View that all matter is alive, either in itself or by participation in the operation of a world soul or some similar principle.
Hylozoism is logically distinct both from early forms of animism , which personify nature, and from panpsychism, which attributes some form of consciousness or sensation to all matter. The word was coined in the 17th century by Ralph Cudworth , who with Henry More (1614–1687) spoke of "plastic nature," an unconscious, incorporeal substance that controls and organizes matter and thus produces natural events as a divine instrument of change.