THE PATH OF EVOLUTION 



" Source of Life " in its Latin version the scholastics 

 drew many of their notions of matter and form as 

 taught by Aristotle, and modified by the Platonic, 

 and Neo- Platonic ideas of its author. Between mat- 

 ter (" Hyle ") and the form he placed the volition 

 (La Volonte) which served as the intermediary agent. 

 We find here the thought which dominated the Jew- 

 ish theologians : that the Word of the creation indi- 

 cated the volition of God, manifesting itself freely 

 in the work of creation. " Dixitique Deus ; Fiat 

 lux. Et facta est lux." This volition of the Logos 

 has thus been made into the first hypostasis of the 

 Divinity, so as to avoid putting the First Substance, 

 the Absolute God into immediate contact with the 

 world. In fact though, volition as a divine attri- 

 bute is inseparable from the Divinity, it is itself the 

 divine essence. St. Thomas and Albertus Magnus 

 considered Avicebron to be the first who gave matter 

 as an attribute of the soul. This doctrine, the ma- 

 teriality of the soul, has been regarded as being to 

 some extent the principal point in his system of phil- 

 osophy. His doctrine verged closely on Pantheism, 

 if not actually identified at times therewith. 



Among all the Jewish philosophers none were so 

 well known to the scholastics of the twelfth century, 

 or even to those of later times, who are conversant 

 with the literature of the Middle Ages as Maimon- 



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