Much more, therefore, are material forms derived from
spiritual substances.

_On the contrary,_ Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 8): "We must not
suppose that this corporeal matter serves the angels at their nod,
but rather that it obeys God thus." But corporeal matter may be said
thus to serve that from which it receives its form. Corporeal forms,
then, are not from the angels, but from God.

_I answer that,_ It was the opinion of some that all corporeal forms
are derived from spiritual substances, which we call the angels. And
there are two ways in which this has been stated. For Plato held that
the forms of corporeal matter are derived from, and formed by, forms
immaterially subsisting, by a kind of participation. Thus he held
that there exists an immaterial man, and an immaterial horse, and so
forth, and that from such the individual sensible things that we see
are constituted, in so far as in corporeal matter there abides the
impression received from these separate forms, by a kind of
assimilation, or as he calls it, "participation" (Phaedo xlix). And,
according to the Platonists, the order of forms corresponds to the
order of those separate substances; for example, that there is a
single separate substance, which is horse and the cause of all
horses, whilst above this is separate life, or _per se_ life, as they
term it, which is the cause of all life, and that above this again is
that which they call being itself, which is the cause of all being.
Avicenna, however, and certain others, have maintained that the forms
of corporeal things do not subsist _per se_ in matter, but in the
intellect only. Thus they say that from forms existing in the
intellect of spiritual creatures (called "intelligences" by them, but
"angels" by us) proceed all the forms of corporeal matter, as the
form of his handiwork proceeds from the forms in the mind of the
craftsman. This theory seems to be the same as that of certain
heretics of modern times, who say that God indeed created all things,
but that the devil formed corporeal matter, and differentiated it
into species.

But all these opinions seem to have a common origin; they all, in
fact, sought for a cause of forms as though the form were of itself
brought into being. Whereas, as Aristotle (Metaph. vii, text. 26, 27,
28), proves, what is, properly speaking, made, is the "composite."
Now, such are the forms of corruptible things that at one time they
exist and at another exist not, w