The old philosophers, who admitted the separability of the matter from its substantial form, and who were for this reason obliged to grant to such a matter an imperfect being, were wont to say that the matter was _con-created_ with the form, and thus they seem to have conceived the creation of a primitive material substance as including two partial creations. But, as a primitive being includes but _one_ act, it cannot be the term of _two_ actions; for two actions imply two acts. On the other hand, the matter which is under the substantial act has no entity of its own, as we have shown to be the true and common doctrine, and therefore has no need of a special effection, but only of a formal actuation. Hence the creation of a primitive material substance does not consist of two partial creations. We may, however, adopt the term “_con-created_” to express the fact that the position of the act entails the reality of the potential term, just as the position of sphericity entails the existence of a centre. The preceding remarks have been made with the object of preparing the solution of a difficulty concerning the creation of matter. For matter is potential, whilst God is a pure act without potency; but a pure act without potency cannot produce anything potential, since it does not contain in itself any potentiality nor anything equivalent to it. Therefore the origin of matter cannot be accounted for by creation. The answer to this difficulty is as follows: We grant that the matter, as distinguished from the form which gives it the first being, and therefore as a potential term of the primitive substance, cannot be created, for it is no being at all, but only a potency of being; and yet it does not follow that the material substance itself cannot be created. Of course God does not contain in himself, either formally or eminently, the potentiality of his own creatures, but he eminently contains in himself and can produce out of himself an endless multitude of acts giving existence to as many potential terms. And thus God, by producing any such act, causes the existence of its correspondent potency, which is not efficiently made, but only formally actuated, as has been just explained. Creation is an action, and action is the production of an act; hence “the term of creation is _a being in act_, and this act is the form,” as St. Thomas teaches; the matter, on the contrary, or the potency of the created being, is a term coming out of nothingness by formal actuation, and consequently having no being of its own, but owing whatever existence it has to the act or form of which it is the term; so that, if God ceased to conserve such an act, the term would instantly vanish altogether without need of a special annihilation. Nothingness is the source of all potentiality and imperfection, as God is the source of all actuality and perfection. Hence even the spiritual creatures, in which there is no