hylopathy

hylopathy

English

Etymology

hylo- +‎ -pathy

Noun

hylopathy (uncountable)

1. (obsolete) The ability of a spirit to penetrate and affect matter.
   • 1662, Henry More, An Antidote Against Atheism, Appendix, Chapter 3:

     And this affection of a Spirit we will make bold to call, for more compendiousness, by one Greek term ὑλοπάθεια which, that there may be no suspicion of any fraud or affected foolery in words, we will as plainly as we can define thus, A power in a Spirit of offering so near to a corporeal emanation from the Center of life, that it will so perfectly fill the receptivity of Matter into which it has penetrated, that it is very difficult or impossible for any other Spirit to possess the same, and therefore of becoming hereby so firmly and closely united to a Body, as both to actuate and to be acted upon, to affect and be affected thereby.

   • 1726, Joseph Glanvill, Sadducismus trimphatus, page 99:

     Which Faculty of Spirits, in the Appendix to the Antidote against Atheism is called ὑλοπάθεια, the Hylopathy of Spirits, or a Power of affecting, or being affected by the Matter.

   • 1890, Charles S. Peirce, Architecture of Theories:

     The old dualistic notion of mind and matter, so prominent in Cartesianism, will hardly find defenders today. Rejecting this we are driven to some form of hylopathy, otherwise called monism.