The same fact is clearly established by decay, a process implying a compound object; where there is decay there is a distinction between MATTER AND FORM. Enneads II,4,6
They must, therefore, consist of MATTER AND FORM-Idea – Form for quality and shape, Matter for the base, indeterminate as being other than Idea. Enneads II,4,6
This implies the distinction of MATTER AND FORM in it – as there must be in all actual seeing – the Matter in this case being the Intelligibles which the Intellectual-Principle contains and sees. All actual seeing implies duality; before the seeing takes place there is the pure unity (of the power of seeing). That unity (of principle) acquires duality (in the act of seeing), and the duality is (always to be traced back to) a unity. Enneads III,8,10
But perhaps we should rather speak of some single category, embracing Intellectual Substance, Matter, Form, and the Composite of MATTER AND FORM. One might refer to the family of the Heraclids as a unity in the sense, not of a common element in all its members, but of a common origin: similarly, Intellectual Substance would be Substance in the first degree, the others being substances by derivation and in a lower degree. Enneads VI,1,3
Furthermore, God becomes a secondary to Matter, inasmuch as even he is regarded as a body composed of MATTER AND FORM – though how he acquires the Form is not revealed. If however he be admitted to exist apart from Matter in virtue of his character as a principle and a rational law (logos), God will be bodiless, the Creative Power bodiless. If we are told that he is without Matter but is composite in essence by the fact of being a body, this amounts to introducing another Matter, the Matter of God. Enneads VI,1,26
Again, if they identify Qualities with qualifications of Matter, then in the first place even their Seminal Principles (Logoi) will be material and will not have to reside in Matter to produce a composite, but prior to the composite thus produced they will themselves be composed of MATTER AND FORM: in other words, they will not be Forms or Principles. Further, if they maintain that the Seminal Principles are nothing but Matter in a certain state, they evidently identify Qualities with States, and should accordingly classify them in their fourth genus. If this is a state of some peculiar kind, what precisely is its differentia? Clearly the state by its association with Matter receives an accession of Reality: yet if that means that when divorced from Matter it is not a Reality, how can State be treated as a single genus or species? Certainly one genus cannot embrace the Existent and the Non-existent. Enneads VI,1,29
But what, we may ask, have MATTER AND FORM in common? In what sense can Matter be conceived as a genus, and what will be its species? What is the differentia of Matter? In which genus, Matter or Form, are we to rank the composite of both? It may be this very composite which constitutes the Substance manifested in bodies, neither of the components by itself answering to the conception of Body: how, then, can we rank them in one and the same genus as the composite? How can the elements of a thing be brought within the same genus as the thing itself? Yet if we begin with bodies, our first-principles will be compounds. Enneads VI,3,2
We may, also, restrict Substance to the Composite. MATTER AND FORM then cease to be substances. If they are Substance equally with the Composite, it remains to enquire what there is common to all three. Enneads VI,3,3
Do we infer that fire and water are not Substance? They certainly are not Substance because they are visible. Why, then? Because they possess Matter? No. Or Form? No. Nor because they involve a Couplement of MATTER AND FORM. Then why are they Substance? By existing. But does not Quantity exist, and Quality? This anomaly is to be explained by an equivocation in the term “existence.” Enneads VI,3,6
Perhaps we cannot even maintain that MATTER AND FORM are derived from a single source; they are clearly in some sense different. Enneads VI,3,7
Our plan must be to apprehend what is constant in stone, earth, water and the entities which they compose – the vegetal and animal forms, considered purely as sensibles – and to confine this constant within a single genus. Neither Matter nor Form will thus be overlooked, for Sensible Substance comports them; fire and earth and the two intermediaries consist of MATTER AND FORM, while composite things are actually many substances in one. They all, moreover, have that common property which distinguishes them from other things: serving as subjects to these others, they are never themselves present in a subject nor predicated of any other thing. Similarly, all the characteristics which we have ascribed to Substance find a place in this classification. Enneads VI,3,8