it seems we're sort of on the right track, but missing the boat (to mix metaphors); so here's OED2:
hylarchic - Obs.
[ad. Gr. *** f. *** matter + *** to rule. Cf. F. hylarchique.]
Ruling over matter.
1676 H. More Remarks Contents bvijb, Water is+suspended in Pumps+by Gravitation upwards, more expresly here explained, and at last resolved into the Hylarchick Principle. Ibid. 186 The Hylarchick Spirit of the world holds strong and entire still. 1713 Berkeley Hylas & Phil. iii. Wks. 1871 I. 355 What difficulties concerning entity in abstract, substantial forms, hylarchic principles.
So †hy"larchical a. Obs.
1676 [see hylostatical]. 1678 Cudworth Intell. Syst. i. v. 668 Some other substance besides Body, such as is self active and hylarchical, or hath a natural power of ruling over matter. 1681 H. Hallywell Melampron. 70 (T.) This hylarchical principle, or plastick nature.
The Berkeley citation is perhaps the most enlightening, as Berkeley was a philosopher who denied the existence of matter; he maintained that material objects only exist through being perceived. To the objection that, in that case, a tree would cease to exist if no one was looking at it [sound familiar?], he replied that God always perceives everything -- this, in turn, he uses as an argument for the existence of God. Ronald Knox summed this up with a limerick:
There was a young man who said, "God
Must think it exceedingly odd
If he finds that this tree
Continues to be
When there's no one about in the Quad."
Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd;
I am always about in the Quad.
And that's why the tree
Will continue to be,
Since observed by
Yours faithfully,
GOD.
p.s. - bill, in the dialogues of Philonous and Hylas, Philonous represents Berkeley and his philosophy.
