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1. First Conclusion
201. This conclusion thus follows (and let it be the first for the solution of this question), namely that a separated accident can in no way be a principle of action for substance, and this an instrumental principle, by virtue of a substance that does not exist [n.194]. And along with this, it has also been made clear that not even a conjoined accident can be per se an attainer of substance as term [n.194], because the authorities adduced (from On the Soul and the like [n.186; Ord. IV d.1 n.317]) only take an instrument to be a dispositive agent.
202. And if it be argued, against this, that some form attains the term of generation immediately but the substantial form does not (because it is a principle not of acting immediately but mediately) - I concede the first proposition, but the second is false, because nothing is an instrument of any cause save of a superior cause in the genus of efficient cause. Therefore, if a conjoined accident is, for them [sc. Thomas, n.186], an instrument of substance, the substance will be the superior agent. But a superior agent naturally acts first and, if it is a natural agent, it does whatever it can; therefore, the substance, in the prior instant of nature but in the same instant of time in which it acts, acts as the superior agent, and the accident acts as its instrument. The substance will produce the term that it will be able to produce; but it can produce the whole substance, because the perfection of a produced substance does not exceed the perfection of the acting substance; therefore it will, in the instant of nature, produce the whole substance; therefore the accident will not produce the substance in any way, or the same thing would be produced twice.
203. Again, every merely passive power is in potency of contradiction,44 Metaphysics 9.8.1050b8-9; but substance is not in potency of contradiction for its proper attribute; therefore, it has some causality, different from the causality of matter, with respect to that attribute - and only the causality of the efficient cause, because not of the formal cause (the thing is plain). As to the final cause, it is not in discussion here.
204. And it seems that they [sc. Thomas and followers] must, according to what they say, concede this. For they say that the powers [of the soul] flow from the essence of the soul, and they say here [n.186] that an accident has instrumental virtue because it is caused by the essential principles of substance; but these features cannot be understood only in a passive way, for a receptive subject.
205. Again, if an accident is produced, and by some immediate productive principle which (according to you [n.186]) is an accident, I ask about the essential order in these accidents (not speaking of the accidental infinity in generators and generated of the same species that philosophers speak about [Ord. I d.2 n.46, II d.1 n.169]). For wherever there is an accidental order in generators, there must be (outside that whole order) some cause essentially more perfect [Ord. I d.2 n.54]. Therefore, with respect to singular accidents in the species of heat, give me a proximate cause essentially ordered to that whole species (and I argue the same way about individuals of the species). And there is no infinite process in an essential order. So, there will be a stand at some species of accident that will be caused, and not caused by any accident but immediately by substance. And consequently, substance will have the idea of active principle immediately with respect to accident.
206. This is confirmed by the Philosopher Metaphysics 7.9.1034b16-19, where the Philosopher says that “a property of substance can be grasped from these facts, that some other actually existing substance must necessarily pre-exist to make it the case that there is an animal, if there is an animal; but that a quality or a quantity pre-exist is not necessary save only in potency.” He maintains, therefore, that, in order for a substance to come to be, another substance must pre-exist to produce it; but in order for a quantity and a quality to be produced, there is no need for a quality or a quantity to pre-exist save only in potency. Therefore, something that is not actually a quantity or a quality can be the immediate productive principle of a quantity and a quality.
207. Again, Meteorologica 4.12.390a10-12 says, “A singular is that which exists as long as it has power for its own proper operation.”
208. And the like is got from Damascene, Orthodox Faith ch.60 [“Things that have the same substance, have the same will and operation”].
209. And although there is against these authorities [nn.206-208] an objection drawn from imperfect beings, yet it seems very unacceptable that the being among created things the most perfect as to genus should lack activity, such that its form could not be the immediate and proximate productive principle of some action.
210. And this argument is in accord with one of their principles [Thomas, ST Ia q.4 a.3]: that form is a principle of acting wherein the generator and generated are like each other; but the generated is like the generator principally in substantial form, and in accidents in a certain respect.
211. Nor can this result be avoided by adding to these statements that they prove the substantial form to be the principle of acting, but a remote one, both with respect to substance and with respect to accident, and that about these do the arguments proceed [nn.202-205]. This is not enough, because no one denies that there is some form in God that is the proximate principle of acting (not because God may act without intermediate causes, but because in his own order of causing he acts through nothing intermediate -beyond his own form). And so, in the issue at hand, let it be the case (which however has been disproved [n.200]) that an accident have some action for substance that is posterior to the action of substance; yet substance will be by its own proper form the principle of the action proper to it in its own order of acting.