CAUSE
462
CAUSE
forms, specifically the same, are held to be numeri-
cally individuated.
The doctrine of the school with regard to formal causes must be understood in the light of the thesis that all forms are, of their nature, acts, or actualities. The formal cause of material entities has been de- scribed as that substantial reality which intrinsically determines matter in any species of corporeal sub- stance. It is conceived as the actuating, determin- ing, specifying principle, existent in the effect. It is a substance, not of itself as form, but reductively, as the quidditative act, as the material cause belongs to the same category in the sense of being a receptive potentiality. But substantial form, with which we are here dealing, is not of its nature either dependent or independent of the matter that it informs, or actuates. Certain substantial forms are said to be drawn from the potentiality of matter — those, namely, that for the exercise of all their functions are totally dependent upon material dispositions or organs. Of this nature are said to be all substantial forms, or formal causes, specifically below that of the human being, i. e. the soul of man. This, as in- trinsically independent of matter in its chief functions of intellection and volition, is, although the formal cause of man, as such, held to be immaterial, and to necessitate a special and individual creative act on the part of God. While the material cause of corporeal entities is one, in the sense that it is one indeterminate potentiality, the formal cause is said to be one in the sense that one substantial formal cause only can exist in each effect, or result, of the union of form and mat- ter. For formal causes, as the specifying factors in diverse corporeal entities, are diverse both numeric- ally and specifically. They are so specifically, in that they proceed in an order of varying perfection, from the formal causes of the simple elements upwards, just as the various effects, or results, of the union of matter and form, which are specified by them, proceed in an order of varying perfection, to the lower of which, in each subsequent grade, a higher is super- added. They are numerically diverse, in the same species, because of the differentiation that accrues to them on account of their reception in quantified matter (materia signata).
Consistent with this teaching is that in which the angels are said to be distinguished specifically, and not numerically, as lacking the material subject by which substantial forms of the same species are differentiated. In the same way the human soul, when separated from the body at death, is held to retain its "habit" towards the quantified matter that it actuated as formal principle, and from which it received its differentiation from all other human souls. In a sense similar to that of substan- tial forms specifying primordial matter, accidental formal causes are conceived as informing corporeal substances already in existence as entities. The causality of the substantial formal cause is shown in the same manner as that of the material. It concurs in the being of the effect, or result of the union of matter and form, as actually constituting this in its proper and specific essence. Yet it is distinct from it in that it does not include in itself matter, which the composite effect does. A parallel consideration will show the nature of the causality of accidental formal causes. The specific qualities of material substances, as well as of immaterial, are said to depend upon their formal causes. It may be noted that, while both the material and the formal principle arc. pro|icrly speak- ing, causes, in that they contribute, each in its proper manner, towards the resultant effect, their causal na- ture is intrinsic. The informed matter is the effect, produced and sustained by the acl "f information. Form and matter are physically component parts of the effect. The theory derived from an examination of corporeal changes, both accidental and substantial,
that has just been outlined, is that commonly known
as Hylomorphism. It permeates the whole of Scho-
lastic physical science and philosophy, and is em-
ployed, both as to terminology and signification, in
the exposition of Catholic theology. In this place it
will be well to note that the terminology and mean-
ing of this doctrine are not only consecrated to theol-
ogy by the usage of theologians, but have also been
employed in the solemn definitions of the Church. In
the general Council of Yienne it was defined that who-
soever shall presume to assert, defend, or pertina-
ciously hold that the rational or intellective soul is not
the form of the human body, of itself and essentially.
is to be considered as a heretic. (Cf. "Cone. Yiennen.
Definitiones ... ex Clementina de Summa Trini-
tate" in Denzinger, "Enchirid.", n. 408.) This teach-
ing was reasserted in the decree of Pope Leo X, in the
Fifth Lateran Council (Bull, Apostolici Regiminis),
and again by Pope Pius IX, in a Brief to the Cardinal
Archbishop of Cologne, concerning the books and
teaching of Gunther (1857).
The efficient cause is that which, by its action, pro- duces an effect substantially distinct from itself. It is denominated efficient on account of the term pro- duced by its action, i. e. the effect itself, and not necessarily from any presupposed material principle which it is conceived as potent to transform. The action, or causality, of the efficient cause is conceived as one which educes the actuality of the effect from its potentiality. This it is held to do in virtue of its own actuality, though precisely how no one has ever ex- plained. No explanation of the essential nature of the action of the efficient cause would seem to be possible. St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that "an effect shows the power of the cause only by reason of the action, which proceeds from the power and is terminated in the effect. But the nature of a cause is not known through its effect except in so far as through its effect its power is known, which follows upon its nature". (Contra Gentiles, III, lxix, tr. Rickaby.) Both the fact of efficient causality, and an account of its mode of action, as to accidents, are thus expressed by St. Thomas, in answer to the objections of "some Doc- tors of the Moorish Law": "Now this is a ridiculous proof to assign of a body not acting, to point to the fact that no accident passes from subject to subject. When it is said that one body heats another, it is not meant that numerically the same heat, which is in the heating body, passes to the body heated; but that by virtue of the heat, which is in the heating body, nu- merically another heat comes to be in the heated body actually, which was in it before potentially. For a natural agent does not transfer its own form to another subject, but reduces the subject upon which it acts from potentiality to actuality." (Op. cit.. Bk. Ill, lxix.) The same argument, mutatis mutandis, would likewise hold good if applied to the efficient causes of substances. The efficient cause, unlike the material and the formal, is thus seen to be entirely ex- trinsic to its effect. It is held to act in virtue of its form. The fact and mode of this action is given in the above quotation from the "Contra Gentiles": but the precise nature of the action, or relation, between the efficient cause and its effect is not stated. It is quite clear that the accident, quality, power, or motion in the cause A is not held to pass over into the effect B, since a numerically new one is said to be reduced from potentiality. Equally clear is it that nothing of the first efficient cause is supposed to pass over into its effects, as creation is said to be rx nihila sui et subiecti; and there is nothing in God to pass over, since all that we conceive of as in God is God Himself. Conse- quently it would seem that the concept of efficiency in general includes no more than the activity of the cause as producing the effect by educing an accidental or a substantial form from the potentiality of matter. In the one case of forms not so educible, the efficient
