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Full Idea
If it be demanded why rhubarb purges choler, snow dazzles the eyes rather than grass etc., that these effects are performed by substantial forms of the respective bodies is at best but to tell me what is the agent, not how the effect is wrought.
Gist of Idea
To cite a substantial form tells us what produced the effect, but not how it did it
Source
Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.47?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.2
Book Ref
Alexander,Peter: 'Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles' [CUP 1985], p.43
A Reaction
This is the problem of the 'virtus dormitiva' of opium (which at least tells you it was the opium what done it). I take Aristotle to have aspired to a lot more than this. He wanted a full definition, which would contain lots of information about the form.
| 15964 | Boyle's secondary qualities are not illusory, or 'in the mind' [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| 15965 | Boyle attacked a contemporary belief that powers were occult things [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| 16735 | In the 17th century, 'disposition' usually just means the spatial arrangement of parts [Boyle, by Pasnau] |
| 15962 | Boyle's term 'texture' is not something you feel, but is unobservable structures of particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| 15952 | The corpuscles just have shape, size and motion, which explains things without 'sympathies' or 'forces' [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| 15972 | The corpuscular theory allows motion, but does not include forces between the particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P] |
| 16034 | Form is not a separate substance, but just the manner, modification or 'stamp' of matter [Boyle] |
| 15957 | Essential definitions show the differences that discriminate things, and make them what they are [Boyle] |
| 15960 | Explanation is deducing a phenomenon from some nature better known to us [Boyle] |
| 15953 | To cite a substantial form tells us what produced the effect, but not how it did it [Boyle] |