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Chapter 7 THE IMPORTANCE OF SUBSTANCE What separates us irreparably from [modern science] is the Aristotelian (and common sense) notion of Substantial Form...... Descartes rid nature of it. They understand nothing anymore since they forgot Aristotle’s great saying that “there is no part of an animal that is purely material or purely immaterial.” It is not the word “philosophy,” it is the word “nature” which separates us from our contemporaries. Since I do not have any hope of convincing them of the truth (which yet is evident) of hylomorphism, I do not believe it is possible to propose our hypothesis to them as scientifically valid. [Étienne Gilson, Sept. 8, 1971, in a letter to Jacques Maritain]1 1. Étienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Correspondance, 1923–1971, ed. Géry Prouvost, Paris, 1991: Vrin, p. 250 (letter of Gilson, Sept. 8, 1971): Ce qui nous en sépare irréparablement est la notion aristotélienne (et de sens commun ) de la Forme Substantielle.......Descartes en a dépeuplé la nature. On ne comprend plus rien depuis qu’on a oublié la grande parole d’Aristote, qu’il n’y a “aucune partie d’un animal qui soit purement matérielle ou purement immatérielle.” Ce n’est pas le mot philosophie, c’est le mot nature qui nous sépare de nos contemporains . Comme je n’espère pas les convaincre de la vérité (pourtant évidente) de l’hylémorphisme, je ne crois pas possible de leur proposer notre hypothèse comme scientifiquement valide. Maritain had written to Gilson September 3 (the letter is in the same collection, pp. 247– 248) praising Gilson’s book D’Aristote à Darwin et retour published that year. However, in a postscript he had questioned Gilson’s view that like the doctrine that each species is the object of a special divine creation, Darwin’s doctrine of the progressive formation of living things which had been brought about of itself was another “indemonstrable theology.” Maritain asked: Don’t you think.......that the philosopher can legitimately hold for most probable the idea that the creative act was accomplished [by God] through time by evolution, whereas the coming on the scene of the human species was the object of a special creation in the case of the first human being (as, subsequently, for every human individual), the creation of the spiritual soul? This is what Gilson refers to as “our hypothesis” concerning evolution. Gilson’s quotation from Aristotle is in Parts of Animals 1.3 (643a25). 96 Introduction Our reason for speaking about science, philosophy, and theology, here at this Summer Institute,2 is surely to provide ourselves with as high quality access to the being of things as is possible. All three, science, philosophy , and theology, aim to say something about reality, and the clearer the task assigned to each, the better off we are. Since this is a Thomistic Institute, I need not apologize for taking as my guide Thomas Aquinas. Nevertheless, I will be looking to him as a guide in philosophy, as distinct from theology. What I hope to do is highlight the principles of metaphysics, inasmuch as they tend to be obscured by the very prominence of present-day science. In fact, my concern is with features of science which invite the scientist to take himself for the metaphysician, sometimes unbeknownst to himself. Since science is vast, I will focus mostly on a discussion connected with evolution. The shape which such discussions take can raise doubts about the being of things. I say, “about the being of things,” using the word “being” in order to be as general as possible. In my title, I used the word “substance.” It is a fact that the vocabulary for the discussion of being has been difficult and complicated from the start. The one Greek word, “ousia,” has had to be translated by many Latin forms, giving us such English words as “essence” and “substance,” accompanied by such outriders as “quiddity,” “form,” and “nature.” When I put “substance” into my title, I was really thinking of “ousia.” I want to talk about things as having “essences” (the targets of universal definitions) and as being “substances” (particulars instantiating such essences). The Perennial Presocratic Our knowledge of the world of corporeal things takes various forms. St. Thomas distinguished three possible approaches, i.e. physical, mathematical , and metaphysical.3 The former two are specialized, focusing on particular aspects of the reality which confronts us. Neither considers the being of...

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