HISTORICAL SETTING 
There have always been those who apprehended being thus 
simply — Aristotle is the first of the Greek philosophers to grasp 
the dynamic element in ontology and it is even with him 
only imperfectly and at times contradictorily expressed. He 
is sufficiently under the influence of the natural philosophers to 
cling to the fourfold division, even when it had no significance 
in the system. In like manner the dualism which appears in 
Aristotle’s classification is purely formal and is a dualism of 
method and not of reality. Form (eidos) is essence and that alone 
which can be truly said to be. Matter has only a relative reality 
as a potentiality in the essence. The thought seems to be very 
like that expressed by the writer that energy self-limited is crea- 
tion, or spontaneity is transformed into terms of the universe 
by the introduction of resistance. Relatively, says Aristotle, 
matter is non-existent. It is the opposite of entelechy or Aristo- 
telian form which is, as Goethe calls it, the That or actus. The 
idea of pure matter is an abstraction. He shows great scientific 
insight in adding that form is at once form, end, and moving 
cause. That is, form is a determinant based on activity — it is 
the form of the activity which causes the form of the substance. 
Motion is the passage of the potentiality (of the energy) into 
reality. Aristotle’s actual cause is a pure dynamic spontaneity. 
The first mover must be, he says, one whose essence is pure energy, 
since, if it were in any respect merely potential, it could not 
unceasingly communicate motion to all things ; it must be eternal, 
pure, immaterial form, since otherwise it would be burdened with 
potentiality. Being free from matter it is without plurality and 
without parts. It is absolute spirit which thinks itself and 
whose thought is thought of thought. This eternal prius is 
evidently spontaneous and self-actuating and the essence of his 
being can only be energy. He clearly recognizes the doctrine 
of immanence and yet the resulting idea of design is limited by 
the obstacles offered by matter. Remembering the definition 
of matter, we see that the limitation is inherent in the realizing 
of the potential, that is, it is a self-limitation essential to the 
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