ARISTOTLE AND THE EARLIER PERIPATETICS vol.I by Eduard Zeller, B.F.C.Costelloe 1897

,'
:
METAPHYSICS 373
a higher value, when we recollect that Aristotle allowed
substantiality in its full sense to the Individual alone. 1
If the Individual alone is Substance, and if Form,
as we have just seen, is always universal, and if
therefore the true ground of individual existence is
Matter—then we cannot escape the consequence that
Matter supplies the ground also
of substantial being,
and that it is not pure Form, but the composite result
of Form and Matter which alone is Substance, Indeed,
since we have defined Substance as ' the substratum
(vTToicslfievov) 2
and have also recognised in Matter the
substratum of all Being, 3 this would seem to give Matter
the right to claim that it alone should be regarded as the
primitive Substance of all things.
Yet it is impossible
for Aristotle-to admit this. Full and original reality
belongs to Form alone ;
Matter, on the contrary, is no
more than the bare Potentiality of that whereof the Actuality
is Form. Not only, therefore, is it impossible that
Matter can be' substantial, but from its union with Form
there can be produced nothing higher than pure Form
Moreover, there are innumerable passages in which
Aristotle expressly identifies Form with Substance."
He declares that in all primitive and absolute existences,
the intelligible essence is not different from the thing
to which it belongs, 5 so that it constitutes the Substance
1
See pp. 331 sqq: t[ fy thai), c. 10, 1035, b, 32, c.
2 See pp. 300, 333, and notes. 1 1 , 1037, a, 29, c. 17, 1011, b, 8
3
See pp. 344 sq. viii. 1, 1042, a, 17, o. 3, 1043
* Kg., Netaph. i. 3, 983, a, b, 10 sqq.; ix. 8, 1050, a, 5; Gen
27 ; iii. 4, 999, b, 12 sqq. ; vii. 4, et Corr. ii. 9, 335, b, 6 ; Meteor
1030, b, 5, c. 7, 1032, b,' 1, 14 iv. 2, 379, b, 26, c. 12, 390, a, 5
(tISos Se \4-ya rd rl fy elycu Part. An. i. 1, 641, a, 25; Gen
kniarov teal tV irpinriv ovaiav An.i 1, 714, a, 5. Cf. p. 214, n
. . . \iya 5" ovaiav &vev SAijs to 5 Metap/i. vii. 6 in answer to
374 ARISTOTLE
of the thing. Further, he will not suffer anything else
to be considered absolutely real except absolutely immaterial
Form, or pure spirit.
It is not a sufficient solution
to recall the different senses in which the term
Substance (ovala) is used, 1
since it is not here a question
merely of the use of language but of the claim to actuality
in the full and strict sense of the word.
The question is
whether we are to assign it to individual things as such,
or only to their intelligible essence, i.e. to a Form which
is unaffected by change in the individual thing and
remains for ever self-identical.
Here we detect a difficulty,
or rather a contradiction, which threatens to
shake the very foundations of the system.
Aristotle did not succeed in evading it altogether.
In his Metaphysics he asks the question where we ought
to look for the substance of things—in the Form, or in
the Matter, or in the composite Whole produced by
the question (1031, a, 15) irfaepov exist, things would not be known
Tavrdif ktmv fi erepov rb. rl fjv (ruv fihv ovtc eirrai snurT-fip.Tf, to
ttvai t) Hkcuttoi/ ; it is said that 5' ouic eWai ivra 1031, b, 3).
they are different only in the This holds of all 8cra p.ii kot' &\\d
case in which a conception be- Xeyerai, a\\o xa6' aira /col irpwra.
longs to a thing kot4 o-ujiij3e^j7/c!)j 1031, b, 13, cf. 1032, a, 5: tUv
(as mere predicate), whereas on wpiruv «ol ko8' alira \eyo/i4vav rb
the other band when the concep- eic&o-Ttp chat Kal eKarrrov t& aind
tion expresses the essence of the Kal 'iv etrri ; c. 11, 1037, a, 33 sqq.
thing itself they are one and
'
Cf. the following notes and
the same. Kg. the conception of Metaph. v. 8, 1017, b, 23
whiteness is different from the (rvpfidivei Sii koto Siio rpoirovs tJjv
\cvitbs tvBpanros; on the other ovalav KiyzaBai, r6 6' iwoKeip.