FORM (Lat. _forma_), in general, the external shape, appearance, configuration of an object, in contradistinction to the matter of which it is composed; thus a speech may contain excellent arguments,--the _matter_ may be good, while the style, grammar, arrangement,--the _form_--is bad. The term, with its adjective "formal" and the derived nouns "formality" and "formalism," is hence contemptuously used for that which is superficial, unessential, hypocritical: chap. xxiii. of Matthew's gospel is a classical instance of the distinction between the formalism of the Pharisaic code and genuine religion. With this may be compared the popular phrases "good form" and "bad form" applied to behaviour in society: so "format" (from the French) is technically used of the shape and size, e.g. of a book (octavo, quarto, &c.) or of a cigarette. The word "form" is also applied to certain definite objects: in printing a body of type secured in a chase for printing at one impression ("form" or "forme"); a bench without a back, such as is used in schools (perhaps to be compared with O. Fr. _s'asseoir en forme_, to sit in a row); a mould or shape on or in which an object is manufactured; the lair or nest of a hare. From its use in the sense of regulated order comes the application of the term to a class in a school ("sixth form," "fifth form," &c.); this sense has been explained without sufficient ground as due to the idea of all children in the same class sitting on a single form (bench). The word has been used technically in philosophy with various shades of meaning. Thus it is used to translate the Platonic [Greek: idea], [Greek: eidos], the permanent reality which makes a thing what it is, in contrast with the particulars which are finite and subject to change. Whether Plato understood these forms as actually existent apart from all the particular examples, or as being of the nature of immutable physical laws, is matter of discussion. For practical purposes Aristotle was the first to distinguish between matter ([Greek: hyle]) and form ([Greek: eidos]). To Aristotle matter is the undifferentiated primal element: it is rather that from which things develop ([Greek: hypokeimenon], [Greek: dynamis]) than a thing in itself ([Greek: energeia]). The development of particular things from this germinal matter consists in differentiation, the acquiring of particular _forms_ of which the knowable universe consists (cf. CAUSATION for the Aristotelian "formal cause"). The perfection of the form of a thing is its entelechy ([Greek: entelecheia]) in virtue of which it attains its fullest realization of function (_De anima_, ii. 2, [Greek: he men hyle dynamis to de eidos entelecheia]). Thus the entelechy of the body is the soul. The origin of the differentiation process is to be sought in a "prime mover" ([Greek: proton kinoun]), i.e. pure form entirely separate ([Greek: choriston]) from all matter, eternal, unchangeable, operating not by its own