an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” Aris-
totle not merely asked himself how becoming is possible.
He showed that becoming has a meaning, that it signifies
something, that the world-process is a rationally ordered
development towards a rational end.
But, though Aristotle’s philosophy is the highest presenta-
tion of the truth in ancient times, it cannot be accepted
as anything final and faultless. Doubtless no philosophy
can ever attain to finality. Let us apply our {334} two-fold
test. Does his principle explain the world, and does it ex-
plain itself? First, does it explain the world? The cause of
Plato’s failure here was the dualism in his system between
sense and thought, between matter and the Ideas. It was
impossible to derive the world from the Ideas, because they
were absolutely separated from the world. The gulf was so
great that it could never be bridged. Matter and Idea lay
apart, and could never be brought together. Now Aristotle
saw this dualism in Plato, and attempted to surmount it.
The universal and the particular, he said, do not thus lie
apart, in different worlds. The Idea is not a thing here, and
matter a thing there, so that these two incommensurables
have to be somehow mechanically and violently forced to-
gether to form a world. Universal and particular, matter
and form, are inseparable. The connexion between them is
not mechanical, but organic. The dualism of Plato is thus
admitted and refuted. But is it really surmounted? The an-
swer must be in the negative. It is not enough by atour de
forceto bring matter and form together, to assert that they
are inseparable, while they remain all the time, in principle,
separate entities. If the Absolute is form, matter ought to
be deduced from form, shown to be merely a projection and
manifestation of it. It must be shown that form not only
moulds matter but produces it. If we assert that the one
primal reality is form, then clearly we must prove that all
else in the world, including matter, arises out of that prime
being. Either matter arises out of form or it does not. If
it does, this arising must be exhibited. If it does not, then
form is not the sole ultimate reality, for matter is equally
an ultimate, underivative, {335} primordial substance. In
that case, we thus have two equally real ultimate beings,
each underived from the other, existing side by side from all
eternity. This is dualism, and this is the defect of Aristotle.
Not only does he not derive matter from form, but he ob-
viously sees no necessity for doing so. He would probably
have protested against any attempt to do so, for, when he
identifies the formal, final, and efficient causes with each
other, leaving out the material cause, this is equivalent to
an assertion that matter cannot be reduced to form. Thus
his dualism is deliberate and persistent. The world, says
Aristotle, is composed of matter and form. Where does this
matter come from? As it does not, in his system, arise out
of form, we can only conclude that its being is wholly in
itself,i.e., that it is a substance, an absolute reality. And
this is utterly inconsistent with Aristotle’s assertion that it
is in itself nothing but a mere potentiality. Thus, in the
last resort, this dualism of sense and thought, of matter
and Idea, of unlimited and limiting, which runs, “the little
rift within the lute,” through all Greek philosophy, is not
resolved. The world is not explained, because it is not de-
rived from a single principle. If form be the Absolute, the
whole world must flow out of it. In Aristotle’s system, it