The _formal_ cause of nature is the _ideal reason_; before the intelligence can produce species or particular things, can bring them forth from the potentiality of matter into reality, it must contain them "formally," _i.e._ ideally, in itself, as the sculptor cannot mould different statues without having first thought out their different forms.[256] This ideal reason is the _Idea ante rem_ of the Scholastics. The ideas of the intelligence are not, as such, the things of nature, they are the models by which the intellect guides nature in its production of individual things. The _final_ cause which the intellect sets before itself is the perfection of the universe, _i.e._ that all possible forms may have actual existence in the different portions of matter; from its joy in this end proceeds its ceaseless activity in the production of forms out of matter.[257] [Sidenote: Form.] Among _constitutive principles_ or elements of things, the _intellectus_ again takes the foremost place as the form; for, as we have seen, it is both extrinsic and intrinsic to the nature of things, ... "the soul is in the body as the pilot in the ship; in so far as he is moved along with it, he is part of the ship, but in so far as he governs and guides it, he is not a part but a separate agent; so the soul of the universe, in so far as it animates and gives form to things, is intrinsic formal principle; in so far as it directs and governs, it is not part, nor principle, but cause."[258] As external, the soul of the world is independent of matter, and untouched by its defects: it is only the perfections of the lower that are present in the higher being, and that to a higher degree. As internal it constitutes the soul in all things--down to the very lowest, although in these it is repressed or latent. This all-presence of soul does not mean, however, that each particular thing, _e.g._ a table or garment, is, as such, a living and sensible being, but only that in everything, however small or insignificant, there is a portion or share of spirit, animating it, and this, "if it find a properly disposed subject, may extend itself so as to become plant or animal, and may receive the limbs of any body whatsoever, such as is commonly said to be animate." Even the smallest material body, therefore, has in it the potentiality of life and mind. [Sidenote: Substance.]