Matter — feebler far than the Soul for any exercise of power, and possessing no phase of the Authentic Existents, not even in possession of its own falsity — lacks the very means of manifesting itself, utter void as it is ; it becomes the means by which other things appear, but it cannot announce its own presence. Penetrating thought may arrive at it, discriminating it from Authentic Existence ; then, it is discerned as something abandoned by all that really is, by even the dimmest sem- blants of being, as a thing dragged towards every shape and property and appearing to follow — yet in fact not even following.
An Ideal-Principle approaches and leads Matter towards some desired dimension, investing this non-existent underlie with a magnitude from itself which never becomes incorporate — for Matter, if it really incorporated magnitude, would be a mass.
Eliminate this Ideal-Form and the substratum ceases to be a thing of magnitude, or to appear so ; the mass produced by the Idea was, let us suppose, a man or a horse ; the horse-magnitude came upon the Matter when a horse was produced upon it ; when the horse ceases to exist upon the Matter, the magnitude of the horse departs also. If we are told that the horse implies a certain determined bulk and that this
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bulk is a permanent thing, we answer that what is permanent in this case is not the magnitude of the horse but the magnitude of mass in general. That same Magnitude might be fire or earth ; on their disappearance their particular magnitudes would disappear with them. Matter, then, can never take to itself either pattern or magni- tude ; if it did, it would no longer be able to turn from being fire, let us say, into being something else ; it would become and be fire once for all.
In a word, though Matter is far extended — so vastly as to appear co-extensive with all this sense-known Universe — yet if the Heavens and their content came to an end, all magnitude would simultaneously pass from Matter with, beyond a doubt, all its other properties ; it would be abandoned to its own Kind, retaining nothing of all that which, in its own peculiar mode, it had hitherto exhibited.
Where an entrant force can effect modification it will inevitably leave some trace upon its withdrawal ; but where there can be no modi- fication, nothing can be retained ; light comes and goes, and the air is as it always was.
That a thing essentially devoid of magnitude should come to a certain size is no more astonishing than that a thing essentially devoid of heat should become warm : Matter’s essential existence is quite separate from its existing in bulk, since, of course, magnitude is an immaterial principle as pattern is. Besides, if we are not to reduce Matter to nothing, it must be all things by way of participation, and Magnitude is one of those all things.
In bodies, necessarily compounds. Magnitude — though not a deter- mined Magnitude — must be present as one of the constituents ; it is implied in the very notion of body ; but Matter— not a Body — excludes even undetermined Magnitude.
Nor can we, on the other hand, think that matter is simply Absolute Magnitude.
Magnitude is not, like Matter, a receptacle ; it is an Ideal-Principle :
it is a thing standing apart to itself, not some definite Mass. The fact is that the self-gathered content of the Intellectual Principle or of the All-Soul, desires expansion (and thereby engenders secondaries) : in its images — aspiring and moving towards it and eagerly imitating its act — is vested a similar power of reproducing their states in their own deriva- tives. The Magnitude latent in the expansive tendency of the Image- making phase (of Intellect or AU-Soul) runs forth into the Absolute Magnitude of the Universe ; this in turn enlists into the process the spurious magnitude of Matter : the content of the Supreme, thus, in virtue of its own prior extension enables Matter— which never possesses a con- tent— to exhibit the appearance of Magnitude. It must be understood that spurious Magnitude consists in the fact that a thing (Matter) not possessing actual Magnitude strains towards it and has the extension of that straining. All that is Real Being gives forth a reflection of itself upon all else ; every Reality, therefore, has Magnitude which by this process is communicated to the Universe.
The Magnitude inherent in each Ideal-Principle — that of a horse or of anything else — combines with Magnitude the Absolute with the result that, irradiated by that Absolute, Matter entire takes Magnitude and every particle of it becomes a mass ; in this way, by virtue at once of the totality of Idea with its inherent magnitude and of each several specific Idea, all things appear under mass ; Matter takes on what we conceive as extension ; it is compelled to assume a relation to the All and, gathered under this Idea and under Mass, to be all things — in the degree in which the operating power can lead the really nothing to become all.
By the conditions of Manifestation, colour rises from non-colour (=from the colourless prototype of colour in the Ideal Realm). Quality, known by the one name with its parallel in the sphere of Primals, rises, similarly, from non-quality : in precisely the same mode, the Magnitude appearing upon Matter rises from non-Magnitude or from that Primal which is known to us by the same name ; so that material things become visible through standing midway between bare underlie and Pure Idea. All is perceptible by virtue of this origin in the Intellectual Sphere but
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all is falsity since the base in which the manifestation takes place is a non-existent.
