Intrinsic Causes

Article 2. Intrinsic Causes

a) The Material Cause

A material cause is the bodily matter out of which a thing is made. As we have seen, only bodies have material cause. Spiritual substances (souls or angels) have no material in their make-up, and hence have no material cause.

A material cause is matter. Now, matter is distinguished as primary matter (or prime matter, as it is usually called) and secondary matter. Secondary matter (materia secunda) is a bodily substance as it exists in nature; it is a body constituted in its being and subject to accidental changes. Wax, wood, iron, a piece of coal, a twig snapped from a bush,—these are examples of secondary matter. In a word, secondary matter is simply a body. Prime matter (materia prima) is the fundamental substrate of all bodies; it is a passive and indeterminate principle (existing only in actual bodies, and never alone or “by itself,” for it is incapable of independent existence) which is the subject of substantial change.

The production of an effect is,—except in the case of creation which is an efficient activity that can be exercised only by God,—the production of changed reality. In our studies on change (Book First, Chap. II, Art. 2, d) we made a brief study of the basic constitution of all secondary matter, that is, of all bodily actuality. The student will do well to turn back now and reread the paragraphs indicated. When an effect is produced, this is because its causes concur in inducing a change from what was there formerly to what is now produced. And this change (this producing of effect) may lie in the substantial or the accidental order.

In our study of the crucifix as an effect we began with the consideration of the secondary matter out of which the crucifix was made. That is, we took ivory as the material; and the ivory existed in nature as ivory, as this kind of body, before it was shaped into a crucifix. Indeed the shaping of the crucifix brought only an accidental change to the ivory; it was changed in quantity, and in quality, and also in its relations of resemblance, for now it “looks like” something that it did not resemble before; it has now an image-value which brings to mind the actual sufferings and death of Christ upon His cross. But the point is, the ivory was subjected to accidental change only. The ivory of the crucifix is the same substantial thing that it was before the crucifix was carved. Now, the subject of the change (that which undergoes the change) is the material cause of the effect which comes from the change. Hence ivory, a complete substance, a secondary substance, an actual body in nature, is the material cause of the crucifix, which is (as a crucifix, as an image, as a “shaping”) an accidental thing, produced by accidental change.

Let us now consider the ivory of the crucifix in itself, and pay no attention to the shape into which the ivory is cut, or to its weight, or its color, or its value on the market, or its resemblance to other Substances, or any other accidental thing. Let us consider the substance called ivory. Manifestly this ivory is a finite and hence a contingent thing; in other words, it is an effect. And it is a bodily effect. What then is its material cause ? We notice that as a body ivory has a common essence and nature with all other bodies. There is no difference on the score of bodiliness (that is, the fact of being body) between ivory and lead, or silk, or a tree, or a dog, or a man. True, the bodies mentioned are essentially different in the kind of bodies they are, but they are not different in the fact of being bodies. For this common element which is thus discerned in every bodily substance, there must be a real explanation and an accounting. The only satisfactory explanation of the point is one that has stood the test of over two thousand years; it is the doctrine of prime matter as the substantial substrate of all existing bodies.

Now, prime matter is a substantial reality, but it is not a complete substance. It needs a co-substance before it can have actual existence. For its existence is potential only. Prime matter is purely indeterminate, purely potential. Indeed, it has been defined as pure potentiality. Any image we may use, any simile or analogy, is to be studied with caution, for it will necessarily be a very imperfect illustration of what we mean by truly prime or primary matter. Suppose for a moment that the whole bodily universe as we know it is annihilated, and that there exists a great mass of clay. Now, the Divine Power touches this clay, and instantly it is formed into all the different bodies of the universe again. The world is re-produced, just as it was before, with all kinds of individual things, and all sorts of different essences, and yet we see that all these bodily things were drawn out of, or shaped out of, the one original mass of clay. The clay will illustrate (most imperfectly) what we mean by a common substrate of all bodies actually existing. It will illustrate prime matter. Yet the illustration is very weak, for this reason: the clay is really a special kind of matter; it has its own existence before the bodies are drawn out of it; it is therefore not primary matter, but secondary matter. For prime matter cannot exist itself; it is no special kind of matter, for its kind comes to it with the substantial determination which sets up secondary matter (that is, with substantial form), and prime matter is wholly without determinations or determinateness. Yet it is not nothingness; nor is it actual (that is, existing) being; it is potential being. To say that it is potential being is to say that it is a capacity, a capability, a possibility, for receiving determining co-substances (that is, substantial forms) which, in each case of union with it, will produce a body, will produce secondary matter.

