cocreative womb of those who see, hear or perform his work. This is the womb of our common sensibility, which is itself codetermined by the historical situation. However distorted it might be to subordinate all judgments of the value of a form to its sociological determinations, this factor must nonetheless be taken into account. In his embryology, St. Thomas recognizes a subtle interplay between this preforming of matter (in view of the definitive form that will take shape) and the coopting of this