28. Let us consider the implications of the principles we have studied.
If that which a being receives as good be everywhere a form, if the
good of matter be a form, we might ask ourselves whether matter,
granting it here the faculty of volition, would even wish to be a
form? Such a wish would be tantamount to a wish to be destroyed. (But
matter could not wish this), for every being seeks its own good. But
perhaps matter might not wish to be matter, but simply to be essence;
possessing which, matter would wish to free itself from all the evil
within it. But how can that which is evil (for such is the nature of
matter) desire the good?[125] Besides, we are not attributing desire
to matter itself. It was only to meet the exigencies of the discussion
that we employed the hypothesis which accorded sensibility to matter,
if indeed it can be granted to matter without destroying its nature.
We have at least shown that when form has come, as a dream of the
Good,[126] to unite itself to matter, the latter found itself in a
better condition.