OR
after all that opinion on the subject of matter does not turn out to
be beyond what appears consistent, which declares that it has its
existence from Him Who is intelligible and immaterial. For we shall
find all matter to be composed of certain qualities, of which if it is
divested it can, in itself, be by no means grasped by idea. Moreover
in idea each kind of quality is separated from the substratum; but
idea is an intellectual and not a corporeal method of examination. If,
for instance, some animal or tree is presented to our notice, or any
other of the things that have material existence, we perceive in our
mental discussion of it many things concerning the substratum, the
idea of each of which is clearly distinguished from the object we
contemplate: for the idea of colour is one, of weight another; so
again that of quantity and of such and such a peculiar quality of
touch: for "softness," and "two cubits long," and the rest of the
attributes we spoke of, are not connected in idea either with one
another or with the body: each of them has conceived concerning it its
own explanatory definition according to its being, having nothing in
common with any other of the qualities that are contemplated in the
substratum.