Page:Theory of Mind of Roger Bacon.djvu/21

 We are distinctly warned, at the outset, that the Species he treats of is not one of the Universals. The very word is one rich in its logical associations, and hence the warning is timely. Nor is it Form, as the opposite of Matter; for these two are found always in span, and so in the Species too. And he interprets Aristotle as never having intended to explain change by reference to Form alone. Further, it is not a body, although it may be corporeal —and it may be spiritual too; that depends upon the Agent which produces it. Bacon simply means with this to call attention to the fact, that Species from corporeal objects are not spiritual, and that as corporeal they occupy the space of that in which they exist. Moreover, its action is not timeless, since every finite “virtue” requires time to effect anything. But its peculiar character enables it to pass through space far more rapidly than it would if it were an actual body.

There is a final characteristic which may better be considered from its negative aspect. The Species is not indestructible. For, having been generated, like other generable things it too is subject to decay. It comes into being quickly, but it also passes quickly away. And hence the need of the continual action of the Agent; which is engaged in producing new Species, the one after the other, to take the place of each as it passes away. As it arose from the Matter of the Patient, it relapses again into this same Matter, in an inconceivably short time. The reasons for its decay are first its inherent weakness (it has an “esse incompletissimum,” as we have seen), and second the action of the Patient upon it.

In this last mentioned characteristic of the Species the Neo-Platonic emanation element is so clear, that we may pause a moment to consider it. This conception had come to the later Scholastics through the influence of the Oriental Philosophy, in part reinforced