Physiological Introduction or Principles of the Human Body

and therefore it is composed of parts. They prove the minor premise: The elements are contrary to one another and fight among themselves with their contrary forces; therefore, one can be overcome by another and thus be corrupted and generated. They add that this struggle of the elements has as its end the corruption of that element which is overcome and the generation of that which overcomes; for the elements, just as other bodies, possess an appetite to propagate their own kind. Therefore, so that the nature of an element may not have this appetite in vain, the generation and corruption of the elements occur. And therefore the elements, although they are minimal, cannot be primary matter. Furthermore, because there are substantial transmutations, but a substantial transmutation is well described as a transition from non-being to being; therefore, there is a subject, or Aristotelian primary matter, which, according to Aristotle, Metaphysics Book 1, text 98, is the first subject of each thing, from which something is made when it is present not according to accident, and if it is corrupted, it will end in this at last. They say, however, that this Matter has various properties, insofar as it is 1. a simple or uncompounded being, having no essential physical parts, for otherwise, according to both

parts, it would not be a first subject, but only one. 2. Incorruptible, for it is neither intrinsically so, since it is not composed of matter and form, nor extrinsically so, due to the lack of another, for example, a form as an end, or of an efficient cause, namely God; thus it is incorruptible. 3. Ingenerable: for to be generated is to be received in a subject, but primary matter is not received in a subject; therefore, it is not generated, nor was it ever generated, but it was created by God alone as the first subject of all things. 4. Incomplete, or perfectible by a substantial form; therefore, primary matter exists, and it is simple, incorruptible, ingenerable, and incomplete. The second reason is: the intrinsic essential principles of a natural body are those from which all natural substantial bodies are made, neither from themselves nor from others, but from these. But among such, according to suppositions 1 and 2, there is also Aristotelian primary matter; therefore, this is the essential intrinsic material principle of a natural body. Following this: but among natural bodies, the most principal is the human body; therefore, Aristotelian primary matter is the essential and intrinsic material principle of the human body,