Aristotle on Metaphysics(2004) - Bibotu.com

238 THE SEARCH FOR PRIMARY BEINGthat changes? He is confident about this, because, in general, he arguesthat matter is potentiality, i.e. that to be some particular matter is,precisely, to be the starting-point of a process of generation that, providedthat the appropriate external circumstances are present, will generate aparticular material thing of a certain form. For example, the matter thatactually generates Socrates is the matter that it is precisely because it is thematter that will, provided that the appropriate external circumstances arepresent, come to be a particular human being.Now we can begin to see why, when some matter, m, changes into aparticular material thing of a certain form, f (e.g. a particular humanbeing), only the matter, m, and not the form, f, is involved in change. For,at any state in this process of generation, the matter involved is the matterit is precisely because it will, provided that the appropriate externalcircumstances are present, come to be a particular material thing ofprecisely this form, f. But this means that at every stage in this process ofgeneration, there is a form involved, and there is just a single form, f,involved. For it is precisely because a single form is involved that a singleprocess of generation is involved. So the form, f, cannot itself change inthis process of generation, i.e. the generation of a particular material thingof this form, f. For if the form did change in this process, then this processwould not be the process it is and perhaps it would not be a determinateand well-defined process at all. In general, <strong>Aristotle</strong>’s reason for thinkingthat the form of a particular material thing is not involved in change, orgenerated, when that thing is itself generated, is ultimately to be found inhis view that a process of generation is the determinate and well-definedprocess it is only with reference to a single form, i.e. the form of theparticular material thing that is generated.How, then, does this answer our initial aporia? The aporia was this: howcan the inseparable form of a material thing fail to be generated when thatthing itself is generated? Suppose that matter is potentiality, i.e. that forsome matter to be the matter that it is is for it to be capable of generating aparticular material thing of a certain form. This will mean that the matterof a particular material thing is not a constituent in or part of the thingwhose matter it is. Alternatively, if we say that it is a constituent or part,we mean only that it is that out of which (to ex hou) this thing wasgenerated (see also Chapter 2§4ii for this point). Likewise, the form of aparticular material thing is not a constituent in or part of the thing whoseform it is. Rather, it emerges, the form is what that very thing, thegenerated material thing, is—its essence. This form, or essence, is the verysame one for as long as the thing exists. Indeed, we have seen that it is thevery same one also in the duration of the process of generation of the thing