First, we need to keep in mind the reality of potency, for it is one of the most evident realities of the material universe. Next the utter dependency of potency on another. Without this order to another, potency could neither be known nor even exist, because when we talk about something as potential we are talking about what it can be. At the bare minimum, potency is potency to be. Beyond this indetermination to existence, there is also an indetermination to where something is, and whether it is more or less such and such. In all these cases potency is entirely dependent on what it is in potency to.
It’s important to speak precisely, or we could get pulled into the sophistical and per accidens and miss what potency is. Insofar as a pile of boards or a hunk of metal are boards and metal, they are actual enough, but if we want to speak of their potential we presuppose some idea of what they are in potential to: like to being house or jewelry or something else. For this reason, the pre- existent idea or thing of the idea is in fact the cause of the potential reality, as potential.
