In an introduction to a volume called The Portable Greek Reader, W. H. Auden made these comments about Greek philosophy:

The great difference between the Greek conception of Nature and later ones is that the Greeks thought of the universe as analogous to a city-state, so that for them natural laws, like human laws, were not laws of things, descriptions of how in fact they behave, but laws for things. When we speak of a falling body “obeying” the law of gravitation, we are unconsciously echoing Greek thought; for obedience implies the possibility of disobedience. To the Greeks this was no dead metaphor; consequently, their problem was not the relation of Mind to Matter, but of Substance to Form, how matter became “educated” enough, so to speak, to conform to law.