d. Final Opinion

141. From these conclusions [nn.129, 137, 140] the intended proposition follows thus:

No angel can create a substance (from the first conclusion, nn.128-129), nor any accident (from the second, nn.136-137), because an accident cannot be created by a creature. Therefore, an angel can create nothing.

142. Nor can a material substance create anything, because it cannot act save through its form (whether accidental or substantial, I care not), for although matter is some being, yet it is so low that it is not the principle of any productive action. And a material form cannot be the principle of creating anything, nor can any accident be the principle of creating (from the third conclusion, n.140); therefore a material substance cannot create.

143. Therefore neither a material nor an immaterial substance can create, nor can any accident be the principle of creating (from the third conclusion, as stated, n.140).

144. There is also a special proof to show that a material substance cannot produce matter and so, if nothing is presupposed, not the whole effect either. For when certain things in their whole genus have some order, any one of them has a like order to any other of them (an example: if whiteness in its whole species is prior to blackness, then any whiteness is prior to any blackness). A material form in its whole genus is posterior in origin to the whole of the receptive matter; so any such form is posterior to any matter. But what is posterior in origin or generation is not the principle of producing what is prior in that way; therefore a substantial material form cannot create matter.

145. A confirmation of this is that a material form depends in its being on matter; therefore it cannot in its acting be the principle of producing anything of the same idea as matter. For it seems repugnant that it should in its acting depend on anything of the same idea as the term that it produces.