Hylozoism

(ὕλη, wood, used by ancient philosophers to signify the abstract idea of matter; and ζωή, life) is a term for the atheistical doctrine which teaches that life and matter are inseparable. But the forms which have grown out of this doctrine have been rather variable. Thus, "Strato of Lampsacus held that the ultimate particles of matter were each and all of them possessed of-life," approaching, of course, in this sense, to pantheism; but "the Stoics, on the other hand, while they did not accord activity or life to every distinct particle of matter, held that the universe, as a whole, was animated by a principle which gave to it motion, form, and life." The followers of Plotinus, who held that the "soul of the universe" animated the least particle of matter; or, in other words, while they admitted a certain material or plastic life, essential and substantial, ingenerable and incorruptible, attributed all to matter, especially favored the Stoical doctrine, and "Spinoza asserted that all things were alive in different degrees ('omnia quamvis diversis gradibus animata tamen sunt')." All the various forms of this doctrine evidently mistake force for life. According to Leibnitz, Boscovich, and others, "Matter is always endowed with force. Even the vis isertice ascribed to it is a force. Attraction and repulsion, and chemical affinity, all indicate activity in matter; but life is a force always connected with organization, which much of matter wants. Spontaneous motion, growth, nutrition, separation of parts, generation, are phenomena which indicate the presence of life, which is obviously not coextensive with matter." See Fleming, Vocabulary of Philos. (edited by Krauth), p. 219 sq.; Cudworth, intellect. System, 1, 106 sq., 144 sq., etc.; Hallam; Hist. of Europe, 4, 188.