 Suárez here insists that it is the form together with the matter (cum ea) which constitutes the essence of a substantial composite. He thinks, then, that matter has, so to speak, its own independent causal pathway as an internal cause. Even though the substantial form is the actuality of the matter, this does not deprive matter of its causal efficacy. In this respect, he parts company from a good many of his contemporaries and predecessors, who had opted for the simpler formulation, often by representing the causal efficacy of matter as somehow parasitic on the causality of the form.