B. About the Inducing of the Form of the Body into the Matter

259. On the second point [n.256] I say that the formation of the body will be instantaneous, because it will be done immediately by divine virtue; for an angel will not be able to induce the material form into matter. Now divine virtue, although it can act successively and induce a form successively (just as created virtue can), and although a substantial form could be induced successively (which others deny [Aquinas, Henry of Ghent]), yet it is more fitting that divine virtue instantaneously induce a form that can be induced instantaneously, for succession is only necessary because of some deficiency in the agent. For all the causes touched on by the Commentator, Physics IV com.71, namely of the movable in relation to the mover, and of the movable to the medium, and of the medium to the mover, are ultimately reduced (as I have touched on elsewhere [Ord. II d.2 nn.428-429]) to the imperfection of the virtue of the agent; and because of this imperfection the movable can resist that virtue, not absolutely but as it regards the terms and the medium through which the movement from term to term needs to be made. But, as it is, the [divine] virtue can have no imperfection; and that this form can be induced instantaneously is plain, because that virtue can perfect it instantaneously.

260. But there is here a doubt, for then it follows that a local motion will be instantaneous. A proof is that the body will be more densely or more rarely formed from the dust that it will be formed from and, whether this way or that, it will occupy a greater or lesser place than that out of which it will be generated, and so there will be local motion not only of it but of the surrounding air.

261. [A proof] secondly is that the body will be of a different shape than the body from which it will be formed, therefore it will occupy a place proportionally corresponding to its shape - and so as before.

262. I concede the conclusion of these argument [nn.260-261], that by taking local motion generally, in that, when a generated thing succeeds to what is corrupted and occupies a greater or lesser place than the thing corrupted, some change of place is being spoken of - for there is occupation (though not by a body the same in act) of a greater or lesser place; so there is instantaneous change of place because there is occupation of a greater place. And not only so but the surrounding air is at once expelled if the body is greater or follows it if the body is lesser. And indeed I concede that in the first instant, namely when the air is expelled, it is expelled instantaneously, and is so immediately by divine virtue, because that virtue immediately positions a greater body where the lesser body was.

263. But now, what effectively moves one body in place, effectively expels the other body - and it is not the moved body that effectively expels the other body, just as heat too in wood does not effectively expel the cold from the wood, but the hot itself, which effectively causes heat in the wood, effectively expels cold from it.

264. However it is possible for divine virtue to position a greater body in a ‘where’ and to keep the body that was there before, and then two bodies will be together at the same time; but then there would be a new miracle over and above the sudden positioning here of the larger body. But if, simultaneously with this positioning of the body, this body expels that one, there is only one miracle.

265. Now when the generated body is less than the corrupted body, things are different: for then either God will immediately move the surrounding air so that it touches the surface of the lesser body, or he can refrain from moving it. For his moving it is not simply necessary in order for a lesser body to be here; because God can leave nature to itself, and since nature cannot move air instantaneously so as to apply it to the sides of the lesser body, there will for a time be a vacuum - namely until nature is able to make the surrounding air contiguous with the body.

266. From this is plain that, on the supposition that God suddenly makes a lesser body (which assuredly does not involve a contradiction) and leaves the surrounding air and nature’s action to themselves, there will for a time be a vacuum. So there is no contradiction in a vacuum existing in the universe; on the contrary, if nature were instantaneously to make a lesser body from a greater, it would seem one could conclude that a vacuum, without any divine miracle, exists for a time.