The Greek term archē refers to the original stuff from which the world came to be, according to pre-Socratic philosophers. In his Metaphysics Aristotle explains:

Of the first philosophers, the majority thought the sources [archai, plural] of all things were found only in the class of matter. For that of which all existing things consist, and that from which they come to be first and into which they perish last—the substance continuing but changing in its attributes—this, they say, is the element and this the source [archē] of existing things. Accordingly they do not think anything either comes to be or perishes, inasmuch as that nature is always preserved. … For a certain nature always exists, either one or more than one, from which everything else comes to be while this is preserved. All, however, do not agree on the number and character of this...