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Henry More, 1614-1687 Archives Internationales D'histoire Des Idees HENRY MORE, 1614-1687 ARCHIVES INTERNATIONALES D'HISTOIRE DES IDEES INTERNATIONAL ARCHIVES OF THE HIS TORY OF IDEAS 185 HENRY MORE, 1614-1687 A Biography of the Cambridge Platonist by Robert Crocker Founding Directors: P. Dibont (Paris) and R.H. Popkin (Washington University, St. Louis & UeLA) Director: Sarah Hutton (Middlesex University, United Kingdom) Associate-Directors: J.E. Force (Lexington); J.c. Laursen (Riverside) Editorial Board: M.J.B. Allen (Los Angeles); J.R. Armogathe (Paris); A. Gabbey (New York); T. Gregory (Rome); J. Henry (Edinburgh); J.D. North (Oxford); J. Popkin (Lexington); G.A.J. Rogers (Keele); Tb. Verbeek (Utrecht) HENRY MORE, 1614-1687 A BIOGRAPHY OF THE CAMBRIDGE PLATONIST by ROBERT CROCKER University of Australia SPRINGER-SCIENCE+BUSINESS MEDIA, B.V. A c.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is availab1e from the Library of Congress. ISBN 978-90-481-6373-1 ISBN 978-94-017-0217-1 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-94-017-0217-1 Printed on acid-free paper All Rights Reserved © 2003 Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht Originally published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2003 Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2003 No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exc1usive use by the purchaser of the work. Dedicated to the memory of my parents, Sir Walter Crocker (1902-2002) and Claire Crocker (1919-2000) Henry More: Frontispiecefrom The Theological Works (London, 1708) CONTENTS Acknowledgements xiii Abbreviations xv Introduction xvii Chapter 1: Early Life and Education 1 1. Grantham, Eton and Cambridge 1 2. Conversion to Platonism 4 3. Early Influences: Gell and Castellio 8 Chapter 2: Psychozoia and the Life ofthe Soul 17 1. The 'Divine Life' and its Goal 17 2. The Allegory ofthe Spiritual Journey 20 Chapter 3: Metaphysics, Psychology and Natural Philosophy in the Psychodia Platonica 29 1. The 'Ogdoas' or Chain ofBeing 29 2. The Psychology of Illumination 34 3. Arguing from Nature 37 Chapter 4: Enthusiasm and the Light Within 45 1. 'A Full but False Persuasion' 45 2. 'Philosophical Enthusiasm' 48 3. 'Political Enthusiasm' 54 X CONTENTS Chapter 5: Plato Democritans: the Ancient Cabbala Revived 63 1. Some Ear1y Discip1es and Friends 63 2. P1atonism and Cartesianism 66 3. Innate Ideas and Incorporea1 Things 70 Chapter 6: The Cupri-Cosmits and the Latitude-Men 79 1. 'The Cupri-Cosmits' 79 2. The Restoration in Cambridge 84 3. Some 'Ru1es to Judge Opinions by' 86 Chapter 7: The Apology ofDr Henry More 93 1. The Grounds for Authority 93 2. The Intelligibi1ity of Doctrine 99 3. The Coherence of Prophecy 104 Chapter 8: The Preexistence of the Soul 111 1. 'A Most Like1y Hypothesis' 111 2. The Reaction against Preexistence 115 3. Preexistence and Providence 119 Chapter 9: A Natural History of the World of Spirits 127 1. A 'True History ofSpirits' 127 2. The Webster-More Debate 133 Chapter 10: The Limits ofMechanism and the Experimental Philosophy of the Royal Society 143 1. The Two Keys ofProvidence 143 2. The Threat of "Nullibism" 145 3. Henry Stubbe and the Royal Society 151 4. Robert Boy1e and the Spirit ofNature 157 Chapter 11: Hylozoism and the Nature ofMaterial Substance 167 1. G1isson's 'Energetic Substance' 167 2. The 'Psychopyrism' of Richard Baxter 170 3. Errant Discip1e: John Finch and his Treatise 176 CONTENTS XI Chapter 12: The Kabbalah and the Quakers: F.M. van Helmont, Anne Conway, van Helmont, and Knorr von Rosenroth 183 1. The Jewish and 'Greek' Cabbalas 183 2. More, Anne Conway and the Quakers 190 Conclusion 199 Bibliography 205 1. Primary Sources 205 2. Secondary Sources 221 Appendix: The Correspondence of Henry More 239 Index 269 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I have been very fortunate to have benefited from the knowledge and advice of some remarkable scholars during the course of my research for this book. Firstly, I owe much to the many kindnesses, wealth of understanding and exemplary scholarship of my former supervisor at Oxford, Charles Webster. It was he who first introduced me to More, and supervised the doctoral thesis out of which this book has developed. I also owe much to the work and friendship of another remarkable scholar, Sarah Hutton. Her kind and persistent encouragement as editor of this series, International Archives of the History of Ideas, led me to pick up, further deve10p and complete this project after several lengthy interruptions. Her growing body of work relating to Anne Conway and the Cambridge Platonists, much of it cited here, has greatly contributed to my understanding of More. To these two long-term influences, I should