e wood.

From such considerations as this the deep thinkers of old times posited
the generating of a world-system by the interaction of what they named
Animus Dei, the Active principle, and Anima Mundi, or Soul of the
Universe, the Passive principle--the one Personal, and the other
Impersonal; and by the hypothesis of the case the only mode of activity
possible to Anima Mundi is response to Animus Dei. But the same
impersonal passivity must also make Anima Mundi receptive likewise to
lesser and more individualized modes of Personality, and it becomes, so
to say, fecundated by the ideas thus impressed upon it. In every case
"the word is the seed." We may picture this planting of an idea or
"word" in the Cosmic soul as acting very much like the initial impulse
that starts a train of waves in ether, and these thought-waves are
reproduced in corresponding forms; or, to recur to the simile of seed,
the cosmic soul acts like the soil and gives it nourishment. Looking at
it in this way the old exponents of these things regarded the Active
principle as Masculine, and the Passive as Feminine, the one generating
and the other nutritive, corresponding to the words _rouah_ and
_hoshech_, the expansion and compression principles in the Hebrew text
of the opening verses of Genesis.

If then we posit this impersonal Soul of the Universe as the living
principle dwelling in the substance of the etheric Universal Medium it
will account for a good many things. If it be asked why we should assume
the presence of a living principle in the Universal Substance the answer
is in the maxim "Quod ex Vivo Vivum," what proceeds from Life is living.
Then as we see by our diagram, Anima Mundi equally with Animus Dei
proceeds from the original Substantive of Life, and therefore, on the
principle of the above maxim, that like produces like, Anima Mundi must
also be a living thing whose vehicle is the Universal Substance.

We may picture then, the response of the indwelling Soul of the
Universal Medium to our Thought, as starting corresponding vibrations in
the Substance of the Medium, just as our own thought, acting through the
vibratory system of our nerves, causes our body to make the movement we
intend. But perhaps you will say: How can this be, seeing that by the
hypothesis the Soul of the Universe is Impersonal, and therefore
unintelligent? Well, it is just this fact of having no thought of its
own, that enables us to impress our thought upon it