in physics, denotes the manner of being peculiar to each body; or that which constitutes it such a particular body, and distinguishes it from every other.

Mr Harris uses the term form likewise in another sense, as an efficient animating principle; to which he supposes Ovid to refer in the first lines of his Metamorphosis:

*In novo fert animus mutatas diecere formas.*

These animating forms are of themselves no objects either of the ear or of the eye; but their nature or character is understood in this, that were they never to exert their proper energies on their proper subjects, the marble on which the sculptor exercises his art would remain for ever shapeless, and the harp from which the harper calls forth sounds would remain for ever silent.

Thus, also, the animating form of a natural body is neither its organization nor its figure, nor any other of those inferior forms which make up the system of its visible qualities; but it is the power, which is yet able to produce, preserve, and employ these. It is the power, which first moves, and then conducts that latent process, by which the acorn becomes an oak, and the embryo becomes a man; by which digestion is performed in plants and animals, and, which departing, the body ceases to live, and its members putrefy; and by which every being produces another like itself, and every species is continued. In animals, it is that higher faculty, which, by employing the organs of sense, peculiar to them as animals, distinguishes them as sensitive beings from vegetables; and it is also that more noble faculty, which by its own divine vigour, unassisted perhaps with organs, makes and denominates him a being intellective and rational. So that Mr Harris reckons two sorts of forms, those which are passive elements, and those which are efficient causes. And all of them agree in this, that they give to every being its peculiar and distinctive character: and on the whole he concludes, that form appears in part to be an element, and in part an efficient cause, i.e. a cause which associates the constituent elements of natural substance, and which employs them, when associated, according to their various and peculiar characters.

The philosophers generally allow two principles of bodies: matter, as the common basis or substratum of all; and form, as that which specifies and distinguishes each; and which, added to a quantity of common matter, determines or denominates it this or that; wood, or fire, or flesh, &c.

Substantial forms seem to have been first broached by the followers of Aristotle, who thought matter, under different modes or modifications, not sufficient to constitute different bodies; but that something substantial was necessary to set them at a greater distance: and thus introduced substantial forms, on the footing of souls, which specify and distinguish animals. What led to this erroneous notion was the circumstances of life and death: For observing, that, as soon as the soul was departed out of a man, all motion, respiration, nutrition, &c. immediately ceased, they concluded, that all these functions depended on the soul, and consequently that the soul was the form of the animal body, or that which constituted it such: [that the soul was a substance, independent of matter, no body doubted; and hence the forms of other bodies were concluded equally substantial. But to this it is answered, that though the soul be that by which a man is man, and consequently is the form of the human body, as human; yet it does not follow, that it is properly the form of this body of ours, as it is a body; nor of the several parts thereof, considered as distinct from each other: For these several parts have their proper forms so closely connected with their matter, that it remains inseparable therefrom long after the soul has quitted the body: thus, flesh has the form of flesh, bone of bone, &c. long after the soul is removed as well as before. The truth is, the body does not become incapable of performing its accustomed functions because the soul has deserted it; but the soul takes its leave, because the body is not in a condition to perform its functions.

The ancient and modern corpuscular philosophers, therefore, with the Cartesians, exclude the notion of substantial forms; and show, by many arguments, that the form is only the modus or manner of the body it is inherent in. And as there are only three primary modes of matter, viz. figure, rest, or motion, with two others arising therefrom, viz. magnitude and situation, the form of all bodies they hold to consist therein; and suppose the variations these modes are capable of, sufficient to present all the variety observable in bodies.

Forms are usually distinguished into essential and accidental.

**Essential.** Though the five modes above mentioned, generally taken, be adventitious; yet to this or that body, e.g. to fire or water, they are essential: thus, it is accidental to iron, to have this or that magnitude, figure, or situation, since it might exist in different ones; yet to a knife or hammer, the figure, magnitude, and position of parts, which constitute it a hammer or knife, are essential; and they cannot exist or be conceived without them. Hence it is inferred, that though there be no substantial, there are essential forms, whereby the several species of bodies become what they are, and are distinguished from all others.

**Accidental forms,** are those really inherent in bodies, but in such manner as that the body may exist in all its perfection without them. Such is whiteness in a wall, heat in water, a figure of a man in wax, &c.

Form is also used, in a moral sense, for the manner of being or doing a thing according to rules: thus we say, a form of government, a form of argument, &c.

law, the rules established and requisite to be observed in legal proceedings.—The formal part of the law, or method of proceeding, cannot be altered but by parliament; for if once these outworks were demolished, there would be an inlet to all manner of innovation in the body of the law itself.

carpentry, is used to denote the long seats or benches in the choirs of churches or in schools, for the priests, prebends, religious, or scholars, to sit on. Du Cange takes the name to be derived from hence, that the backs of the seats were anciently enriched with figures of painting and sculpture, called in Latin *forma et typi*. In the life of St William of Roffchild, we meet with *forma* as signifying a seat for an ecclesiastic, or religious, in a choir; and in that of St Lupicin, we have formula in the same sense. In the rule of the monastery of St Cæsarea, the nun who presides over the choir is called primiceria, vel formaria.

At schools, the word form is frequently applied to what is otherwise termed a class. See Class.