add my thanks to the following friends and fellow travellers, whose generous conversation and friendship, scholarship and knowledge I have benefited from at various stages along the way, and who have themselves all worked on various projects related to the subject of this book: Stuart Brown, David Dockrill, James Force, Alan Gabbey, John Henry, Scott Mandelbrote, Maggie Pelling, John Rogers, Luisa Simonutti and John Spurr. I must also acknowledge my friends and colleagues in the University of South Australia, who generously funded a sabbatical in 2000, so that I might bring the project to completion. To these names I would also like to thank my wonderful family, and particularly my wife, Meredith, whose love and support has sustained me and given me the confidence to complete what I had begun. ABBREVIATIONS Works by More or his Contemporarie! AA More, An Antidote against Atheisme (1652) Adam & Tannery Adam, Tannery (eds) Oeuvres de Descartes (1964-1974) Apology More, The Apologie of Dr Henry More (1664) Bullough G. Bullough (ed), The Poems of Henry More (1931) CC More, Conjectura Cabbalistica (1653) CSPW More, A Collection of Several Philosophical Writings (1662) Discourses More, Discourses on Several Texts 0/ Scripture (1692) DD More, Divine Dialogues ... (1713: 2 vols in 1) DP More, Democritus Platonissans (1646) EE More, An Account 0/ Virtue ... (1690: trans of EE, 1667) EM More, Enchiridion Metaphysicum (1671) ET More, Enthusiasmus Triumphatus (1656) GMG More, An Explanation of the Grand Mystery of Godliness (1660) Grosart A. Grosart (ed), The Complete Poems of Dr Henry More (1876) IS More, Immortality ofthe Soul (1659) PG More, Praefatio Generalissima, in Opera Omnia (tom.2, 1679) Psychodia More, Psychodia Platonica (1642) pp More, Philosophical Poems (1647) XVI HENRY MORE Nicolson Nicolson (ed), The Conway Letters (ed, S. Hutton, Oxford, 1992) OpOm More, Opera Omnia (3 vols, London, 1675-1679) Smith John Smith, Select Discourses .. (1655) ST Joseph Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus, (ed More, 1681) TIS Ralph Cudworth, True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678) Two Treatises More (ed), Two Choice and Useful Treatises ... (1682) TW More, Theological Works (1708) Ward Hutton et al. (eds), Richard Ward: The Life of Henry More (2000) Worthington Diary and Correspondence. (3 vols, Manchester, 1847-86) Other Items AS Annals of Science BJHP British Journal ofthe History of Philosophy BJHS British Journal for the History of Science DNB Dictionary of National Biography (Oxford, 1997-) DSB Dictionary ofScientific Biography (New York, 1981) Hutton S. Hutton (ed), Henry More ... Tercentenary Studies (1990) JHI Journal ofthe History of Ideas JHP Journal ofthe History of Philosophy JWCI Journal ofthe Warburg and Courtauld Institutes NRRS Notes and Records ofthe Royal Society (new series) Peile J. Peile, Biographical Register of Christ's College (2 vols, 1910) PR Philosophical Review Rogers Cambridge Platonism in Philosophical Context (1997) 1 For full titles and publication details, see the Bibliography. INTRODUCTION 'Cambridge Platonism' is not a precise term in intellectual and religious his tory , referring to a broad set of religious and philosophical pre­ occupations, all more or less shared by a loose coalition of thinkers and divines based in seventeenth-century Cambridge. 1 The membership of this group, although never to be fixed with complete confidence, has usually been restricted to the well-known moralist and anti-dogmatic preacher, Benjamin Whichcote,2 his pupils, lohn Smith and Ralph Cudworth, Fellow and Master of Christ's College,3 and Henry More, also a Fellow of Christ's College for most of his life. To this very short and rather unsatisfactory list, with the benefit of hindsight, we might also add with some confidence More's pupil, George Rust, also a Fellow of Christ's and later Bishop of Dromore, and Rust's pupil, Henry Hallywell, a still rather neglected younger 'Platonist' from Christ's College, whose publications closely followed the spirit and ideas of his teachers, Rust and More.4 Further out from this narrowly defined centre were others who shared most, if not all of the ideas and interests of Whichcote, Cudworth, Smith and More. Probably because More alone has left us a fairly comprehensive sampie of his correspondence, we know of at least three men, all his close friends, colleagues and admirers, who shared much of his religious and intellectual disposition, that is lohn Worthington, Thomas Standish and William Outram, 5 whereas we know very little of those who might have played a similar role in the lives of Whichcote, Smith and even Cudworth. To the group we have named, we might also add some younger men, perhaps
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