Related to the relationship of form to matter is the...

Related to the relationship of form to matter is the relationship of potentiality to actuality: the stages in development: [acorn / oak : materials / building corresponds to potential / actual]the series from potential to actual is, progressively, realization of form over matterForm realizes itself in the thing: it causes the thing to move and to realize an end or purpose. [Aristotle has been called the "father of Biology"Plato of "Physics".].

2.3.2.5 Four causes [^1] Material [constituents], [^2] formal [structure], [^3] efficient or moving [the producer', [^4] the final cause [end or purpose] Everything is explicable, at the same time, by all four causes. In nature causes 2 and 4 coincide as do 2 and 3, so the only causes are form and matter.

2.3.2.6 Theology Eternal motion on the part of matter presupposes an eternal unmoved mover: God: the cosmological argumentGod is pure form, unadulterated by mater, complete actuality, substance par excellence, thought-thinking-thought [which has been ridiculed on account of its inadequacies] 2.3.2.7 Physics Science of bodies and motion: motion is change: matter is dynamic, atomism rejected [empty space is rejected]four kinds of motion: [^1] substantial [origin and decay], [^2] qualitative, [^3] quantitative, [^4] local [place].

Qualities are things: there are, therefore, absolute qualitative changes in matternature is teleological and qualitative. 2.3.2.8 Biology Aristotle may be called the founder of systematic and comparative zoology which he subordinates to the teleologic, dynamic, qualitative interpretation. Aristotle's biology may be described as vitalism: it posits an animating and directing vital principle in organisms.

2.3.2.9 Psychology Man is the microcosm and the final goal of nature, distinguished from all other living beings by the possession of reasonMan's soul is like the plant soul: lower vital function, and animal soul: perception, common sense, imagination, memory, pleasure, pain. [Pleasure arises when functions are furthered, pain when they are impeded; these feelings arouse desire and aversion which alone cause the body the move.] Desire with deliberation is called rational will.

Besides the foregoing function the human soul possesses the power of conceptual thought, or thinking the universal and necessary essences of things.