But this procedure is scarcely permissible. Every being is a distinct whole. The dim manifestation is in no sense a common ground, just as there is no common ground in the vegetal, the sensory and the intellectual forms of life.
We conclude that the term “Being” must have different connotations as applied to Matter, to Form and to both conjointly, in spite of the single source pouring into the different streams.
Take a second derived from a first and a third from the second: it is not merely that the one will rank higher and its successor be poorer and of lower worth; there is also the consideration that, even deriving from the same source, one thing, subjected in a certain degree to fire, will give us an earthen jar, while another, taking less of the heat, does not produce the jar.
Perhaps we cannot even maintain that Matter and Form are derived from a single source; they are clearly in some sense different.
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