seminal principle

American  

noun

Philosophy.

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

---

Example Sentences

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 Project Gutenberg

There is no American heart, I imagine, that does not glow, both with conscious, patriotic pride, and admiration for one of the happiest efforts of eloquence, so often as the vision of “that little speck, scarce visible in the mass of national interest, a small seminal principle, rather than a formed body,” and the progress of its astonishing development and growth, are recalled to the recollection.

From Project Gutenberg

The charm of youth, even when it is a little boisterous, lies in nearness to the impulses of nature, in a quicker and more obvious obedience to that pure, seminal principle which, having formed the body and its organs, always directs their movements, unless it is forced by vice or necessity to make them crooked, or to suspend them.

From Project Gutenberg

In the twelfth: First, Of the Seminal Principle of all things, its origine, nature and property; of the way how Nature proceeds in the Generation of Minerals, Vegetables, Animals; of Spontaneous Generation; of Zeophyts, Insects of all sorts, and particularly of the Worms bred in Men; together with the causes why Nature would produce such swarms of infinite sorts of Insects.

From Project Gutenberg

"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 Project Gutenberg