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all things (in virtue, namely, of the “ psychical heat ” — the 
physical basis of “soul” — which is assumed to pervade all 
natural existence), the purposes which are executed in the world. 
It only remains for our philosopher to view the idea, the end, 
the notional nature of each organism, as also of the world at large, 
as in some way imminent in these objects, and to find in the 
idea (in Aristotelian language “ form ” *) the efficient as well 
as final cause of everything which concretely exists. And 
this he does. Living things he defines as those which 
have in themselves a principle of motion or rest. This 
principle is the form which they should assume and the idea 
which they should realize, and resting in which they have their 
definite or individual character. The form regarded as final 
cause, is immanent, exists “potentially” in matter, in this 
sense, that in all matter there is a 7iisus, a striving after the 
form which it should take on. It is true that in the Aristote- 
lian system the lower form involves the higher, and the neces- 
sary condition (the logical, but not chronological prius) of all 
finite forms, is God, the absolute form, the form of forms. 
And as God is pure, thinking activity, so each natural form is 
fundamentally an ideal thing, a function of thought, the very 
notion of which is derived only from the contemplation of 
human consciousness. Nevertheless, Aristotle disconnects 
these forms, as above seen, from the divine consciousness, and 
in so far leaves them (as hypostatized abstractions) to shift for 
themselves, subject, however, to the orderly and harmonizing 
influence exerted upon them by the divine attraction. As 
forms and as being capable of experiencing a divine attrac- 
tion, they are of god-like nature, and hence Aristotle can 
beautifully and truthfully say that “ all things have in them 
something divine.” But it is obvious that he is dealing with 
dangerous, not to say inherently absurd conceptions, when he 
treats of a rational nature working in the universe under the 
guise of separate (but organically related) forms, without pro- 
viding a conscious, willing agent, in whose mind they originally 
and definitely exist, and under whose intelligent direction they 
attain to actual realization. “ Nature,” whose name is con- 
tinually on the lips of Aristotle, is certainly not such an agent, 
for he uses this term only as a convenient symbol for the sum 
* The Aristotelian “form” (tldog) is the Platonic “ idea ” (also termed 
t7dog, though more characteristically idea), stripped of that existence as an 
abstract entity, separate from concrete reality, which Plato attributed to it. 
It is the universal present in and giving life to the particular, the ideal in 
the real, mind in matter. 
