What, then, is this Kind, this Matter, described as one stuff, continuous and without quality? Clearly since it is without quality it is incorporeal; bodiliness would be quality. It must be the basic stuff of all the entities of the sense-world and not merely base to some while being to others achieved form. Clay, for example, is matter to the potter but is not Matter pure and simple. Nothing of this sort is our object: we are seeking the stuff which underlies all alike. We must therefore refuse to it all that we find in things of sense- not merely such attributes as colour, heat or cold, but weight or weightlessness, thickness or thinness, shape and therefore magnitude; though notice that to be present within magnitude and shape is very different from possessing these qualities. It cannot be a compound, it must be a simplex, one distinct thing in its nature; only so can it be void of all quality. The Principle which gives it form gives this as something alien: so with magnitude and all really-existent things bestowed upon it. If, for example, it possessed a magnitude of its own, the Principle giving it form would be at the mercy of that magnitude and must produce not at will, but only within the limit of the Matter's capacity: to imagine that Will keeping step with its material is fantastic. The Matter must be of later origin than the forming-power, and therefore must be at its disposition throughout, ready to become anything, ready therefore to any bulk; besides, if it possessed magnitude, it would necessarily possess shape also: it would be doubly inductile. No: all that ever appears upon it is brought in by the Idea: the Idea alone possesses: to it belongs the magnitude and all else that goes with the Reason-Principle or follows upon it. Quantity is given with the Ideal-Form in all the particular species- man, bird, and particular kind of bird. The imaging of Quantity upon Matter by an outside power is not more surprising than the imaging of Quality; Quality is no doubt a Reason-Principle, but Quantity also- being measure, number- is equally so.

Matter is none the less Matter to us, while we dwell on the plane of Matter, although we know it to be merely an aggregation of "electrons," or...

But the philosophers, the Stoics, and Plato, and Pythagoras, nay more, Aristotle the Peripatetic, suppose the existence of matter among the first prin...

Of things stated, some are stated without connection; as, for example, "man" and "runs," and whatever does not complete a sentence, which is either...

ALL whatsoever that has been mentioned above is called quality, because it qualifieth, operateth or frameth all in the deep above the earth, also...

Now on the subject of a “Void,” —which seems to almost all a thing of vast importance,—I hold the following view. Naught is, naught could have been,...

Plunging at once, with terrific speed and force, into the abyss of Manifestation, the World Soul created for itself material garments of the densest...

To take familiar illustrations, we all recognize the fact that matter "exists" to our senses--we will fare badly if we do not. And yet, even our...

For even it participates in ornament and beauty and form. But if matter, being without these, by itself is without quality and without form, how does ...

We see around us that which is called "Matter," which forms the physical foundation for all forms. Is THE ALL merely Matter? Not at all! Matter...

Thus now in the Essence of all Essences, there are three several distinct Properties, which yet are not parted asunder, with one Source [or Property]...

But He, the Father, full-filled with His ideas, did sow the lives as in a cave, willing to order forth the life with every kind of living. So He with ...

I. First, there is the power, from which a body comes to be, whether wood, stone or herbs. II. After that, there is a sap in that thing, which is the...

Hence, through these things such a corporeal-formed division as you introduce, is demonstrated to be false. It is, indeed, especially necessary not...

And now this matter in the fourth melting looks like silver or gold, but it is not yet fixed [subsistent], nor is it tough or malleable and pure enoug...

If nothing, then, is void, so also Space by its own self does not show what it is unless you add to it lengths, breadths [and depths],—just as you...

The matter which flows through its form (is) a cause by which the invisibility which exists through the powers [...] for them all, for [...], as they...

A: How meanest thou, Thrice-greatest one? H: Is not air body? A: It is. H: And doth this body not pervade all things, and so, pervading, fill them?...

After the body of the universe, also, many things are generated by the nature of it. For the concord of similars, and the contrariety of dissimilars,...

Now here a man must consider what the word quality meaneth or is. A quality is the mobility, boiling, springing and driving of a thing. Of Heat.

Whereas in all the rest of composed bodies, of each there is a certain number; for without number structure cannot be, or composition, or...