Plutarch De Iside et Osiride 58

[58] We must not treat legend as if it were history at all, but we should adopt that which is appropriate in each legend in accordance with its verisimilitude. Whenever, therefore, we speak of material we must not be swept away to the opinions of some philosophers, ¹ and conceive of an inanimate and indifferentiated body, which is of itself inert and inactive. The fact is that we call oil the material of perfume and gold the material of a statue, and these are not destitute of all differentiation. We provide the very soul and thought of Man as the basic material of understanding and virtue for Reason to adorn and to harmonize, and some have declared the Mind to be a place for the assembling of forms and for the impression of concepts, as it were. ²

Some think the seed of Woman is not a power or origin, but only material and nurture of generation. ³ To this thought we should eling fast and conceive that this Goddess also who participates always with the first God and is associated with him in the love ⁴ of the fair and lovely things about him is not opposed to him, but, just as we say that an honourable and just man is in love if his relations are just, and a good woman who has a husband and consorts with him we say yearns for him; thus we may conceive of her as always clinging close to him and being importunate over him and constantly filled with the most dominant and purest principles.

[58] But we must remember that we are not to make use of fables as if they were doctrinal throughout, but only to take that in each of them which we shall judge to make a pertinent resemblance. And therefore, when we treat of matter, we need not (with respect to the sentiments of some philosophers) to conceit in our minds a certain body void of soul and of all quality, and of itself wholly idle and unactive. For we use to call oil the matter of an unguent, and gold the matter of a statue, though they are not destitute of all quality. And we render the very soul and mind of a man as matter to reason, to be dressed up and composed into science and virtue. There have been some also that have made the mind to be a receptacle of forms and a kind of imprimary for things intelligible; and some are of opinion again that the genital humidity in the female sex is no active property nor efficient principle, but only the matter and nutriment of the production. Which when we retain in our memories, we ought to conceive likewise that this Goddess, which always participates of the first God and is ever taken up with the love of those excellencies and charms that are about him, is not by nature opposite to him; but that, as we are used to say of a good natured woman, that, though she be married to a man and constantly enjoys his embraces, yet she hath a fond kind of longing after him, so hath she always a strong inclination to the God, though she be present and round about him, and though she be impregnated with his most prime and pure particles.