That matter and form are relative terms shows, too, that the form cannot be merely the shape. For what is form in one aspect is matter in another. But shape is never anything but shape. No doubt the shape is part of the form, for the form in fact includes all the qualities of the thing. But the shape is quite an unimportant part of the form. For form includes organization, the relation of part to part, and the subordination of all parts to the whole. The form is the sum of the internal and external relations, the ideal framework, so to speak, into which the thing is moulded. Form also includes function. For it includes the final cause. Now the function of a thing is just what the thing is for. And what it is for is the same as its end, or final cause. {278} Therefore function is included in form. For example, the function of a hand, its power of gripping, is part of its form. And therefore, if it loses its function by being cut off from the arm, it likewise loses its form. Even the dead hand, of course, has some form, for every individual object is a compound of matter and form. But it has lost the highest part of its form, and relatively to the living hand it is mere matter, although, relatively to the flesh and bones of which it is composed, it is still form. Clearly, then, form is not merely shape. For the hand cut off does not lose its shape. The form includes all the qualities of the thing. The matter is what has the qualities. For the qualities are all universals. A piece of gold is yellow, and this means simply that it has this in common with other pieces of gold, and other yellow objects. To say that anything has a quality is immediately to place it in a class. And what the class has in common is a universal. A thing without qualities cannot exist, nor qualities without a thing. And this is the same as saying that form and matter cannot exist separately.