The Summary of Physics Restored

18Some, assenting to the opinion of the rabbis, believed that first matter was preceded by an exceedingly ancient, yet obscure and ineffable material principle, improperly called Hyle. It should be called not so much a body as an immense shadow; not so much a thing as the darkest image of a thing, or a sooty phantom of being, the darkest night, a hiding place of darkness. Actually nothing and potentially everything, it is something the human mind can fashion for itself only in a dream. The imagination can present that uncertain principle, that dark underworld, to us no more adequately than the ears can convey the sun's light to someone blind from birth.