Dist. 12, Art. 2, Q. 3
by St. Bonaventure
Source text: Public Domain Mark 1.0. English translation/apparatus/encoding: CC BY-NC 4.0, Wroot Press.
https://bonaventure.wrootpress.com/browse/2/d/12/q/bon-sent-II-d12-a2-q3
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### Question III. *What relation that unformed matter had to place.*

Thirdly, the question is asked concerning that unformed matter as regards place, and the question is whether that matter had a situation. And that the matter of corporeal things had a situation, appears [as follows]:

*Foundations.*

1. Hugh of Saint Victor: «*That earthen element was settling in one middle place, while the others were mingled together in a single confusion and spread round about in the manner of a mist*»; but this could not have been without a corporeal situation: therefore etc.

2. Likewise, that it filled a place appears [as follows]: because the empyrean heaven, as Bede says, was created together with the matter of corporeal things itself; but it is settled that the empyrean is, by nature, that which contains all other bodies within its concavity: therefore either it was empty, or it was filled by that corporeal mass. But nature does not allow a vacuum: therefore it appears that that mass filled the place.

3. Likewise, it appears that [the matter] had up and down, «*because its summit, as Hugh says*, *stretched out to where the summit of corporeal creation now reaches*»: therefore there was there a circumference and a centre.

4. Likewise, «*that matter, as the Master says in the text*, *was in its upper parts rarer, lighter and more subtle, in its lower part denser and grosser*»: therefore there was there gravity and lightness; but according to these properties bodies are located up and down: therefore the same conclusion returns as before.

*For the opposite.*

1. Nothing is *per se* in a place except that which is *here and now*; and nothing is *here and now* except that which is *this something*; and nothing is *this something* except that which is individual; and every such thing is a complete being: therefore *from the first* [premise], nothing is in a place except that which is a complete being. But that matter was not a complete being: therefore in place it did not have a situation.

2. Likewise, that it did not fill a place appears [as follows]: because nothing empty and void fills a place; but that matter *was empty and void*, as is said at the beginning of Genesis: therefore it did not fill a place.

3. Likewise, that it did not have differences of position according to *up* and *down* appears [as follows]: because these are positions according to which the diverse bodies of the world are distinguished and ordered in the universe; but at that time there was there neither distinction nor order: therefore neither was there at that time such a diverse position.

4. Likewise, gravity and lightness are properties consequent upon the elementary forms; but in that matter there were not yet the elementary forms: therefore there was there neither heavy nor light, therefore neither up nor down, since these differences of position are reckoned according to those properties.

### Conclusion.

> *That unformed matter was in a place, was filling a place, and imperfectly had position according to up and down.*

**I respond:** It must be said that since that matter was a mass, having extension, and the empyrean heaven had [it as] something it encompassed, *Conclusion 1.* it itself was in a place, and since it was a corpulent substance, it was filling the place. Again, since in its parts it had a certain distinction according to subtlety and grossness, but a half-full one, *Conclusion 2.* it had the positions according to up and down in a certain way, but imperfectly. — And therefore the reasons which have been adduced for this side are to be conceded.

*Solution of the opposing arguments.* 1. To that, then, which is first objected to the contrary, that nothing is in a place save a complete being: it must be said that this is false, if it is understood of *perfect* completion: for an embryo is in a place, although it is something incomplete. Nor does that deduction hold; for it errs in this, that it says that everything which is *this something* is complete. For this is false, since the individual itself and the individual form have being [that is] complete and less complete.

2. To that which is objected, that it did not fill a place, because it was *empty and void*: it must be said that the emptiness of a place and the emptiness of matter is said equivocally. For the emptiness of a place is by privation of a contained body, but the emptiness of matter is by privation of form and of completion. — *Note.* It is to be observed, however, that just as *place* is said to be empty in two ways — either properly, namely by privation of every body, or broadly according to the common manner by privation of a solid and sensible body, as a chest is said to be empty on account of the absence of bread, and a cask empty on account of the absence of wine — so also is it to be understood in the emptiness of *matter*, [which] is said to be empty in two ways: either because it does not have any form, and so it never was empty; or because it does not have a form altogether perfect, and so although it was empty, yet it could fill a place, because it was extended and corporeal.

3. 4. To that which is objected, that it did not have up and down, because it lacked order and distinction and elementary property: to those two arguments together it must be said that just as it had those three proposed [features] only *imperfectly* and *half-fully* by reason of a certain inclination and a far-off disposition, so also up and down it did not have *properly*, yet it had [them] in some way, namely incompletely and on account of certain dispositions which it had toward the heavy and the light. The Master says that it was lighter in the upper part, and heavier in the lower, not that it participated those properties completely, but in a certain far-off and preambular disposition, as has been shown above in part.