Let us attempt a further illustration. You take hydrogen and oxygen in proper proportions and combine the two gases under the action of a suitable agency and the result is water. You have produced a new substance which was not there before. You have not merely affected the gases accidentally, as you would by heating them, for example, or by compressing them, or by adding to their quantity or lessening it. No, you have produced a new substance which is different in its properties from the gases out of which you produced it. You have driven off the substantial determinants that made the gases hydrogen and oxygen; you have brought in the determinant which makes this new substance water. Now, what is the field of this operation? Whither have you driven the determinants which made the gases what they were? Whence have you drawn the substantial determinant which makes this substance water? The simple answer to each of the three questions is: prime matter. Prime matter is the common ground and substrate of all bodies. It is a capacity for becoming any sort of possible body, and when you fill this capacity in any given case, you actualize the potentiality of matter, and you say that the determinant (or substantial form) which sets the new substance in being is educed from the potentiality of prime matter. At the same moment in which the new substantial determinant or form is educed (and the new body thereby constituted as actual), the old substantial determinants disappear, and are no longer actual; they are said to be reduced to the potentiality of prime matter. Only spiritual forms (souls) are not thus educed and reduced; each is created.

Now, to revert to our original quest, what is the material cause of the substance called ivory ? The answer is: prime matter. This is the material cause of all bodies considered in their basic substantiality.

The material cause of the crucifix (an accidental shaping of ivory) is ivory. The material cause of ivory as secondary matter, as an actual bodily substance, is prime matter.

b) The Formal Cause

The words form and formal have a wide range of meaning. But there is this to be noted about them. In casual speech they suggest something rather unimportant, or something superficial, or something merely accidental. Thus we speak of a formal dinner, or a formal dance, and we merely mean that these functions are undertaken with a kind of ceremony which consists mostly in the fact that men wear coats with tails. And the modern young woman speaks glowingly of a new “formal” when she means that she has a new frock of a certain pattern. The student speaks, with brave unconcern, of an approaching examination as a “mere matter of form” for one of his abilities. In flat contrast with this casual and conversational usage, philosophy employes the terms form and formal (and formality) as words of tremendous significance.

We may take as the best synonym for form, the word determinant (that is, a reality which sets and determines and marks a being). And for formal, the adjective-participle determining will serve us well.

A formal cause is therefore a determining cause. It is a cause which sets, determines, or marks the effect as this precise kind of thing. And the kind may be substantial kind or accidental kind.

When the artist took up a bit of ivory and carved it into the crucifix we have been considering, he bestowed upon it a new form. He gave it a new determination or determinateness; he bestowed upon it, by his efficient activity, a factor which is a determinant of what it now is. We have seen that this new form is an accidental form; for the substance called ivory was not re-determined, was not changed, was given no new form in itself as ivory. The substance remained ivory; it remained substantially unchanged. Yet the accidental form which was given to the ivory as a determination, and which abides with it as a determinant, is a contributing factor in the effect called this crucifix. Had the ivory been shaped differently, by so much as one line, it would not have been precisely this crucifix which now it is, but, to the extent of that one line, it would have been different (otherwise determined). Hence, the accidental form of the crucifix has the nature of a true cause. It contributes in some manner to the actual being (the accidental being) of the effect. And whatever contributes, in any manner whatever, to the effect is a true cause. Whatever contributes, in any manner whatever, to the determining of what sort or kind of effect is produced, is a true formal cause. Whatever contributes, in the accidental order, to the determining of what kind the effect shall be, is a true accidental formal cause. Take a further illustration of this type of cause: A pail of hot water (and here we consider only the contents of the pail) has many forms or determinants, and each one of them is a formal cause. We notice that the water is hot, it is two quarts in amount, it is in the pail, it is on the stove, it is a thing undergoing the action of fire. Each of these points is a point of reality; each of them indicates a thing that is there, and that marks or determines the effect (that is, this particular water) in a real and special way. Each, then, is a formal cause, contributing its bit to the general character of the effect, It does not signify that the heat will quickly pass out of the water once it is removed from the fire; it does not signify that the water will evaporate or be poured out and absorbed by the earth; it does not signify that the determinations or determinants of this water are fleeting and transitory things; it only matters that here and now, at this moment, the effect called this water is before us with these determinants and determinations, these forms in fact, and each of these forms has an influence upon this effect and helps to make it what it is. Thus each of the forms vindicates its true character as an accidental formal cause.

