Hylozoism Definition & Meaning

Origin of Hylozoism

Greek hūlē matter Greek zōē life gwei- in Indo-European roots –ism

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition
From Ancient Greek ὕλη (hulē) "matter" + ζωή (zōē) "life"

From Wiktionary

He, in fact, returns to ancient hylozoism, which has tended to revive from time to time in the history of thought.
Fechner's panpsychism has a certain affinity both to Stahl's animism and to the hylozoism of materialists such as Haeckel.
The pre-Socratics may be classed as naïve materialists in this sense; though, as at that early period the contrast between matter and spirit had not been' fully realized and matter was credited with properties that belong to life, it is usual to apply the term hylozoism to the earliest stage of Greek metaphysical theory.
Such theories are the modern scientific or semi-scientific counterparts of the primitive animism of savage races, and may be compared with the hylozoism of the Greek physicists.
This primitive hylozoism reappeared in modified forms in medieval and Renaissance thought, and in modern times the doctrine of materialistic monism is its representative.

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