Abstract
When not contained by his limited vitalism, ‘pure’ mechanism seemed to More to lead to a ‘nullibism’, where spirit was said to be in effect ‘nowhere’. In Descartes this had arisen from his conception of the physical world as an indefinite material extension, and his radical exclusion of all rational spiritual beings from this extension. In Hobbes this ‘nullibism’ was made more explicit: there was simply nothing that could be known from observation but matter in motion. For More such an exemplary ‘atheism’ was not strictly speaking the result of a disbelief in the existence of God, or even in the immortality of the soul, but of a philosophy which might be taken to imply such a disbelief.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
See DD: 222–4; and Psychathanasia: I i 10–18.
Psychathanasia: I i 14; and see above.
See Alexander Jacob (ed), Henry More’s Refutation of Spinoza (Hildescheim, Georg Olms, 1993), Introduction; and John Henry, “Medicine, and Pneumatology: Henry More, Richard Baxter and Francis Glisson’s Treatise on the Energetic Nature of Substance.” Medical History, 31 (1987): 15–40, especially 15–23.
On Glisson (1597–1677) see DNB, DSB, W. Pagel, “Harvey and Glisson on Irritability with a note on Van Helmont” Bulletin of the History of Medicine 41 (1967): 497–514; W. Pagel, “The reaction to Aristotle in seventeenth century Biological Thought”, in E.A. Underwood (ed), Science, Medicine and History (2 vols, Oxford: OUP, 1953): vol 1, 489–509; and John Henry, “Medicine, and Pneumatology.” More’s tract was motivated by reading Franciscus Cuperus, Arcana Atheismi revelata, philosophice et paradoxe refutata examine Tractatus Theologico-Politici (Rotterdam, 1676). It is entitled Ad V.C. Epistola Altera quae brevem Tractatus Theologico-politici confutationem complectitur, paucaque sub fine annex habet de libri Franciscus Cuperi scopo... in Op Om (tom.2, 1679): 565–614. See 604 and 607; and Colie, Light and Enlightenment (1957), chapters 5 and 6 on More’s reaction to Spinoza and his relation to the opponents of Spinoza in Holland. See also Cristofolini, Cartesi (1974): 139–206, and especially, Sarah Hutton, “Reason and Revelation in the Cambridge Platonists, and their Reception of Spinoza.” in K. Grunder and W. Schmidt-Biggemann (eds), Spinoza in der Fruhzeit seiner Religiosen Wirkung. Wolfenbutteler Studien zur Aufldarung, 12 Heidelburg,1984, p.181–99.
The reference to Glisson is actually in Cuperus, but More cites it, Op Om (tom.2): 604; the scholia refuting Glisson is 604–611. See John Henry, “Medicine and Pneumatology.” Henry’s exposition of Glisson’s side of this little quarrel is exemplary, but somewhat reductionistic in its depiction of More’s, whom he wishes to show, does not argue philosophically, but theologically. This tends to also undermine his discussion of More’s subsequent quarrel with Baxter for similar reasons, discussed below.
See DSB; Pagel, “The reaction to Aristotle”, and Henry, “Medicine and Pneumatology.”
Glisson, Tractatus (1672): 191. See also the exposition in Pagel, “Reaction to Aristotle”: 503–6.
Tractatus (1672): 136 ff.
These ideas were taken up by Richard Baxter in his definition of the nature of a spirit.
Tractatus (1672): 208.
lbid: 235.
See Pagel, “Reaction to Aristotle”: 503 note.
See above.
Glisson, Tractatus (1672), on non-perpetual motions: 352–5; and on the `inanimate motions’: 367–75. More’s criticism of these occurs, Op Om: 605. See also Henry, “Medicine and Pneumatology.”
Op Om: 605–6.
As Henry points out, “Medicine and Pneumatology”. However, the incompatibility of the basic concepts both employed presents an overwhelming obstacle to coherence in such arguments. The argument is thus as much about conceptual methodology as about the subjects discussed, as Henry admits.
Op Om: 605.
Ibid.
See the similar attacks on Glisson’s ‘hylozoism’ in Cudworth, TIS (1687): 839.
Op Om: 610.
Op Om: 608.
Tractatus (1672): 191; and More, Op Om: 607–8.
See above, and [Vaughan], Second Wash (1651): 79; and Euphrates (1655): 23.
