We conclude that strictly substantial forms are never educed out of the potency of matter, but are simply educed out of nothing in creation. As, however, every such form gives being to its matter, without which it cannot exist, we commonly say that the whole substance, and not its form as such, is educed out of nothing. S. Thomas says: “The term of creation is a being in act; and its act is its form”[34]--the form, evidently, which gives the first being to the matter, and which is therefore truly and properly substantial. Hence, before the position of this act, nothing exists in nature which can be styled “matter,” whilst at the position of this act, and by virtue of it, the material substance itself is instantly brought into existence. Accordingly, the position of an act which formally gives existence to its term is the very eduction of the substance out of nothing; and the strictly substantial form is educed out of nothing in the very creation of the substance, whereas the matter, at the mere position of such a form, and through it immediately, acquires its first existence. The matter, as the reader may recollect, is to its form what the centre of a sphere is to the spherical form. Hence, as the centre acquires its being by the mere position of a spherical form, so the matter acquires its being by the mere position of the substantial form, without the concurrence of any other causality. This last conclusion may give rise to an objection, which we cannot leave without an answer. The objection is the following: If the matter receives its first being through the substantial form alone, it follows that God did not create the matter, but only the form itself. We answer that when we speak of the creation of matter, the word “matter” means “material substance.” For the term of creation, as we have just remarked with S. Thomas, is _the being in act_--that is, the complete being, as it physically exists in the order of nature. Now, such a being is the substance itself. On the other hand, to create _the being in act_ is to produce _the act_ which is the formal reason of the being; and since the position of the act entails the existence of a potential term, it is evident that God, by producing the act, causes the existence of the potential term. But as this term is not a “real being,” but only a “real potency,” and as its reality is merely “borrowed” from the substantial form, it has nothing in itself which requires making, and therefore it cannot be the term of a special creation.