urstoff

Updated: May 9, 2025

For this ethereal 'Urstoff' of the modern corresponds very closely with the prhôtê hylê of Aristotle, the materia prima of his mediæval followers; while matter, differentiated into our elements, is the equivalent of the first stage of progress towards the heschhatê hylê, or finished matter, of the ancient philosophy.

Thomas Henry Huxley - The Advance of Science in the Last Half-Century

Had He really created the raw material from which He was to frame the universe, He would of course have created some medium perfectly plastic to His hand and adapted to His purposes; but if He merely operates on matter from without, finding it stubborn and unamenable, He is only a secondary Deity or Demiurge, and we have still to answer the question, What is that real First Cause, the Urgott who created the Urstoff, matter in its most elementary form, and endowed it with qualities some of which were destined to serve, while others resisted and frustrated, the sub-Divinity's intentions?

Joseph Warschauer - Problems of Immanence: studies critical and constructive