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includes the final cause. Now the function of a thing is just what the thing is for. And what it is for is the same as its end, or final cause. {278} Therefore function is included in form. For example, the function of a hand, its power of gripping, is part of its form. And therefore, if it loses its function by being cut off from the arm, it likewise loses its form. Even the dead hand, of course, has some form, for every individual object is a compound of matter and form. But it has lost the highest part of its form, and relatively to the living hand it is mere matter, although, relatively to the flesh and bones of which it is composed, it is still form. Clearly, then, form is not merely shape. For the hand cut off does not lose its shape. The form includes all the qualities of the thing. The matter is what has the qualities. For the qualities are all universals. A piece of gold is yellow, and this means simply that it has this in common with other pieces of gold, and other yellow objects. To say that anything has a quality is immediately to place it in a class. And what the class has in common is a universal. A thing without qualities cannot exist, nor qualities without a thing. And this is the same as saying that form and matter cannot exist separately. The matter, then, is the absolutely formless. It is the substratum which underlies everything. It has, in itself, no character. It is absolutely featureless, indefinite, without any quality. Whatever gives a thing definiteness, character, quality, whatever makes it a this or that, is its form. Consequently, there are no differences within matter. One thing can only differ from another by having different qualities. And as matter has no qualities, it has no difference. And this in itself shows that the Aristotelian notion of matter is not the same as our notion of physical substance. For, according {279} to our modern usage, one kind of matter differs from another, as brass from iron. But this is a difference of quality, and for Aristotle all quality is part of the form. So in his view the difference of brass from iron is not a difference of matter, but a difference of form. Consequently, matter may become anything, according to the form impressed upon it. It is thus the possibility of everything, though it is actually nothing. It only becomes something by the acquisition of form. And this leads directly to a most important Aristotelian antithesis, that between po
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