Antoninus has some obscure expressions about what he calls “seminal principles” ([Greek:  spermatikoi logoi]).  He opposes them to the Epicurean atoms (vi. 24), and consequently his “seminal principles” are not material atoms which wander about at hazard, and combine nobody knows how.  In one passage (iv. 21) he speaks of living principles, souls ([Greek:  psychahi]) after the dissolution of their bodies being received into the “seminal principle of the universe.”  Schultz thinks that by “seminal principles Antoninus means the relations of the various elemental principles, which relations are determined by the Deity and by which alone the production of organized beings is possible.”  This may be the meaning; but if it is, nothing of any value can be derived from it.[A] Antoninus often uses the word “Nature” ([Greek:  physis]), and we must attempt to fix its meaning, The simple etymological sense of [Greek:  physis] is “production,” the birth of what we call Things.  The Romans used Natura, which also means “birth” originally.  But neither the Greeks nor the Romans stuck to this simple meaning, nor do we.  Antoninus says (x. 6):  “Whether the universe is [a concourse of] atoms or Nature [is a system], let this first be established, that I am a part of the whole which is governed by nature.”  Here it might seem as if nature were personified and viewed as an active, efficient power; as something which, it not independent of the Deity, acts by a power which is given to it by the Deity.  Such, if I understand the expression right, is the way in which the word Nature is often used now, though it is plain that many writers use the word without fixing any exact meaning to it.  It is the same with the expression Laws of Nature, which some writers may use in an intelligible sense, but others as clearly use in no definite sense at all.  There is no meaning in this word Nature, except that which Bishop Butler assigns to it, when he says, “The only distinct meaning of that word Natural is Stated, Fixed, or Settled; since what is natural as much requires and presupposes an intelligent agent to render it so, i.e., to effect it continually or at stated times, as what is supernatural or miraculous does to effect it at once.”  This is Plato’s meaning (De Leg., iv. 715) when he says that God holds the beginning and end and middle of all that exists, and proceeds straight on his course, making his circuit according to nature (that is by a fixed order); and he is continually accompanied by justice, who punishes those who deviate from the divine law, that is, from the order or course which God observes.

[A] Justin (Apol. ii. 8) has the words [Greek:  kata spermatikou logou meros], where he is speaking of the Stoics; but he uses this expression in a peculiar sense (note ii).  The early Christian writers were familiar with the Stoic terms, and their writings show that the contest was begun between the Christian expositors and the Greek philosophy.  Even in the second