Substance (incl. Substantial Form & Substantial Change)

In the context of philosophical usage, form and matter are correlative terms, combining to explain the underlying structure of the changing material beings of our experience, although form can also be extended to independent uses (as in the ideal Forms of Plato existing independently in the Platonic World of Ideas, or the “pure forms” of angels in St. Thomas). In their widest general sense, form and matter [the two components of a substance — SML] are two of the most basic and indispensable terms for speaking about our everyday experience of the world. Form signifies the shapes, patterns, structures, or designs of things, whether natural or artificial, i.e., in general that which determines something to be such and such, to be this kind of thing. Matter signifies the “material,” that out of which something is made, that which is capable of receiving a form or pattern, i.e., in general that which is determinable by form. Thus we say of a piece of clothing, “What is that? It is a sweater,” and again, “What is it made out of? It is made out of wool, or cotton, etc.” We recognize the irreducible distinction between the two when we discover that the same form or pattern can be reproduced in many different materials, (e.g., a cup made of glass, clay, or metal) or the same material may be successively worked into many different forms (a child molds a piece of clay now into this form, now into that). It is clear that the form and matter of something cannot be identical, although neither can exist by itself alone: a form is always the form of something, a form in some material, and a piece of matter is never found without some form or structure to it. Were it totally formless, totally indeterminate, it would be nothing at all.[1]

The former is the individual thing — substance properly so called; the latter designates the universal essence or nature as contained in genus and species. And, again, substance is either complete, e. g. man [body and soul], or incomplete, e. g. the soul [without the body]; which, though possessing existence in itself, is united with the body to form the specifically complete human being. The principal division; however, is that between material substance (all corporeal things) and spiritual substance, i.e. the soul and the angelic spirits ... An attempt has recently been made by representatives of physical science to reconstruct the idea of substance by making it equivalent to "energy". The attempt so far has led to the conclusion that energy is the most universal substance and the most universal accident (Ostwald, "Vorlesungen uber Naturphilosophie", 2nd ed., Leipzig, 1902, p. 146).[3]

In its strict and specific acceptation, a desire [all emphasis SML] of the lower appetite contrary to reason. To understand how the sensuous and the rational appetite can be opposed, it should be borne in mind that their natural objects are altogether different. The object of the former is the gratification of the senses; the object of the latter is the good of the entire human nature and consists in the subordination of reason to God, its supreme good and ultimate end. But the lower appetite is of itself unrestrained, so as to pursue sensuous gratifications independently of the understanding and without regard to the good of the higher faculties.[4]