Particular entities thus attain their Magnitude through being drawn out by the power of the Existents which mirror themselves and make space for themselves in them. And no violence is required to draw them into all the diversity of Shapes and Kinds because the phenomenal All exists by Matter (by Matter’s essential all-receptivity) and because each several Idea, moreover, draws Matter its own way by the power stored within itself, the power it holds from the Intellectual Realm. Matter is manifested in this sphere as Mass by the fact that it mirrors the Absolute Magnitude ; Magnitude here is the reflection in the mirror. The Ideas meet all of necessity in Matter (the Ultimate of the emanatory progress) ; and Matter, both as one total thing and in its entire scope, must submit itself, since (by definition) it is the Material of the entire Here, not of any one determined thing ; what is, in its own character, no determined thing may become determined by an outside force — though, in becoming thus determined, it does not become the definite thing in question, for thus it would lose its own characteristic indetermination.
The Ideal Principle possessing the Intellection ( = Idea, Noesis) of Magnitude- — assuming that this Intellection is of such power as not merely to subsist within itself but to be urged outward as it were by the intensity of its life — wiU necessarily reahse itself in a Kind ( = Matter) not having its being in the Intellective Principle, not previously possessing the Idea of Magnitude or any trace of that Idea or any other.
What then will it produce (in this Matter) by \drtue of that power ?
Not horse or cow : these are the product of other Ideas.
No : this Principle comes from the source of Magnitude ( = is primal " Magnitude ”) and therefore Matter can have no extension, in which to harbour the Magnitude of the Principle, but can take in only its reflected appearance.
To the thing which does not enjoy Magnitude in the sense of having mass-extension in its own substance and parts, the only possibility is
that it present some partial semblance of Magnitude, such as being continuous, not here and there and everywhere, that its parts be related within it and ungapped. An adequate reflection of a great mass cannot be produced in a small space — mere size prevents — but the greater, pur- suing the hope of that full self-presentment, makes progress towards it and brings about a nearer approach to adequate mirroring in the parallel from which it can never withhold its radiation : thus it confers Magnitude upon that ( = Matter) which has none and cannot even muster up the appearance of having any, and the visible resultant exhibits the Magnitude of mass.
Matter, then, wears Magnitude as a dress thrown about it by its association with that Absolute Magnitude to whose movement it must answer ; but it does not, for that, change its Kind ; if the Idea which has clothed it were to withdraw, it would once again be what it per- manently is, what it is by its own strength, or it would have precisely the Magnitude lent to it by any other form that happens to be present in it.
The (Universal) Soul— containing the Ideal Principles of Real-Beings, and itself an Ideal Principle— includes all in concentration within itself, just as the Ideal Principle of each particular entity is complete and self- contained : it, therefore, sees these principles of sensible things because they are turned, as it were, towards it and advancing to it : but it cannot harbour them in their plurality, for it cannot depart from its Kind ; it sees them, therefore, stripped of Mass. Matter, on the contrary, destitute of resisting power since it has no Act of its own and is a mere shadow, can but accept all that an active power may choose to send. In what is thus sent, from the Reason-Principle in the Intellectual Realm, there is already contained a degree of the partial object that is to be formed : in the image-making impulse within the Reason-Principle there is already a step (towards the lower manifestation) or we may put it that the down- ward movement from the Reason-Principle is a first form of the partial : utter absence of partition would mean no movement but (sterile) repose. Matter cannot be the home of aU things in concentration as the Soul is : if it were so, it would belong to the Intellective Sphere. It must be (like the Soul) all-recipient but not in that partless mode. It is to be the Place
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of all things, and it must therefore extend universally, offer itself to all things, serve to all interval : thus it will be a thirg unconfined to any moment (of space or time) but laid out in submission to all that is to be.
But would we not expect that some one particularised form should occupy Matter (at once) and so exclude such others as are not able to enter into combination ?
No : for there is no first Idea — except the Ideal Principle of the Universe — and, by this Idea, Matter is (the seat of) aU things at once and of the particular thing in its parts — for the Matter of a living being is disparted according to the specific parts of the organism : if there were no such partition nothing would exist but the Reason-Principle.
The Ideal Principles entering into Matter as to a Mother (to be “ bom into the Universe ”) affect it neither for better nor for worse.
Their action is not upon Matter but upon each other ; these powers conflict with their opponent principles, not with their substrata — which it would be foolish to confuse with the entrant forms — Heat (the Principle) annuls Cold, and Blackness annuls Whiteness ; or, the opponents blend to form an intermediate quality. Only that is affected which enters into combinations : being affected is losing something of self-identity.
In beings of soul and body, the affection occurs in the body, modified according to the quahties and powers presiding at the act of change : in all such dissolution of constituent parts, in the new combinations, in all variation from the original structure, the affection is bodily, the Soul or Mind having no more than an accompanying knowledge of the more drastic changes, or perhaps not even that. (Body is modified : Mind knows) but the Matter concerned remains unaffected ; heat enters, cold leaves it, and it is unchanged because neither Principle is associated with it as friend or enemy.
So the appellation “ Recipient and Nurse ” is the better description : Matter is the mother only in the sense indicated ; it has no begetting power. But probably the term Mother is used by those who think of a Mother as Matter to the offspring, as a container only, giving nothing