Our power of influencing matter is limited purely to the form. We can only affect the transitory, for the rest endures. If I am given a piece of wood, I can carve it or burn it or destroy it utterly; but that does not mean more than that I can change its form, for even when I appear to destroy it, all that I am really doing is to resolve it into other chemical elements. "Matter," say the scientists, "is indestructible," and they undoubtedly declare a fact. A candle burning till it is extinguished has ceased to exist as a candle, but that of which it was originally composed yet remains constant. It has changed its form, but the matter still persists, and through each successive crisis remains unchanged save for the mere method of its existence. Thus also industrial perfection can do nothing more than transform raw material into a finished article, or by the mere process of traffic shift an object of exchange from a glutted market to one where a demand in effective force exists for it. We are dealing, in the phrase of John Stuart Mill, with "form values." To the form of a thing, therefore, are all our energies limited; the matter lies beyond us. Of course, herein lies a deep difference between ourselves and God, for it is open to His power to create and annihilate that is, to call the substance itself out of nothingness and to reduce it to nothingness again. This is a divine attribute which cannot be communicated to creatures. To God alone is it possible to produce such an effect, for to Him alone is the material itself in its existence and in its essence obedient in all that goes to make it up and in the very fact that it exists. To Him the matter and the form, to us the form alone.
Yet this need not be considered really much of a limitation, since the form, transitory though it be, is of much greater importance to us than the material which endures. It is the form which gives value to the whole. Things are governed by their form in their movement, activity, speed. It is the shape of the falling body, as Saint Thomas most accurately notices, which accelerates or retards its progress, though the weight too has to be considered. Again, in so delicate a thing as an instrument of music it is surprising what an effect the very shape (apparently so accidental) has upon the sound; and in matters connected with precious stones it is obvious also how enormously their value is enhanced or depreciated by their being well or ill cut. Form which seems so trifling means so much: it dominates matter; it does an even more wonderful thing, it dominates the soul. Saint Paul, it is noticeable, always speaks of life in terms of movement, and describes Christ as taking the form of a servant and as being the figure of God's substance. He seems, that is to say, to lay especial emphasis on the fact that it is the nature of man and the nature of God, the resemblance to both, that made the hypostatic union (i.e. the union of these two natures in one Divine Person) the explanation of the Incarnation. And as of Christ, the form of Man and God was of such ineffable consequence, so also of the human soul: though the matter (so to say) of it is beyond our control, the form of it, in the language of Saint Paul, is of practical importance, for that we can mould as we will. "Be not conformed to this world, but be reformed in the newness of your mind."
Here, in this phrase, we are taught as a conclusion that the soul of itself, chameleon-like, tends to adopt the appearance of its environment. The form of it, which governs its movement, its value, its purpose, is of such importance that with it alone lies the power of human energy. But Saint Paul teaches more than that, for in the very structure of the sentence he lets us see the difficulties of our life. To "conform" is the word he uses as regards our attitude to the world, and to conform is the easy way of suiting myself to what is done about me: I do as others do, I follow the flowing tide, I take the line of least resistance. But to "reform" is to react with deliberate effort against the tendency of my nature and of all surrounding influences. By reforming I take the line of greatest resistance. I cannot create my soul, neither can I annihilate it, for thus to act is the high and incommunicable privilege of God; but as I have been given my soul, I have a power of forming it after what fashion I will. I am limited, indeed, to this single act; but this is only just such a limitation as can give a definiteness to my work which would otherwise be wanting. If we could annihilate ourselves at will, how impetuously would the impetuous rush upon their ruin and the scrupulous hover doubtingly over their self-slaughter. It is the form, then, which I can influence, and therein I find work enough, for it is the form which moulds the action of the soul. Here, then, it is well for me to consider that unless I take deliberate care I shall simply copy the life around me. I shall conform to the spirit of the world in which I am immersed. But to achieve that newness of mind whereby I am formed after the fashion of Christ, I must make careful scrutiny of myself, and, contrasting myself with that divine model, reform my soul gradually to that perfect pattern.
- text taken from Meditations for Layfolk by Father Bede Jarrett, O.P.