Course of Thomistic Philosophy II, Natural Philosophy I - Edouard Hugon

This second volume in Hugon’s Course of Thomistic Philosophy introduces the first part of natural philosophy within the Thomistic-Aristotelian tradition. Building on the logical foundations established in the previous volume, it turns to the study of the natural world as an intelligible order governed by principles discoverable by reason.

Following the framework of Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle, Hugon treats key topics such as motion, change, nature, causality, and the composition of physical beings. He explains how material substances are analyzed in terms of act and potency, form and matter, and the four causes, presenting nature not as a collection of disconnected phenomena but as a structured reality ordered toward intelligibility.

Written in a clear scholastic style, this work aims to train the reader in seeing the physical world through the lens of classical metaphysics, preparing the ground for later studies in psychology, cosmology, and metaphysics proper.