Mind Over Matter - Origin

Origin

The exact phrase "mind over matter" first appeared in 1863 in The Geological Evidence of the Antiquity of Man by Sir Charles Lyell (1797–1875) and refers to the increasing status and evolutionary growth of the minds of animals and man throughout Earth history.

It may be said that, so far from having a materialistic tendency, the supposed introduction into the earth at successive geological periods of life — sensation, instinct, the intelligence of the higher mammalia bordering on reason, and lastly, the improvable reason of Man himself — presents us with a picture of the ever-increasing dominion of mind over matter. — Sir Charles Lyell, 1863

Another related saying was coined almost two millennia earlier (19 B.C.) "the mind moves matter" by the poet Virgil in his work Aeneid, book 6, line 727. The latter saying in Latin, mens agitat molem, is the official motto of the University of Warwick and Eindhoven University of Technology in The Netherlands.