Tractatus (1672): 1 ff.; and see Pagel, “Reaction to Aristotle”: 505.
See above, and [Vaughan], Euphrates (1655): 17.
This controversy is also discussed in Henry, “Medicine and Pneumatology”, but, as with his discussion of More against Glisson, his account is somewhat one-sided where Baxter’s superior philosophizing is contrasted to More’s dependence on theology, a somewhat misleading presentation, which is repeated again briefly in Henry, “A Cambridge Platonist’s Materialism: Henry More and the concept of Soul”, JWCI 49 (1986): 172–195, especially 183–192. In this article More’s `materialism’ depends on an idiosyncratic and misleading definition of the word, and this tends to undermine the value of what is in other respects an interesting discussion.
See also AA: I iv, and Appendix (1655): iv; and IS, I iii-vii.
See Dr. Williams Library, Mss. Baxter Letters, III, f.286, More to Baxter, Sept.25, 1681, and More, Digression against Baxter, contained in his Two Treatises (1682): 202.
See Some Cursory Reflections Impartially made upon Mr. Richard Baxter his way of Writing Notes upon the Apocalypse, in More, Paralipomena Prophetica (1685). The controversy is discussed by Lamont, Richard Baxter and the Millennium (1979): 42 ff., however Lamont does not seem to be aware of this initial controversy. See idem 44–5.
As Lamont Ibid: 42, also demonstrates.
Baxter, Of the Nature of Spirits; Especially Mans Soul. In a placid Collation with the Learned Dr. Henry More (1682): 94–5.
Baxter, Placid Collation: 95 and More, An Answer to a Letter (1689): 250–2.
See Baxter, Unreasonableness of Infidelity (1655), III: 89 and 107, and Certainty of the World of Spirits (1691), Preface.
The Mss. Baxter Letters (Dr Williams Library mss), vol.I, f.174–5. See also also f.170–1, and above.
See, for example, Baxter, Treatise of Knowledge and Love Compared (1689), title page, and also N.H. Keeble, Richard Baxter, Puritan Man of Letters (1982): 40.
Placid Collation (1681): 4.
See above, and More, Two Treatises (1682): 187, and 258.
Ibid: 188. More’s Annotations were written anonymously.
Placid Collation (1681): 110.
See IS: I vii and passim; and True Notion: 133–4.
IS: II xviii 1.
True Notion: 151–61.
True Notion: 154–7. See also IS: II i-xi, and especially II xi.
Ibid, I v-vii; and True Notion: 162.
See IS: I ii 1; and above.
Of the Immortality of Man’s Soul, and the Nature of it and other Spirits (1681): 27.
See above, and Henry, “Medicine and Pneumatology”.
Placid Collation (1681): 12–3.
Placid Collation (1681): 76: “You seem to make all Substance to be Atomes, spiritual atomes and material atomes.”
Placid Colla ti on: 16–18.
Placid Collation: 40–1.
Placid Collation: 50.
Placid Col la tion: 47 and 76.
Digression, in Two Treatises (1682): 243.
Two Treatises: 208, and compare with Placid Collation: 12–14, cited above.
Two Treatises: 232.
Two Treatises: 209.
Two Treatises: 211.
See IS: I ii 11.
Two Treatises: 212.
Two Treatises: 215. This `reduplication’ is also reminiscent of the reduplication Glisson gave to the sensate expressions of his unitary `energetic substance’. See above.
Two Treatise: 219.
Two Treatises: 217, and below.
ST: 198.
Ibid.
Ibid: 221 and 231 ff, and see above.
See “An Account of the Second Edition”, ST (1689): 8.
ST: 238–243.
Ibid: 226–230.
On Finch, see DNB, and Archibald Malloch, Finch and Baines: A Seventeenth Century Friendship. (Cambridge, 1917). The manuscript treatise is located in the Leicester Record Office, Finch papers, DG7, Box 4976, Lit. 9.
Treatise: 17
Treatise: 25
Treatise: 148
Treatise: 542
Leicester Record Office, Finch papers, DG7, Box 4978, lit 24, 1.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Crocker, R. (2003). Hylozoism and the Nature of Material Substance. In: Henry More, 1614–1687. International Archives of the History of Ideas / Archives Internationales d’Histoire des Idées, vol 185. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0217-1_11
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-017-0217-1_11
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-90-481-6373-1
Online ISBN: 978-94-017-0217-1
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive