The more we examine this passage, the stronger becomes our conviction that the word “form” was used here by S. Augustine, not for the substantial form of Aristotle, but for _shape_ or geometric form, and that “unformed matter” stands here for _shapeless matter_. For, when he says that “reason and truth demand that all thought of any remaining forms should be discarded,” of what remaining forms does he speak? Of those “odd and ugly forms” which he says would be shocking to see. But it is evident that no substantial form can be odd and ugly or shocking to see. Moreover, S. Augustine conceives his “unformed matter,” by dropping from his mind “all those images of formed bodies” by which his imagination had been previously haunted. Now, it is obvious that substantial forms are not an object of the imagination, nor can they be styled “images” of formed bodies. Lastly, the holy doctor explicitly says that the matter of the bodies “was already in some manner before it could receive _these visible and compounded forms_,” which shows that the forms which he excluded from the primitive matter are “the visible and compounded forms” of bodies--that is, such forms as result from material composition. And this is confirmed by those other words of the holy doctor, “The earth was nothing but unformed matter; _for it was invisible and uncompounded_”--that is, the informity of the earth consisted in the absence of material composition, and, therefore, of visible shape, not in the absence of primitive substantial forms. It would be interesting to know why S. Augustine believed that his readers would not bear with him (_quis legentium capere durabit?_) if he were to say all that God had taught him about shapeless matter. Had God taught him the existence of simple and unextended elements? Was his shapeless matter that simple point, that invisible and uncompounded potency, on account of which all elements are liable to geometrical arrangement and to physical composition? The holy doctor does not tell us; but certainly, if there ever was shapeless matter, it could have no extension, for extension entails shape. It would, therefore, seem that S. Augustine’s shapeless matter could not but consist of simple and unextended elements; and if so, he had good reason to expect that his readers would scorn a notion so contrary to the popular bias; as we see that even in our own time, and in the teeth of scientific and philosophical evidence, the same notion cannot take hold of the popular mind.