Principale,” wherein all things should be set in their final and finished form.
If we consider, moreover, the motives which played upon our Author’s mind, we see at once that the task which he had set himself was no light one. He must remain true to the dynamic conception of the Species; and yet the very concept which he is using, and seeking to make clear, was rich in its logical associations. Primary matter is accepted as inactive in its very nature; and yet from the potentiality of the Matter of the Patient the Species is to come—and, further, the Species of Matter as well as of Form must be educed, to account for the variety in the latter as well as in the former. The separate orders in the universe, especially as to body and spirit, must be kept distinct and wholly apart from each other; and yet the interaction of the one upon the other must be explained. The process of assimilation demands that in the Patient shall arise the likeness of the Agent; and yet nothing shall come from the Agent. The raison d’etre of the Species is intermediation; and yet he must not fail to retain the nature of mediacy as an unanalyzable ultimate. With such motives playing upon his mind, and more often subtly than sharply, one may expect him to be not always wholly aware of the full implications of all that he says.
And now let us make plain for ourselves some of the important implications of the various elements of his theory, that we may the better see how inevitable the ambiguities were. Let it be observed at once that if the Species is an effect of the Agent, it is only one of many effects which the Agent may produce. Strictly, then, it should not be used to explain the production of these other effects. And while the production of effects univocal with the Agent may be made intelligible, by reference to the eduction theory, care must be exercised in trying to explain in the same way the production of the equivocal effects.
If the Species is the univocal effect of the Agent, it is the one effect which is of the same essence with the Agent; the other effects are eo ipso not. But, these other effects constitute the vast majority of the effects actually produced. Hence most effects are not like the Agent in essence; and that is to say, they have become assimilated without having been made essentially like. So, assimilation is possible at least without complete likeness between Agent and Patient. But this is inconsistent with the conception of the Species as identical with the “pars prima.” Accordingly, some other conception of the Species is before his mind; namely, that of a representative of the Agent through which the other effects are brought into being. Again, if it is the uniform effect of the Agent, the difference in the several effects produced cannot be due to the
