32:8 This seems equivalent to the ancient notion of a plastic nature: "All parts of matter, by reason of a certain life in them, being supposed able to form themselves artificially and methodically to the greatest advantage of their present respective capabilities." This, which Cudworth (c. III.) calls hylozoism, is not incompatible with an active creator: "not that he should, αὐτουργεῖν ἅπαντα, set his own hand to every work, which, as Aristotle says, would be, ἀπρεπὲς τῷ θεῷ, unbecoming God; but, as in the case of Brahmá and other subordinate agents, that they should occasion p. 33 the various developments of crude nature to take place, by supplying that will, of which nature itself is incapable. Action being once instituted by an instrumental medium, or by the will of an intellectual agent, it is continued by powers or a vitality inherent in nature or the matter of creation itself. The efficiency of such subordinate causes was advocated by Plato, Aristotle, and others; and the opinion of Zeno, as stated by Laertius, might be taken for a translation of some such passage as that in our text: Ἔστι δὲ φύσις ἕξις ἐξ αὐτῆς κινουμένη κατὰ σπερματικοὺς λόγους, ἀποτελοῦσά τε καὶ συνέχουσα τὰ ἐξ αὐτῆς ἐν ὡριοσμένοις χρόνοις, καὶ τοιαῦτα δρῶσα ἀφ᾽ οἵων ἀπεκρίθη· 'Nature is a habit moved from itself, according to seminal principles; perfecting and containing those several things which in determinate times are produced from it, and acting agreeably to that from which it was secreted.' Intell. System, I. 328. 'So the commentator illustrates our text by observing that the cause of the budding of rice is in its own seed, and its developement is from itself; though its growth takes place only at a determinate season, in consequence of the instrumental agency of the rain.

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Hinduism

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