ii MATTER THE TRUE SUBSTANCE 165 



seed becomes herb ; the herb, corn in the ear ; the corn, 

 bread ; the bread, bile ; bile, blood ; blood again seed, an 

 embryo, a man, a corpse, earth, stone, or other things, 

 and so through all natural forms. There must then be 

 one and the same thing which in itself is not stone nor 

 earth, nor corpse, nor man, nor embryo, nor blood, nor 

 anything else. 1 So the Pythagorean Timaeus 2 inferred, 

 from the transmutations of the elements one into 

 another, earth into water, the dry into the moist, a 

 tertium quid, which was neither moist nor dry, but 

 became subject now of the one, now of the other nature. 

 Otherwise the earth would have gone to nothing and 

 the water come from nothing, which is impossible. 

 Thus nothing is ever annihilated but the accidental, the 

 exterior, material form, both matter and the substantial 

 form, i.e. spirit, being eternal. 



The argument has proved that there is a something, Natural 

 the " I know not what " of Locke, which is the sub- 

 stance of all natural things, " natural forms. " We have 

 now to see in what relation this substance stands to the 

 forms, the differences, which are on its surface. All 

 natural forms dissolve in matter, and come again in 

 matter, so that nothing is really " constant, firm, eternal, 

 or deserving of the name of a principle, but matter : 

 besides that the forms have no existence without matter, 

 in it they are generated and decay, from it they issue, 

 into it are received again ; therefore matter, which 

 remains always the same and always fruitful, must be 

 regarded as the only substantial principle, as that which 

 always is and always abides ; and the forms but as 

 varying dispositions of matter, which come and go, 

 cease and are renewed ; therefore they have no claim to 

 be principles." 3 



1 Lag. 249. 31. 2 Pseudo-Timacus, 94 A. 8 Lag. 253. n. 



