Compendium of All Natural Science

...or seem to snatch [one] away from matter.

6. On Privation.

Privation, however, is the lack of that form which is able to be received in matter. But of that which cannot be received, there is no privation. For fire cannot be admitted into celestial matter; nor, conversely, can the form of heaven be admitted into the matter of an element. Therefore, there is neither privation of an element in heaven, nor of heaven in an element.

7. On form and matter more distinctly.

The forms, indeed, which are treated in natural science are bound to the conditions of matter. And some indeed are substantial, while others are adjacent to substances. For the soul is a substantial form; blackness, however, is adjacent to substances. Moreover, matter contains all forms in potentiality. For if it did not contain them in this manner, how could it be that it would ever receive those forms which it had been unable to receive? For to contain in potentiality is nothing else than to be able to be illumined by all forms. For form is both a divine thing and something most greatly to be desired. Wherefore, although matter and form may be called "natures," they differ in this one respect: that matter can be called nature because natural things are produced from it in potentiality; form, however, is called nature for this reason, that any natural thing whatever is made so no longer in potentiality, but in act.

8. Principles of things made by art.

Not only, however, of things made by nature, but also by art