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Henry More and Descartes: Some New Sources*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

C. Webster
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Extract

From the time of the publication of Henry More's first work, the collection of poems, ΨγΧΩΔΙΑ Platonica (1642), Platonism provided the dominant theme in his philosophy. At Cambridge, More, his colleague, Ralph Cudworth, and their disciples, were responsible for a considerable revival of English Platonism, which became an important factor in late seventeenth-century natural philosophy. This movement is noted for its active and influential opposition to the mechanical world view, characterized in the writings of Hobbes and Descartes.

Type
Research Article
Information
The British Journal for the History of Science , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , December 1969 , pp. 359 - 377
Copyright
Copyright © British Society for the History of Science 1969

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References

1 Cassirer, Ernst, The Platonic Renaissance in England, trans. Pettegrove, J. P. (London, 1953)Google Scholar; Burtt, E. A., The Metaphysical Foundations of Modern Physical Science (London, 1932)Google Scholar, especially chapters 5 and 7. McGuire, J. E. and Rattansi, P. M., “Newton and the ‘Pipes of Pan’”, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, xxi (1966), 108–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2 This correspondence was first printed by Clerselier, Claude, Lettres de Monsieur Descartes (Paris, 1967)Google Scholar. More also published the letters, as “Epistolae quatuor ad Renatura Des-Cartes” in A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings (London, 1662)Google Scholar. The standard edition is in Descartes, ' Oeuvres, ed. Adam, & Tannery, , vol. v (Paris, 1903)Google Scholar. There is also a recent edition, with a French translation, Descartes, Correspondance avec Arnaud et Morus, ed. Lewis, G. (Paris, 1953)Google Scholar. For a partial English translation, see Cohen, L. D., “Descartes and Henry More on the Beast Machine”, Annals of Science, i (1936), 48–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

3 For a vivid expression of More's grounds for rejecting Cartesianism, see his letter to Boyle, 4 December 1665, in Boyle, 's Works, ed. Birch, T., 6 vols. (London, 1772), vi, 313–315.Google Scholar

4 Nicolson, M., “The Early Stage of Cartesianism in England”, Studies in Philology, xxvi (1929), 356–374Google Scholar. Lamprecht, S. P. disputes More's dominance in early Cartesianism, “The Role of Descartes in Seventeenth-Century England”, Columbia University, Studies in the History of Ideas, iii (1935), 181–242.Google Scholar

5 Nicolson, M., Conway Letters: The Correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, Henry More, and their Friends, 1642–1684 (New Haven, 1930)Google Scholar. See particularly, pp. 42–43, 46, 51–3, 108, 203–204.

6 See Wood, Anthony à, Athenae Oxonienses, ed. Bliss, P., 4 vols. (London, 1813–1820)Google Scholar; iii, 1244. Glanvill, J., The Vanity of Dogmatizing (London, 1661)Google Scholar for his discussion of the Cartesian philosophy.

7 More, , Immortality of the Soul (London, 1659)Google Scholar; Preface, xiii; quoted from A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings of Dr. Henry More, 4th edition, London, 1712.Google Scholar

8 Hall, John, An Humble Motion to the Parliament of England Concerning the Advancement of Learning: And Reformation of the Universities (London, 1649)Google Scholar. Hall's friend, John Davies of Kidwelly, who moved from Oxford to Cambridge in 1646, translated many French works, including the anonymous, Reflections upon Monsieur Des Cartes discourse of a method for the well-guiding of reason, and discovery of truth in the sciences (London, 1655).Google Scholar

9 Worthington, John, Diary and Correspondence, ed. Crossley, J., Chetham Society, 3 vols. (Manchester, 1847–1886)Google Scholar; ii, 254. Letter dated 29 November 1667.