Come now to the study of the substance of the water. What makes this water water ? As water it is not only a bodily substance, it is a bodily substance of a certain substantial kind. And something determines that kind. That which makes this body (water) a body,—not, indeed, an actual or existing body, but a thing with fundamental bodiliness,—is prime matter. But that substantial reality which has united with prime matter to constitute this body as an actual or existing body of the precise substantial kind is the substantial form of water. Prime matter is indifferent in itself; it is a capacity for receiving forms, and it can have in itself no tendencies or leanings towards one sort of form rather than another, for it does not have existence in itself and hence can have no existent leanings or preferences. Therefore, any determination, determinateness, or determinant that we discern in a substance as such is not from its prime matter, but has, so to speak, been imposed on prime matter by the substantial form. Similarly (in the accidental order) a bit of wax is quite indifferent in itself towards the images or seals that may be impressed on it; it takes what comes; and when you find wax impressed with a certain seal, you know that the seal has been imposed upon, and pressed upon, the wax. Something not this wax has bestowed a determination and a determinant. So in the substantial order, when you find a body existing (or actual), ybu know that its actuality was bestowed upon it, was imposed or impressed upon it, and not externally like the impression of a seal on wax, but fundamentally and intrinsically in a manner that puts the matter itself into actual existence as this actual substance. We call this substantial determination and determinant by the name substantial form. And when we view an existing body as an effect, we say that the substantial form determines this effect in its substantial character as an existing body and an existing body of this substantial kind and no other. In this view, the substantial form is the substantial formal cause.

Matter and form are true causes. They contribute to the production of the effect in its existence and in its essence. They are intrinsic causes, for they constitute the effect; they are right in the effect. The causality of matter is not an active causality, for matter (that is, prime matter) has no existence of its own m which it could exercise causality, and even secondary matter (that is, actually existing bodily substance) is of its nature inert and exercises activities by capacities which are forms. The causality of matter is receptive causality; it is capable of receiving forms, first the substantial form, and through it accidental forms. The causality of the form is an active or actualizing causality, for form unites with matter and in-forms it, thus setting up the substance in actual and determinate being. Even accidental forms in-form the bodies which they affect or qualify, and so actualize the body as this kind of body in its accidental aspects.

Summary of the Article

In this short Article we have made a detailed study of material and formal cause. We have found that the material cause, which has place only in bodily reality, is the matter out of which an effect is made. If the effect is in itself a substance, its material cause is prime matter, the common and indeterminate substrate of all bodies. If the effect is in itself an accident, its material cause is the secondary matter, the actual bodily substance in which the accidental effect takes place or has its being. We have learned that the formal cause is a determining cause, that it determines the kind of thing the effect is, whether this be substantial kind or accidental kind. The formal cause which determines what substantial kind the effect is, is the substantial form of the substance-effect. The formal cause which determines what accidental kind the effect is, is an accidental form inhering in the substance-effect. We have illustrated this doctrine with several examples and analogies. We have seen that the causality of matter is receptive, not active; while the causality of the form is active, or, more precisely, actualizing.