be something that may be called
Will. Crusius, as far back as 1744 said: "Will is the dominating force
of the world." And Schopenhauer based his fascinating but gloomy
philosophy and metaphysics upon the underlying principle of an active
form of energy which he called the Will-to-Live, which he considered to
be the Thing-in-Itself, or the Absolute. Balzac, the novelist,
considered a something akin to Will, to be the moving force of the
Universe. Bulwer advanced a similar theory, and made mention of it in
several of his novels

This idea of an active, creative Will, at work in the Universe,
building up; tearing down; replacing; repairing; changing--always at
work--ever active--has been entertained by numerous philosophers and
thinkers, under different names and styles. Some, like Schopenhauer
have thought of this Will as the final thing--that which took the place
of God--the First Cause. But others have seen in this Will an active
living principle emanating from the Absolute or God, and working in
accordance with the laws impressed by Him upon it. In various forms,
this latter idea is seen all through the history of philosophical
thought. Cudsworth, the English philosopher, evolved the idea of a
something called the "Plastic Nature," which so closely approaches the
Yogi idea of the Creative Will, that we feel justified in quoting a
passage from his book. He says:

"It seems not so agreeable to reason that Nature, as a distinct thing
from the Deity, should be quite superseded or made to signify nothing,
God Himself doing all things immediately and miraculously; from whence
it would follow also that they are all done either forcibly and
violently, or else artificially only, and none of them by any inward
principle of their own.

"This opinion is further confuted by that slow and gradual process that
in the generation of things, which would seem to be but a vain and idle
pomp or a trifling formality if the moving power were omnipotent; as
also by those errors and bungles which are committed where the matter
is inept and contumacious; which argue that the moving power be not
irresistible, and that Nature is such a thing as is not altogether
incapable (as well as human art) of being sometimes frustrated and
disappointed by the indisposition of matter. Whereas an omnipotent
moving power, as it could dispatch its work in a moment, so would it
always do it infallibly and irresistibly, no ineptitude and
stubbornness of matte