to material
mutations. Since he despised that which is produced and does not produce,
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