# chapter 3 of evnine **Opening (not a real abstract):** The Basic Metaphysics Morphic hylomorphism, including the Aristotelian variety and contemporary principlebased hylomorphism, takes the objects in its domain to be compounds of matter and form. In the previous two chapters I have suggested that there are some serious problems with this approach. Aristotle takes forms to be things of a kind that we have come to reject with the development of modern science. The justification for believing in them lay partly in the explanatory work they performed in understanding the genesis and behavior of natural things, phenomena for which we have explanations now that require nothing like Aristotelian forms.1 Principle-based hylomorphism requires only such abstracta to play the role of form as properties, relations, and functions. My reasons for being suspicious of principle-based hylomorphism were outlined in 2.3.2