seminal principle

American  

noun

Philosophy.

1. a potential, latent within an imperfect object, for attaining full development.

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Example Sentences

See Examples For:

seminal principle

He has also erred in turning aside from the rich and manifold life of the emotions, for the emotions are not in themselves evil, they are the seminal principle of all virtue.

From Creed And Deed A Series of Discourses by Felix Adler

This was the first small seminal principle of the immense territorial acquisitions we have since made in India.

From The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 09 (of 12) by Edmund Burke

"Accordingly, whatever seemed the most subtle or pliable, as well as universal element in the mass of the visible world, was marked as the seminal principle whose successive developments and transformations produced all the rest."

From Christianity and Greek Philosophy or, the relation between spontaneous and reflective thought in Greece and the positive teaching of Christ and His Apostles by B. F. (Benjamin Franklin) Cocker

In the Commedia for the first time Christianity wholly revolutionizes Art, and becomes its seminal principle.

From Among My Books Second Series by James Russell Lowell

There are spirits in which it developes the seminal principle of life; there are others in which it prematurely hastens the consummation of irreparable decay.

From Sermons Preached at Brighton Third Series by Frederick William Robertson