Note (return) — Chapter XII

This is a further and indeed a most important step in the Aristotelian theology. Matter, as we have seen, after all, amounts to merely capacity for action, and if we can not discover some productive power to develop potentiality into actuality, we look in vain for some explanation of the phenomena around us. The discovery, however, of energy (ἐνέργεια), as a principle of this description, is precisely what we wanted, and a momentary glance at the actual phenomena will show its perfect identity with the εἶδος, or form. 725 "For instance, what is a calm? It is evenness in the surface of the sea. Here the sea is the subject, that is, the matter in capacity, but the evenness is the energy or actuality;... energy is thus as form." 726 The form (or idea) is thus an energy or actuality (ἐνέργεια); the