Plastic Principle

The Plastic Principle is an idea introduced into Western thought by the English philosopher Ralph Cudworth (1617–1689) to explain the function of nature and life in the face of both the mechanism and materialism of the Enlightenment. It is a dynamic functional power that contains all of natural law, and is both sustentative and generative, organizing matter according to Platonic Ideas, that is, archetypes that lie beyond the physical realm coming from the Mind of God or Deity, the ground of Being.