Kitap 12
3
but the distinction in virtue of actuality and potentiality applies in a different sense to cases where the matter of cause and effect is not the same, in some of which the form is not the same but different. E.g., the cause of a man is (i) his elements: fire and earth as matter, and the particular form; (2) some external formal cause, viz. his father; and besides these (3) the sun and the ecliptic,The sun, moving in the ecliptic, approaches nearer to the earth in summer, causing generation, and recedes farther from the earth in winter, causing destruction. Cf. Aristot. Met. 12.6.10 n., Aristot. De Gen. et Corr. 336a 32. which are neither matter nor form nor privation nor identical in form with him, but cause motion.
3
Further, we must observe that some causes can be stated universally, but others cannot.
4
The proximate principles of all things are the proximate actual individual and another individual which exists potentially.i.e., the proximate efficient cause and proximate matter. Therefore the proximate principles are not universal. For it is the particular that is the principle of particulars; man in general is the principle of man in general, but there is no such person as man, whereas Peleus is the principle of Achilles and your father of you, and this particular B of this particular BA; but B in general is the principle of BA regarded absolutely.
