Aristotle, Metaphysics

[1033a] [1] But then is matter part of the formula? Well, we define bronze circles in both ways; we describe the matter as bronze, and the form as such-and-such a shape; and this shape is the proximate genus in which the circle is placed.The bronze circle, then, has its matter in its formula. Now as for that from which, as matter, things are generated, some things when they are generated are called not "so-and-so," but "made of so-and-so"; e.g., a statue is not called stone, but made of stone. But the man who becomes healthy is not called after that from which he becomes healthy. This is because the generation proceeds from the privation and the substrate, which we call matter (e.g., both "the man" and "the invalid" become healthy),but it is more properly said to proceed from the privation; e.g., a man becomes healthy from being an invalid rather than from being a man. Hence a healthy person is not called an invalid, but a man, and a healthy man. But where the privation is obscure and has no name—e.g. in bronze the privation of any given shape, or in bricks and wood the privation of the shape of a house—the generation is considered to proceed from these materials, as in the former case from the invalid.Hence just as in the former case the subject is not called that from which it is generated, so in this case the statue is not called wood, but is called by a verbal change not wood, but wooden; not bronze, but made of bronze; not stone, but made of stone; and the house is called not bricks, but made of bricks. [20] For if we consider the matter carefully, we should not even say without qualification that a statue is generated from wood, or a house from bricks; because that from which a thing is generated should not persist, but be changed. This, then, is why we speak in this way.

Now since that which is generated is generated by something (by which I mean the starting-point of the process of generation), and from something (by which let us understand not the privation but the matter; for we have already distinguished the meanings of these), and becomes something (i.e. a sphere or circle or whatever else it may be); just as the craftsman does not produce the substrate, i.e. the bronze, so neither does he produce the sphere; except accidentally, inasmuch as the bronze sphere is a sphere, and he makes the former.For to make an individual thing is to make it out of the substrate in the fullest sense. I mean that to make the bronze round is not to make the round or the sphere, but something else; i.e. to produce this form in another medium. For if we make the form, we must make it out of something else; for this has been assumed.