10 Biographica Britannica, ed. Kippis, A., vol. v (London, 1760), p. 3174.Google Scholar

11 Letter from More, to Hartlib, , 11 12 1648. See below, note 19.Google Scholar

12 Passmore, J. A., Ralph Cudworth, An Interpretation (Cambridge, 1951)Google Scholar. Gysi, Lydia, Platonism and Cartesianism in the Philosophy of Ralph Cudworth (Bern, 1962).Google Scholar

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15 Power's initial approach to natural philosophy was through anatomy and physiology. In a letter to Sir Thomas Browne, 15 September 1648, he reported that “Descartes, and Regius … answer'd my doubts & Quaeries in that Art”.B.M.Sloane MS. 1911–13, ff. 80–81. For a discussion of the Cartesian influence on Power, see my paper: “Henry Power's Experimental Philosophy”, Ambix, xiv (1967), 150–178.Google Scholar

16 Barrow, Isaac, “Cartesiana hypothesis de materia et motu haud satisfacit praecipuis naturae phaenomenis”, published in Barrow's Theological Works, ed. Napier, A., 9 vols. (Cambridge, 1859), ix, 79–104Google Scholar. Barrow described Descartes as “vir proculdubio optimus atque ingeniosissimus, ac serio Philosophus, et qui videtur adPhilosophiae hujus contemplationem ea attulisse auxilia, qualia fortassis nemo unquam alius; intelligo eximiam in Mathematicis peritiam” (p. 81).

17 Glanvill, , Vanity of Dogmatizing, op. cit., 73–74.Google Scholar

18 Cassirer, , op. cit., 1.Google Scholar

19 Hartlib papers, Sheffield University Library, XVII. The existence of this correspondence was first pointed out by Turnbull, G. H., Hartlib, Dury and Comenius (London, 1947), 87–88Google Scholar. Only More's letters are preserved in the Hartlib papers, Hartlib's letters having not been traced. One at least still exists, since a letter of 1649 was quoted by Miss Syfret, R. H., “The Origins of the Royal Society”, Notes and Records of the Royal Society, v (1948), 75–137CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 98. However, Miss Syfret (personal communication) has not been able to find the source for this quotation. There are 24 letters from More; in chronological order, their dates are 27 Nov. 1648; 11 Dec. [1648]; 5 Feb. 1648/9; 20 Feb. 1648/9; 5 March 1648/9; 12 March 1648/9; 15 April 1649; 27 Aug. [1649]; [c. 10 Sept. 1649]; 24 Sept. [1649]; 9 Oct. [1649]; 21 Oct. [1649]; 5 Nov. [1649]; 30 Dec. [1649]; 28 Jan. [1649/50]; 2 April [1650]; [1650?]; 12 Aug. 1651; 2 Feb. 1651/2; 7 Feb. 1652/3; 18 April 1655; 4 May [1655]; 28 May [1655?]; 28 July [1655?]. The first letter iss an extract, all others are complete and are originals. The recipient of the first letter is not given; all others are to Hartlib.

20 Letter from Hall, to Hartlib, , 13 04 1647Google Scholar, Hartlib Papers, LX, 14.

21 Letter from Smith, to Hartlib, , 20 11 1648Google Scholar; Hartlib Papers, XV, vi.

22 See note 19.

23 Letter of 27 Nov. 1648. In the following extracts of letters, the original spelling, punctuation, etc., has been preserved, except that contractions such as wch, yt, yn, etc., have been expanded. In the two complete letters quoted below these contractions have been retained.

24 See letter from Josias Allsopp to John Walker, 18 Jan. 1711/12, quoted by Peile, J., Biographical Register of Christ's College, 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1910), i, 315Google Scholar. See also Nicolson, , “The Early Stage of Cartesianism in England”, op. cit., 362.Google Scholar

25 Letter dated 11 December [1648]. For More's letter to Descartes of the same date see Oeuvres, ed. Adam, & Tannery, , v, 236–246.Google Scholar

26 More's first letter to Descartes, op. cit. (25): “Libere dicam quod sentio: omnes quotquot exstiterunt, aut etiamnum existunt, Arcanorum Naturae Antistites, si ad magnificam tuam indolem comparentur, Pumilos plane videri ac Pygmeos.”

