Materia pierwsza substancji materialnych

The present article attempts to explain what Aristotle’s prime matter of the material substances is. On the basis of the analysis several parts chosen from Metaphysics, Physics, On the Generation of Animals and On the Generation and Corruption the author comes to the conclusion that the prime matter in the sense of the universal material is the abstract. However, the analogue of the prime matter in ontological order is the proper (oikeia) matter of the particular material substance that is the proximate (engytaton) material cause of such substance. An example of such a matter is the bronze. But not any bronze is the analogue of the prime matter, but only that which actually manifests potentiality as potentiality that is the bronze which participates in the process of casting and forming of the particular bronze substance, e.g. the statue of the Discobolus. Therefore, in the first place among the material principles Aristotle does not mention the prime matter in the sense of the universal material opened to the generation of any body falling under the senses, but the body falling under the senses in the mode of the potentiality.