Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.23

What is the investigation into the truth in this matter?

The division into that which is material, and that which is the cause of form, the formal.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

The Stoics often distinguished between different degrees of a higher and lower existence, of logos and ousia, of that which acts and that which is acted upon. Matter, simply in and of itself, is only given a formal identity through the action of the Divine, whether we choose to speak of it as fire, or as living breath, or in any number of other ways.

Whatever model of physics or metaphysics we may choose to employ, the distinction is a universal one. There is what something is made out of, and then there is the form that it takes upon itself. In practice, that something exists is inseparable from in what way it exists, but in abstraction we can understand these two principles at work together. What are the shapeless parts, and then how are all the parts joined together in a certain way, to produce a shaped and distinct whole?

I was first educated in an Aristotelian approach to form and matter, with a fancy name called hylomorphism, where there is a distinction between the potential stuff things are made of, and the actual way that they are ordered and organized. I have come to see that the only difference here between the Aristotelian and the Stoic is that while the former stresses the identity of individual substances, the latter stresses the unity of all substances.

This may seem a bit too much for daily life. I hardly disagree. Consider the theory put into concrete practice. By analogy, a house is made of many bits and pieces, including concrete, metal, lumber, and, it now seems, lots of toxic plastics. The parts are not the house. The parts must be assembled and arranged, in a certain way according to a blueprint, in order to make a house. The matter has now been given form.

Take a box you bought from Ikea, that is full of pieces of wood, a variety of screws, nuts, and bolts, and some mysterious bits that make no sense at all. But follow the multilingual instructions, and you may, God willing, end up with a piece of furniture. The matter has now been given form.

A cooking recipe is not simply a list of ingredients. How, when, and to what proportion are they prepared, mixed together, cooked, and what I must I do to them to present a brilliant dish? The matter has now been given form.

For those who love their history, take melted wax, and add the impression of the signet ring. The matter has now been given form.

Analogies are by definition weak, but I wish only to distinguish between the pieces, and how the pieces end up working together.

I have learned the hard way that I will only begin to make sense of anything in my life when I first begin to discern the stuff from the shape, the parts from the order of the whole, the bits from the pattern.

Truth, goodness, and beauty in our lives will not arise by lining up all the necessary components. They must be structured, through the use of reason, and directed toward our proper end. 

Written in 9/2005

Image: M.C. Escher, Mosaic II (1957)