27 See More's first letter (supra p. 364); also Descartes' “dexterous wit and th[o]rough insight into nature and Laws of Matter, has so perfected the Reasons of those Phaenomena that Democritus, Epicurus, Lucretius and others have puzzled themselves about, that there seems nothing now wanting as concerning that way of philosophizing, but patience and an unprejudiced judgment to peruse what he has writ”. Immortality of the Soul, see A Collection … op. cit. (7), 166.Google Scholar

28 Letter to Hartlib, , 20 02 1649.Google Scholar

29 For the letter to Descartes of the same date, see Oeuvres, v, 298–317.Google Scholar

30 This term, used in a medical and cosmetic context in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is defined by O.E.D. as “A compound or concoction of a messy, repulsive or nauseous character, used especially for medicinal purposes.” Petty may have used the term for experiments which he was performing in preparing new drugs or dyes. See his Advice to Mr. S.H. (1648), pp. 15–16.Google Scholar

31 Ibid., p. 1.

32 Hartlib Papers, VII, 123; Copy.

33 For Drebbel (1572–1633) as an inventor and possible influence on Bacon, see Colie, Rosalie L., “Cornelius Drebbel and Solomon de Caus: Two Jacobean Models for Solomon's House”, Huntington Library Quarterly, xviii (1954/1955), 245–260Google Scholar; Partington, J. R., History of Chemistry, vol. ii (London, 1962), 321–324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34 Letter from Hartlib, to Boyle, , 16 11 1647Google Scholar; Boyle, , Works, op. cit., vi, 76.Google Scholar

35 Hartlib Papers, XVIII.

36 For Hartlib, Cudworth and the universities, see my forthcoming book, Samuel Hartlib: The Advancement of Learning During the Puritan Revolution.

37 Letter to Hartlib, [c. 10 09 1649].Google Scholar

38 Descartes' methodology and its influence on Boyle, Glanvill and Power, are discussed by Laudan, L., “The Clock Metaphor and Probabilism: The Impact of Descartes on English Methodological Thought, 1650–1665”, Annals of Science, xxii (1966), 73–104.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

39 See Webster, C., “The Origins of the Royal Society”, History of Science, vi (1967), 106–128.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

40 More's objections to Bacon were soon to be forcefully applied to the Paracelsians, in his Enthusiasmus Triumphatus (London, 1656)Google Scholar. The “more Mechanical kind of Genius that loves to be tumbling off, and trying tricks with the Matter (which they call making Experiments) when desire of knowledge has so heated it, that it takes upon it to become Architectonical… that material or corporeal fancy egregiously fumbling in more subtile and spiritual speculations. This is that that commonly makes the Chymist so pitiful a Philosopher, who, from the narrow inspection of some few toys in his own art, conceives himself able to give a reason of all things in Divinity and Nature”. Quoted from A Collection…, op. cit. (7), 36.Google Scholar

41 Letter to Hartlib, , 27 08 [1649].Google Scholar

42 Letter to Hartlib, , 2 04 [1650].Google Scholar

43 Letter from Hall, to Hartlib, , 4 01 1646/1647Google Scholar, Hartlib Papers, LX, 14.

44 Letter to Hartlib, , 21 10 [1649].Google Scholar

45 Letter to Hartlib, , 5 11 [1649].Google Scholar

46 Letter to Hartlib, , 20 12 [1649]Google Scholar. More is quoting from the celebrated opening of Hippocrates's Aphorisms.

47 Conjectura Cabbalistica (London, 1653)Google Scholar. See especially the opening chapters of “The Defence of the Philosophick Cabbala”. See also supra, note 27.

48 Conjectura Cabbalistica, p. 114Google Scholar. For Bezaleel, and Aholiah, , see Exodus xxxv. 30–35.Google Scholar

49 See above, note 3.

50 Divine Dialogues (London, 1668)Google Scholar; quotations are from the second edition, London, 1713, p. viii.

51 McGuire, J. E., “Force, Active Principles, and Newton's Invisible Realm”, Ambix, xv (1968), 154–208CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Mr. McGuire will develop this theme further in his forthcoming study, “Providentialism, Divine Causation and the Laws of Nature”.

52 Divine Dialogues, op. cit., p. ix.Google Scholar

53 Ibid., viii–ix. More's revised estimate of Descartes was inserted in the 1679 edition of Conjectura Cabbalistica. See A Collection … op. cit. (7), p. 116.Google Scholar

54 Ibid., xxxii.

55 Ibid., vi–viii.