MATTER AND FORM. 283 



writings of the schoolmen was synonymous with at- 

 tribute : "it is that by which a thing is." An angel to a 

 schoolman was a Form not immersed in Matter. u Angeli 

 sunt formae immateriales," says the Angelic Doctor. 1 



The Matter of the earth, according to Gilbert, is en- 

 dowed with Form or efficient potencies which give to it 

 firmness, direction and movement. Of these the princi- 

 pal feature is "verticity " a word which he coins to sig- 

 nify the self-directing capacity or directive polarity of the 

 globe. Just to the extent that it loses Form as by the 

 terrene Matter becoming combined with base or excremen- 

 titiotis substances so it loses verticity. Ultimately he 

 draws a somewhat subtle distinction between this unique 

 and peculiar Form which he ascribes to the earth and the 

 prima forma of Aristotle, by limiting the first to a partic- 

 ular variety or kind of Form which keeps and orders its 

 own globe giving a specific Form to the sun, another to 

 the moon, and so through all the heavenly bodies. Thus 

 he reaches his general conclusion as to the magnetic na- 

 ture of the earth, and at the same time differentiates his 

 theory from the older hypotheses. 



This nature is not derived from the heavens as a whole, 



conception, given by De Grote in his discussion of the De Anima. 

 Aristotle, Vol. II, p. 181 et seq. 



"The implication of the two (Matter and Form) constitutes the living 

 subject with all its functions, active and passive. If the eye were an 

 animated or living subject, seeing would be its soul ; if the carpenter's 

 axe were living, cutting would be its soul ; the Matter would be the lens 

 or the iron in which this soul is embodied. It is not indispensable, how- 

 ever, that all the functions of the living subject should be at all times in 

 complete exercise ; the subject is still living, even while asleep ; the eye 

 is still a good eye, though at the moment closed. It is enough if the 

 functional aptitude exists as a dormant property, ready to rise into 

 activity when the proper occasions present themselves. This minimum 

 of Form suffices to give living efficacy to the potentialities of the body ; 

 it is enough that a man, though now in a dark night and seeing nothing, 

 will see as soon as the sun rises ; or that he knows geometry, though he 

 is not now thinking of a geometrical problem." Aris., De Anima, II, i., 

 p. 412, a. 27. 



J St. Thomas Aq.: Sum Theol., I, q. 61. 



