The Essence of a Cat

The situation of the cat is similar to the football, but also different./nA cat is a thing, a substance. Its essence is to be a cat, to be feline. That essence, you might say, has two aspects, a material aspect, and a formal aspect. The material aspect ensures that it is a corporeal entity that is capable of being acted upon by other corporeal entities. The formal aspect ensures that it is an entity of a certain type, in this case feline. What's more, the formal aspect dominates over the material aspect, making it be the case that the cat doesn't just have some matter, but some matter of a specific sort. Namely, cat matter.